How to parallel park, by a man standing on the pavement shouting instructions

YOU can fit it in that gap easy! Yeah, bags of room. Here, you reverse it in and I’ll stand here shouting judgments disguised as help:

Step one: Listen to me

Back a bit, mate. Little bit more. Yeah, I’ve parked enough cars and helped out enough, mainly female, drivers to know how the laws of reversing and repositioning work. You’d better heed me or risk mounting the kerb with my full vocal disapproval.

Step two: Look at me

In your mirror. In your mirror. I’m aiding your manoeuvre by making a series of increasingly frantic hand, arm and even leg gestures. If you don’t look at me then no way will you achieve parking excellence, nor see me getting increasingly red in the face and rolling my eyes knowingly at other motorists.

Step three: Thank me

You’ll have to go forward and do that again. And when someone publicly teaches you something you should already know, the correct response is not to slam your car door and call them a ‘tosser’ as you walk away. I’m like a modern day knight of the B-road and while I am not in it for the thanks, I am not not in it for the thanks.

Step four: Respect me

That’ll have to do. Not straight though. A shout-out on social media’s welcome, as is a reverential bow, but I’m happy if you to remember me and have my mocking, disdainful voice in your head every time you try to park. Live in fear of the day you meet me on another pavement in another town. I’ll be there, ready to bellow.

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The enemies you're allowed to have as an adult

DO you gather strength from your hatred of others, but should have grown out of it by now? Here are enemies you’re officially allowed to have as an adult:

Your lazy delivery driver

Whether he’s taking liberties with the meaning of ‘secure location’ or knocks so weakly you need pin-sharp hearing to detect it, you’re entitled to despise him. Nothing against the profession: he personally is an awful, antagonistic bastard determined to stop you getting your dandruff shampoo.

A brother-in-law

You can’t hate every member of your family – you’d never get anything done – but nobody likes a brother-in-law. They’re not blood, they brag about their cars, they drink your beer and they’re knocking off your sister. Hiss when they approach.

Your neighbour’s cat

Hating your neighbour was fine pre-pandemic but these days seems churlish. Hating their pet, who digs up your pot plants to shit in them, comes from a place of maturity. It’s definitely about the plants, you’re not just taking out your anger on the nearest living thing.

The colleague who sends emails at midnight

Any colleague is a fine target for your righteous ire, but those without self-control or any understanding of business hours are best. Once they’ve wheedled your help with a presentation at 3am you can point out Fifty Shades of Grey on the shelf behind them in the next Zoom meeting guilt-free.

War criminals/terrorists/nuclear bombs

If you really think you’re above having a petty enemy who frustrates your life in small ways, be one of those self-righteous pricks who claims they don’t hate anyone they know, just Hitler and concepts like ‘greed’. God, those smug holier-than-thou bastards who insist they have no enemies. You can hate them too, actually.

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