The Parking Angel hears our prayers
WE wheelbound Brits waste an average of two days a year trying to find somewhere to park. Two days! That’s 48 hours we’re never going to get back. Multiply over a decade and it racks up to close to three weeks of hopeless nosing around streets and packed shopping centres, desperate to find those precious few square yards of (legal) space.
And it’s costing us a fortune too. The new study by Inrix, a vehicle information research group, calculates we lose more than £700 annually in fuel wasted and lost work as we cruise around. And even when we’ve found a space we’re overcharged by another couple of hundred quid a year in paying for parking we don’t need. Motorists are routinely overcharged because they’re usually forced to buy a set amount of parking time that’s much longer than they actually need.
Motoring gripes are usually Richard’s bag but I’m going there this week because I have an answer, at least to the problem of finding somewhere to stick your car. It’s a tried and tested way of finding a space almost at once. Works like a charm – perhaps because it is a charm, sort of.
You ask the Parking Angel for help. Just tilt your face skywards, proffer up an engaging smile and
can’t stop them wanting cash
FOR a mostly secular society we don’t half get our knickers in a twist about morality. The latest brow-beater is over cash-in-hand payments to tradesmen: gardeners, window cleaners and so-on. Settling their bills in readies is “not being a good citizen” because it encourages tax evasion, according to the Prime Minister’s employment adviser Matthew Taylor. Cash payments must stop, he opines.
Well good luck with that one, Mattie my boy. Yes, you’re right, many tradesmen prefer cash because it keeps their taxes down but frankly you might as well try to stop the tide coming in. And aren’t there bigger tax evasion issues to tackle? Think big. Not Canute. say: “Good day, Parking Angel! Would you please help us find a space?” And lo, one will duly be provided, usually within around 10 seconds. Never known it fail.
I’m being perfectly serious. It was our friend, the late Caron Keating, who put us on to the Parking Angel. Caron had an endearing belief in angels which she championed to all and sundry. And something very strange happened a few months after Caron died.
We had been to visit her grave but unusually had not felt any particular connection with her on that occasion. Nearing the end of the long drive home Richard suddenly said, almost to himself: “Come on Caron! Give us a sign you knew we were there today!” Then he laughed slightly embarrassedly at himself and switched the car radio on.
Paul Simon’s voice filled the air. He was halfway through his hit You Can Call Me Al and the very first words out of the speakers were these: “He sees angels, angels, spinning in the architecture… he sees angels, he sings ‘hallelujah!’” We were thoughtful for the rest of the day.
Give the Parking Angel a try. But don’t overdo it. Just ask on special occasions when you really need to find a space fast. And always remember to say thank you.