Some things are noticeable by their absence, one has to experience them again to realise that they have disappeared. On visiting the lovely Lithuanian lady, Rosa, who inhabits my old home in Plaistow I was forcefully reminded of one of the banes of modern life that I haven’t had to endure for two years. She heaped pile after pile of letters, pamphlets and catalogues into my arms. It seems that my thoughtful tenants of the last year had been saving my mail for me and the astonishing result was over five kilos of paper and postage. I love to receive a letter and as I was confident that there were no bills in the mail mountain I set about opening them with some excitement.

What a disappointment, over 99% of the missives were junk mail, unsolicited and unwanted. I had numerous offers of loans, opportunities to further deepen my debt by advance borrowing on my mortgage, letters volunteering to give me credit cards, advertisments from Littlewoods, bailiff’s demands for an ex-tenant and begging letters from Islamic charities who somehow had seized on my muslim surname without ever considering my personal religious proclivities. The only envelope of some relevance was exactly what I didn’t want – a bill for my annual ground rent! In Dalyan neither I nor my partner Sezgin have received any junk mail and friends in big cities like Istanbul and Izmir don’t get any either. Direct marketing mail shots blessedly seem not to have arrived yet in Turkey.

In Dalyan our postal system is reliable if unorthodox – letters certainly arrive, as do the magazines and newspapers we subscribe to and registered post is sometimes accompanied with a demand to come to the post office and sign for it and sometimes just dropped in to the office by our smiling postie. The unorthodox part is that the address on the mail seems entirely irrelevant to where it arrives. Letters destined for our home, letters with our names on but supposed to go to other business addresses (for example our friend’s internet contract is in my name but their address) and letters with totally the wrong address all turn up at the office. I guess that the postman knows that he will find us there.

My parents recently moved from No3. on their road to No3a. the new house just next door. Despite the fact that they have been living on their road for 31 years the postman seems unable to get to grips with the move and letters addressed to them by name but to No3. never make their way next door to No3a. Instead the neighbours children pop over every week with the diverted dispatches. The Royal Mail just doesn’t seem to try as hard or think as laterally as our postman in Turkey.

When I lived over the river in Çandır village there was a central mailbox outside the village headman’s office. Once a week the mail would be driven 40 km from Köyceğiz and put in the post box. If it was windy the letters ended up strewn accross the village square like so many autumn leaves as the box has no front on it. I never received one piece of mail that went in to the box. – perhaps it didn’t help that there are no street names or house numbers over there so addresses are along the lines of ‘Fazile Zahir, Mustafa’s House, The middle of the village, Çandır’.

What I find astonishing about the junk mail I received at my old flat is the offers of credit cards and loans. I have never owned a credit card and the only loan I have ever taken out is my mortgage. What makes these companies think I am interested in borrowing money for them as a check of my credit history would show I am averse to credit. Well apparently it might be my postcode – E13 is an ailing part of London, poor compared to wealthier areas of the metropolis and with high levels of unemployment. As one of it’s inhabitants I am considered a gift to the direct marketers who assume I must need to borrow money.

Jon Ronson, the Guardian columnist, recently did a year long test where he created 4 personalities to see which would receive the most junk mail in the course of a year. Happy Ronson was an ethical green vegetarian parent, Paul Ronson was a handsome sauve entrepeneur millionaire with a jetset lifestyle, George Ronson was a charming sentimental old gentlemen and Titch Ronson was a gullible venal sex maniac with credit problems and a gambling habit.

Guess who got the most junk mail? Loser Titch Ronson – and the reason why? According to the list broker Ronson consulted it’s because Titch is temptingly ‘sub-prime’, that is to say he has difficulty getting credit through conservative lenders and may have missed mortgage payments. Apparently the only thing that stopped Titch being inundated was Ronson’s N1 postcode that placed his property in an affluent part of the capital. The more irrational and less able to manage your finaces you are the more tempted direct marketers are to exploit your weakness. Therefore you can assume the more junk mail you get offering you money the more stupid you have been judged to be. Thanks to the kindness of my tenants I know now that the UK credit market thinks I’m low-grade, destitute and dim.