Stormtroopers

They're back. In our towns and cities. Strutting in their uniforms. Glowering at passers-by, taking note of everything in the very vanguard of what seems to be a neo-Nazi takeover. Talking of vanguards... sometimes you see them in pairs, riding in little white vans. They themselves ignore parking restrictions as they leap out of these armoured vehicles to nobble unsuspecting motorists. Yes folks, it's the parking enforcement officers. Like amoeba under a microscope, they are multiplying.

I'm really getting sick of it. Every time you go out you need to take a pocket full of change for a parking ticket. When you're finally parked up, your excursion is always punctuated by frequent time checks as you witness your precious parking time diminishing.

In Sheffield, parking restrictions are fanning out into the suburbs with "residents only" streets and an array of ugly black ticket dispensers from which change is "not given". Why?

In seeking to entrap motorists, councils have devised a whole catalogue of confusing and variable signs. "Taxis only after 6.30 pm", "No return within two hours", "Fifteen minutes free parking with ticket", "No loading", "Disabled access required", "Enter car registration number before purchasing ticket" and so on. It's the stuff of nightmares. One can so easily feel like Winston Smith, looking over one's shoulder for Big Brother's roving eye.

Motorists pay for their licences, annual car tax and over-priced insurance. We pay excessive maintenance bills and duty on the petrol provided to us by corporate cartels. Then when we go out to park our cars we're treated like cash cows and criminals. As I say - I'm sick of it. Instead of devising ways to bleed money out of us, councils should instead be finding ways of providing free parking facilities for hard-pressed citizens.

I know it's not the stormtroopers' fault. They're only earning a crust. They didn't make the system. But didn't they also say something like that when quizzed in 1945? So I'm going to take a few out. I've got twelve camp beds set up in our "underhouse"/cellar area and a big fishing net in the back of the car. When nobody's looking, I'm going to bag me my first parking enforcement officer this afternoon. I've been logging his movements through my binoculars. I suspect that he will squeal like a stuffed pig so a gag will also be necessary. Now where's my old Hull City scarf?