mixed messages

Boat Teenager and I lunched out, as it had stopped raining. Large pasties from Joe's Bakery, sitting on a bench on the Downs. "We're causing even more pain for the joggers", she said, "all wishing they had pasties too".

"Maybe they aren't the sort of people who like pasties," I suggested. "Modern people can be pretty strange."

We had a bit of a laugh about quinoa, and went charity shopping. Got some good stuff too, the sort that cheers you up if you ever needed cheering up.

Heading back up the hill, I paused in the right filter lane before turning into Coldharbour Road, to let a hesitant oncoming cyclist, who had right of way, decide whether he was going to go down the hill or turn left. 

He stopped. 

A shiny black BMW was behind us. The driver hooted his horn and, through the dark windows, I saw him gesticulating, apparently at the junction. "F*** OFF", I mouthed at him, and set off. He may be happy to run over a cyclist, I thought, but I'm not.

A little later he tried to overtake us, on a section of road that is really entirely unsuited for overtaking.  An oncoming car stopped him.

We turned left. He followed, honking his horn.

I passed Boat Teenager my phone. "Get ready to call 999 if we need to," I said.

At the next junction, he tried to force his way past us again. I stopped; he got out; "It's all right, I'm not going to rob you just because I'm black," he said, holding out his hands palms outward, with a rueful sort of smile.

"I never thought you were," I said, quite truthfully. 

"....just that your brake lights aren't working," he continued. 

"Oh! Thank you"

We exchanged smiles and he went on his way.

the big game of cycling

Others, I am not the first,
Have willed more mischief than they durst...

Here in Cycling City, we get the occasional 'robust debate' about bicycles and cars, chiefly on the Bristol Evening Post website, a habitat that has proved congenial to all sorts of pond dwelling creatures; here, for instance, is a look at a 'discussion' that went on last year about cyclists.

A recent newcomer to this discussion was Kayla Maratty, over at the Bristol 24-7 website. In a piece entitled 'My homicidal tendencies towards cyclists aside, the tuition fees fight goes on’, she says

"Part of me would take great pleasure in mowing them down when they choose to cycle in the middle of the road or are determined to peddle all the wayup Black Boy Hill. But obviously I would never do that; I can get by just on the thought of it to restrain my road rage."

It is refreshing to see a bit of honesty about how some drivers feel about cyclists. I weighed in with some encouragement:

I find that revving the engine aggressively and then passing them so close that you ping them with your wing mirror is rather fun, and helps you feel better about yourself.
They'll probably pass *you*, two minutes later, when you get stuck in another static queue of traffic , but hey, live for the moment, I say!

(sadly, my comment was deleted. It's per-litickle kreckness gone mad I tells you)

Kayla's article was removed not long after, at her request, because she found the responses upsetting. The editor characterised the behaviour of the commentators as 'bullying'. You will be unable to make up your own mind about that, of course.

Well, it did get me thinking. And what I thought was, let's have a look at cyclist-hunting as a blood sport. Because, deep down, you know we all have a violent self that revels in meting out destruction and pain.

And the more I look, the more sense it makes. I mean, you can't hunt foxes with hounds anymore. It's far too expensive. Oh, and against the law. Sort of.

Shooting? If you want to go bagging pheasants, say, it would cost you about £30 or so per bird, and you would expect to pay £400 upwards for a day's shooting.

Stag hunting is even worse. You'd reckon to pay around £150 for a day's shooting, but, when you pay extra for every point on the stag's antler's, it'll cost a lot more; the lucky chap who shot the Emperor of Exmoor would expect to have paid £1600, but you could be charged up to £10,000.

If you decide to go freelance, as it were, and go out hunting while the gamekeepers lie a-sleeping, then it could be a lot cheaper. But if you got caught, then it would probably cost you about £2,500 per deer, with the chance of three months imprisonment per deer killed thrown in for good measure.

Let's face it, the wise money goes elsewhere. Cyclists are plentiful and easily bagged. And, like deer, they're big enough and usually intelligent enough to show anger, fear and other such emotions when they realise that they're about to be bagged. Which adds to the sport.

