It seems I have become a guinea-pig. No one told me it was happening. No one asked me if I wanted to be one.

Along with 10% of other householders in Brighton, I now receive just one mail delivery a day. Instead of it coming through my letterbox at around 7.30am, it arrives at anything between 10.30am and 12.30pm.

And although I am just part of a pilot scheme, there is not a cat in hell's chance I shall ever again receive early morning mail or that I shall ever again have two deliveries. Gone forever. This is brave new world, UK 2003.

For those of you in the other 90% of households in the city with relieved, "there but for the grace of God" smiles on your faces - wipe them off. You too will suffer this unacceptable treatment from the Royal Mail by the year's end.

But it gets even more outrageous. Royal Mail's laughably titled Customer Service Centre in Stoke on Trent conceded if I really needed my mail at an earlier time, it they could arrange it. The catch? Ah, yes. The catch, I could have my mail at 7.30am at a cost of £8.95 a day, £184 a month or £2,205 a year. Oh, and by the way, the money to be paid in advance please!

What I find so astonishing is that Royal Mail management seems convinced that by trashing a decent service in favour of the bog standard, the third rate, it will somehow stop the haemorrhaging of the £1.2m a day currently being lost.

Indeed, one local manager told me fervently she was convinced this course of action was the only solution to their problems. She knew this was the only way to move the business forward. Forward?

Morale among postal workers has never been lower. Talk to any of the dwindling numbers delivering the mail, and you hear exactly the same criticisms you hear from doctors and nurses in the health service (the NHS with more bureaucrats than beds). Too much money is being wasted on unnecessary, often incompetent management.

I may be naive about these things but I simply do not understand how you can lose £1.2m a day and still stay in business. What is certain is if I had a business losing even a modest £1,000 a day, I would be closed down, bankrupt within weeks.

It may be wonderfully magnanimous of Chancellor Gordon Brown to talk in billions and say he will pay "whatever it takes" to help Tony Blair strut his stuff and whack Saddam. Strange that the largesse and courage evaporate when it comes to dealing with the growing mountain of problems at home.

The disintegrating postal service may not be his problem today, but someone is going to have to bang heads at Royal Mail very soon.

Oh, and don't forget. "First class" post increases to 28p on April 17.