I went to visit a friend in hospital yesterday afternoon.

Night was falling with the drizzle when we arrived in Bell Street, in a dingy part of Westminster. But there was a parking space, so we parked and I went to find the meter.

There wasn’t one. Instead we were invited to pay for parking by phone. A sign on a post gave a text messaging number, a website address and a telephone number. I tried all three, and attempted to follow the instructions.

I’m not particularly stupid. I reckon I’m above average intelligence. I’m even mildly computer literate. But I found this process extraordinarily difficult. I have to say that standing in a cold dark side street in a rough area of London at night in the drizzle, trying to comprehend new instructions, holding up a new iPhone 4S and a credit card and squinting to read the numbers off the card from a distant street lamp while inputting a succession of codes is not conducive to a warm feeling of safety and security. If I was a young villain instead of a pensioner I would fancy my chances in a situation like this.

When I came back to the car, there was an £80 parking ticket slapped on the windscreen.

I got home, found the Westminster Council’s Challenge Your Parking Ticket section which was cleverly concealed on their web site, and protested the charge.

After I’d logged the protest, my iPhone suddenly came alive with a succession of eight separate text messages as follows:

15 Dec 2011 16:18

Sorry, parking failed as text in wrong format. Send LOCATION DURATION CVV eg 7002 10 123. Add number plate to change car eg 7002 10 123 AB05CDE. Thank you

You can also manage your account, download apps, or pay for parking all from www.paybyphone.co.uk – Thanks for using Pay by Phone Parking

Welcome to Pay by Phone Parking. Try our new mobile website the next time you park http://m.paybyphone.co.uk

Welcome to Pay by Phone Parking. Try our new mobile website the next time you park http://m.paybyphone.co.uk

You can also manage your account, download apps, or pay for parking all from www.paybyphone.co.uk – Thanks for using Pay by Phone Parking

15 Dec 2011 17:17

Welcome to Pay by Phone Parking. Try our new mobile website the next time you park http://m.paybyphone.co.uk

You can also manage your account, download apps, or pay for parking all from www.paybyphone.co.uk – Thanks for using Pay by Phone Parking

Your parking has not started as you did not confirm the transaction. If you wish to park now please call back and ensure you confirm the transaction. Thank you.

These messages arrived on my smartphone at 19:49, long after the Westminster traffic warden had issued the parking ticket. And what can “Send LOCATION DURATION CVV eg 7002 10 123” possibly mean to a human intelligence? And why should I want to park, then change my car’s numberplate?

I spoke to “Michelle”, working  at Westminster’s parking bureau at 17:19, and expressed my dissatisfaction and confusion at the complexity of the system. She solved the problem by putting me through to an automated voicemail system.The parking payment system Westminster has installed is Byzantine in its complexity; far too intricate to operate reliably. By not getting their text messages until two hours after I had left the parking bay, I had no idea that any problem could have arisen.

I made every attempt to pay for my parking. It took me over 15 minutes standing by the car in the cold and wet to try and make the payment. The Westminster system made it so difficult that it was able to issue a £80 parking fine promptly after I had left the scene.

But then I guess that’s probably the whole point of it.

I went into hospital yesterday for a minor procedure under general anaesthetic. I came out yesterday afternoon feeling woozy so thought it better that I didn’t go into work.

As a result this morning I’m dealing with accumulated emails,  tender documents (and tender bits of me), and picture sales when suddenly I notice that two of the image sales made so far this morning are photographs taken by me!

Now I may run a picture library, but I am not a photographer. I am a man with a camera, and not a great camera at that. My photos are adequate, but I am fully aware I don’t have the photographer’s eye. It’s like music or sport — you have it or you don’t. If you don’t, you can work on it and improve, but you’ll never be a Linda Wright, Lang Lang or Shane Williams. They started good and worked hard on getting even better. All I could do was make my photographs correctly exposed and straight and level. Then the answer is to photograph things people want to buy.

So two sales made before 11:30. Who know what the rest of the day may bring?

Or maybe they’d heard about my op and were taking pity on me?