David Fitzgerald: A king's ransom in parking?

Five hundred years in a car park in Leicester is a fairly stiff clamping policy, even by today's standards.

But it will be nice to see Richard III getting out and about once again.

He has had a lot of bad publicity thanks to Shakespeare and the truth about him will probably be lost for ever.

What we do know is that he lasted for only 26 months on the throne and took the rampant white boar as his symbol, so I assume in those 26 months he watched a lot of Top Gear programmes.

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It has been a quiet week in the FitzGerald family household apart from the alarming discovery of two aerosol cans in Ratboy's bedroom.

Being 18 and gorgeous, he applies hairspray and gel as Devon Highways would apply tarmac to the A38. A simple five minute trip to the shops can involve twenty minutes of spraying and preening and then the careful application of after shave which could mask the smell of Grimsby.

After one such session, the front door slammed and I made the mistake of entering his bedroom without a respirator or a canary.

Dropping to the floor for fresher air, I groped my way towards the window and then knelt in whatever dinner was last night.

Having successfully ventilated the pit, I then discovered the two cans of spray.

One assured me that it offered a firm hold on flyaway hair, the other, invisible protection for suede, leather and fabric against water and oil penetration!

He had used a can of shoe and boot protector which had been forced on me when I last purchased some brogues.

Yep, Ratboy wandered off with a scuff resistant, waterproof head.

I can't really criticize, years ago while fumbling round a darkened kitchen, I found what I assumed was a bag of muesli, added milk and munched my way through several ounces of John Innes potting compost number 3.

And my mother-in-law still blushes when I remind her that she wandered into Plymouth and tried to make a call home on the remote control to the television. Maybe it is hereditary?

But for the prize for the ultimate misuse of modern items in my family, has to go to my cousin who went off on his travels around Italy when he left school.

After two weeks he found himself a little short of money and started to shop in supermarkets watching every penny. He soon married up low cost packets of French toast like biscuits and tiny tins of pate, two of the cheapest items in the store.

He managed two weeks on this diet. It wasn't till he got talking to a girl in Rome, who could read Italian that he discovered that he had been living off cat food with an anti fur ball ingredient.

He did admit that he threw up that evening but I have to hand it to the Italian cat food industry, he never suffered fur balls.

Chow

Fitz