The latest must-have gadget which the average six-year-old manages to understand and operate in seconds is a complete minefield for those at the other end of the age spectrum.

And I have every sympathy for an 83-year-old woman who thought she was doing everything right when she put a parking permit on her car in Steyne Gardens, Worthing, and found herself the not-so-proud owner of a parking ticket.

She, along with the vast majority of the public, failed to read the small print on the permit.

These permits have silver coloured squares over months and dates which have to be scratched off, rather like lottery scratch cards.

But instead, she used a pen to colour over the appropriate day and month she wanted to use the permit.

Apparently, in the past, some clever clogs have used pens instead of scratching the card and used them again to get free parking, so every time a civil enforcement officer sees a card marked in this way he issues a ticket.

The ticket is cancelled if the driver can demonstrate a genuine mistake, which is fair enough.

She had also mis-spelled the name of the hotel she was attending – Adlington instead of Ardington, and she assumed that this was why she had been given the ticket, hence the story in last week's Worthing Herald.

It's just another example of how life is getting increasingly complicated, especially for the elderly.

They have had to move from understanding the most simple wireless and Hoover; washing clothes by hand and then by twin-tub; a telephone with an operator at the other end, and a single place to pay electricity and gas bills, to give just a few examples, to the complicated life of today.

I can recall people saying in the '50s and '60s how in the next century there would be so many new inventions the human race would have to work only a few hours a week; would have so much leisure on our hands because of all the labour-saving devices and we would all be living in some kind of paradise.

Well, I'm still waiting.

With every labour-saving device comes those which want to make it as complicated as they possibly can.

I have an office telephone which works off the intranet and has unimaginable functions and I haven't a clue about most of them. My mobile is just as bad.

So is the TV, and the microwave, and the washing machine. More and more dials, knobs and buttons to press.

In the name of "choice" we've got to go through hoops to choose the cheapest insurance, the cheapest gas and electricity, flights, telephone calls and car hire. It goes on and on.

I've mastered the computer – it was a case of having to, to continue working. But wasn't that an uphill struggle.

I'm sure it's all made far more complicated than it need by by whiz-kids.

To get from log-on (that would once have been switching the on-off button) to actually doing some work, means I have to go through umpteen passwords.

If I want to do things on the internet I have to enter passwords – and some want letters, some want a capital letter and others want a number as well – and I have to try to remember them all.

And I can't. I forget them and then have the hassle of trying to get the website to remind me. Sometimes it can, sometimes it can't, and I just quit frustrated.

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