You are Noel Edmonds and I claim my prize!

The quantum physicist and Manhattan Project veteran, Richard Feynman, in his seminal 1959 talk "there's plenty of room at the bottom", the talk that gave birth to the concept of Nanotechnology, offered two prizes. The one for an electric motor less than 1/64 of an inch was won within a year, but the other -"take the information on the page of a book and put it on an area 1/25,000 smaller in linear scale" wasn't achieved until the mid 1980s, when some PhD student took time off their thesis to use the Scanning Tunneling Electron Microscope to lay down a bit of Dickens in very few atoms. There are some interesting lessons there.

One: any technology which can be defeated by a skilled person with access to electron microscopes or similar technology only needs an investment of slightly more than the hourly income of a PhD student with access to the aforesaid technology. If the person with the 4am shift on "The Beam" or "The Facility" earns $10/hour, you only need to pay $20/hour for them and the machine time. Make the problem more interesting than a thesis and they may do it for free.

Two: really interesting awards take a while to be earned.

We are reminded of this by a comment by Old Holborn on our this site is not a spoof posting, a comment that provided hard proof that Noel Edmonds is still alive, and driving round the bus lanes in a car that is not an official Bristol taxi.

Having got over the shock of Noel E's continued existence, we think this is good. It ensures that all of us tax payers -including payers of TV license fees- are not held up by Noel Edmond in the taxpaying lanes of our streets. It also ensures that Noel has a future career, with the main capital investment -the motor- out of the way.

But it does worry us that we have another Tier-2 TV personality on our streets to deal with, and it reminds us of our challenge to readers from the spring: to find a photo of Carol Voerderman taking full advantage of our city's parking opportunities. The thought that our regional champion of unrestricted parking is now joined by a Noel Edmonds' one-man stand against bus-lanes chills us. How long before the entire daytime-TV-presenter portfolio of the South-West ends up on our streets, in our bus-lanes, parking on our zebra-crossings with the hazard lights on?

Someone needs to monitor this, and as the data-driven, evidence-based, metrics-centric traffic monitoring site of Bristol, the job falls to us and our many correspondents.

We have already been looking for a photo of Carol V., now we are creating the Official Bristol-Traffic-TV-hasbeen-Award. We will buy a pint of beer from the Cornubia pub (maximum price £3) to whoever sends to bristol.traffic at gmail dot com new photos of Carol or Noel pootling round the city. For Noel, we will double this to two pints of beer (maximum total price £6) if they bring his fake taxi's wing-mirror (which must have been detached from the vehicle on the road, not while parked). We will issue an award of equivalent value if you can get a video of Noel getting really frustrated at the bike in front of his fake taxi pootling along at 10 mph in the bus lane. If he goes over into road-rage, we will not award anything, as we do not endorse violence. However, if Noel Edmonds does end up being put away for a number of years from a road-rage we will at least celebrate his absence from the second-tier sky and freeview channels.

There is no hard deadline for the submissions; the award will be issued once the criteria has been met. However, the ceremony will be timed to be on the same date as a scheduled Bristol Cycling Campaign meeting (first Thursday of the month, apparently), so as to guarantee an audience.

So let's keep an eye out there for Noel E in a taxi cab -it's worth beer!

corner parking offences competition

There are two topics for the next few weeks photo contributors to keep a special eye on.

• Carol Voerderman parking in Clifton or elsewhere, especially somewhere she shouldn't, like outside the Tesco mini-mart.
• Cars not just parked on a corner, but going for a set of extra violations.

To begin then, the Fiat Punto X352DEP

1. corner parked
2. a long way from the corner
3. sticking out into the road
4. having possibly just driven down a one way street

That puts the count at: four. This part of Fremantle Square, incidentally, is outside the proposed RPZ, so the vehicle will be able to continue parking this way even as a non-resident.

contributions that equal or better this to bristol.traffic at gmail dot com.

