IN CASE our crotchety tone and pedantic ways hadn't give the game away, let us tell you: The Diary is old.

Old enough, in fact, to remember well the days before postcodes were introduced. The days when being a postman could involve a good measure of detective work.

In these days of satellite navigation and pinpoint computer accuracy, you would think the post office would know exactly where every property on this sceptred isle stands.

And even if the bigwigs in charge are not quite that omniscient, you would think they would at least be able to tell you where Keighley was.

Well, it appears not.

The recent well-publicised round of proposed post office closures covers a fairly large area: York, the southern half of North Yorkshire, and western parts of the East Riding.

The area strayed across multiple local authority boundaries and encroached on the constituencies of no less than nine Members of Parliament.

However, rather conveniently for this august organ, the patch covered in this network review matched up almost perfectly with The Press circulation area.

We can only surmise that this is because of the congruity of our patch; it makes sense to cover the areas we do.

But there is one glaring exception to this similarity between our own patch and that constructed by post office bosses for their most recent hatchet-job. The post office saw fit to include four branches falling in - and try not to spit out your tea in disgust at this - four branches in West Yorkshire.

Sure, Keighley and Ilkley may not be that far a trawl from Skipton. But when it comes down to brass tacks, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire are a million miles away.

But then again, a less generous commentator might expect nothing less from the busybodies behind this latest sadly-predictable round of swingeing cuts.