Not The Annoyingly Trivial Things-Bitches be cray cray week.

Even as clampers go, this NCPS employee on a power trip needs to be brought to heel, and the private clamping company NCPS given more than their usual mickey mouse fines for being arrant bastards.

The nameless, faceless clamper from NCPS in the Luas car park in Stillorgan refused to unclamp a 79-year-old man because he didn't write 0 for his car registration, 08, but wrote o (how many people pronounce the 0, nought/zero, in their phone number as o, owe, the letter? Most people, I'd wager). As if you could have a car with the year o8. This is far beyond stupid. This is malice, this is a power trip by a nobody against an elderly man. The man had paid the correct fee and had returned to his car in time. However:

“but when the clamper arrived he refused to do so and phoned the office to say there was a further error, which was that the nought was not a correct nought!”

Apparently there is a right and a wrong way to write a zero. Who knew? Certainly not poor William, who was to be fined for writing 08 incorrectly, a development he described as mind boggling. The bottom line was that William had no choice but to pay the €80 fine to get his car back. “It was a most distressing incident, and I doubt if he will be using that parking again,” Nance writes. “Prior to this you only had to enter your parking-space number, which was much simpler.”

Reader’s Query: My 79-year-old husband bought a ticket. So why was he clamped?

Pure, unadulterated bastardism by these hired hands of NCPS, who depend entirely upon this state for these contracts (in this case, Luas, a state body, is directly responsible for giving them this contract). That guy on the Marian Finucane show back in 1998 on day 1 of clamping was 100% right with his comparison. (not a single google result for that memorable interview, though.)