Disgruntled Commuter

More Mini Bikes

I honestly don't try to theme my entries in this blog, but sometimes a theme creeps up on you, clanking slightly. Or in this case, overtaking me as I cycled through the park on the way to the station (look, I wasn't in a hurry, all right?). This time it wasn't a yoof bike but one of those ultra-portable folding commuter bikes with tiny wheels, being pedalled by a soberly dressed and only slightly ridiculous looking chap in a suit. Who hopped off his glorified roller-skate at Vauxhall, wheeled it into the underpass and chained it up - only pausing to take off the three foot long saddle post and saddle in case it was nicked. For the love of Mike, why? Why leave your bike in Vauxhall underpass if you can actually fold it up and take it on the train? Why ride a bike that makes you look like a sideshow attraction if you're not going to fold it up? Is he trying to get it stolen? Is everybody in London doing everything for a bet?

I'm sorry, there's just no rational explanation for this one. Especially given the fact that at the same time, on the same train, there was a guy lugging his full size, resolutely non-folding bike up the stairs and into the non-bike bit of the carriage. Which is not strictly verboten on that particular train, but all the same a considerably anti-social - bordering on the sociopathic - thing to do in the rush hour. Perhaps they could be persuaded to swap bikes?

1.8.06 19:16


If you don't Like the Way I Drive ...

So there I was, walking along, blamelessly exercising my right of way as a pedestrian who has already started crossing a side street, when I was forced to leap for safety to the pavement. It's not that I'm not fully aware that roughly 98% of London drivers have never heard of this rule, but given that it was a BSM driving school car that was indicating the turn I took the chance on it containing at least one of the remaining 2%. Big mistake. Not only did the learner driver ignore me and turn anyway, barely slowing down, but one wheel actually mounted the kerb as he did so - although whether that was through poor vehicle control or a second attempt to mow me down, I couldn't tell.

And his instructor? She was on her mobile phone.
2.8.06 15:50


Signs and Wonders

As in they put up signs, and we wonder what they mean ...

A rash of giant yellow ears has started appearing at the various stations on my route these past few weeks. Kew Bridge has two, one on each platform (not, sadly, a left ear and a right ear though). I can't think what they're trying to tell us. They are stencilled in bright yellow paint on the platform in front of the 'information point' inside a box a metre square. What can it mean? My guess (given that there is also a line through the ear) is that it signifies something to do with hearing aid induction loops, but it could just as easily be interpreted as meaning 'no large yellow ears allowed within this box'. Except for the large yellow ear that's already there, of course

Rather less room for manoeuvre in interpreting this one, though:

cycle_lane

This says, 'Lambeth Council doesn't really give a stuff about cycle paths, although it likes to pretend.' There were only about three ways these bits could be put back together and this must surely have been obviously wrong. My two year old nieces can do more challenging jigsaw puzzles than this all by themselves. And it has been like this for months. If the council can't be arsed to take their own cycle paths and the markings on them seriously, why on earth should we?

3.8.06 20:32


Your Friday Etiquette Quiz

A few modern-day urban commuting conundrums that I've been pondering recently:

a) When the train arrives at your stop, how long should you wait after the door button light goes on before shoving the person who's just standing there blankly staring at it out of the way and pressing the button to open the door?

b) If the person just standing there is not intending to get off at that stop, but just likes blocking everybody who is, does that make it better or worse?

c) How bad of a day do you have had before violence is acceptable in these circumstances?

d) How about the people who stand idly at pedestrian crossings - sometimes for up to a week - waiting for the lights to change without actually pressing the button that tells the crossing they're waiting? Is hanging good enough for them, or too good?

and

e) If the person in question is on their mobile phone, into which orifice should you be aiming to shove it?

I'm pretty sure the answer to a) is 10 seconds, but I'd appreciate your input on the rest of them.
4.8.06 18:22


Positively the Last Mini-Bike Menace Post. Ever. Probably

Stepping out of a newsagent in the wilds of Palmers Green on the way to do my good deed of the, er, year, I was almost run over by not one but two youths sharing just the one ridiculously small bike. Is this the sort of sorry pass the youth of suburbia have sunk to? Sharing bikes? Can't they just nick a second one? Out there in zone four, they don't seem to have the least understanding of the rules of adolescent behaviour - one of them even muttered 'sorry' as I scrabbled around on the pavement trying to pick up the last of my severed toes*. Wouldn't happen in zone one.

Meanwhile, can anyone lend us a cat?

* I may be exaggerating slightly
5.8.06 20:08


Never on a Sunday

I had things all worked out so that I renewed my weekly ticket on a Tuesday. On a Tuesday, renewing my ticket was a breeze, hardly worth leaving any extra time to allow for the purchase: just a lightning surgical strike on the Quick Ticket machine and I'd be in and out of Vauxhall Tube station before more than a few bars of Mozart had been played.

But then I had to go and take a week's holiday, and now I'm renewing on a Monday. On a Monday it doesn't seem to be possible to allow enough time to renew my ticket and catch my train without it being a complete panic. Monday is the day everyone else buys their season ticket which means, of course, it was a good day for the Quick Ticket machine to decide it couldn't read any oyster cards. It also means it was a good day for the Slow Ticket machine to helpfully cancel the purchase of the passenger in front of me when he took too long peering at the pin number pad, forcing him to start again from scratch. And an excellent day for one of the ticket office staff (out of a total of two) to decide to spend it with his back to the window, determinedly ignoring my feeble coughs and ahems and hopeful 'hellos' as I tried to renew my ticket the old fashioned way. And finally a splendid day for the passenger who nipped into the queue at the slow ticket machine in front of me while I was failing to get somebody's attention, but before I gave up and went back to the machine, to choose to try and pay for his ticket with a fiver that looked as though it had been through the wash. Tried a good few times, I might add, before he gave up.

What's that you say? Buy my season ticket the night before? I could do that, even though Vauxhall at night is a wild and scary place (if the state of the park in the morning is anything to go by) - but that would involve being organised. And planning ahead. And thinking about work on a Sunday evening - and that would never do.
7.8.06 18:50


Poo-ee

Every morning I think that Vauxhall underpass can't possibly smell any more strongly of wee, and every morning it surprises me with a whole new level of stinkiness. Getting my bike parked and secured every day has become an exercise in extended breath holding. And then in the evening, when you'd think the effects of the overnight deluge had perhaps had time to wear off it smells worse again - clearly London's al fresco urinators continue to know no shame.

In fact this evening I got such a foul blast of it as I bent down to unlock the back wheel, that I began to wonder if it wasn't coming from the bike itself. Yuck. This was reinforced by a further whiff as I cycled through the park. Gah. Gross. Eeuuw. Do you know how difficult it is to cycle without touching any part of your bike?  The thought of it plagued me all the way home. Fortunately, once I did get home, my high-tech wee-detect coating (aka centuries old mud on the frame) convinced me that I was in fact OK and my bike remained unsullied. But now I can't get the thought out of my head. And probably neither can you ...
8.8.06 18:59


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