Road Politeness

Road rage stories make the press, so its nice to see people being polite.

Here is a car HN06ZGG that has moved two dustbins and some bags of scaffolding so they'd have somewhere to park in Kingsdown.

Clearly the builder trying to work there is inconvenienced. But do they get upset? Do they get abusive. No, they leave a nice polite note on the windscreen

Many thanks for parking over driveway and moving bags, but we need access to driveway for parking as working in No3, Any problems knock on door. Thanks.

That is the politest such note yet encountered. Spring must be making everyone feel goodwill towards others.

The next evening, they are defending the driveway with a collection of potted plants.

One of the big arguments about making this street in Kingsdown residents only is that it would be expensive to have builders round. Compared to having to mark out a space in potted plants and still run the risk of someone taking it, that cost may be acceptable to residents. And it will stop that Carol Voerderman coming round to use the Laundrette just round the corner.

Rebel with a cause

Being a celebrity gives you power. Your statements get press, your picture gets recognised worldwide. This is why so many celebrities take up the global pressing campaigns once they become known. Bono: poverty. Sharon Stone: middle east peace. Richard Gere: war.

What about Bristol. Well, we have one problem (ignoring the collapse of the financial system, the running out of north sea oil and other national issues). That problem is traffic: the congestion, the impact of the life of the locals, the impact it has on life in and near the city. Which is why we are so greatful that Carol Vorderman, Bristol's local celebrity, has come out against resident parking.

It must have been a tough choice. There are so many issues in the world. A skilled mathematical celebrity could have gone on air to explain how quantitive easing helped Japan recover from the lost decade, how that the conventional armaments of central government to trigger economic activity -lowering interest rates and cutting taxes- had failed, and that desperate measures were needed. Or she could have explained how uncontrolled population growth was the root cause behind so many problems, from peak oil to deforestation, and that unless we did something there there was bad news ahead. But no, Carol stayed true to the city, looked at what matters here, and came out against resident parking.

Because the right to park your car badly wherever you can get it close to a clifton coffee shop is one of the great freedoms of the city. More than, that -it is what makes Britain so British. The government may be tracking all car movements, wanting to tap into every entry you make in facebook, or detain people it doesn't like without any need for a trial. As long as the core freedoms of the island are retained -and parking wherever you like is one of them- Britain will stay free.

That doesn't mean that people can ignore rules willy-nilly. Below, is a picture of a small child cycling along a path in the downs that bans cycling. That is not British. There are no cycling signs that have been there for many decades, and they should be respected. We are talking about parking, which is a right.

Ever since the Romans built the country's first real roads, important people in big vehicles have been parking where they like -and the little people on the roadside have complaining about the experience. They didn't respect their Roman masters then -they don't respect their tier-2 celebrities today, and how much such people benefits the city. Without people like Carol Vorderman to speak up for us on ITV2 daytime TV talk shows, nobody would know anything of our city other than it is near where the M5 clogs up on your drive to the South West.

We in Bristol Traffic welcome Carol's involvement in this issue and are glad that she has correctly recognised what the true issues are. In order to recognise her contribution, we would welcome any photographs of Carol parking n Bristol. We are also considering the possibility of campaigning for a directly elected mayor for this city, with Carol Vorderman being the official Bristol Traffic candidate for the post. She has the vision this city needs!

Parking or turning?

Lovely bit of traffic calming here. As you approach, you cannot tell if it is a car pulling in aggressively or someone just parked. This forces caution, more than the dashed-give-way hints ever do.

It is only once you get close you see that WV070PW is parked, and therefore not a risk

Weekday mornings, Clifton. This is the part of the city where Carol Voerdeman is complaining that some essential freedom would be lost were it ever to embrace residents parking. Yes! the right to park with one wheel just about near a corner in a german car is an essential part of Britishness. We must stand up and fight the oppressive state now, lest this right becomes something whose loss we can only mourn!