Ghosts

There is a lovely road that I travel down in the morning in Bath called Prior Park Road. On a sunny day it is a beautiful whizz downhill at top speedy speed. The scenery is stunning, with Prior Park itself on one side and on the other, an ancient overgrown graveyard.


But at night, on my way home, this all reverses. The road is a steep incline for 1.5 miles and it is dark and isolated. Silence beats on me from all sides like a kettling Police officer. Prior Park House stands tall and menacing at the top of the climb, looking down at me like a police officer who has just beaten me to the ground because I had the audacity to accidentally find myself in the wrong part of London at the wrong time and have the misfortune to look like a Bloodystudent.


Then there is The Graveyard.


It goes on and on and on, bit like me. It is dark, ancient and unfriendly, bit like me. It takes the dead into its arms and holds them, forever, bit like...no not that one, legally I must say, not that one. The creeping horrors that lurk within, creep as they lurk about creepily. A creeping sense of horror, fear and despair creeps my very soul as I puff my creepily purple-faced way up the creepy hill.


Travelling past it I always see the dead just standing there, impassively looking down at me, yes you heard, their dark figures unmoving, their pale mask faces following me as I struggle pass. I'm just like that kid in that film with Bruce Willis in it, you know, Home Alone. I've got used to seeing their frozen faces and it doesn't really bother me now, but something strange happened this thursday night as I was travelling home very late from work that struck me as strangely very strange.


One of the dark figures was shuffling about nervously, I slowed and stopped at looked at it. Its usually unmoving mouth was trembling and it looked as if it was about to speak to me. This is something that has never happened before. Usually I don't hear a peep from these guys, but now one was about to communicate. What would it say? What secrets from beyond the grave would it tell me? At the very least it could tell me if being dead is really as boring as it looks.


As his mouth opened wide to utter words from The Other Side, another corporeal dude shuffled over and gave the first stiff a nudge. The open-mouthed one quickly shut it, shrugged at the nudgey one and hung it's head in, all I can assume, was an embarrassed admission of guilt.
I looked as meanly as I could at the spooky bully, he took no notice and just glared me down, bastard.
I rode off none the wiser to what the ghosts keep to themselves....after all, what else have they got? Eff all.

LINK TO VIDEO ON FACEBOOK PAGE

Bank Vole Funeral

This week a terrible tragedy befell upon a small thing in this world. I bared witness to this sad and hideously horrific event.
 As I rode my meandering and serene way along the canal path I was suddenly overtaken by a Lyca-clad Machopath on on of those highly inferior racing bikes. At his reckless speed he failed to notice a large (for them anyway) Bank Vole using the path too. The Machopath's bike passed over the furry scamp compressing it. The Machopath rode on oblivious, but I stopped and dismounted and ran to the vole's side. I remembered what Vinnie Jones had taught me and I pumped away with my little fingers on the Bank Vole's squashed chest with the Bee Gees pumping through my brain.

The poor little guy. Wow, my incredible bike looks good though.

  After 30 minutes of resuscitation attempts I finally had to call it. The crowd of people who had gathered around me edged away nervously as I looked up at them. One by one they either ran off or reached for their mobile phones to call the emergency services I guess. 


  After they had all gone and I was alone, I noticed something I had failed to notice before when I wasn't noticing it. By the side of the path was  a curious sight. One Bank vole stood there forlornly, by her side were two smaller juvenile voles. They were staring in shocked horror at the vole on the path.


I bent down and picked up the still warm vole, when I did, I noticed that some seeds and grains fell from the voles limp paws and scattered in the cold wind.
The juveniles had tears trickling down their furry rodent faces and the Mother Vole turned and sadly beckoned for me to follow them.


 I carried the limp vole corpse as I followed them to the canal edge and into a tunnel cut into the bank. The tunnel was dark and led steeply downwards, the sound of the weeping Vole children leading my way. There were many side openings to the tunnel that I passed and the lights of many shiny eyes looked out at me as I made my way slowly down. I could feel something behind me, and I chanced a glance over my shoulder. A huge host of solemn voles were following silently behind me in silence.

