On my mind

ON my visit to the cinema in Llanelli last week to see the quirky “comedy-drama” The Favourite, I came across the dreaded “double-space parker” (DSP).

The DSP, once a rare species in Carmarthenshire, as was the wild Bactrian camel, is now becoming almost as common as the spotted boy racer and the small brained tail-gater.

I wondered if the DSP was one of the other four people exposed to the guile and petulance of the royal court on the screen and was enjoying the thought of something similar in the car park. Yet might the DSP soon become an endangered or threatened species?

Decent motorists are now not afraid to film, name and shame the antisocial DSP on social media.

Indeed, many people are resorting to humorous and sarcastic comments on notes left on the windscreens of the DSP’s cars. Examples have been: “You must think I am a sardine”; “I am giving you this dog and his name is Spot. You seem to like having lots of them”; “I think you have taken up more spaces than your selfimportant personality really deserves”; “Why not take the bus?”

Perhaps my favourites are: “Many threeyear-olds have trouble staying within the lines. Why not practise colouring this turtle (picture provided)”; “Are you a Brexiteer, because this parking job is a disaster”.

After leaving the cinema I thought that perhaps the eccentricity of a monarch who enjoys duck racing, the unruly foppishness of the Whigs and Tories and the bizarre dynamics of the English court in the 18th Century when most people in the country were poor, hungry and illiterate, made the annoying double-space parker a little innocuous.

After all, what’s a couple of parking spaces between friends? Probably a couple of enemies in the future.

Follow Graham on Twitter @GeeTDee