Having had a little rant about those ‘blue badge bandits’ I thought I would stay with the subject of ‘reserved’ parking and the ‘disabled’.

I’m sure that we can all understand why it is necessary to provide convenient parking spaces for those less mobile than ourselves, but can someone please tell me why my local Sainsbury’s supermarket now provides ‘parent and child’ parking bays right next to those reserved for the disabled ?

Blimey ! Is a twentyfive year old mother with her ‘little darling’ no longer able to walk a few extra yards to the store entrance, or push her trolley (cart) back to her SUV without her becoming exhausted ?

How would she have managed in the days when a daily walk to the shops and a walk home carrying heavy bags was part of everyday life for most women in this country ?

It can’t be long before we see parking spaces reserved for fat people, short people and ones for those poor souls who find difficulty in parking in normal sized bays without hitting someone else’s car.

Among the comments on my last post was one from .. ‘Ginnie’ .. about those people who use disabled permits belonging to other family members … ‘ even though they are perfectly able to walk…or run, for that matter !’ … just like the people I see every day hopping on and off their ‘mobility scooters’.

Now I’m sure that these electricly powered little carts are a great boon to many elderly and infirm people, but I’m also certain that there are a lot of lazy buggers riding around on them whose only affliction is that they are allergic to a bit of exercise.

I’ve noticed that drivers of these vehicles seem to be getting younger and fatter, with a number bordering on what I believe is termed ‘morbidly obese’. One such young man regularly parks his ‘scooter’ on the pavement (sidewalk) outside a local convenience store while he stocks up on his favourite snacks. Maybe he really needs that little buggy to get around … or perhaps … he has been refused …

…  a disabled driver’s parking permit ? 

My wife is one of those fortunate or unfortunate people, depending on how you look at it, who has a disabled person’s parking permit. This means that the vehicle that she is travelling in may be parked in certain ‘restricted’ areas or in the special bays which are clearly marked with the familiar blue sign. When parked, the permit or ‘blue badge’, as it is more commonly known, must be clearly displayed inside the car.

Now it seems that these permits are being targeted by thieves as there appears to be a growing market for stolen and forged ‘blue badges’. Of course the arseholes who use these stolen permits give little thought to the misery they cause some poor bugger who has to wait weeks for a replacement of something which was difficult enough to obtain in the first place. Almost as bad are the the inconsiderate sods who park in ‘disabled badge holders ONLY’ bays at supermarkets and the like.

Today I was sitting in our car, which was parked in a clearly marked ‘disabled’ space at our local hospital, while my wife was inside having an X-ray taken. Close by was another clearly marked vacant bay.

Suddenly a car drove at high speed through the hospital gates, the driver ignoring the 5 m.p.h limit sign, and screeched into the empty bay as if it were a ‘grand prix’ pit stop. It must be an emergency, I thought; but no, for out jumped a young woman who then strolled into the main building of the hospital. No permit was in view, nor was there any sign of a walking stick or crutches, much less a wheelchair.

After a few minutes the woman returned to her car, where she sat for the next ten minutes or so, eating a sandwich and making calls on her mobile phone as drivers passed by searching for a convenient place to park.

“She couldn’t care bloody less” … I said to myself as I was just about to have a touch of the ‘Victor Meldrew’s’, when she suddenly accelerated out of her parking space as if she was on the front row of the grid at Monaco.

It was then that I noticed that she had removed her coat to reveal …

…   her nurse’s uniform !

I once saw a production of Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ at London’s ‘Old Vic’ theatre, where all the characters were dressed in Elizabethan costumes instead of Roman togas. I suppose that this was acceptable as in old Bill’s day actors probably dressed that way on stage, as I believe they do in current productions at ‘The Globe’.

What drives me ‘up the wall’ today is the way that so many ‘luvvy’ directors and ‘arty-farty’ costume designers think that classic drama and opera can be improved by setting the action at some different period of history from that of the original story, and dressing up the cast in all sorts of fanciful outfits.

You know the sort of thing I mean … King Lear set in Harlem or Henry V dressed as a Prussian officer wearing an Iron Cross. Not to mention Richard II played by Kevin Spacey … complete with crown … dressed in a modern day business suit.

I will concede that this approach can on very rare occassions work, as in the case of ‘Carmen Jones’, which I enjoy far more than Bizet’s original opera; but I can’t see myself enjoying, or even bothering to watch Kenneth Branagh’s new film version of Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’.

It seems that Stephen Fry has written a new libretto for the movie, which is now set in the trenches of WWI and features a homosexual soldier who is suffering from battle fatigue … and by the way … The Queen of the Night enters astride a tank: … and they laughed at …

…     “Springtime for Hitler”.