Over the weekend I drove out with my girlfriend to wilds of the North Downs near Dorking. I parked up in a car park at the foot of Box Hill, looking forward to the climb to the top. As I went to pay for the parking, I stopped short when I noticed that there was no payment machine. The only option was to pay by phone. This is something I've never done before, but was keen to try out to see how it compared to a regular coin payment machine - plus I didn't have much in the way of choice to pay any other way!
The stepping stones near the Car Park of Doom
The sign at the car park gave a phone number, and a location number - presumably so they knew what car park I'd parked in. I called the number, and was immediately connected to an automated voice recognition system. My heart sank as these are usually fine at recognising that there's a voice speaking to them, but not so great at figuring out what words the voice is saying...