Cheat

As I rode my merry way down the canal path the other evening on my way back from work, I spied ahead of me a group of Crusty Jugglers shuffling around.

As I drew closer I could see that there were two grimy males on a bench to the left, on the path was a female and a small Jugglet, and on the other side, next to a canal boat was another female and her male tie-dyed partner.

As I drew closer I rang my jolly bell as a warning of my approach and I hoped they would clear the path for me to carefully pedal on past. This did not happen. As a unit they turned to face me. I slowed my incredible super bike even further as I noticed the scraggly haired male on the bench, clearly the tribal leader, open his vegan pie hole and speak.

"Hey watch out, here comes that crazy cyclist."

I ignored this slight insult (cyclist, indeed!), said nothing, and continued at a cautious crawl towards them.

"Oh look, he's a cheat, he's got batteries on his bike!" 

This stopped me dead.

The other Crusty Jugglers laughed like the acid-cripples they were. The Jugglet just stared, dead-eyed, at me.

"What did you say?" I knew exactly what he had said, I was just saying it to be threatening because you say stuff like that if you want to be threatening, and getting people to repeat themselves is really scary for them, just ask deaf people.

There was a tense few seconds when no one did anything, and I glanced from Juggler to Jugglet to Juggler again, gauging them, looking for weaknesses. Their choice of knitwear was awful, a definite flaw. Suddenly there was an almost imperceptible movement from the other, shaven-headed Crusty on the bench, as he reached a hand for something just out of my sight. 

It was an ambush.

In one swift flowing movement, I leapt from my bike reaching for the twin Barettas in the holsters on the small of my back, and unleashed a hail of covering fire as I fell into the cover of the hedgerow. I heard a loud boom as a shotgun blast shredded the leaves nearby.

Glancing out I saw that I had felled the male of the crusty couple by the boat and the female was trying to drag his body to the safety of the boat. Two out of the action already, a great start, but I was lacking cover and the Alternatve-lifestylers had good firing positions. The female who had been in the middle of the path with the Jugglet had disappeared, which caused me some concern, but right now I had to deal with the two male Crusties who were firing on me from their position behind the bench. Shavehead continued to blast at me with his Spas 12, and Big Chief Scraggly had twin MAC10 Ingrams that he was firing wildly all over the place.

He was as high as Christ, and twice as dangerous.

"Die, you low down cheating sonofabeeeeeeech!" he screamed.

"Yeah!" agreed Shavehead shaking his hands silently above his head in agreement, then letting off another shot in my direction.

Suddenly, behind me the bushes erupted as the female and the Jugglet came crashing out. The mother(tree)hugger had outflanked me! Worse than that, she was wielding a glittering samurai sword which she swung with deft precision at my neck. I thrust my right Baretta up and blocked the blow in a shower of sparks. I was suddenly aware of a searing pain in my left leg and looking down I saw the Jugglet had pushed a ceramic combat blade into my thigh. It was looking up at me with a curious expression of curiosity on its dirty urchin face. Curious, I thought. I could see the other side of my top-of-the-range Gortex Water/Windproof breathable riding trousers start to bulge as the blade pushed it's way out. Blood splashed down on my very expensive cycling shoes, which are awesome.

"Drum circle this, bitch!" I quipped as I swung my Barretta around, twisting the sword arm of the ninja hippy, and then put my other gun under her chin and pulled the trigger. A fountain of stuff that was seconds ago safely inside her head showered down on me and the Jugglet, who was still putting the knife in. I knew I had to distract it somehow.

"Look, a pretty birdie!" I voiced, pointing to the sky to where I was pretending a bird was flapping about.

But there was something coming.

As the Jugglet looked around we could both see something huge flying towards us at great speed, silhouetted by the sun. Only at the last second, just before it's arrow sharp beak speared through the Jugglet's knife arm, did I realise this was The Heron come to help me again. He swooped low over the scene, carrying the silent, yet struggling, Jugglet away.

"No! Skylark, Nooooooooo!" screamed Shavehead as he leapt from his cover to catch the Jugglet as it passed. He missed. I didn't though, one shot from my still working Baretta took him down, like Bambi's mother.

It was just me and Hippius Maximus left. I took the initiative and whilst he was distracted with his buddies demise I pounded across the space between us. He stood and up, rage on his unkept face, and raised his MAC10 as I slid towards him. We both ended up facing each other, guns against each others heads. We both pulled our triggers at the same time, but only the clicks of empty chambers were heard.

"The next bell you'll ring will be in hell, bike man." he menaced, raising his other MAC10 to my head. It clicked empty as well.

Horror, fear and despair shot across his eyes as I reached down, pulled the ceramic blade from my leg and pushed it through his chest.

"Get a job, asshole." I whispered.

As his twitching body slipped to the ground I realised I should ask my doctors to try me on a different anti-pychotic drug as these ones really aren't working that well.

I blinked a few times, looked about myself at the path, and the confused and frightened faces of the Crusty Jugglers standing around me, got back on my bike, rode home, and had dinner. 

I think it was Three Bean Bake. Mmmmm, yummy.

The End.

Person on a Bicycle would like to thank anyone who read this blog, but it is now maybe at an end.

Goodbye!

Possibly...

About Me: Episode 1, The Goatening.

I was born on a lonely farm in the foothills of the Broken Mountains. I was raised by my Mother and my "Uncle", Old Pokey. 

Photo taken on my twelfth birthday, Mom and Old Pokey giving me my first bike! Love those guys!

