6 ms·

Kinda meta, but this is the first time in a long time where I've put only the first half of my postcode in expecting it not to work and been surprised. Most of

by philo23 8mo ago

Kinda meta, but this is the first time in a long time where I've put only the first half of my postcode in expecting it not to work and been surprised. Most of these "find your nearest XYZ" site require the full postcode which is just unnecessary unless you're looking for a fairly precise location. A full postcode can narrow your location down to an individual street, so its nice not to give too much away if you can. For anyone not in the know, UK postcodes are made up of two parts: a general area (the outward code) and then a more specific one (the inward code.) Generally speaking a postcode + house number will be good enough to get a letter delivered to the right place, though the sorting office might not be too happy with you... The format [0] is roughly: AB12 3CD, though the number of letters/numbers on the left side can vary a bit. As far as I know the second set of numbers is always 1 digit though, so that's how you can easily split the two sides of it to format it nicely. There's a couple of special ones that break the rules though. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdom#Structure,_Formatting_and_Validation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdo...

OJFord 8mo ago
> A full postcode can narrow your location down to an individual street, Often a single block of flats. Rurally perhaps even just a single residence?
- justincormack 8mo ago
  No, still usually a few residences rurally but probably more variable
pjc50 8mo ago
There used to be a site "postcodeine" which would overlay the prefixes onto a map as you typed, so you could enter "SW" or "KY" etc and watch it narrow down the area by keystroke.
theBobBob 8mo ago
In Ireland we were very late to the postcode game and when we introduced them a few years back they actually uniquely identifies a single address. We also continued our "interesting" habit of renaming everything to make them sound more Irish so they are called Eircodes. In theory you could just put the single 7 character Eircode on a letter and it would be enough although our postal service has said we can't do that.
- lblume 8mo ago
  Why not?
  - Macha 8mo ago
    By being late to computerized sorting, the postal service (An Post) never actually needed postcodes the way others did, as by the time they got computerized, fuzzy address lookups in the full address database was something that was available. It's mostly the third party couriers and marketing people pushed for post codes so they could apply techniques from other countries here. Now asking An Post to overhaul their system to work on postcodes only is a bit like asking a postal service which requires postcodes to make them optional. It's technically possible, sure, but they're not going to want to spend the money. _That said_, An Post's last resort routing department is pretty famous for getting the right address from pretty fragmentary information like "Mary down by the church, formerly of Kilnowhere", so I'm sure if a letter with just a eircode arrived there they'd sort it, but I imagine that An Post don't want to encourage people doing things that increases load on the labour intensive sorting.
    - flashpoint31415 8mo ago
      This is delightfully referenced as the Blind Letter Office in Terry Pratchett's book "Making Money": <Moist ran downstairs and Lord Vetinari was indeed sitting in the Blind Letter Office with his boots on a desk, a sheaf of letters in his hand and a smile on his face. 'Ah, Lipwig,' he said, waving the grubby envelopes. 'Wonderful stuff! Better than the crossword! I like this one: "Duzbuns Hopsit pfarmerrsc". I've put the correct address underneath.' He passed the letter over to Moist. He had written: K. Whistler, Baker, 3 Pigsty Hill. 'There are three bakeries in the city that could be said to be opposite a pharmacy,' said Vetinari, 'but Whistler does those rather good curly buns that regrettably look as though a dog has just done his business on your plate and somehow managed to add a blob of icing.'>
