Today the highwaymen are gone only to be replaced with a far more ruthless and relentless lot, the traffic warden! And where they go misery is sure to follow.

Yes you guessed it, I got a ticket! And a very expensive one it was too.

I set down in an inviting spot on the edge of the park in Kneller Road, without realising that it is a residents permit area. I was oblivious to a sign advertising that fact (admittedly a small one) and pottered off unawares.

Less than half an hour later I spotted a humourless bloke in dark glasses and a riot police-style helmet dishing out tickets. Fear and panic gripped me and I ran back to the car only to find... to my horror... the sickening sight of a yellow parking ticket.

Now I've had a couple of parking tickets in the past, although thankfully not too many, and I expected to be hit with a fine of £40 or £60 reduced to half if paid within 14 days.

So I almost fell over when I read that the fine for this momentous offence was a whopping £120!

I know residents need and deserve to park close to their homes, but this was an honest mistake and the punishment seemed to me to be totally out of proportion to the crime.

In the end I was able to pay the lesser amount of £60 within 14 days but even then, this it's still a fair dent in a monthly budget when you've got a mortgage and two kids to support, plus bills and all the other expenses involved with a home.

Moreover where are people supposed to leave there cars if they want to use the park? There is nowhere that I could see and I telephoned Richmond Council and they weren't able to tell me the proper place to park either.

So the choice seems to be to park some distance away (probably outside somebody else's house) and walk, or only use the park if you live very close, or park illegally and cop for the fine.

Speaking of which, I asked Richmond Council whether it would agree that its £120 fines are exorbitant. Its spokesman denied that it was profiteering at the public's expense and said that this is a standard charge across London.

I've also heard on the grapevine that traffic wardens are particularly vociferous on rugby days (Murray Park being a mile and a half from Twickenham stadium) when I got caught on May 30th.

So everyone, unless you want to dole out your hard-earned money to Richmond Council heed my cautionry tale and be careful where you park!

Writing in this week's Surrey Herald, the Runnymede & Weybridge MP reveals the Commons are in a state of paralysis, with politicians of all creeds obsessing about the next Daily Telegraph revelations about their expenses, and the realisation has dawned that all MPs - innocent, guilty or guiltier - are tarred.

Until recently if you'd asked me what the chances are of Mr Hammond, or neighbouring Tory MPs David Wilshire and Ian Taylor, losing their seats at the next election, I would have answered "zero". But in light of the current mood sweeping the nation it looks like all bets are off.

I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that if you work in London and are required to work late at night, followed by an early start the next morning, it makes sense to stay overnight in the Capital, preferably as close to Westminster as possible.

But that should not mean that MPs are in some way entitled to a free home on the state. Because surely if your monthly mortgage payments are paid for by the taxpayer, meaning you never have to dip your hand in your pocket, other than perhaps for furnishings (and much of these - as we've seen - are claimable), and in time that mortgage is paid off, you've effectively received a free home. Under the current system MPs own that home and are free to sell it and bank the profits... regardless of whether they've paid for it or not.

I don't know about you but that doesn't sound right to me. Where is the difference between this 'legal' freeloading and the benefit cheats who are exposed with semi-regularity in the pages of our newspaper?

If a politician is elected to Parliament they know they are going to be there for four to five years (or more if re-elected) and if they want to buy a second home they should get a mortgage like anyone else. And they should pay for that mortgage out of their own pocket like anybody else. If they do that and they make a profit when they sell the second home I don't think most people would begrudge that. But MPs are - for the moment at least - in the enviable position of being able to sell a home, that you and I paid for, and keeping the profit. That surely is not right.

Which is why I'm pleased to see Philip Hammond acknowledging that very point in his column and declaring that he will repay any profits from the sale of his London home, which arise out of the part of his mortgage paid by the taxpayer.

That is a good start, although whether it's enough to quell local anger I don't know. Many may wonder why he felt it necessary to claim any taxpayer money for his London home in the first place, especially given that he is a wealthy man.