A regiment of the Second Company of the Bank Vole Army followed me.

  Suddenly the tunnel opened up into a large cavern, the ceiling of which was the glistening water of the canal! I stood there amazed at the way the water was just held there above my head, but that was nothing to what happened next.


  Two dark shadows appeared above, moving closer to the intersection of the water and cavern. First one beautiful black beaked head, followed by a long snake-like neck, peirced the membrane beween the two elements, and then another. The two swans then passed through completely and fell gracefully to the floor.



"Please lay the Vole King on the stone" the first swan said to me in a voice that seemed to enter my head not through my ears but through my something else.
It was then I really noticed the rest of the cavern. It had been beautifully carved out in intricate designs depicting all kinds of woodland creatures. There were joyous scenes of frolicking, but also of war. The hideous creatures being fought bravely by the critters were none other than the grey squirrels.

With all the solemnity I could muster, I placed the stinking rodent on the stone altar.

I moved nervously to a stone altar at the other end of the hall and placed the Vole King on it.
"Thank you, you have done us a great service," One of the freakily-necked ones said, "We have watched you for many years and have seen your great kindness and consideration to the other things in this world, so we will entrust in you a great secret that we have long laboured with."


The second feathered freak now took up the mental story, "Eons ago an invader came to these shores, the Grey Squirrel, we tried to fight them off but the were just too powerful. Now they have taken over. The ones you know as Lycra-clad Machopaths are really a mass of squirrels jammed into that stretchy day-glo crap and they ride recklessly about squishing us and our friends and being inconsiderate to people."

I knew it!

"Please help us in our war against them. You must seek Croll-Agar T'glloac'ia, the leader of the Red Squirrels, only he can aid you blah blah blah....sword of Righteous Redness...blah blah effin' blah...."
I really at that point had totally lost interest in these certifiably paranoid animals and just wanted out. I decided to feign sleep and just curled up in a corner in a foetal position.


When I awoke I was in a very comfy room. So comfy someone had even gone to the trouble of padding the walls. Hello? Hello? Is anyone still there?

Nice Cocks

I like to think of myself as a defender of the Weak and Put-Upon things in this world. No one, I feel, has done more to make the Weak and Put-Upon feel patronised than me. I will always, if I can, stick my huge face in where it is not needed, my overlarge bulbous eyes bulging at the injustices and wrongs I encounter on my journeys.

One such incident presented itself as I was travelling down Locksbrook Road in Bath early one morning towards work. Ahead of me, as I sped along on my £2500 super bicycle, I could see a large group of men, all standing around the back of an opened Removal Lorry. Their attention though was not on the possessions of their client that they were ramming into the truck with all the vigour of and finesse of a bunch of apes jamming bananas into their faces, but on an object walking on the other-side of the road.

A woman.

LOCATION OF MY SUPERHERO-STYLE WOMAN DEFENDING

Their heads all turned in robotic unison as she walked by. Their lustful eyes following her like stalkers ignoring their restraining order. I felt my rage rising in me like a red tide of horror and rage. I should do something, I should do something to protect the honour of this poor, helpless weak woman, the way only a Man can.

"Hey! Nice cocks!" I shouted at the Removal Monkeys as I rapidly approached.

They turned to me and one of them, with a mixed look of surprise, pride and bashful pleasure on his face said, "Er, thanks!" in a genuinely pleased way.
I rode on, safe in the knowledge that I had safely made the streets a safer place where feeble women can safely walk about showing their sexy bits in safety.


PHHHWOOOOOOAAAAAR!

I hadn't notice before how nice that Removal Ape's legs were. Mmmmm, calves.

Questionnaire: Are you a Predator or Prey?