alexpotato 8mo ago
I lived in SW1 many years ago and was surprised to learn, from this website, that SW goes all the way out to SW19!
- walthamstow 8mo ago
  Fun fact: apart from the main office SW1 they're alphabetised by area, from SW2 Brixton to SW19 Wimbledon. All of the London postcode areas are like this.
  - alexfoo 8mo ago
    Hadn't noticed that before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SW_postcode_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SW_postcode_area SW2 to SW9 are in alphabetical order: Brixton, Chelsea, Clapham, Earls Court, Fulham, South Ken, South Lambeth, Stockwell. But then it starts again and you have to squint a bit for SW10-SW20: Brompton, Battersea, Balham, Barnes, Mortlake, Putney, Streatham, Tooting, Wandsworth, Wimbledon, West Wimbledon. Looking at a few others (SE, etc) I see that the first chunk of them are in alphabetical order, but then they've added some extra ones later that break the ordering (e.g. SE19 onwards) but they have tried to add the extra ones in mostly alphabetical order too.
    - walthamstow 8mo ago
      Yeah, they've become a bit muddled over the years but generally alphabetical in the batches they're added. E was nice and clean before the Olympics, then they added E20 for Stratford after E18 Woodford. Most people assume it's relative to how far out the area is from the centre
- alexfoo 8mo ago
  And a bit further to SW20 in Raynes Park (a.k.a. “West Wimbledon” in Estate Agent vernacular). I’ve lived somewhere in SW18/SW15/SW19 for the last 30 years. Having not grown up in London I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Apparently many other bits of London (North, East, central, etc) are good too but I’m not ready for change.
alexfoo 8mo ago
I agree with the bit about the having to enter a full postcode on some sites, I often use one nearby or, if they make me select a specific address for no valid reason I make sure I use a random address nearby. Apologies to some of my neighbours who might be bombarded with junk mail for services I’ve once been half interested in. A full postcode is often much less than a single street. Picking something at random stick “SW15 6DZ” into Google maps and you’ll see it only covers 6 buildings (most are individual houses but some are split into flats). According to the Royal Mail address finder site there are only 12 unique delivery addresses that share that postcode. The Western half of that road has 12 or so full postcodes for only 100 houses. A full postcode and one other bit of information can often be enough to uniquely identify someone. If a US 5 digit zipcode is roughly equivalent to the “general area” part of a UK postcode (94107 <=> SW15) then the full UK postcode is like the 9 digit US Zip+4 format where the extra 4 digits narrow location down to a block, part of a block or even a specific building.
- philo23 8mo ago
  Yep, locally where I am there’s one postcode for all the houses on one side of the street (all the even numbered houses) and another for the opposite side (all the odd numbers.) Presumably it helps a lot with validating the address is correct, kinda like a checksum, and also probably helps with how deliveries are organised by the local office before the postie is sent out with them all.
- terinjokes 8mo ago
  > the 9 digit US Zip+4 format where the extra 4 digits narrow location down to a block, part of a block or even a specific building. A US Zip+4 usually identifies a specific delivery point. In some places this can mean it can even identify specific units within a building.
- neves 8mo ago
  Mail from a guy that wants to preserve pubs wouldn't be junk.
  - gambiting 8mo ago

