How much, you may be wondering. Well I'll tell you: £7000 over 5 years. That's right. And for those of you that didn't get an N or above in maths, that translates to Fuck All. Fuck all. There are people in London who shit £7000 before they've even had breakfast. There are newspaper editors who would spunk that in no time whatsoever, and yes, I'm talking to you Veronica Wadley - feel free to get in touch, as I haven't yet tracked down your official expenses sheet. There are businessmen who have put £10,000 on the company tab for a single lunch between a mere four of them. Don't tell me that £7000 over 5 years is some big deal.
But that's exactly what you are telling me. Because just in the telling, you know that people will misread the information. Just by driving past the headlines on the sandwich boards of your minimum-wage newspaper sellers, you know that people will take some of your shit on board.
For right or wrong, and almost certainly for wrong, Kiley is so highly prized that he is to be paid £3,200 a day to stay on as a consultant. So his catering budget could be covered by 2 days' work. Is he worth it? Probably not. But then say so. The fact that you hate the Mayor, who appointed Kiley in the first place, doesn't give you carte blanche to misrepresent the facts. Want to know why your readership was a stunning 10.9% down this year? Well apart from the Naziism, maybe if you treated them like intelligent adults...
I jump red lights without repent. But I always stop to let pedestrians pass, and I never make the move if vehicles are coming. I'll grant that a few courier-types show utter disregard for the safety of themselves or others, but they are a rare breed. I jump lights, in short, because they remain on red for longer than can ever be justified, because it takes a huge effort to accelerate from standing, and because I feel like a plum waiting while there is nothing to wait for. And because it is safer. Yes, it is safer to leave a junction before the cars start to move.
Of course, the police don't sell their tactic on the basis of increasing revenues, or earning overtime, or even placating motorists who can't handle my insubordination. No, they say it is for road safety. 25% of London road accidents now apparently involve cyclists. But tell me this: how many accidents are caused by cyclists passing a red light? In my own experience, I'd say none. Having a driver turn left in front of you, pull out from a side street or blindly open a car door - these are all tried and tested means of being knocked off your bike. And never, in all the cases I've known, has one of those drivers had to pay a £30 fine for their actions. I refer the reader to this
I'm told that the police lack the time to investigate the theft of my £1000 bike from directly beneath a CCTV camera. But maybe if they stopped focussing on earning donut money by targetting harmless commuters, they could actually look into solving some shitting crimes for the greater good. Just a thought.
5-3-05
Chelsea detractor
'There were very few Muswell Hill 4x4's on the road this morning in the blizzard,'
noted Lucy with some surprise. 'Funny, I was sure they had bought them for
treacherous weather conditions and off-roading, not purely as a status symbol
while driving young Tarquin to school.' Funny but fortunate. You don't want
anything of that mass to be skidding around like a very large hockey puck on
a very small rink.
These vehicles are silly. Picking on the last model to nearly reverse into me, at 4.85m the Toyota Landcruiser is marginally longer than a Scorpion tank. With an unladen weight of over 2 metric tonnes it weighs more than the average charging rhinoceros, and with a top speed of 112mph it has over 4 times the momentum. Not entirely surprisingly, for all it's cutting edge technology it does less miles to the gallon than my old 1956 Ford Prefect. Come to that, it even does less than the original Model T. As a final mockery, it appears you can't even get off-road tyres that fit the wheels.
Now I've been knocked off my bike by several cars, even by a bus, and I've clearly lived to fail to dine out on the tale. But the fact is, if I'm knocked down by a 4x4 then I'm clearly fucking dead. Unlike a car bonnet that I can roll over, I'll be whacked point blank by a bull-bar. Unlike a bus that might push me down the road, I'll be under the bastard wheels, off-roading tyres or not. And so will your son, coming home from chess club, or your daughter, sneaking out wrongly between parked cars because there's nowhere else to cross, or you, when the driver's school run skills transpire not to stretch to zebra crosssing awareness. And some fucker buys these to keep their family safe inside, yet they don't consider that they've made the world outside so much more dangerous.
But it's not their secret lives as killing machines that makes me want SUVs banned from the roads, nor is it that they rape the very environment that they would seek to nobly conquer. No, it's that the dickwads who drive them think that they have some God-given right to drive what they want, an arrogance as stupid as it is wrong. Follow that argument to its logical conclusion and you'll see that I have a right to drive a knife into the tyres of any vehicle I choose.
19-2-05
Go Kenny Go go go
While the Mayor of London is no stranger to controversy, even he must be wondering
how a throwaway jibe aimed at a pestering journalist has caused so much controversy.
Okay, Oliver Finegold was offended when compared to a concentration camp guard,
but then the aim was to offend; that's what insults are for. And if he is so
easily offended, why does he work for a paper that people refer to as the Evening
Nazi?
The truth is that it wasn't a wise thing to say, even bearing in mind the historical acrimony between the Standard and Mr Livingstone. But it wasn't a racist comment, as some have claimed. He compared someone to a Nazi, and who among us hasn't done that before? And at least he said it to the guy's face.
So far the mayor has refused to apologise, and rightly so, because what are we to infer otherwise? Are we to live in a world where reference to the crimes of the past is taboo? Is it okay to call someone a murderer, but not a Nazi? Is it okay to insult somebody as long as they're not Jewish? Is it wrong to say what you think, even to people who judge you for what they think you think? And what the hell has it got to do with Tony Blair anyway? Hasn't he got enough balls-ups of his own to fix?
If the fact that Ken Livingstone has insulted Mr Finegold is seen as a slur against them by the Jewish community, does that mean I too am slurring them when I say that he acts like a reprehensible bedwetter who hounds his quarry till they snap, and then hides behind the coat tails of his 'race'? Let's face it, this isn't a man who cries himself to sleep every night after being reminded of the crimes once committed against his forefathers; this is a man who walks into the office to whoops and cheers, secure in the knowledge that there's more mileage to be had out of this shambles yet.
Stick with it, Ken. Because when you really think about it, anyone who writes for a right-wing rag like the Evening Standard can just fuck off anyway.
12-2-05
On Parking
I'd rather not keep company with the sort of people that rant about parking.
You know the type, overpaid wankers with the conceit to park their Audi Noballs
on double yellers just because it's convenient, and the gall then to threaten
violence against the hapless warden who tries to fine them an amount that they
probably earn in 5 minutes. Nevertheless, this parking thing has finally gone
too far.
It was almost too far when the council tried to introduce 'residents only' parking down my street, a thinly-veiled attempt to wrench an extra £60 a year out of residents, while simultaneously increasing the number of penalties and charging people to have visitors. It was almost too far when I drove to the pub, wisely decided to leave my car, and then discovered that there was nowhere left to leave it, as everything around was residents only parking.
But a parking ticket outside my own house? That is too far. My crime? Being parked with 2 wheels on the kerb. Well, 2 half wheels at least. My car encroached onto the pavement about an inch and a half. Hardly an obstruction. Hardly even noticeable, unless you are looking for it. Indeed, I didn't notice it. And why not? Because the kerb is only 5 shitting millimeters tall!
Soon it became apparent that excessive and voluble complaining could be putting my friendships at risk, so I moved the biggest part of my ranting into the virtual arena.
If you're reading this then, I'm sorry.