Well, thank you all - even though I read part of John's post as 'mail destruction centres' the first time. Thanks Fortunato, I've actually seen the OCR machines working here in Britain, and I'm told that they incorporate an 'intelligent' facility, by which even a slightly wrong zip/post code, or a slightly mis-spelled town name, can be compared with each other automatically, and the machine makes a decision on the likely destination.

I was simply curious as to the amount of detail a zipcode would give, exactly on the lines Fortunato said - from dirt roads to high-rises.

But now it brings up another question. Spaw, what the hell is a Shoot & Scoot?

- Ian B