The case of the £85 parking ticket

NINE more wretched days to go. Can we all, of whatever political colour, agree that in future a one-week election campaign would be quite long enough?

THE miracle of the microchip. I wrote recently about being plagued by unwanted ads popping up in my email. They are allegedly cyber-selected for me personally. The latest is: "Find the one bra for you with Triumph."

I'M not surprised a woman in Fulham tumbled into a hole in the pavement, even though it had been guarded by a screen of chairs. The most impressive and convincing holes you see in pavements are the ones painted by street artists, creating the vivid trompe-l'oeil (trick of the eye) impression of a chasm in a perfectly flat paved area. Who could resist the urge to walk boldly across such an artwork? Sadly, the one in Fulham turned out to be a real hole. The lady was "shaken but not seriously injured," according to the ambulance crew.

BARRY Beavis's fight goes on. The chip-shop owner never denied exceeding his time limit at a car park in Chelmsford. His argument, which has cost him thousands of pounds so far, is that the £85 parking ticket is simply excessive. He lost his case at the county court and has just lost again at the Court of Appeal. He now intends to take his case against the £85 fee to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court. Well, good luck with that. One problem is that every time he goes to court, Mr Beavis finds himself presenting his case to higher-paid judges. A county-court judge gets about £120,000 a year, an Appeal Court judge about £174,000 and a Supreme Court judge £206,000. At that rarefied level, £85 must seem a trifling amount, even though it represents a day and a half's salary for somebody on the minimum wage. The longer Mr Beavis fights, the harder it gets.

THE Daily Telegraph tells us that the plan to replace David Cameron as Tory leader with Boris Johnson is "thickening." This is an excellent choice of word. Any plot to make Boris Johnson prime minister is based on utter thickness and the better the idea seems, the thicker you must be.

MEANWHILE, Cameron has only himself to blame for becoming a laughing stock over which football team he is supposed to support. Why politicians think they have to embrace the idiocy of football when they would far sooner enjoy a quiet night at the opera is beyond me.

IN fact, one of the few things I admire about Ed Miliband is his refusal to be all things to all people on the issue of religion. He is an atheist, get over it.

BUT he is, alas, no economist. You would think Labour's silly pledge to freeze energy prices (at a time when they were about to fall) would have taught Miliband the folly of making promises in a free and volatile market. Apparently not. At the weekend he promised to limit private rents to the rate of inflation. With nine days to go to the election, watch out for a frenzy of rents being suddenly hiked.

THE bird books will tell you that the greater spotted woodpecker eats insects, nut and berries. But woodpeckers don't read books. Which may explain one reader's sighting of a GSW on her bird table, eagerly eating the marrow out of a lamb bone. They'll be asking for mint sauce next.