Penalty charge notice...

I don't think I stand a cat in hell's chance of succeeding with this appeal but I thought it was an issue worth highlighting...

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wish to appeal this PCN on the grounds that the class of vehicle designated on signage and in this area – Queen Street and Humber Street - is no longer applicable and, therefore, does not conform with the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (TSRGD) 2002.

The buildings in the streets in this area are now being used for entertainment and leisure activities. Therefore, on-street parking is a requirement in the area. Like many other patrons of Fruit, Kingston Art Gallery, Eleven and the Museum of Club Culture, I considered the signposting to be an historic legacy of the area's previous use (that of a fruit market). As you will be aware, no goods lorries are actively using any of the marked bays and it is a common assumption that parking is now allowed.

Likewise, the time of the contravention (21:17) indicates that the bay would not even be utilised were lorries still to operate in this area (which, as I point out above, they do not). This lends me to believe that this PCN is the result of over-zealous parking officials intent on driving away custom from the aforementioned venues.

Hence I trust the PCN will be cancelled.

If you do wish to pursue the PCN then please enclose with your response a copy of the relevant Traffic Order and consider this a request under the freedom of information act.

Yours faithfully,

David E Windass

Rubbish...

I just read on our Sainsbury's toilet roll packaging that buying said stuff "helps me care about the environment". Which it doesn't - I cared already; it was just that those two rolls came in at £1.25. We are, like the rest of Hull, on a mad recycling spree right now courtesy of Hull City Council's efforts to give us bins and waste receptacles of all shades, shapes and sizes. Which is a good thing, although I have a recurring nightmare that, when it gets to the other end, it is all put in a great big pile and burned in order to heat council chambers. You read it here first, remember that. And while I'm on recycling and the environment, I've thought for a while that there's something not quite right about blaming individuals for polluting the planet when its governments and huge corporations that businesses that are the biggest perpetrators of the crime (and even when they're being 'green' they're conning us, as nPower's light bulb fiasco has demonstrated . But blame us they do. Which is why I'm happily embracing the new green regime and would encourage others to do so. When we're all doing more than is required, those bastards will have to change their evil ways, won't they (no, they won't, they'll just blame developing nations - Cold Shower Realism Ed.)?

So, another poor blog entry. Still, it could be worse for you, dear reader, I could be Bono, and I could have presented you with a ridiculous (or, in his words, "moving") Top Ten of stuff I want to see in the next decade which "have the potential to change our world". It's the kind of nonsense that would make you shout at the shaded ignoramous, 'why don't you f*ck off and stick to making records?' if, that was, his records weren't so bleedin' awful. Read this and weep!