His argument is that it is about equity - why should another MP claim if he can't? - has a certain logic, but this is about raw angry emotion on the part of voters and a smart argument or blaming it on the system won't wash anymore.

I believe Philip Hammond to be a savvy chap and a good judge of the public mood. His guesture to pay back money for his second home (when he sells) may be enough to diffuse a lot of the anger locally, and his 12,349 majority would take a lot to overturn. So unless the are other skeletons in the expenses cupboard that we've yet to hear about, I suspect he'll survive.

As for Esher & Walton MP Ian Taylor, who is losing support among his own party faithful, and David Wilshire whose homes and travel expenses have angered his electorate, I'm not so sure.

It may be that - despite Conservatives calling for an immediate General Election - the best hopes of individual politicians lies with Gordon Brown delaying the poll until summer next year, by which time the political storm may have abated and Daily Telegraph might possibly have run out of front page revelations.

Many are the dentists they have kept in business over the years and quite a few friends and colleagues can testify to having lost fillings to these sticky menaces in their youth. Me too, which is why I really should have known better over the bank holiday weekend.

I enthusiastically recalled a day around about 1983/4 when, as a boy of nine or 10, I opened the front door to see one of my friends from my street standing there grinning. "Look at this" he exclaimed, and suddenly a car-numberplate sized chew bar in blue wrapping encompassed my field of vision.

It was the biggest chew bar I'd ever seen and Mr Patel's shop (in Heath Road, Hounslow - yes it's still there) was selling them for 10p. A bargain I thought, and so began the first of many purchases.

Anyway I was telling my partner of my surprise to see these bars still on sale at our local shop in Molesey, except now they are considerly smaller and a shadow of their former self. I decided to buy one to show her, and also for the nostalgia of it.

They used to be famed for having crunchy bits in them, but now the bits are nearly all vanished, presumably to keep the cost to a minimum. So I'm eating this bar and suddenly I thought, there's a crunchy bit in this sweet after all.

Oh dear. It's not the sweet at all, but part of my front tooth! In childhood I broke my tooth by being in the wrong place when somebody swung a tennis racquet, but I'd had it filled and that filling had been happily in its place for 25 years...

No longer. So now I'm feeling foolish that as a grown man of 35, with two children, I'm still a) eating Wham! bars, and b) losing fillings to them!

Thank goodness to those able professionals at Abbeymead dentists in Chertsey who repaired the damage a couple of days later. Their £45 fee seemed a small price to pay to feel normal again, but in hindsight that could be the most expensive chew bar I ever bought. Perhaps I'll stay off them in future... for a while at least.

It clearly wasn't a friend or acquaintance and with number starting 0800 I suspected it may be a company ringing me at work to sell me something. There's never a good time for such things but while you're at work it can be particularly annoying.

But what if it was something important? The only way to know is to answer the call isn't it? Wrong! There is another way.

There I was able to find out (by way of comments from other web users) that the number belongs to Orange and they are selling home broadband, something I already have and am perfectly happy with, incidentally.

But I thought I'd share the site with you so that you too can avoid annoying sales calls. Good luck! Now it's back to work for me.... more soon.

http://whocallsme.com/

It's been an eventful two months for all of us at the Surrey Herald & News as we've restructured and reorganised ourselves to ride out the current economic storm.

What's new? Read on.

Subbing and page layout for all of our paid for and free newspapers (roughly 20 titles) is now being done at our Chertsey office in Eastworth Road. Previously this was handled at several offices in Surrey, Buckinghamshire and Middlesex.

For those of us already in Chertsey it has meant lots of new faces and a much livelier news environment. On the downside the tea and coffee is diminishing quicker.

We've found space for all the newcomers by moving our advertising department to Uxbridge (with the exception of field sales reps) and reporters have been turfed out of the office onto their patches. They have been equipped with new laptops (finally escaping the antiquated but much loved Apple Macs we used) and can now work remotely and file stories faster.

