Alas the Royal Mail has just announced that it will replace British postmens' bicycles with vans! In order to save money. I can't think of a better illustration of how far out of touch decision-makers can be.

A Times article quotes a trade-union spokesman as saying, "We support in principle the introduction of vans on delivery because it gets weight off the shoulders of postal workers and would remove thousands of private cars from delivery routes." That's cause for wonder - do UK postal workers drive their own cars on their delivery routes?