Park your eyes here

One of the first things you notice when you move to StinkTown Canberra is that you have to pay for parking. Everywhere.

If, like me, you've come from Sydney where pay-parking is normally charged at a rate of about $15.00 per hour, this is likely to give you a mild heart attack at first.

And, if you're also like me in that you're remarkably stingey good with money, you'll also spend your first month in Canberra parking in the street, 5 blocks from where you're going, to avoid what you think will be a $50 parking bill.

Then you discover that the most you're likely to pay is about $1.00 per hour.

Ah Canberra, so like the 1980s in so many ways.

Anyway, this of course means we Canberra residents have the joy of collecting a wee ticket upon entry to each car park and revelling in the delights of temperamental ticket machines and booths.

A machine once swallowed my money and refused to validate and return my parking ticket. I pressed the 'help' button and the responding technician asked me if I had used "dirty money".

?

At the same car park I spotted this sign the other day:



So, you want me NOT to insert it correctly?

And you're telling me I should stop dipping my ticket in my cup of coffee, as is my normal routine these days?

Picky!