And how much does it cost? Well, if you knock one off and injure them, you might expect to pay, say, £10 for a quick respray of the scratched bit of the car. Though if you choose to stop and talk to the cyclist, then you may even end up getting them to pay for the damage, though you can't rely on it; chances are the cyclist won't be insured. The police tend to be sympathetic. Just remember the mantra: "Sorry, mate, I didn't see you". Works like a charm.

If you manage to kill them, then the worst case scenario is that you may find yourself charged with 'causing death by dangerous driving'. There is an outside chance that you will even be convicted, though with mitigating factors thrown in, and obviously with the cyclist being unable to put their side of the case, you may end up with a bit of community service.

You see? -a bit of a no-brainer, isn't it?

little van man

the library door

My doctor was right when he reckoned I'd have a week of pain from the rib. By yesterday it was more bearable and I was aching (as it were) to get back on the bike. So I went down to the library.

Coming home, I was riding along Durdham Park, which is a useful route home for me, being relatively quiet and more direct than the main road.


View Larger Map

As you can see, it's quite windy and usually parked-up on both sides for a lot of the way. So when cars come too fast around the corners, as they often do, and meet other cars, they end up having to reverse again, or, equally likely, sit there and face down the other driver.

A van came up behind me. It came quite close behind me, in fact, and started gunning the engine to express the driver's impatience to get past me.

So I stopped and got off. I motioned for him to wind his window down. He wouldn't. I said, "There isn't room for you to overtake safely, so will you please stop revving your engine at me".

He looked all sulky, and forced his way past me.... to be held up immediately by a taxi going head-to-head with another car. When they moved, he pulled into the kerb, because he had arrived at his destination, about a hundred feet ahead of the place that he'd been so keen to get past me.

He got out. He looked very small, unprotected by his little van.

"What's your problem?" he shouted.

"Arseholes in cars," I replied. " I got knocked off only last week".

"I wouldn't knock you off", he said in a peculiarly nasty way.

"Meaning...?"

"I wouldn't knock you off," he repeated in a dubious way, presumably because his remark had fallen on stony ground. And then he returned to the mobile phone conversation he'd been conducting throughout this encounter.

I think it was some sort of sexual innuendo, thinking back. Wasted on me. Just as, apparently, my suggestion that he should not drive dangerously was wasted on him.

The Finest Swordsman In France

I drive assertively
You drive aggressively
She drives dangerously

There's a chap I know who's one of the ten best drivers in the country. I know this because he told me. I'm not sure how he came to be assayed for this ranking; perhaps Stirling Moss came to him in a vision and said, "Hail, Rob, elect among drivers! Take up your Mercedes and drive!"

Perhaps not.

Being a passenger in the car with him driving was a queasy experience; I would sit there rocking .....forwards..... and then backwards..... and then forwards.... as his foot idly pumped down on the accelerator and then eased off again. And so we would proceed, in gentle surges.

Travelling in convoy with him, we would usually look for a lay-by immediately after any major junction, where we could pull over and wait for him, as his internal satnav invariably directed him to take the road less travelled. Differently lost, was Rob.

And one of the ten best drivers in the country.

That's how we came to call him "The Finest Swordsman In France." It kind of suited.

I am properly modest about my driving abilities, but quietly think that I have reasonable co-ordination and look well ahead and anticipate things. If I think that I'm a good driver, though, I certainly won't be admitting it here. I leave it to you to make up your mind about that. And, unless you have ever been a passenger in my car, you have no way of knowing how accurate that opinion is.

Anyway. Last week I have a close encounter. I am emerging from quite a tricky junction; I am turning right from the top of Hampton Road onto Lower Redland Road. It's quite a busy road, and a van has parked stupidly, restricting my view to the right as I reach the junction.

Edge out; all clear. Drive on. A car comes fast around the corner to the right. Keep on, I'm already committed.

The woman in the other car is mouthing at me and slowing down. We stop alongside each other. We wind windows down.

"Slow down!" I shout.

"You should wait there, you stupid bitch," she shouts, pointing at the junction, and begins to drive on.

"Try driving inside the speed limit, you cretin," I shout back.

Katie is looking shocked and upset. I'm upset as well. We talk it through when we get home. I wonder if I could have avoided the incident. I know that I could have handled it differently when it did happen.

Not been called a stupid bitch before, either.