They are now called Multimedia Journalists as they are no longer just writing for newspapers - a big part of our news coverage is happening on the web, where we can post news as soon as it breaks.

The traditional editor's job has been scrapped! Mike Hawkins, the former editor, is now responsible for the production of all the papers in the group, and much of his old role is now in the hands of a Multimedia Content Manager - Suzy Talbot. She's managing the reporters, driving the news agenda and representing the Herald & News in the community.

As for me? I'm still uploading and editing stories for the Herald & News websites, but now I have the Hounslow Chronicle site to look after and responsibility for 'user generated content'. UGC may not be a term you're familar with - in fact it's unfamiliar to many of long term staff here - but it encompasses anything contributed by readers.

This can be pictures, such as all the wonderful pics we received during February's snow, to story tip offs, forum comments and bloggers. It's my job to ensure we're making use of all this great stuff and encouraging readers to interact and get the most out of these sites.

So it's all busy, busy, busy. Hard work but (so far) good fun.

Her boyfriend of several years, Rob, popped the question while they were in Munich at the weekend. But Nat felt a bit awkward about making a big announcement to the busy newsroom, so motormouth (me) stood up and told everyone.

And it transpires she's eligable to marry at St Paul's Cathedral because her dad has an MBE. However with grand surroundings comes the equally grand pricetag: It'll cost £1,600 just for the church and with organist bills etc on top apparently.

I'm told this is about three or four times as expensive as tieing the knot at a 'regular' church.

"So St Paul's is out then," said one of our colleagues upon hearing about the £1,600+. "No" said Natalie, laughing. So I'd expect her to be doing a lot of car boot sales and cake baking for the forseeable future.

Apparently the question was popped at Neuschwanstien Castle in Bavaria, which sounds idyllic but for all the tourists milling around.

I'd be interested to hear from readers about where they either proposed/or were proposed to, and more importantly, did it go to plan? Post a comment below.

Yes, I recently became a dad again and having chosen a name based on the outcome of a Formula One race, I'm now paying my dues to fatherhood. The little man has been sleeping in the day and staying awake for hours in the night.

And needless to say I'm knackered!

But last night something magical happened.... a snoozing baby. Bliss.

It's all thanks to a cosy new sleepbag which we bought on Monday. It kept Lewis nice and toasty and inclined to sleep. So now I'm thinking he must have been cold and was feeding more to keep up his body warmth.

Not that the house is particularly chilly, but there you are. This parenting is a learning process and hopefully wisdom is coming to me in dripfeed fashion.

Anyway, today I'm feeling a little more refreshed which is just as well, as a fresh newsweek is dawning.

Reporters Emma Heseltine, Adam Courtney and Ed Saunt are revising for their senior exams - which take place in Newcastle on Tuesday, and sub editors Mark Lundrigan and Mort Smith are off today to brush up on media law.

However the business of reporting the news goes on and it means those of us left with have to muddle through.

Yesterday Vicki Eltis and I were at the Brooklands FM studio above Cosmic in Station Road, Addlestone, to review the weeks Herald & News papers. Vicki has always wanted to try her hand at broadcasting and was very nervous, but I think the programme went well and afterwards she was elated to have done it.

The latest programme will be online here until October 30th.

Another staple fixure of Wednesdays at this newspaper are our weekly team meetings. Reporters meet the news editor to discuss what's coming up (story-wise) for the week and ways the stories should be covered.

Until May this year I was the news editor for the Chertsey and Walton teams and used to preside over one of these meetings. Now it's done, more efficiently I might add, by Natalie Cambrook, who replaced me as news editor when I shifted sideways to manage the websites.

We've a few big court cases this week: there's Mark Malone, the Walton man accused of fatally stabbing a gay man in the toilets by Walton Bridge (he denies it). And Alan Jermey, partner of 34-year-old Kirsty Wilson, is accused of murdering her at their Woking home. His trial is due to begin on Friday.

