have you lot heard about the tiktoker whoâs taking on the actual government over a parking ticket? because sheâs a hero
her name is ZoĂ« Bread and she doesnât show her face, and sheâs a British artist whose videos are basically her fucking with people in harmless ways - like, asking retail workers if they want an âofficialâ picture of King Charles that is in fact a cartoon and filming their bewilderment (the person is never in the video; she films the floor and her shoes while sheâs doing this). she also calls up companies who have stuff like âcall us to talk about [X]!â written on their products to see if theyâll really talk to her about [X] and if the person at the call centre doesnât know (âfull unedited silenceâ is a feature in most of her videos), she will dig and dig until she finds someone who can. or, until she gets bored, which. fair. canât fault that.
Iâm currently trying to get a member of the british peerage to give me ÂŁ50 because weâre distant cousins. I appreciate her.
she travels around for these videos and one day she went to Manchester and parked on a road called Collier Street.
Collier Street has (or had, at the time) another car park at the end of it - the SIP car park. SIP is a private company that runs these. the signage on Collier Street indicated that the payment machine there was where youâre supposed to pay, so ZoĂ« and a fuckload of other people assumed that that was where you got the tickets. ZoĂ« put it on her car and went about fucking with whoever she decided to confuse today
she gets back to her car, has a parking ticket, and is confused
again - she paid for a ticket. she wasnât trying to get out of paying.
because sheâd bought a ticket from the machine that the SIP car park instead of the council run machine that is actually on a different road, sheâd been ticketed. and, rightly so, she contests it and the person at the council says that the rules are the rules and thereâs clear signage
Zoë: the signage is misleading
council: we donât believe it is
Zoë: well, I was misled
council: we believe the signage is adequate
ZoĂ«, being ZoĂ«, doesnât agree with this. she pulls up literal yearsâ worth of data on the history of that sign, the parking on the road, and the number of people who got ticketed. very early on, she says sheâs not actually bothered about her own ticket, but sheâs upset that people are being caught out and sees that itâs a money-making scheme for the council. she speaks to parking wardens, who mostly seem to agree that the signage is misleading. she has data. she calls them back. same response.
ZoĂ«, being an artist, makes her own sign. which she puts up below the official one. and then she waits to see how long it is before itâs taken down.
[note: there was a side quest sometime during this - it went on for months - where she put cones in the parking spaces. the council moved them onto the pavement/sidewalk. this made it inaccessible for wheelchair users, people with prams, other people who canât just move around them, which is illegal. so she called the council repeatedly to complain about the cones and monitored them until they were moved. this took ages - we are talking weeks.]
ZoĂ«âs sign gets taken down.
the signpost it was attached to, with the misleading sign, becomes a point of pilgrimage for British people who appreciate a good bit of humour with the intent of bullying the local government. it is COVERED in stickers.
her sign is taken down. the sign is not changed. more people get tickets.
[there was a second side quest, where ZoĂ« discovers that the SIP car park - the private one - doesnât have planning permission. she doesnât let this slide.]
not happy with this, ZoĂ« calls in to the local radio station. which has a Q&A with Andy Burnham. the Mayor of Manchester. she calls in and asks him about this. Andy Burnham says heâs taking her concern into consideration and will look into it, and get back to her if she calls in next week.
sheâs not put through next week.
she contacts his office.
no response.
she calls in again and brings it up.
[all this is happening while sheâs repeatedly ringing the council to ask them about it]
she has gone from âharmless tiktok pranksterâ to âcalling out government incompetenceâ. with a MASSIVE platform.
eventually, after her being interviewed by the BBC, Manchester City Council puts up a sign saying where the actual car park for Collier Street is (there is a running bit where a council worker misheard her and thought she said âCollyhurst Streetâ, which to my knowledge does not exist. ZoĂ« now exclusively refers to it as that, including in her radio appearance and on her phone calls)
she isnât done. she now has a petition to force the government to change vague signage. the government said no, all their signage is adequate. sheâs now fighting with them. in one of her most recent videos, she was on the phone with the House of Commons enquiry department trying to figure out how to contest it. sheâs brilliant.
anyway, this is why the art of Fucking About must never be lost. big up Zoë
