The Royal Mail has spent the last week fretting over a spate of copycat vandalism where members of the public, rather like Alice in Wonderland's Queen of Hearts, have been painting the postboxes gold. The Royal Mail originally started painting postboxes gold in the home towns of gold medal wining members of Team GB, but these are getting lost in the gold rush, and Royal Mail are feeling less and less special.

Ben Ainslie's postbox is in Cornwall, where he grew up, but Rob Smith, 51, who lives in the same Hampshire town as Ainslie lives now, felt aggrieved that his town had not been commemorated.

He took matters into his own hands and painted a box on Lymington High Street. He was arrested for criminal damage, but has now been released on police bail.

The incident sparked a Facebook campaign to get a gold postbox for Ainslie in the town, which attracted over 2,000 members. This prompted yet another U-turn by the Royal Mail, who have agreed that a gold postbox should be put in Lymington. However, they are going to strip the illegal gold paint off the postbox, and replace it with their own, legal gold paint. I'll bet Royal Mail are starting to wish they'd never got involved in all this commemorative Olympics schtick in the first place.