THANK you to the readers who backed my fight against TV licences. But there is something I loathe just as much the pay and display car park.

It is an abomination in a civilised soci-ety and an affront to every law-abiding citizen.

Every motorist has been there.

You park your car, work out roughly how long you need to stay and then pay accordingly for a ticket.

But, you get delayed and find yourself rushing back, feeling like a criminal just because you've stayed for one minute more than you've predicted.

And we all know who the most efficient bunch of people are in High Wycombe, don't we?

Yes, the town centre parking attendants.

If their devotion to duty and sheer clockwork reliability was transferred to other services, we'd have the best trains, best buses, best waste disposal and best soccer team in the country.

They should play in the field for the England cricket team.

Because, unlike our cricketers, the parking crew catch anything near them.

Of course, that's good news if they are enforcing sensible parking restrictions that will clear town centres of obstructive traffic and free up spaces needed for other motorists.

But it never really works out that way, does it?

I constantly find the road blocked by smug law-breakers who sit there idling on yellow lines for what seems like hours. They never seem to get done, unlike the poor saps who inadvertently over stay their time on meters or in pay-and-display bays.

Most annoyingly, the law is a nonsense for most of the time.

Take Saturday. I parked in Dovecote, outside Sainsbury's, High Wycombe, and paid £2 for the maximum of four hours parking.

The aim, quite laudable, is that motorists don't stay there any longer than four hours so that more people can use the shopping car park.

But what happens when you run out of time?

You're not allowed to repark because that's against the rules, and there's nowhere nearby to go after a big shop.

We had spent the afternoon in the town centre before returning to Sain-sbury's with what seemed like plenty of time before the ticket expired.

But a few tomatoes here and a few organic apples there, and suddenly the seconds began to ebb away.

To my horror, with about 15-20 minutes left, I found myself confronted with unexpectedly large queues.

The minutes ticked away as I stood there huffing and puffing and looking at my watch.

There were several choices: risk a fine by carrying on regardless; try to cheat the system by illegally buying a new tic-ket before sneakily reparking in another spot in the car park and hoping no one would notice; drive away and leave Mrs Editor's Chair to cope with an enormous shopping basket; or simply abandon the entire trolley and come again another day.

Here I was, a perfectly law-abiding taxpayer, perspiring like a wanted man as my four hours finally ran out.

My only crime was poor time prediction and choosing a busy shopping hour, but the jobsworth rules turned me into a desperado.

And the irony was it was 6.30pm and the car park was half empty, meaning there was no real reason why I should be banned from buying another parking ticket.

Eventually, we made it back to the car about two minutes late and found to my shock that we'd gotten away with it, probably because it was so late.

I don't like breaking the rules, though, and I was tempted to drive to Wycombe District Council to confess I'd just committed a major felony.

But then no one would have believed me anyway. I can hear them now: "What, you overparked in High Wycombe and didn't get a fine? Don't make me laugh sir, that's impossible."