Keeping my cool
Well... it was bound to happen. I've been haring around the country for the last 18 months, very intensively in the last 11 months... I finally got me a speeding ticket. I got caught out by a speed camera in Northumberland (or Northumebrland if the documentation is to be believed). It's a fair cop. I was driving too fast, I got flashed, I should be penalised.

I resisted the temptation to correct the spelling error on the official notice I was sent. I didn't actually want to rile the police. I'm not sure what my penalty will be. I guess I will find out. Oddly enough, the note didn't fill me with the bile and contempt I felt receiving a parking ticket the other month. Perhaps this is something to do with the fact that I feel like I've earned my speeding ticket. Though I'm not pleased to have been exceeding a speed limit at the same time as an automated speed trap was watching, I have, at least, intentionally ignored the rules of the road. It was entirely my own doing. At the time (2.40am) I will have felt safe in my control of the car under the conditions, the fact is that I shouldn't have been driving above the prescribed limit. I was specifically doing something wrong. With the parking ticket I received, the car was stationary. It wasn't doing anything wrong at all... okay, it was parked a space to the left of where the imbeciles in the car park would have liked it, but it was minding its own business and had been left there with the best of intentions. There's no doubt that when I failed to brake for a posted 30 mile an hour zone, my intentions were wrong... so I have no rancour in paying the penalty.

There's a lesson here. If you're going to do something wrong, then either DON'T, or don't get caught. Or possibly, the lesson here is that parking fines just rile me. I don't know. I've learned something, though. I must have.