Ankh-Morpork Post Office
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The Ankh-Morpork Post Office is featured in Going Postal, one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books.
The Post Office, which was once a vibrant, relevant institution complete with gleaming wooden counters and polished brass, staffed by postmen in spiffy blue uniforms, languished and almost died, according to Mr Tolliver Groat (Junior Postman, later Senior Postman and Postal Inspector), when postmen began to leave half a sack of post behind in order to get home on time. The next day they left another half sack, reasoning they could do it on their day off, by which point too much mail had built up and so much was still left behind. However this was only a minor part of the problem.
The amount of undelivered mail was dramatically increased by the Sorting Engine, created by Bloody Stupid Johnson. This machine was intended to speed up postal delivery, but instead began to produce mail, first from the future (which was fine, because that was seen as really improving delivery times) and then from alternate universes. The reason for this was that Johnson disaproved of pi, and had therefore based the engine around a non-Euclidean wheel, on which the circumference divided into the radius exactly three times, thereby creating an area of dimensional instability.
It was impossible to deliver all the letters, and most of them couldn't be delivered, as they hadn't been sent in this universe.
The Post Office was reduced to a massive building crammed floor to ceiling with undelivered letters and staffed solely by geriatric Junior Postman Groat, along with his pin-collecting companion Stanley. By the time of Going Postal it had long been forgotten, the building daubed with graffiti, the mail coaches appropriated for passenger travel by the coachmen and its services rendered apparently useless by the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company.
Lord Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician of the city of Ankh-Morpork, then appointed Moist von Lipwig, a former con artist, to restore the Post Office as a means of curtailing the power of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company.
With Lipwig as Postmaster-General, the Post Office was restored to something approaching its former glory. Lipwig invented the postage stamp, giving a new hobby to young men like Stanley who were formerly obsessed with pin collecting.
With the craze of variously-priced, flavoured stamps taking off, Lipwig went on to restore mail coach services to the towns of Sto Lat and Genua. As the clacks lines became less reliable, the Post Office became stiff competition for semaphore.
Ultimately, Lipwig succeeded in bringing down Reacher Gilt, chairman of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, by using a well placed lie and thus restored the Post Office's supremacy in delivering Morporkian messages.
Lord Vetinari then hands the Grand Trunk company over to Moist, who plans to give it back to the Dearheart family, from whom it was unjustly taken.
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[edit] Staff
[edit] Moist von Lipwig
See main article
[edit] Stanley Howler
One of the two remaining employees of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office prior to Moist von Lipwig being made Postmaster. Raised by peas (no further explanation is given), Stanley has a tendency towards obsessive behaviour (he displays many traits suggestive of autism or Asperger's syndrome). He used to be one of the more obsessive of Ankh-Mopork's large number of pin collectors, to the point that all the other collectors thought he was "a bit weird about pins". However, following the events of Going Postal, in which the destruction of his collection coincided with the invention of the postage stamp, he redirected his obsession to stamp collecting and philately.
Stanley's surname was not revealed in the book, but is given in various peripheral material relating to Discworld stamps. It is a play on Stanley Gibbons.
[edit] Tolliver Groat
One of the two remaining employees of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office prior to Moist von Lipwig being made Postmaster. A very old man in a cheap wig, Groat had spent most of his career in the post office as a Junior Postman, since until von Lipwig's arrival none of the other Postmasters appointed by Lord Vetinari had survived long enough to promote him. Groat doesn't trust doctors, which is perfectly understandable since there are very few reliable doctors in Ankh-Morpork. He instead treats himself with a variety of apparently dubious "natural" home remedies (later revealed to be, in actuality, extraordinarily effective), including concoctions made with sulfur or arsenic, and a poultice made of bread pudding. He is a habitual speaker of the only known rhyming slang in the universe that does not actually rhyme.
Tolliver also had a very small part in Wintersmith. The wintersmith approaches him to take some sulphur, so that he would become a man. This incident was reported in The Ankh Morpork Times, and a widow approached him, swayed by 'a man who knows his hygiene.' It is now believed that they are enjoying a relationship, as she was seen walking with him.
His trousers and socks are confirmed as being highly explosive, as a result of the gunpowder solution they are treated with. His wig is believed to be sentient.
[edit] Motto
The motto of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office is "Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night can stay these messengers about their duty." However during the decline of the Post Office some letters were removed and placed on a ladies' hairdressers called Hugos to make the sign outside.
These letters were subsequently recovered from Hugos following 'negotiations' between Moist Von Lipwig and Mr Hugo and have now been returned to their rightful place.
Also, during the beginnings of the decline, a long list of things that would, in fact, stay these messengers about their duty was added to the sign.
By a strange coincidence, this is very similar to the motto of another Post Office in the Multiverse.
