What the Dickens? It's the Parking Review Pantomime

The Secret Manager tells a tale of Yuletide parking

 Outside it was bleak and cold. A wicked wind scoured any unprotected flesh. Indeed, a walkout had just been staged at the local brass monkey works.

Although it was close to Christmas, no hint or anticipation of celebration hung in the air around the offices of Olde Flintheart Council Car Parking Services, where the boss Mr S arrived with his trusted lieutenant Ms Treasure. This Christmas Eve they had decided to conduct an audit of the parking sovereigns.

Also stirring in the early morning darkness was one humble civil enforcement officer, Timothy Small, nicknamed “Tiny” Tim by one and all. Shivering from the cold of his threadbare uniform, he still offered a jolly “Merry Christmas” to the pair, who marched past him wrapped up well and snug in thick cloaks, furs and ear muffs against the inclement weather.

“Nothing merry about it,” rasped Mr S. “Christmas! ‘Tis a fraud, a humbug. The only celebration I know of is hard work. The only red noses worth attention are those firmly attached to the grindstone, which is exactly where yours should be.”

Ms Treasure tutted: “Shivering on duty. “If you worked a bit a harder and faster you might generate a bit of heat.”

Mr S added: “You get Christmas Day off you know, even though there could be many vehicles to book on that tiresome day.”

Pointing up through the gloom to a flickering light in the Olde Flintheart Multi-Storey that towered above them, Mr S snapped: “Get that lamp replaced.”

“With LED?” suggested the officer brightly.

“L.E.D?’ scowled Mr S. “The only LED we need is the lead in your pencil for writing out tickets. BAH!”

The rest of the parking office staff knew to keep their mouths closed, so no more Christmas greetings were offered as the management marched through.

(Reader, you have guessed that S and Treasure were icy all year round and the season of goodwill would not melt them.)

 

A chapter in which much is digested, but little learned

Mr S and Miss Treasure entered their office, properly prepared by the minions with a roaring fire. On one side of the room a counter groaned under the weight of sovereigns, on the other a buffet table heaved with all manners of delicacies, fine ports and wines. They settled themselves to the matter in hand.

“Sweet?” said Mr S.

“Ah, a humbug, thank you kindly,” replied Ms Treasure.

Having availed themselves of the feast, and ensured no scraps were left for the feckless to steal, the world of work soon interrupted their digestion in the form of from an insistent telephone.

“Hello, who is calling?” Miss Treasure interrogated the handset.

“Good King Wenceslas. Pizza please, the usual.”

“You want what?”

“Deep pan, crisp and even.”

“This isn’t Domino’s, its car parking you know!” she replied slamming the handset down.

 

A chapter in which spirits are high

There then came in knock at the office door.

“There’s a… Mr Marley… to see… you,” said Bob Catchit, long-suffering office dogsbody, dragging out the sentence in order to bask in the heat escaping the stiflingly hot room.

“Marley? Marley?” mused Ms Treasure. “Marley Building Products? Mr S, tell me you haven’t been squandering money doing up any of our crumbling multi-storey car parks?’

“Of course not, we’ve got Life Care Plans in place. To be precise, I care about my life too much to spend my time squandering coin on structural surveys. Car parks are concrete, and concrete is a hard fact. It is a fact needs no further investigation. Do you not agree Miss Treasure?”

“Absolutely,” she concurred. “As I always say, Scrooge it or lose it.’

“Anyway Catchit send this Marley man in,” said Mr S with a flourish. “I am more than happy to send anyone away empty-handed on a bitterly freezing, cold day such as today.”

The pair exclaimed: “It’s Bob Marley!” The reggae maestro, for it was he, was decked out in red, gold and green colours and sporting his trademark dreadlocks.

“He’s Rasta man, I’m more of a Pasta man,” Mr S said, patting his belly informatively.

“Hey man, Bob here. My late uncle Uptown Jacob Marley could not come, so I stopped in as a jamming fine replacement ghost.”

“Look Bob. We’re busy we’re just about to start on the Turkish Delight while we laugh over a few parking appeals, before adding them to the fire,” said Miss Treasure.

“Bob,” interjected Mr S, “my wife went to the Caribbean for her holidays.”

“Jamaica?”

“No, she went of her own accord.”

“I hear your old tired jokes; methinks man you need to change your Christmas crackers. Now listen up bro, I come to you from the emptiness beyond.”

“You mean the Department for Transport?”

