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NORTH POLE: Many of us cannot recall the last time we got a letter in the post, but Santa will this year receive a record 8m of them, the UPU has said.

Global postal services expect to sort through that number of wish lists by the time Christmas rolls around, according to a survey by the Universal Postal Union (UPU), which coordinates the world’s postal systems.

That is 2m more than the haul estimated in a similar survey in 2007.