At the mayor-making ceremony last week, I made the mistake of parking on the seafront outside the White Rock. For anyone that hasn't had the misfortune of parking there, I'll warn you: it's 50p for 20 minutes, or £1.50 an hour.

It's not even a prime parking location - it's nowhere near the town centre. Who are they dissuading form parking there - theatre goers?

The 6pm cut-off point for paying for parking in Hastings town centre was sensible. Extending it by two hours is just ridiculous. So now I have to pay for parking when I go to council meetings that start at 6pm, and going to the cinema if it starts at 8pm or before.

Perhaps the best value car park is the multi-storey behind ESK. It's also open until 11pm, which is useful, if you're a man and can defend yourself.

Frankly, you've as much chance of finding me wandering around those grotty stairwells at 10.30pm of an evening as you have of me standing in the town centre at 1am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning wearing a t-shirt saying rape-me-now.

I'd love to meet the man behind the latest Hastings parking brainstorm. Maybe we can put him in stocks at the Carnival and throw things at him?

But, more than that, I'd like to meet the Pay And Display Ticket Machine Inventor. The only vending machine that does not take £2 coins! The only vending machine that does not give change! The only vending machine that conks-out in bad weather!

I can put a £2 coin in a can machine, out in all weathers, on London Bridge station, and get my drink, and the correct change. This would marvel Pay And Display Inventor Man.

When you manage to get two £1 coins together and put them in the machine on a rainy day, the machine will, without fail, eat your money, and not give you a ticket. I've only been driving six months, and this has happened to me countless times.

When you call the council to report it they assure you they won't send the parking inspectors to that car park, and you spend the whole time in the fear of God that the council worker you spoke to is not as incompetent as they sound.

It's now a fact that parking anywhere in Hastings is a complete lottery, and it's one I'm not happy about playing.