By the way, it would be nice if we could adopt the Aussie practise of using just Suburb + Postcode. The Post Office knows Khandallah is Wellington – why should I have to write Wellington if I write a postcode. There are surprisingly few duplicate suburb names, in fact I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

And is “postcode” or “post code”?

This has already caused me grief with Australian-based banks and retailers; I now live in fear that all my online shopping will be delivered to “Balcatta and Stirling”.

It doesn’t need to pinpoint an exact house, just needs to remove any ambiguity about the address, and ideally narrow down the number of possible streets to such a level that a machine can easily identify attrociously written addresses within that post code (set of ~30 street names). Which would make electronic sorting a whole lot easier and less error prone for a machine to do.

I agree though, it seems strange that with so many possible post codes they all end up so large. :-\

I think Godwin’s only applies to comparing another person, such as a commenter or blog writer, to something Germanic from the 1930s or 40s. Not to noting that post codes were probably invented by the extremely-efficient Albert Speer in order to free up German postal workers so that they could participate in Operation Barbarossa.

So lets just pretend that you and I never mentioned N…. and that instead it was just a super-efficient german with a lovely family frolicking in an alpine meadow, who later went on to invent BMW’s or something…..

But you are, of course, absolutely right. No doubt Mr H…. had a tanty while bemoaning the lack of foresight in producing a 4-numeral system, when obviously a 7-alphanumeric system would have won the war sooner.