Yesterday I spent the best part of twenty quid on stamps, in anticipation of the Christmas card writing season. Oof! While I'm not quite in the 'Who is Gazza?' league of judgely disconnection with real life stuff, and I know exactly how much two pints of semi-skimmed costs thank-you very much, it is easy to forget how much a single stamp costs nowadays. In my head it's still something like 27p for some reason.

For the record, a first class stamp is now 41p, second class is 32p. This could go up to 46p and 36p next year if changes proposed by Postcomm to allow the Royal Mail to charge more go ahead.

This, along with paper price increases, is another worry in terms of print's affordability and competitiveness against other forms of media.

If I'm taking a glass-half-full approach I guess one could say that it will result in a greater focus on smarter, less wasteful campaigns. Let's hope so.

Glass-half-empty thinking sees a big increase in the use of ghastly e-cards this Christmas.