For a man who has tried, with limited success, to tour the United Kingdom in a car, but pay as little for parking as is humanly possible today was a day of tragedy. I was heading to Norwich for the first of two nights at the Playhouse - my hotel had ample free parking and I seemed to remember that last year we had parked somewhere near to the venue for free, so I was expecting to spend 0p on accommodating my car in this fine and beautiful town.
I arrived at the venue on the wrong side of the bridge and had to go on to a pedstrianised area. As I hopped out of the car to find a member of staff I worried that a vigilant traffic warden might spot me, but I left my wife in the vehicle as a kind of anti-traffic warden guard. I knew it would be worth getting married and she is already slowly paying off the cost of the wedding in cases like this.
I needn't have worried though as I was back to the car in quick time and a man from the venue lowered the bollards so I could get through. We unloaded and he told me that as it was now 6pm I could park outside the church at the end of the road. I drove to the church, saw plenty of spaces, checked the parking conditions - paid parking did indeed end at 6pm - and felt pleased that another day of free parking had come to an end. There was also a permit holder sign under the parking conditions sign, but this is often the case - in my own street at home there is both paid and permit parking - and I was right by the ticket machine so knew I was in a paid parking bay. All was good.
I saw a traffic warden further up the street as I headed back to the venue and laughed at him internally - he should go home, it was after 6pm now. Why was he wasting his time? Ha ha ha. The behatted prick.
As always I was looked after well by the friendly staff at the venue and was delighted to have sold out (
still tickets for the show on Thursday) and had a lot of fun in the show. There was some fun and high spirited heckling. At the start I said, "Thanks for having me in your wonderful town," and I heard someone mumble "city". And corrected myself and called him a pedant. Later as I plugged about my book and mentioned the disgraceful things I had done when I was 40 before I met my wife, a man shouted out "page 281" (maybe it's 218, I can't remember) over and over again. I had a look in my copy and this was indeed the page where a champagne bottle got inserted somewhere I didn't want it to go, but I found it amusing that he knew the exact page number of this incident and I conjured up an unpleasant image of his book falling open at this page and why that might be. It was one of those performances where my brain felt sharp and clear and I was firing on all cylinders, everything coming out crisply, getting laughs from subtle facial expressions, moving around on the stage. When a comedy performance goes right it feels like a song without a tune, a dance without music. Tonight I was still finding new and improved variations.
It went well and I was happy - the staff at the theatre had made me a wedding card, picturing me as an Action Man (from the Talking Cock poster) and my wife as a Barbie doll. It was a very sweet gesture, but this is an establishment which appreciates its acts and its audience and its staff and is a happy place to work. I love them all.
Well, I did until I got to my car to discover that I had been given a parking ticket. How could this be possible? I had arrived at 6.05pm, the sign clearly said payment stopped at 6. That rogue warden I had sniggered at had clearly chanced his arm. I double checked to see that there wasn't some road marking that made this spot permit only and then started taking photos of the car to prove that I had been unfairly punished. But as I went to take one of the sign I noticed that the lower part about permits wasn't quite what I had assumed. Unusually the permit for parking kicked in at 6pm through to the morning. Unlike most places where you'd need a permit to park in the day time, here you needed one to park at night. I think they could have made this clearer but suspect that they know that this slightly unusual circumstance will result in idiots like me parking there and giving them revenue. I had been conned good and proper. What is the difference between Norwich City Council and that Parisian man finding lost rings? Only that Norwich City Council make money from their scam and can't be imprisoned for it. The fucking bastards. If the show hadn't gone so well I would have declared war on this city. It would be a town by the time I'd finished with it. Be wary East Anglia, look what became of Carlisle after they offended me.
I was a bit annoyed that the man at the theatre had told me to park here, but maybe there were free spots elsewhere. A local resident passed and sympathised with me, admitting that even he had been caught out by this a few times. I didn't know how much the fine would be, but it was going to blow my parking parsimony out of the water.
It turned out that the fine was £35 if I paid it straightaway (going up to £70 if I didn't) and I knew that there was little point in contesting it as I hadn't read the sign properly. But this is, I believe, my first ever parking fine (I got a fine earlier this tour for stopping in a yellow box at a junction), because I am quite anal about not parking illegally and only doing so for the briefest of time. It takes a sneaky little cheat to con me.
But my revenge shall be more measured this time, and just be to warn you of this sneakiness, so that perhaps you will be saved the indignity of peeling the ticket off your windscreen. It's been a successful tour so luckily I can afford the fine, it's just the humiliation and the ruination of the symmetry of my excellent parking payment graph that hurts me.
My only problem now is working out where I will park tomorrow.