Apart from that we're also hoping to chat to a woman from Addlestone who's doing humanitarian work on the Thailand border and an X-Factor producer. There are other irons in the fire but I'm sworn to secrecy, in case I tip off rival papers.

As is sometimes the case a slightly bizarre comment from reporter Mark Goode just sparked an equally bizarre discussion in the newsroom. It started out with a couple of people admitting they gave up being a vegetarian because of the uninspiring food options and finished with a discussion on the sort of disgusting stuff you'd eat if you were starving on a desert island.

It might be all hands to the pump for this skeleton crew but it's nice to know the banter survives. I'm expecting things to be hectic as Tuesday deadlines approach.

The professional right? Wrong! American NBA star Devin Harris had been signing autographs in Stockwell, London, when he was challenged by 28-year-old Stuart Tanner from Elmbridge.

As Stuart says: "Devin looked at me in my jeans and jumper and probably thought I was no threat at all."

That might have been that except Stuart's brother recorded the showdown and it's since ended up on YouTube as one of the week's most watched videoes. At the time of writing the number of people who have viewed it is fast approaching four million.

That's quite something.

Anyway, Stuart versus Devin will be in this week's Walton & Weybridge Herald with pictures, and you can read what happened here. Make sure you watch the video too as it's a joy to behold.

I wondered what was going on: perhaps they had some top secret information to impart, or at least a juicy story of some sort. So we left the brightly lit council chambers and went down a dark and deserted corridor to an empty office.

Knowing journalists are not always the most popular of folk, I considered the possibility I might be in for a 'roughing'. I wracked my brains to think if I'd written anything particularly outrageous.

The old premises (I say old, but some of it was built as recently as the 80s) was falling apart they said. It was too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, and badly suited to the demands of a modern office, eg. for computer cabling etc. Clearly they'd fallen out of love with the old building and the question in front of them was whether refurbish, rent somewhere else, or cough up for a swanky new building.

They'd decided to splash the cash.

The case was straightforward they told me: renting is dead money, the refurb option was too expensive, but rebuilding from scratch would enable the council to create a modern and 'future proof' facility etc etc.

The plan was to flatten Addlestone Community Centre (next to the Civic Offices in Station Road), and move it to custom built premises in Garfield Road - a move which cost the council about £3m. Once the community centre had vacated there would be sufficient land next to the council's Station Road HQ to build a new civic offices, which it has since happened.

Looking at it objectively I could agree there was some merit to rebuilding. But on the other hand I was getting one-side of the argument and also had to wonder why councillors were sharing this information with me in the first place.

Clearly they felt they were making the right decision, but were concerned that the local electorate might agree with the Runnymede Labour group that a new building was a waste of money.

I did a street survey a week or two later, putting the various options and costs to people, and most had little or no sympathy for the council. They would have been quite happy to see the borough's civil servants staying put in clapped out offices and use the money for something else.

For what it's worth I made sure to put the arguments in my subsequent stories and let the readers decide. The Tories were miffed I was still giving column inches to Labour arguments despite them 'setting me straight' but it is not my place to take sides.

So anyway, if you've read this far, thanks for sticking with me. The reason I'm sharing all this is because the arguments put to me on that evening have come to the fore again this week.

On Friday our Chertsey reporter Rupert Basham spoke to John Furey, the leader of Runnymede Council, and asked him if the borough still hopes to make 'at least £5m' from the sale of the land housing the former Civic Offices as housing. I was told by the two councillors in 2005 that this influx of cash could replenish some of the £11.9m being spent on the new building.

Cllr Furey told the Herald this week that the sale is on track and there is no shortage of interest.

I hope it goes to plan but I can't help thinking the economic ground has shifted away from the council. I suspect developers are less keen to build homes now that its much harder for would-be buyers to obtain a mortgage.

So it may be that the council's award-winning new headquarters in Addlestone will be stuck with a derelict building next door for a while yet.

In the meantime see Rupert's story here