If you run a new-car dealership this will make your eyes water. According to Automotive News, a GM dealership is Moscow is selling between 600 and 900 cars a MONTH. The UK average is 500 cars a year.

And apparently the profits are good, too. A UK dealer makes around 1 per cent on each new car, whereas their Russian counterparts regularly make between 3.5 and 4 per cent. It appears that Russian buyers are suckers for extras, which deliver a higher profit than the cars themselves. BMW has understood this principle from Day One.

The Russian dealers also make a decent margin on servicing, and many service departments stay open until 9 0’clock every evening, just to cope with the level of business. The Genser GM dealership – the 900 cars a month dealership – employs 200 people in its service department, which handles up to 180 cars a day.

When told by Automotive News of the average levels of sales in the UK, and the profit margins, Natalyia Ignatova, Sales Department Director of Genser, said: “You call that a business?”

A friend of mine tried to buy some brake spares for his middle-aged Citroen. The car’s about eight years’ old and so he went to his local ‘continental’ car spares outlet. They sold him the parts he needed and assured him they were correct for his particular make and model of car.

Except they weren’t - although he didn’t discover this until he’d stripped down the brakes on his car and rendered it un-driveable. So he walked back to the shop, where he was told the correct bits were on ‘back order’, and sorry about the mistake.

A week later, the shop rang him to say the parts were in. As they were, but not the correct bits. To cut an even longer story short, my friend eventually finished up at a breaker’s yard (or whatever they are nowadays called) and found precisely the bits he needed. Total time: 12 days.

His car obviously isn’t old enough. I also need a few small parts for my car, but mine is 61 years’ old: a 1947 MG. A quick flick through an online catalogue, a short ‘phone call, and next day the bits arrived. Total time: 18 hours.

I am not sure if that’s a triumph for the Internet, or for the classic-car business. Either way, it didn’t drive me spare.

I was surfing through some local government websites yesterday, looking for details of parking-fine revenues, when I came across this, and I quote:

‘From March 31st this year councils across England were empowered to use CCTV camera images to enforce parking fines. Prior to this ruling, parking tickets were only valid if placed on the vehicle or handed to the driver in person. The new regulations stipulate that CCTV cameras can be used only in areas where it is too “difficult or sensitive” for an attendant to operate, such as a fast-flowing road or a busy junction. Now, fines can be issued through the post up to 14 days after the alleged offence occurred.’

This is news to me, and I guess to most of you, too. So before you next dart into the newsagents or offy, don’t simply scan the vicinity for wardens – look up, and if you can see a camera, it can see you.

Check out the site in question for yourself: you will find it here. Has anyone been caught this way?