The man behind the counter at the Motor Vehicle Licencing Centre dwarfed the glass partition that separated us. He was as skinny as he was tall, with a flap of dark, wavy hair plastered across his forehead. His moustache was fringed with grey. As he strained to staple a wodge of documents, I stood meekly on the wrongful side of the counter. He nodded and I slid my offending paperwork towards him and waited. He glanced up at the clock on the wall, sighed and turned to face me with the nettled expression of someone whose job it is to be civil to miscreants.

“Yes?”

I pleaded my case. “I think there’s been a mistake,” I said. “I got this letter last week saying you’re going to suspend my driver’s licence. But you can’t lose your licence for driving at 72 in a 70-zone on a highway can you?

He studied my papers.

“You can when it’s a 60-zone.”

Despair tightened in my gut.