Experiment Update 7

[devi]

Conclusions so far: Australia's been very lucky. America's been quite unlucky. People whose patron saint is St Jude are nicer than fans of St Stephen, and people on tubes aren't very nice at all.

Edit: Both the church ones got through. Maybe religion is a form of social glue after all?



Any inaccuracies, let me know...

Letters Dropped	Country of Receiver	Drop Zone	Received?
smorgasbord	England	On a 43 bus	Yes
boingley	England	Phone box near Bedford Square	Yes
sparktastic	England	Park bench in Bedford Square	Yes
randalf	England	On a 134 bus	No
tokyo_mb	Japan	Chrisp Street, east London	No
clarisinda	Scotland	In Chrisp Street Idea Store (aka library)	Yes
mouse262	Ireland	The Widow's Son pub, Devons Road	No
cartographer	Ireland	Lobby of the Canary Wharf building	Yes
primavera	USA	A gym in Brixton	No
neil_scott	England	Piccadilly Line tube at Bounds Green	No
the_maenad	England	Piccadilly Line tube at Holloway Road	No
carbonunit	Australia	A wall near Gloucester Road tube	Yes
casca_2u	Australia	Northern Line tube at Highgate, late at night	Yes
mzdt	England	Corner of Collingham Road and some square or other, South Ken	Yes
inskauldrak	England	Outside Boots, by Gloucester Road station	Yes
ghoti	England	St Jude's Anglican church, Collingham Road	Yes
ravenblack	Australia	Another generic leafy corner in South Ken	Yes
thessalian	England	Steps of Adelphi Bar and Grill, Cromwell Road	Yes
iresprite	USA	St Stephen's Church, Queen's Gate Gardens	Yes
niallm	Ireland	A side road off Oxford Street, at night	Yes
plasticsturgeon	USA	Piccadilly Line tube on the way into town at rush hour	No
davefish	England	On a 260 bus	Yes
kesstrel	England	Hammersmith & City Line tube	No
killalla	USA (Hawaii)	On a 43 bus	No
miss_newham	England	Dropped off the upper level of Liverpool Street station*	No
fluffymormegil	England	On a walkway in Liverpool Street station	No
barrysarll	England	Mainline train to Feltham	No
triskellian	England	In a phonebox in Feltham	No

*From where I watched as three guys picked it up and examined it with great curiosity, it not seeming to occur to any of them that they should put it in a postbox...


I've still got lots and lots of letters to drop, but it's half-term and I'm being very lazy. They will all get out there eventually, I promise.

Comments

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Nitpick: you left out my fluffiness in that list :)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Re-fluffed.

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

Have any of them come back with an extra note. "Found this letter, posted it" sort of thing?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Yup, sparktastic's had a note saying "found this on a bence (sic) and thought I would post it - Nash"

[elethe.livejournal.com]

It was more a phonebox outside the British Museum. Opposite Starbucks.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Maybe the American letters were mistaken for postal votes by potential Democratic sympathisers?

[dakeyras.livejournal.com]

I don't know whather mine has been "dropped" yet but it's not arrived.

[elethe.livejournal.com]

What about mooism's - did you drop that yet?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

arachne still had that and dakeyras's, last I heard.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

triskellian  England  In a phonebox in Feltham  No

The only things in the phoneboxes round here are 'postcards'. Any letters found nearby are generally of the rubber variety (which are best left unposted).

I imagine someone probably opened the letter in question to see if it contained money.

[triskellian]

The other thing to bear in mind is that even if the thugs of Feltham transported my letter to a postbox, mail in Oxford is wildly unreliable. Bags full of mail were found chucked in the river, to no great surprise from anyone, and we barely notice the difference when postal strikes are on (often).

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Of course, it's hard to know whether to blame the people who found (or failed to find) the letters, or the postal service...

[iresprite.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, hon. I thought you'd seen my post about getting the letter. I got it! I am really psyched! Yay! *hugs*

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

D'oh! And great news - you're the first American to have actually got one. Though admittedly one of them is a recent drop to Hawaii.

I have a dim memory of your post now :)

[modalverben.livejournal.com]

found this on a bence (sic) and thought I would post it - Nash

That's gone in the lyric book.

This experiment is so dan fascinating, I'm hooked and awaiting the TV prog.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

With a TV budget, we could put little GPS-locator beacons in the letters, so we could track them! And little tiny cameras! Mwahahaaa.

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

A question that occurred to me - would you count it if someone performed my default action on seeing someone leave a letter behind, viz. to chase after said person frantically shouting "miss, miss, I think you've left something behind", and then gave it back to you so that you could post it?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

That's happened twice - with niallm's and thessalian's. They must have wondered why, on getting the letter back, I looked more disgruntled than grateful...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_alanna/]

This really should be written up for a magazine... and being a writer, you have no excuses!

With regards to the letters heading overseas, I wonder whether people are more likely to post them given that you presumably put more expensive stamps on them. A letter with a 2nd class stamp might not seem as needy as a letter going to America that cost you 50p?

We should do some stats...

England: 8 yes, 8 no = 50% got through
Japan: 0 yes, 1 no = 0% got through
Scotland: 1 yes, 0 no = 100% got through
Ireland: 2 yes, 1 no = 66% got through
USA: 1 yes, 3 no = 25% got through
Australia: 3 yes, 0 no = 100% got through

So UK = 11 yes, 9 no = 55% got through
Outside UK = 4 yes, 4 no = 50% got through

Well, there goes my theory :P

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I do want to write it up for something, but I'm not sure what. rhodri had an interesting idea to do with Wodehouse anniversaries next year... hmm.

That was one of the things I wanted to find out about too - whether long-distance letters would get through more - but so far the results don't seem to show that :/

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

Mine has arrived; it's shining white and pristine, as if the finder wrapped it in velvet and drove it personally to Bedford. Apart from the postmark, that is.

I'm using it as a bookmark in the enormous book about London that I'm reading at the moment, which seems entirely appropriate. :)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Woohoo!
What *was* the postmark, by the way? I'm going to be asking everyone that.

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

*hem*
Royal Mail
London
South
03.11.04
08:32pm
and then a word which looks like 'ASPARAGUS' printed over itself three or so times so as not to be readable.