Four councils, four parking apps, one hour

Drove to see the grandkids. Three suburbs, three different parking apps, each wanting a new account, a password with a capital letter and a feeling in my heart. I missed the first ten minutes of the school concert to a loading spinner.

There used to be a meter. You put in a coin. It was, and I cannot stress this enough, a solved problem. Now every council has its own app, its own surcharge, and its own way of failing in the rain.

I don’t want to download my way around my own city. One app, one login, every car park — is that genuinely too much to ask, or am I shouting at a cloud again?