Do you have what it takes to take stuff and eat things in this world, or are you just some sort of mamby-pamby loser always losing? Do you live life like danger is something that happens to other people when you dish it out, or is danger something that is dished out to you by people who live life like danger is something that they dish out? If you just got mangled by that sentence don't even bother doing the test, you are prey and I am the word predator! Hahahahah!
A-hem, actually please do the test, I would apologise but that isn't what us predatory 80's guys do, we tell it like it is and if a few pathetic sheep get it in the neck then that's how it is.
Anyways, here's the test:


1: You see some hump-sack wangdangler cycling past your tree. Do you:
   a) Scamper in front of their wheels for no apparent reason
   b) Throw your nuts in their direction
   c) Wiggle your bushy tail in a deeply sensual way and tempt the unsuspecting day-glo toogler up to your treetop lair where you then split them open, run your claws through their innards in sacrifice and praise to Squirrethulu.

2: You are a Floppy-eared Rodent and you have to cross the road to get to some juicy carrots growing on the other side. Do you:
  a) Hop slowly to the centre of the road and wait for the inevitable doom that awaits us all.
  b) Get drunk on nettle wine or whatever shit Rabbits use to get effed up on, steal a car and drive across the road.
  c) Wait for someone who looks like an Bloody Hippy Animal Lover to come pootling along in their clapped-out VW camper van and run out in front causing them to swerve dangerously, spontaneously combust, and plough into a Bus queue. 


3: You are a crow. Do you:
  a) Lose all self respect and get Crusty Jugglers to feed you Sugar Puffs (see 'The Tapping of the Crow' blog entry).
  b) Eat the Rabbit that chose (a) in the previous question, narrowly avoiding getting splatted yourself (see question 2 part a)
  c) Chase some woman who has realised your master is the Antichrist, peck her eyes out so she can't see the tanker truck that smashes into her, smashing her all up in a smashed up way (see 'Damien: The Omen II).

Where the fuggle are my sugar puffs, lady?

4: You are a Crust Juggler's dog living a half feral life on the canal path. Do you:
   a) Spend your days looking soppy, getting strokes off the passing people and carefully pooing where no one will step
   b) Stake out a patch of ground with your wee and poo and woe betide anyone who enters your territory of dog hell
   c) Try and mate with anything alive, especially bicycles. 

4: You are a Magpie and your Magpie pal has just got flattened by a car. Do you:
    a) Cry for a while, then tie a load of flowers to a nearby tree with your beak and place photos of Patchy lovingly there as a shrine of remembrance.
    b) Quickly race to Patchy's nest and 'inherit' all his shiny stuff.
    c) Wait till the car has gone and go and eat Patchy's eyes.


5: You have got to get to work but some lay-about good-for-nothing lazy lay-about Crusty Juggler has left all their dirty crud, dogs and children all over the canal path. Do you:
   a) Slow your bike down and carefully pick your way through, saying a merry "hallo!" to the merry folk, as they ambush you and steal your time by engaging you in a 'conversation'. 
   b) Ride as fast as you like, certainly not slowing down, it's their look out, the path is for everyone and just now that means just you!
   c) Stop your bike and start punching stuff.


ANSWERS:


Mainly (a)'s: You are not long for this world. Your 'why can't we all just get along' attitude will not win you any friends in this dog-eat-person-on-bicycle life. It will just win you a one way ticket to No Breathing Land stopping at Pain Town and Victimsville. PREY.


Mainly (b)'s: Not so bad, you certainly stick up for yourself in the face of some serious provocation, but you lack that true killer instinct it takes to be a total arsehat wrinklehanger. NOT PREDATORY ENOUGH (keep it up, you'll get there in the end, just expunge any last remnants of human decency you have left lurking in the corners of your rotten soul.)


Mainly (c)'s: You are the pinnacle of human dick-swinging evolution, you see what you want, you take it, and if any wobble-faced jibber-jabbers get in your way then it's goodnight for them! Some people may consider you a dangerous premium grade tool, but they are just jealous of your deadly get-ahead attitude. PREDATOR.


