Royal Fail

Angus McDonagh has claimed to have sent letters all around the world for free. The entrepreneur designed his own range of stamps. Then just attached them to letters. The rather bizarre if crude stamps actually feature his own face in a variety of weird and wonderful disguises. In a wonderful swipe, Angus described himself as a self proclaimed 'anarchist philatelist'. Angus said he first begun making his own stamps and even franking them in a period of what he called bland stamp design. He continued 'When I started I wanted them to be deliberately silly, so I included a fake moustache, beard or eye patch, that was very obviously drawn very crudely. I started it as a bit of a protest. It seemed as if stamps were disappearing due to everyone going on-line all the time.'

Angus who comes from Bridgwater, Somerset said,  'The Queen’s head, it seemed to me, was going to disappear from stamps and be replaced with lots of other images and I felt I had to act. I just kept going and it has become more and more farcical. It’s gone undetected for so long now it is just silly.' Angus has produced around 50 individual stamp designs featuring him wearing Father Christmas beards, berets and eye patches, some of which even commemorate imagined occasions such as Upside Down Day.

After sending more than 100 letters, some going as far afield as Australia, Angus said 'Only one was returned after being exposed as false.' A spokesperson for Royal Mail said  'It was a crime to create or use counterfeit stamps. We will take the necessary steps to protect the integrity of stamps on behalf of the 29 million households and businesses we are honoured to serve. Royal Mail would do everything possible to stamp it out.'