XANTHE'S
STAMP MAGAZINE

The next issue from Royal Mail is "Pets" - and yes, it is as uninspired as I expected it to be. I like stamps depicting animals. I don't think it's necessarily a bad subject choice, but I just knew Royal Mail would stick to the predictable formula of photographic images on a plain white background. The images are just nice photographs of pets - nothing more. They don't show the animals doing anything, they don't give us any glimpse into their characters and they're just... we

Last week I visited Luxembourg with my dad and my sister. Heidi and I are members of the Young Archaeologists Club and we were interested in the old fortress in Luxembourg City and the remaining city walls. We also wanted to visit Trier, the oldest city in Germany, and take a look around the Roman sites. It was very interesting and a great experience to see all of this fantastic archaeology and learn about history, but I am sure all of you would prefer if I talked about stamp

Here is a new issue that isn't quite so new - these stamps showing "American Icons" was issued two months ago. I have heard today that this was quite a controversial issue so I decided to take a look for myself and make my own mind up. Why controversial? Well, some people thought that these stamps are a terrible example of "corporate commercialism" and some people have asked whether it was a good idea to let a fashion icon (Ralph Lauren) "brand a milestone national celebrati