All done? Great! Now wiz along with total disregard for other internet users to the Person on a Bicycle Facebook page and enter whether you got mostly (a)'s or (b)'s or whatever on the question thingy there and we will find out whether readers of this blog are a blood-thirsty pack of go-get-em top-of-the-food-chain type Alpha types or just a very small gathering of nicely nice people.

Orgy

I have a story of such unremitting cosmic horror and eldritch terror to tell you, that I think it should come with a warning. So you have been warned, I am warning you that this is my final warning!

It all began on dark, dark, dark night as I was cycling my fear-struck way down the canal path. There is a place of silent trees in a ancient hollow which lies to the side of a very remote part of the canal. In the middle of this disquieting glade is a twisted undead thing that I call The  Tree of Ultimate Cweepiness. During the summer months the hollow was full of lovely singing and skipping little Crusty Juggler children. There was an old tyre tied to a rope, which in turn was tied to a thick, twisted branch of The Tree of Ultimate Cweepiness, that the joyous mini-scroungers swung about on. It was now depths of winter, and no children ran and called, the tyre had gone, and only the rope, frayed and menacing, swung in the frozen, thick air, like, a, forgotten, hangman's, noose.


Hold on, need a breather before I go on to the next bit, I'm getting scared.


Ok that's better.


On this fateful night I was approaching the hollow when a strange chattering and screeching came drifting towards me on the black mist. Suddenly I drew up to the place where you can look down on the foul clearing from the canal path and an indescribable scene met my eyes that I will now describe. I tried to peer through the inky dark, I could see small shapes moving, swaying but couldn't make out what they were. I quickly swivelled the front of my top-of-the-range Kalkhoff pedelec bike around to shine my £300 Hope Vision4 light down into that pit of hellish hellishness.


Countless Squirrels filled the hollow, they writhed and danced in an orgy of wanton abandon, their little clawed paws raised in unholy praise of some demented squirrel god, their bushy tails shaking to the rhythm their squeaky chanting.  At the centre of the hollow, just in front of the gnarled tree, now looking like the skeletal hand of some vast beast thrusting out of the earth, was another larger squirrel. it was waving it paws over something that was lying on a large flat stone that I had never noticed before.


The thing on the slab was flat and a dark road grey. Two hideously malformed arms stretched up from it, and a grotesque squirrel head, twisted in frozen agony gaped open-mouthed in my direction. As the chattering and screeching reached a deafening level I saw, to my utter horror, fear and despair, the corpse of Flatso start to quiver and move! (for it was he, see some earlier gibberish blog entry for his story) His venomous eyes locked to mine and his putrid, stringy yellow jaws let go a scream that came straight from the pits of damnedest hell!


My view of this monstrous scene only lasted a few short seconds, seconds burned into my mind forever that no amount of counselling or booze or crazy destructive sex would ever erase from my memories. Suddenly my light was extinguished somehow and the I heard strange calls in the utter darkness and the scurrying of many tiny evil feet.


In my panic I scrabbled pathetically to find the on switch for my light. When I did and the light shone forth again, the hollow had cleared, even the stone slab was empty and a silence like none I had ever heard (unless you count the gaps between songs at the gigs for all the bands I have ever been in) descended on me, like the hand of a giant silent thing. 


I will never venture that way again, unless in day light, and I will be sure never to find myself alone with a squirrel nearby.
For in Flatso's hideous scream I'm sure there had been words too, "Nuts so fast, human...Aiiee!...safety first...f-tang f-tang!..take it easy on them roads...whhaaa!...why can't I feel my nuts?...shai-yai!...Squirrelthulu will rise...Whhhaaaarrrg Aiiii-shubbnug f-tang!"

RECONSTRUCTION: A scene of debauched horror, with fluffy tails.