“No, the afterlife. I warn you man that your workers are cold and work too long hours. And your customers they need to park up, pay up, stand up for their parking rights. You must mend your ways and be kind to your customers and workers in this time of peace and goodwill, there should be celebrations not misery for the birth of Christ.”

“Kind? No way man, no cry,” intoned Mr S tunelessly.

“If you don’t listen and change your ways you will be visited by three spirits. The ghosts of Parking Past, Parking Present and Parking Yet to Come.”

“Bob,” enquired Mr S. “When you were writing songs what do you call the catchy chorus bit?”

“The hook.”

“Well take yours and sling it, before I set our bailiffs Grabbitt All & Floggitt on you,” came the guffawing reply. 

And with that Bob made his exodus leaving the parsimonious pair pondering the promise of visitations by spirits. “Well I don’t know about you, but I could do with a heart-warming brandy,” declared Ms Treasure.

“But before sustenance, I will pronounce the Flintheart Car Parking grace. Let us pray. ‘Dear Parker, if you have not purchased, paid and displayed a ticket, if your car is parked the merest millimetre over the line, then you are fair game to our hungry penalty hunters. Amen!”   

 

A chapter in which little is given away

After a replenishment of refreshments, the now merry pair relaxed. Then, hair raisingly, came four hard knocks at the door

“Maybe it’s, it’s, the… the spirits it is?” stuttered Ms Treasures.

“We’ll see,” Mr S said, collecting himself. “Enter!’ he pronouced.

A gaggle of shivering CEOs crept in nervously.                          

“Please sirs and madams, can we have some more?”

“More what?” roared Mr S.

“Uniforms, shoes, some actual equipment rather than a blunt pencil and a wodge of paper tickets. Some training, proper procedures and…”

“Stop! No, no you can’t,” Mr S yelled. “Anyway, you’re in the wrong Dickens’ sketch. Goodbye.”

The sorry quartet trooped out dejectedly, swallowed up by the cold night.

“Outrageous behaviour,” Mr S seethed. “Maybe we should look at replacing the lot of them with cameras and robots.”

Treasure pitched in: “Next we’ll Catchit will be asking for one of those new fandangled computating engines to manage the paperwork.”

“Hardware and software?” quizzed Mr S.

“Now, don’t be naughty S!” she said.

“Now then is my wardrobe making you feel romantic?”

 Mr S cringed as if his brandy mince pie was right off.

“Anyway who is with me to start the oysters?’ brayed Miss Treasure gastronomically.

“Actually,’ said Mr S, “I’ve not been feeling myself recently. I went to see the doctor and said that I keep thinking I’m Tom Jones. The doctor said, ah yes, the Tom Jones Complex. I asked is it rare? He said: ‘It’s not unusual.’”

(Reader, some of these gags should be subject to gagging orders!)

More was on the menu for our managerial pair, but not a menu that would set them up for a nice snooze. Their incipient slumber was interrupted by a rattling sound akin to someone looting a pay station cash box or, maybe, the clanking of chains.

Two ghostly apparitions appeared, manacled together at their feet.

“We are the ghosts of Christmas Past,” the spectres groaned. “We come from the other side.”

“Private sector?’ queried Miss Treasure.

“No, no, I think I know them,” said a startled Mr S. “Its Messrs Policy and Practice from the BPA, that’s the ‘British Parking Apparation’. You wait for one spirit, then two come along at once.”                           

The suited spirits then pulled out a spectral script and read in unison the following Christmas Charter. “We come to ask you to mend your unfair ways and bring a spirit of excellence in all things parking,” said Policy

“It can only benefit the public that you, in theory, serve and, let us not mention, your long-suffering staff. In particular, that poor CEO Tiny Tim would so like to see his family on Christmas Eve,” said Practice.

“Tiny Tim the CEO? I thought he played the ukulele,’ added Mr S showing his own mastery of times past.

“Think of Tiny Tim, Tiny Tim, think of him,” implored the spirits. “Timothy Small is your kindest CEO, tramping the winter streets without a fleece, without a map, without a clue. But he is a kind soul, who never issues a penalty. He offers helpful words and a smile to all the town’s folk. Yet, his discreet ways are ignored as he has become an object of ridicule, pilloried in the local paper and in tavern talk alike. Now, as he walks the streets, he is shunned and directed to Coventry. He is the martyr of your harsh, unbending regime.”

However, Mr S’s hard heart was not something that melted easily. “Now, lecturing us from on high is all very well, but the cold hard facts are that a parking penance must be wrung out of every motorist who stops in Flintheart. This pair of gentlemen are welcome to run a three-legged race through eternity but your chains are the weakest link, so goodbye.”

