I well remember Irwin Drugs on the corner of 17th Avenue and 8th Street S.W., way back after we arrived in Calgary, and I was selling advertising for The Albertan newspaper – a noble occupation. Commenting on the cost of drugs, the owner said, “It’s bad enough being sick without having to pay for it.”
That memory came back to me on reading of the increase in parking at hospitals.
It’s bad enough worrying about a loved one that needs treatment without having to pay to visit them or take them for consultation.
I have to take my wife to the South Health Campus on a fairly regular basis. Last week I had to roam around looking for a space in its vast parkade, and then cough up $13.50 as one never knows how long one will be.
Pity those who have to park on a regular basis.
And the volume would suggest that the revenue far exceeds many of the downtown lots that are only half full.
Why the need for an increase?
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Yet, there must be a lot of money around. People are able to travel to Vancouver from here and pay $2,000 per ticket to go see Taylor Swift. But that doesn’t compare with the amount of money doled out on gambling as billions were recorded betting on the Super Bowl.
And gambling must be an acute disease in the UK as Denise Coates, the founder of BET365, was paid £270 million in 2023. Her company has 7,200 employees.
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Better to be genuinely employed like Ronnie Wood of Rolling Stones fame who earns $1 million a year from sales of his paintings.
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Had an interesting column by American opinion columnist Pamela Paul passed on to me about returned items purchased online, particularly clothes.
It appears that some will order an item of different colours and sizes and return most or all of them. Sellers simply don’t have the time to inspect for repackaging so often they are just dumped, ending up in landfills. Helping fashion become the third-most-polluting industry after construction and food.
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What’s in a name? Plenty as I have discovered in trying to separate myself from my namesake. Be assured that this David Parker is not the same person as the offensive Take Back Alberta mouthpiece.
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Back to my favourite topic of communications.
Companies need to make it as easy as possible for potential clients to reach them. So, why would you run a full-page advertisement offering suites in a residential tower without mentioning the street address? And a website that asks me to fill in my details before a company will talk to me means I no longer want to talk to them.
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People complain to me about TV commercials that are hard to understand and therefore not doing their job. An exception is the one showing cute, flopping-around Labrador pups that easily draw attention to the need to support CNIB guide dogs.
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Final Words: The best thing about travel is that it teaches which are the places that are not worth seeing.
