The other day, I saw a line of four people at a Post Office counter receiving personalised and helpful service from a jolly man who seemed to know exactly what they needed.

It would have brought a warm glow to my little Paperclip heart – except that it was an TV advert, and the personalised service afforded to blank-faced pop princes Westlife, or Boyzone, or something. Westzone, possibly.

As if to drive home the point, when I was actually in the Post Office, trying to pay my car tax for the second time in two days (after being told I needed several pieces of documentation I didn’t have the first time), I was subjected to a Westzone video while in the queue.

The reason for Westzone suddenly taking up residence in the Post Office appears to be that they are trying to install Post Office Broadband in the nations computers.

Fair enough. Diversification. Business enterprise. Following popular trends. All ways to do well in business, I’m told.

But exactly how much of the money spent on employing Westzone to grin inanely could have been spent on securing the future of Burton Fleming Post Office?

For that matter, how much money spent on designing a flash new CD, or developing ways to speed up broadband access could have been giving a basic postal service to the people of Barmston?

How many people in Sledmere or Rudston could have withdrawn their pension on Tuesday, had the Post Office not spent all its money on making advertisements about a family of computer generated ants going on holiday?

And exactly how many hundreds of thousands of pounds did the Post Office spend on calling itself Consignia, then deciding not to call itself Consignia, before putting all of this nonsense on an ad in the middle of Coronation Street at a coast of, presumably, about £100,000 a time?

And can we compare this cost to that of keeping a single post office on the south side of Bridlington, where a high proportion of elderly people live, and where a high proportion of business customers take their tens of thousands of pounds every week?

Villages need post offices. How much money is being wasted in denying us ours?

Paper Clip

l What do you think? Write to Paper Clip at 3 Prospect Street, send a text starting BFPEDITOR followed by a space, your comments, name and address, to 81800 or send an e-mail with your comments to paperclip@bridlingtonfreepress.co.uk