THE slow suicide of the Post Office is gathering speed.The smallest number of stamps which can be bought from the machine outside Darlington main post office is now 12 - of either denomination.

Just what you want for that one, last minute letter on a Sunday afternoon.

Now pillar boxes in the town have lost the small enamel plaques which showed the number of the next collection and, indeed, many seem to have been reduced to just one collection a day.

"Last collection 5.45pm" they say, with no indication of any being made earlier, though one was seen being emptied at 3pm on Monday. Any first class letter collected after lunch isn't going to get very far by the first (sorry, the only) delivery next day. Last week a first class letter took four days to reach the Midlands. Oh, come on, mail coaches did better than that.

French cheek

SPECTATOR hopes the French television news crew filming a documentary in Catterick this week received a courteous reception.

As British servicemen and women prepared themselves for battle in Iraq, the crew from the French station TFI spent a couple of days in the Garrison talking to folk about the onset of war.

It might well have struck those left behind at Europe's biggest Army base that it was somewhat ironic that the best the French could muster as British and American forces get to grips with the Iraqi regime was a crack TV crew.

Talent exchange

BY any standards, Darlington Operatic Youth Theatre's production of Half a Sixpence last week was a triumph and all a musical should be.

Sadly, however, it's doubtful whether the main society will benefit from all that youthful talent. As other organisations have found, youngsters go off to university and never return to home ground.

With luck, operatic societies across the country will benefit from DOYT's hard work. With even more luck, those societies will also have youth sections whose members will wash up in the North-East.