31 MAY 2021

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Article from BTNews 31 MAY 2021

AND FINALLY: Dominic Cummings – Have you read this?


Outside England’s Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot for 150 cars and eight buses. For 25 years, its parking fees were managed by a very pleasant attendant.

The fees for cars £1.40, for buses about £7.

Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing a day of work, he just didn't show up; so the zoo management called the city council and asked it to send them another parking agent. The council did some research and replied that the parking lot was the zoo's own responsibility. The zoo advised the council that the attendant was a city employee. The city council responded that the lot attendant had never been on the city payroll.

Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain, or France, or Italy, is a man who'd apparently had a ticket booth installed completely on his own and then had simply begun to show up every day, commencing to collect and keep the parking fees, estimated at about £560 per day – for 25 years. Assuming seven days a week, this amounts to just over £4.9m. And no one even knows his name!

As reported in The Times.  And perhaps a little low ranking for the Cabinet Office.

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OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum


L. Stephen Davis, Toronto, Canada

It's an old story, first reported over twenty years ago!


Paul Kay, London, UK

..."I've got a 'Deck Chair' and a 'Fold Up Table'...I'm now sitting at the entrance to 'Heathrow Tunnel'....


Tony Hesketh-Gardener,

I did not know that what I sent you had appeared in The Times. Hence no credit!!


Sylvia Simms, London

Cummings should have gone after his Barnard Castle trip to check his eyesight. I suppose he is now writing a book. “Downing Street, the True Story” and making sure he keeps the film rights. Who plays Cummings?


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