Inconvenient stamps

Sir,
I buy my stamps in blocks of tens, two price ranges, the 20 cent stamp for internal postage and the 30 cent for abroad, not forgetting the infamous obligatory one cent refugee stamp required on all letters.

The prodigious size of our stamps requires that we position the recipient’s address considerately, leaving adequate space at the head of the envelope. And we must not buy small Christmas cards, if we are to have any chance of affixing stamps once having written the address on the envelope.

My latest purchase is a triangular stamp with an owl’s nest on one and the owl on another of a block of four.

The design and colour are pleasing to the eye, but the shape is confusing. Not only is it almost impossible to part the stamps from one another without tearing off a corner, but positioning them correctly on the envelope requires attentiveness not normally associated with stamp licking and affixing, alternately requiring the apex of the triangle to be at the top and then pointing down on the envelope.

Who affixes stamps carefully? I don’t… especially at Christmas time.

Will our Post Office please design a small sensible stamp, a Grecian head or alternately four of our presidents’, including the one cent refugee tax in its price and thus eliminate this tiresomeness habit, the purpose of which eludes me.

Hermes Solomon, Ayios Andreas, Nicosia

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