Stamp or Scotch?

This is going to sound grumpy but hey ho - it's Monday and some grumpiness is allowed.

The building in the photograph was once the main post office in Stirling. An imposing building where one patiently queued in an airy room where folks chatted happily in the queue for stamps, postal orders, passports, vehicle licences, premium bonds and all the other products and services offered by the post office. Its now a pub but of course in selling the building there was no requirement to take down the Post Office lettering. I guess tourists must find it confusing - is it a pub or a post office or both?

The post office decanted to a small corner of the upper floor of WH Smith in the main shopping centre. One now has to fight through the narrow isles on the ground floor to the stairs or lift to get to the tills. It's not a good experience. For one of the main cities in Scotland it is quite amazing that we have gone from the sublime grandeur of a purpose built General Post Office to a pokey ridiculous corner of a newsagent. I've met a number of visitors who can't quite believe that the only post facility in town is tucked away in a cramped corner of a store and which is quite hard to find and to access. All in the name of efficiency and cost cutting I suppose.

I did think about going into the old building and ordering a scotch and a book of first class stamps but it was too early in the day - for scotch that is. Besides which I'm not entirely sure whether a book of 12 first class stamps would cost as much as a nip of whisky and I didn't think I had enough cash on me for both!