by philo23 8mo ago

OJFord 8mo ago

> A full postcode can narrow your location down to an individual street, Often a single block of flats. Rurally perhaps even just a single residence?

justincormack 8mo ago
No, still usually a few residences rurally but probably more variable

pjc50 8mo ago

There used to be a site "postcodeine" which would overlay the prefixes onto a map as you typed, so you could enter "SW" or "KY" etc and watch it narrow down the area by keystroke.

theBobBob 8mo ago

In Ireland we were very late to the postcode game and when we introduced them a few years back they actually uniquely identifies a single address. We also continued our "interesting" habit of renaming everything to make them sound more Irish so they are called Eircodes. In theory you could just put the single 7 character Eircode on a letter and it would be enough although our postal service has said we can't do that.

lblume 8mo ago
Why not?
- Macha 8mo ago
  By being late to computerized sorting, the postal service (An Post) never actually needed postcodes the way others did, as by the time they got computerized, fuzzy address lookups in the full address database was something that was available. It's mostly the third party couriers and marketing people pushed for post codes so they could apply techniques from other countries here. Now asking An Post to overhaul their system to work on postcodes only is a bit like asking a postal service which requires postcodes to make them optional. It's technically possible, sure, but they're not going to want to spend the money. _That said_, An Post's last resort routing department is pretty famous for getting the right address from pretty fragmentary information like "Mary down by the church, formerly of Kilnowhere", so I'm sure if a letter with just a eircode arrived there they'd sort it, but I imagine that An Post don't want to encourage people doing things that increases load on the labour intensive sorting.
  - flashpoint31415 8mo ago
    This is delightfully referenced as the Blind Letter Office in Terry Pratchett's book "Making Money": <Moist ran downstairs and Lord Vetinari was indeed sitting in the Blind Letter Office with his boots on a desk, a sheaf of letters in his hand and a smile on his face. 'Ah, Lipwig,' he said, waving the grubby envelopes. 'Wonderful stuff! Better than the crossword! I like this one: "Duzbuns Hopsit pfarmerrsc". I've put the correct address underneath.' He passed the letter over to Moist. He had written: K. Whistler, Baker, 3 Pigsty Hill. 'There are three bakeries in the city that could be said to be opposite a pharmacy,' said Vetinari, 'but Whistler does those rather good curly buns that regrettably look as though a dog has just done his business on your plate and somehow managed to add a blob of icing.'>

alexpotato 8mo ago

I lived in SW1 many years ago and was surprised to learn, from this website, that SW goes all the way out to SW19!

walthamstow 8mo ago
Fun fact: apart from the main office SW1 they're alphabetised by area, from SW2 Brixton to SW19 Wimbledon. All of the London postcode areas are like this.
- alexfoo 8mo ago
  Hadn't noticed that before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SW_postcode_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SW_postcode_area SW2 to SW9 are in alphabetical order: Brixton, Chelsea, Clapham, Earls Court, Fulham, South Ken, South Lambeth, Stockwell. But then it starts again and you have to squint a bit for SW10-SW20: Brompton, Battersea, Balham, Barnes, Mortlake, Putney, Streatham, Tooting, Wandsworth, Wimbledon, West Wimbledon. Looking at a few others (SE, etc) I see that the first chunk of them are in alphabetical order, but then they've added some extra ones later that break the ordering (e.g. SE19 onwards) but they have tried to add the extra ones in mostly alphabetical order too.
  - walthamstow 8mo ago
    Yeah, they've become a bit muddled over the years but generally alphabetical in the batches they're added. E was nice and clean before the Olympics, then they added E20 for Stratford after E18 Woodford. Most people assume it's relative to how far out the area is from the centre
alexfoo 8mo ago
And a bit further to SW20 in Raynes Park (a.k.a. “West Wimbledon” in Estate Agent vernacular). I’ve lived somewhere in SW18/SW15/SW19 for the last 30 years. Having not grown up in London I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Apparently many other bits of London (North, East, central, etc) are good too but I’m not ready for change.

alexfoo 8mo ago

I agree with the bit about the having to enter a full postcode on some sites, I often use one nearby or, if they make me select a specific address for no valid reason I make sure I use a random address nearby. Apologies to some of my neighbours who might be bombarded with junk mail for services I’ve once been half interested in. A full postcode is often much less than a single street. Picking something at random stick “SW15 6DZ” into Google maps and you’ll see it only covers 6 buildings (most are individual houses but some are split into flats). According to the Royal Mail address finder site there are only 12 unique delivery addresses that share that postcode. The Western half of that road has 12 or so full postcodes for only 100 houses. A full postcode and one other bit of information can often be enough to uniquely identify someone. If a US 5 digit zipcode is roughly equivalent to the “general area” part of a UK postcode (94107 <=> SW15) then the full UK postcode is like the 9 digit US Zip+4 format where the extra 4 digits narrow location down to a block, part of a block or even a specific building.

philo23 8mo ago
Yep, locally where I am there’s one postcode for all the houses on one side of the street (all the even numbered houses) and another for the opposite side (all the odd numbers.) Presumably it helps a lot with validating the address is correct, kinda like a checksum, and also probably helps with how deliveries are organised by the local office before the postie is sent out with them all.
terinjokes 8mo ago
> the 9 digit US Zip+4 format where the extra 4 digits narrow location down to a block, part of a block or even a specific building. A US Zip+4 usually identifies a specific delivery point. In some places this can mean it can even identify specific units within a building.
neves 8mo ago
Mail from a guy that wants to preserve pubs wouldn't be junk.
- gambiting 8mo ago