Anthropax's Old Blog

Having a free afternoon (like most afternoons in all honesty...) I drove on up to Chepstow in order to visit the rather nice indie bookshop. I ended up getting yet another Stephen Fry novel (The Hippopotamus if you must know) and another in the populist range trying to cash in on TDVC type success (a misfortunate trend that has resulted in too many people being attracted to wannabe Gnoticism... something we at Lampeter have a far too much of, the University being a hotbed of pick 'n' mix religions and spiritual beliefs *sigh*), by telling a romping tale about the Knights Templar. Here's the Amazon page - I'll let you dear readers know if it's anything more than the enjoyable hokum that it looks like. However, the main happening of the day was as follows: Returning to my car I got in, but left the door open for a little while, enjoying the lovely day. I noticed the parking attendant walking past my open door, and a bothered looking woman coming to meet him, holding her credit card, and various tickets - from ther conversation, it was clear that she had left hercar too long, and was looking to pay a fine. "Aha" I thought, I'm just about to leave, and have a parking ticket valid until just after 9 the next morning, "I can save this lady the hassle, as well as the hefty fine that she would have to pay, after all, I won't need this ticket any more, and some use should come out of it". I popped on over, and offered the lady my ticket, only to be informed by the attendant that I "couldn't do that", and that to do so could result in a large fine. I was shocked dear reader. Now I, like I am sure many of you, give my parking ticket to others when I am about to leave the car park if there's a good bit of time left, in order to save them the 60p or so that it would cost for two hours parking. Other people sometimes offer their ticket to me, and if I was only parking for a few minutes to pop into a shop, that ticket would be very useful. If I can't see anybody who may find said ticket useful, I often wedge it onto the ticket machine, so others who come to pay will find this gift from a stranger. To discover that this is a criminal activity shocked me to my very core, as this sort of thing builds a community, and would perhaps brighten up someone's day.