The BPA pair looked at S and Treasure, then almost sang: “We do not believe you are a lost cause and will send our President with Christmas gifts.” Then they vanished.

 

A chapter in which we get into a right pickle

Treasure and Mr S looked at each other and shrugged. Not ones to set much store by learning they really saw no need for change, unless it was the loose kind which filled their machines’ cash boxes.

The managerial pair were about to have a nightcap to settle their nerves when mid-sip they heard another metallic sound. This time it was not the sound of chains rattling but an altogether more cacophonous clanking.

Through the walls, which visibly heaved, materialised another spirit dragging a tangle of broken metres and mangled wheel clamps. The spectre, whose aura seemed to fill every corner of the room, announced itself in a broad Yorkshire accent.

“I am Mr Pickles, the spirit of Christmas Present, but don’t go expecting any presents,” announced the new visitor.

“Hang on, I thought Pickles was the dog who found the lost World Cup trophy in 1966,” ventured the ever topical Mr S.

“A point for irrelevant trivia,” said the ghost. “I come to warn both of you that unless you produce an annual report in the style of the Daily Mail I will cut off the excessively outrageous flow of sovereigns generated by your yellow lines and confusing signs.”

“Pickled? I nearly am,” moaned S.

“Mr Tickles,” said a defiantly tipsy Treasure, “we do not recognise such spectral threats. Our golden cash cow is quite our own business, so please float off and plague some other authority.”

“No!” boomed Tickles. “If you do not change you will be visited by the Ghost of Christmas to come, the dreaded WWF.”

S and Treasure looked at each other with quizzical expressions.

She said: “WWF? World Wildlife Fund? World Wrestling Federation?”

He said: “Mr Fickles we’ve no idea so goodbye, so scroo… [Secret Parking Manager, this is a family entertainment - Ed]

The head of Tickles popped back into the room. “A point of order?” he said. “WWF means ‘Wild West Freestyle’. You have been warned, your parking will be overseen by some mask-wearing pals of mine.”

Treasure and Mr S looked at each other. Tickles may have conjured up a vision of a lawless parking regime as a warning, but there was something appealing in the prospect for the pair.                                  

 

A chapter in which all is revealed

Midnight chimed on the Town Hall clock. In a car park a step-ladder was erected to fix the ancient broken light fitting. Two maintenance men, teeth all a-chatter, worked on the ladder in the dark with no barriers or warnings in place. Mr Costello shouted to his apprentice Elvis flicked a switch. Nothing happened. Then light.

The car park was illuminated by a searchlight on a very large helicopter bearing the legend ‘BPA 2014’. The magnificent machine landed on the rooftop deck, from which stepped an angelic being with a winning smile and a presidential seal. The Spirit of Parking Yet to Come waved her wand and a huge wicker hamper was lowered on to the car park.

“This is a box of delights,” she announced, “a panapoly of parking practice notes, operational guidance and the latest toys and gadgets. Where are the managers?”

The presidential being awaited a response, but before an answer came there was a massive creaking, then cracking sound. CRASH! Where the hamper has been was now a hole in the top deck.

Mr Costello always told Elvis: “Accidents will happen.” And indeed they did. Though this one was fortuitous. Looking over the edge, the Parking President could see straight into Mr S and Miss Treasure’s office, into which the wicker basket had tipped its contents. The somewhat stunned managers were gathering their composure and looking at the packages started jumping with glee. “Presents, presents, presents,” they chanted.

“Stop!” said presidential spirit, who had floated down through the hole in the roof. She looked at the managers and tutted. “Now, none of these presents are for you. Read the labels and delegate them appropriately. These are gifts for your staff and the community. Share them or find yourselves a new job.”

“Our gooses well and truly cooked?” said a quivering Ms Treasure.

“Like turkeys receiving the full Paxo treatment. Aahh!” S moaned (and many a reader did groan).

“Blimey, we’d better start dishing out these goodies and quick. Right, Ms Treasure shout them out.”

“Bob Catchit to leave early Christmas Eve… CEOs makeover with Trinny and Susannah… Caroline Sheppard and the Traffic Penalty Tribunal – a boxed set of Crown Court episodes… For Mark and Deniz at Parking Review an annual subscription to The People’s Friend… For the NoToMob, some perspective.,. The Department for Transport, a game of Twister…”

“Look Ms Treasure, at the bottom of the basket, a present for us.”

“What is it Mr S. Open it and let me see… a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. What could this mean?”

 

The Secret Parking Manager wishes the readers of Parking Review a Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year