Like Prince Charles, perhaps?

:p

Nope, we pay VAT (Value Added Tax = a tax on 'luxury items') on that too... and if you are a bird, you have to pay VAT on Tampons :o ...bet that was a bloke who reconed tampax was a luxury item and not a necessity :huh: same with contraceptives - if you're dumb and buy them anyways.

As far as paying to park in my own street goes, I already pay Road Tax to use the public highway to the tune of £180.00 per year so why (asside from filling my local councils coffers) should I pay more on top of that? Leicester City Council proposed a 'residents parking scheme' ostensibly to stop commuters and football fans from blocking all of the streets with their parked cars and preventing residents from parking in their own street. This is not such a big problem as they make out in all honetsy; in more than 10 years of living and working in this city in different areas, I have never had to walk more than 100yds from my car to the front door of where I live. Indeed most of the time I can see where I park from the front bedroom window (terraced house) which is fine for me.

The council wanted to charge an extra £70-100 annually for this residents parking thing. Given that my council tax (pays for local governement and facilities like the non-existant police force/fire brigade/binmen etc) is in the cheapest band in the city and I pay about £81.00 per month, which equates to £972.00 pa, the extra cost of residents parking will bloat my council tax bill to over £1000.00 pa :o:o
To put that figure into some kind of context that's not far short of a tenth of my annual income - my annual income after the inland revenue tax man has taken his share = about £3500.00 off my salary.

And ofcourse I have not even begun to describe the difficulties encountered when you want to arrange a temporary permit for somebody who wants to come and visit you and park in your street without getting either clamped or fined. I have a co-worker who scans and photoshops her permit and changes the details for anybody coming to visit her because of the hasle of merely getting to speak to somebody at the council to even get a temp permit - all of which must be done at least 24 hours in advance of somebody wanting to come and visit :nope:
You'd be supprised at the lengths most local and city councils will go to to inconvenience residents for the sake of scamming a few extra quid out of them. It beggars belief, it really does.

I'm not even British yet I also share your view. Sure Britain doesn't have the sun and beaches like my home country does but there are many great things to do and places to see in the UK. And the standard of living is pretty good too. :up:

Yeah its a good place to be but to find work is a nightmare, but there are alot of dumb things happening.

A traffic wardern came upto my dust cart last week she said "you have to move it or il put a fine on it" i kindly reminded her that we were a council viachle on council road on a council job, she was having none of it.

So i said please can you give me your name and number (ID number not phone number) she did once she handed me the paper i said ok now put a ticket on my lorry which again she did, i just replied " did you enjoy working for this company?" "what you mean?" " you wont be working for them for much longer now we have 4 guys on this lorry about to phone in for a complaint"

She got the hump and walked off and we havnt seen her since.

That's the way to do it Kap. :up: