THE economy may be on a bit of a roller-coaster, but we Brits are clearly as enterprising as ever - at least in some areas.

This week, it emerged that half of all cannabis smoked in Britain is now being cultivated in people's homes rather than being imported by drugs barons.

All that hard work and effort - now surely it could be channelled into some profitable (and legal) business activity?

Then there's Machoman, the world's leading super-stud which has scored a bull's eye for Crewe-based cattle-breeding experts Genus.

The genetically-designed prize bull has just been acclaimed Numero Uno in the world, and set to father lots of little Machos ( producing 120,000 doses of semen a year) under a lucrative programme for Genus aimed at improving beef and dairy herds around the world.

So we can walk on the moon and successfully tinker with nature.

However, we often now can't get a letter from A to B on time and the region's Federation of Small Businesses fears small firms will be consigned to the bin by Consignia's new plans.

This country which gave the world the first postage stamp in 1840 (the Penny Black) introducing the uniform flat rate for delivery anywhere in the land now looks set to go back to the days when dozens of different carriers delivered (or often didn't deliver) mail for wildly differing rates. The result was a chaos ironed out by the brilliant penny post of Mr Rowland Hill, which offered up to six SAME-DAY deliveries and was hailed as one of THE finest inventions of the Victorian Age.

Now small firms fear that sadly the last post is about to sound for a service once envied around the world.