How much do you like traffic wardens? Parking charges?? I know, I know, these are emphatically first world problems, or more precisely, they are inner city first world problems. In the countryside you can park on a cow. By the stables. Up a tree. Anywhere. The only yellow lines there are when someone has pissed in the snow.

I rarely drive into Town. Its just never worth the aggro. Mainly parking aggro. So you end up in an NCP paying three times what an Uber would have cost for the return trip. The tube’s even cheaper. For those of a rather ‘senior’ status, especially.

But people do drive into town. In their thousands. I have no idea where they all park, not my problem. I walk past them every morning, overtaking them on the pavements as they’re stuck in one great big endless jam, thinking ‘why do they bother?’.

10 years ago the then Labour government had a drive to get people using diesel cars and vans. ‘Better for the environment’, innit? So the populus, particularly those who really care about such things and buy into the global warming thing (no judgments here, no position taken, just some implications), traded in their old petrol cars and went all tree-huggy by replacing them with diesels. Save the planet; go diesel. Unfortunately it don’t ‘go’ as fast or furious as petrol but heh; where’s the rush?

Yet now we find that diesels are full of shit. Well, their exhausts are. Pollutants. Particles. Terrible for the atmosphere which now, in London, is horrendous and dangerous. All because of the diesels. Which they encouraged us to buy.

I don’t know how this can be a surprise to anyone. Petrol is an ultra-refined spirit. Diesel is a thick, gunky oil. Of course its got more shit in it.

Because the air quality is bad now, new(ish) mayor Sadiq is taking affirmative action. He’s increasing parking charges just for diesels in central London. And if you’re reading this in High Wycombe or West Wales or North Yorkshire, let me put this into perspective. To park in Marylebone for one hour currently costs £4.90. One hour, a fiver. The new ‘D-charge’ (not to be mistaken for the C-charge just for being in London) will raise this to £7.35 an hour. Four hour maximum parking, in a diesel, now £29.40. Fuck. Me.

There’s gonna be a lot of people prising the ‘D’ off their car’s rear badges. I’m gonna stand in Marylebone selling screwdrivers to diesel drivers. Make a killing. If I can survive the air.

Even though I’ve never had a diesel car; why would I when petrol ones are so much faster, louder, more dangerous? I feel sympathy for these poor misguideds who were only adhering to government policy and now are getting punished for it. Sadiq Kahn, who I generally like, is being a bit of a shit. Give people a chance to change their cars.

I reckon in 3 years time someone will find evidence that electric cars are ruining the environment. Break up the magnetic field of the planet. Kill birds by osmosis. Give people heart attacks.

Meanwhile, just take the bus. Oh, they’re diesel too. Ok, a taxi. Hmmm, more diesel. Easier to stay at home.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx