What is the difference betwen a "messenger" and a "courier"

.....and ends here!

No, it's just beginning to go into overdrive!

I've heard the reason why cabbies are such wankers to couriers is that people often used to pay the fare up front and have them deliver 'important' packages and documents. then the couriers took all that work away.

Probably bollocks though. Wigan might know, since he's 72 years old.

Kwik-Fit still do this with tyres.

Thatcher did a lot of things that were plain fucking wrong and I will have a street party when she dies, dribbling and pissing herself. However CliveO is wrong about the rise of couriers. Motorbike couriers were thriving in London in 1976 when I was one. The horrors of Thatcherism were a few years down the pipe.

My memory is getting foggy with age. I can remember seeing motorcycle couriers in or around 1980. I also remember doing some research into the Post Office monopoly in 1975 or 1976. At some time around then, following a mail strike the London Document Exchange opened to circumvent Post Office problems but to ensure that urgent mail was delivered. It avoided the monopoly as each company rented a box and therefore deliveries were to that company. Now you mention it, however, I also recall people I knew in the late 1970s working as motorbike couriers. They used to hang around phone boxes as they often weren't given (or possibly allowed) radios. They were fairly rare though.

I can specifically recall using taxis in 1982 to take packages. The firm I worked for sacked its Corps of Commissionaires chap in 1981 for being repeated if not constantly drunk and failing to come into work. After than they just employed a geezer and then dropped it altogether in favour of external messengers.

I can also recall seeing cycle couriers in New York in 1985/6 darting through the traffic. They were novel as up to then we had usually had motorbikes in London. There were and are not many motorbikes in NY.

I am old and my memory is suspect.

My memory is getting foggy with age. I can remember seeing motorcycle couriers in or around 1980. I also remember doing some research into the Post Office monopoly in 1975 or 1976.

Maybe they only had a monopoly on certain streets, perhaps the green set or the dark purple set?

[QUOTE]Now you mention it, however, I also recall people I knew in the late 1970s working as motorbike couriers. They used to hang around phone boxes as they often weren't given (or possibly allowed) radios.

Why did they hang just for not having radios? That seems excessively cruel to me.

I am old and my memory is suspect.

Yes, it all sounds a bit strange.

(I kind of prefer 'messenger' to 'courier'.)

"Courier", coz they is even got their own typeface innit?!

"Courier", coz they is even got their own typeface innit?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courier_(typeface)

Kettler was once quoted about how the name was chosen. The font was nearly released with the name "Messenger." After giving it some thought, Kettler said, "A letter can be just an ordinary messenger, or it can be the courier, which radiates dignity, prestige, and stability."

Exactly!

If you invite Thatcher, I am not coming, dribbling and pissing or not

Couriers are hugely attractive to the opposite sex (whichever that may be)

As well as to a goodly proportion of the same sex, I'll have you know...

There used to be a Playstation game where you were a courier and had to deliver stuff on your bike. I can't remember what it was called but when you hit a car at speed it was quite impressive. It was hard.

Paperboy?

Oh man, I was talking to Shaw and JackFlash about what a fixed gear video game would look like if they made one now...You'd start in San Francisco with a heavy steel geared roadie and you'd run odd jobs for people to earn money to buy porny bike parts. Slowly you build up your bike and your jeans get tighter the more respect you get until eventually you get a job as a courier. They could rope in some sketchy story about getting your arrospok stolen and having to get it back. Side missions would include alley-cats, trick competitions and d-lock destruction runs (10 points for a wing mirror, 20 for a window, 50 for a ped).

It would be tragic.

Slowly you build up your bike and your jeans get tighter the more respect you get until eventually you get a job as a courier.

so you build up respect then lose it all in one go?

doesn't seem very progressive...

You only get respect in courier circles where it doesn't really mean anything :p

It was a bit more graphically advanced than paperboy Sam...

You got bonus points for pulling tricks and doing jumps. Thinking about it the bike might have been a mountain bike (shudder) but it was totally street based.

Has anyone played Paperboy recently? It's fucking impossible! My 14 year old self was much better at arcade games than my 36 year old self.

To answer the orignal post of so long ago, the clue is surely in the names?
Messengers deliver messages and couriers carry things.

does that mean i can not be a fakenger if i ride fixed with a courier bag?

awaits assurance anxiously

Messengers get sacked, couriers take a sabbatical.

There used to be a Playstation game where you were a courier and had to deliver stuff on your bike. I can't remember what it was called but when you hit a car at speed it was quite impressive. It was hard.

I once took my PSP into work (courieriering) one day and played this whilst I was on standby for some strange reason...

Ha! I only just clocked the trispoke too!

now that's a PROPER courier, that's how I remember it, mountain bike with bar-ends and baggy shorts. Not trying to look like some east-end dwelling nathan barley on a track bike.

not sure about the mag wheel, maybe that's a 'mercan thang

Messengers work in the City - Couriers work W1 - WC1

ha, those yellow rock shox on the game cover were all the rage way back then. like the mountain bike with quill stem look too, that turned out to be a durable combo eh? used to see muppets commuting on full sussers aswell. i had a cannondale M1000 with rigid pepperoni forks when i started. fucking thing lasted about 6 months before i got run over and lost the rear triangle. i never like being called a messenger because it doesn't really describe the job. but i used it in the end because shouting "courier" into an intercom would always get a "what?" in reply, it was quicker in the long run to say "cycle messenger"

Man!

But without 'messenger' we wouldn't have all the various -enger spinoffs, courier has it's own scope for mispronunciation, my favourite so far being 'curryer' :D

I have heard it pronounced Korea