Postman Plod

Postman Plod is the name of a comic strip in the British comic Viz and the name of the main character. It was drawn by Graham Dury, who created many other Viz characters, including The Fat Slags.

It appeared regularly during the 1980s until the mid-1990s.

As his name suggests, Plod is a postman, and is probably a parody of the children's character Postman Pat. Unlike Pat, Postman Plod is an incredibly lazy, drunken, miserable and bad tempered man and a chronic malingerer. He obviously hates his job and hates the people he is obliged to deliver letters to.

Plod is bone idle and lethargic and frequently takes extended periods off work with questionable excuses that only hold water because they are supported with notes from his doctor who is just lazy as he is. The pair of them often concoct some excuse for time off work so that they can go and play golf. Whenever he turns up for work at all Plod is completely lacking in any work ethics, and often enjoys opening and reading the post he is meant to be delivering. He is not even bothered about hiding this activity, and after reading someone's bank statement, either mocking or embarrassing that person for their poor financial situation (another example is when he exposes a resident's arrival of brown-enveloped 'jazz mags' to the whole street).

When extracting payment from a postal customer, he points directly into the customer's wallet and stipulates payment in "some of those big brown fivers". (In British currency, the large brown banknotes are £10 notes, not fivers.) When reluctantly giving change to a customer, Plod will pay it in "those little blue tenners". (The smaller blue banknotes are £5 notes, not tenners.) Since Plod's customers are often elderly and on the brink of senility, these tricks usually succeed.

It seems that he is not alone in his sloppy and downright illegal activities. The other post office staff are also shown to be lazy and dissatisfied with their jobs and spend most of the time sat playing cards (with the exception of the post office manager who tries desperately in vain to run a tight ship). In the lead up to Christmas once, Plod and all his fellow postmen opened up all the parcels at the sorting office and stole whatever they wanted to save having to buy their own presents. On one occasion he even just threw all the post he was meant to deliver in a hedge and went home early. Another strip in a Christmas edition of Viz has Plod as the central figure in the poem Night Mail by W. H. Auden, ("This is the night mail, crossing the border, bringing the cheque and the postal order..."). But instead of the mail being sorted on the way for delivery, it is lying in bags unsorted 'cause Plod's at the bar' getting inebriated. Plod ends up getting thrown out on the railtracks, and shouting a drunken version of 'Merry Christmas' to the reader.

Like many characters in Viz, Plod almost constantly has a cigarette dangling from his lips. He nearly always has stubble and never shows up for work on time.