I've drunk so much diet coke and espresso that I think I'm starting to get paranoid... at least I've got a major stress on, for no apparent reason. Okay, perhaps part of the reason comes down to the not-insignificant quantity of money I've just dropped in the post to a nice man in Edinburgh who has finally answered the question "Can you put a price on your dreams?".

In other news, I should counter-balance the bile-ridden expletive-encrusted rant of a few posts ago. Speaking slightly more rationally on the subject of my backing down from seeing a parking ticket through to the Magistrates' Court. I wrote the most offensive and sweary of my public posts on the subject because I had no other way of venting the anger and frustration I experienced at the hands of the council. I find it exceedingly offensive and unjust to be treated in such a way by a council who are paid twice by me, once in council tax and again for the parking permit. When faced with such injustice, as part of a system that's simply too big for one person with limited finances to fight... well, what can you do? I hated backing down. I am too old and ugly to be a victim of school bullies, but the people in Parking Control held too many cards and acted in a way which basically amounts to petty bullying. I can't believe that they invented a system that is so unfair and then use it to demonise people like me. All I ever wanted to do was leave my car in a car park while I went to work - the fact that I believed I was doing so legally and still faced an unnecessarily harsh penalty is what upsets me so much.

Anyway, I can, at least, stop worrying about the problem. There's no future in it. I'd dearly love to sue the Council for bad practice leading to me being fined, but it's a shaky case at best. I'm rarely angry and I seldom feel like being violent - clearly Parking Control is one organisation sent by the angry-violent-gods to test me. I think I may have failed.