In Summer Street when there’s a double space between two cars, they park right in the middle because they’re too lazy to back up to the car behind.

Years ago when the council widened the Summer Street footpaths, narrowed the roadway and put down pavers for the parking area, the council wouldn’t mark spaces because it said cars weren’t the same length.

But a quick check of two blocks of Summer Street this week found an extra 21 cars could have parked if drivers hadn’t taken up so much space.

NOW those greedy flannelled fools have won themselves a record $500 million payment pool after a 10-month impasse, battering cricket’s image along the way, it’s time fans gave them the flick.

And the way this mob has been playing, winning five, losing seven and drawing one of their 13 Tests last season, Cricket Australia would probably have been better off telling them to get a real job at Kmart or Maccas.

Fans could then watch croquet or table tennis because no other game can drag on for five days without someone winning.

No other game has positions with names like silly point, slips, square leg and long on? And not forgetting byes, maidens, overs, bouncers, yorkers, googlies, leg glances, extras, golden ducks and no balls.

No other game has commentators who try to make the dullest play sound like a Roman Holiday?

For example: “Mitchell Starc (probably now on $1 million a year) has just bowled another maiden over. It’s his fifth since tea…”

Or: “David Warner was caught in slips. What a shock for his team…”

Cricketers are also the fussiest people you could wish to meet.

Football is played in all sorts of weather but if a few drops of rain fall in a cricket match the umpires stop play and everyone adjourns to the dressing room to knock down a beer or two.

When the rain stops the captains and umpires like well-trained tin soldiers march back on to the ground and make a painstaking inspection of every blade of grass before they decide whether to resume.

Oh, the agony of it all, and to think they’re getting paid millions.

DIBBO MP Troy Grant is ruffling feathers with claims that Dubbo was the capital of western NSW and the obvious heartland for regional, country and state championships in all sports.

For years Dubbo has been infamously described as the Octopus of the West because of the spread of its tentacles into small surrounding communities and now claiming to be an economic powerhouse.

Orange mayor John Davis, like most people, thinks the title is hilarious and doubts Dubbo’s claims to be the capital of an area that includes the central west.

But that aside, Dubbo is reaping the benefits of its perseverance and has just received $27 million from the NSW government for a stack of new community facilities.

Octopus? Capital? Heartland?

Whatever it’s called, there’s little doubt Dubbo is putting itself out there.

Orange needs to shake a leg if it wants to live up to our old title of Queen City of the West.