When I was old enough I asked  Uncle Pokey who was my Father. He told me that "Yo fool, yo Mom an' Pops were like ships in da night, see. By which I mean, it was dark, everyone was drunk, an' one ship repeatedly rammed inna da other, spilling seamen everywhere. Word."

"Oh," I said.

My Mother never told me who that ship was. I like to think he was a tall galleon, tall and proud, with tall stuff proudly standing tall. She just mumbled something about him being more of a canoe. Was he a King or Lord of high, noble birth? Was he someone I would later meet as my enemy, then I would find out in a shock reveal moment at the end of an episode that he was really my father, and I would have to scream "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" as I fell off something?

I don't know, I haven't decided yet.

My early life was a life of hard toiling toil, working the goats in the high pastures, herding them like some sort of lowly goatherd and juicing when they were ready. But I knew in my heart of hearts (I had had quite a collection, I loved the way they glistened and dripped) that I was meant for greater things, like a destiny awaited me that was unlike the normal style of destiny, but instead it was a destiny that was like a destiny someone might have that was destined for something destinified. As the twin suns set on the horizon and my theme tune came mournfully whistling from my lips, I vowed that I would make it my destiny to find that destiny I was destined for.

One day a strange thing happened, a travelling band of squeaky Dwarf farm equipment salesmen stopped and sold us a a large grain dispenser, the "Seed 'n' Throw" and a wheelbarrow that always knew where it was going, the "Hard to Detour".

A pair of tools, Seed 'n' Throw and Hard to Detour.

"Yo fool! Take these two to tha Goat's crib and get them cleaned up. Fool." Uncle Pokey ordered.
"But I was thinking of maybe doing something else like going into town and hanging out at the railway station with my chums, Frankenstein and Dracula," I whinged.
"Yo fool! Yo can waste time with your fiends when yo chores is cooked, homie. Yo crazy assed fool," came the reply.

I could never catch a break. Things got worse later when I realised that the little bastard wheelbarrow had malfunctioned and decided it had no idea where it was going and run off. It's strange one-wheeled and two dragged stands trail trailed off, to my utter horror, fear and despair, to the Canal Path in the Woods of Terror near to our little farm. I knew I must venture into that hollow of hideousness to get back the troublesome wheeled bucket before Uncle Pokey found out and popped a cap up mo ass.

For some unknown reason know only to myself and not known by anyone else I decided to take Seed 'n' Throw grain dispenser with me on the back of my trusty rusty wobbly old bike. I rode down the hillside to the point where it joined the canal path.

Entering that creepy area was hard for me to do, I had heard such hideous tales of the weird goings-on down here from my blog and I was rightfully cautious. It wasn't long before I found the stupid bloody GPS guided wheelbarrow. It was stuck up a tree, and took me an Seed 'n' Throw quite a while to knock it out by throwing Crusty Juggler children we found lying around at it.

Suddenly Hard to Detour started to excitedly shake and spin it's wheel around. "Sir, he says that there are creatures approaching from the south west." said someone, I'm not sure but I think it came from the seed dispenser. Weird. I got out my binoculars and looked down the canal path. Yes, there in the distance about 3 miles away were some squirrels hopping evilly about. I totally shat myself.

Even more suddenly, like in a really shocking end of episode shocker, a blurry, red-eyed, squirrel face whizzed past my binocular vision and gave me such a fright I gave a high pitched scream like a hydrophobic panicking kettle and passed out..................

CLICK THIS AND IT WILL WHISK YOU AWAY TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO WATCH IT HERE, BUT I'M NOT SURE WHY YOU WOULD BOTHER.

Flies

The beautiful sunny mornings of spring have a awoken many things along my canal path route. Daffodils, Primroses and crocusses Croqueses cockasses other flowers are all lining my journey like a crowd of adoring fans (I wave regally at them as I pass). The sexy twinkle is in the eye of the sheep and cows as they pop baby things out of their front bottoms that scuttle and hop under rocks and into the caves where they grow into adulthood. Birds tweet like they are being strangled by invisible Pine Martins, desperate to attract the mate that will bring meaning to their flappy lives.


But there is one thing, or many things, or lots of the same thing, not sure which, that is/are not very nice thing/things that appear also at this season of the year.


And they are FLIES.


Flies, if you are unfamiliar, are little insects that can fly (hence the name, Einstein) and have no purpose on earth other than to hang about in the air around the canal path. This brings them into direct conflict with me. I, if you are unfamiliar with me, am a bicycle riding misanthrope.


Here are some Stat cards for you to cut out and keep:

So what's the worse thing about these airborne flappers? 

Well, it's not that they fly into your eyes and you have to spend hours when you get home picking their corpses out. It's not even when they fly up your nose or straight down the back of your throat causing you to puke your high-energy bike fuel bars up all over Timmy Toddler out for a fun scoot, scooting about on his new scooter with his scooterless family.

No, it's none of these.

It's the way that they dive, kamikaze style at my lips (I even think I heard one buzz "Banzai!" once). 

"That's not so bad, you effin' drama queen" I hear you scream. Well that's because you don't know the thing that I am about to tell you in the next line of this blog that I am writing now. 

I have to cover my lips in Vaseline so the don't dry out on my journeys and the flies become stuck to it and I end up with writhing fly-encrusted mouth parts! 

Dead flies, half dead flies, ones still crawling about amongst their rotting compatriots, all over my mouth!

I try to wipe them away, but that just pushes the fly/petroleum jelly death mix further into my open orifice. I can feel them crawling about as the struggle in their death-throes, desperate for the release of freedom or death.

People point and recoil in horror, fear and despair at the Fly Mouth Man who speaks in buzzing words of death and relentlessly hurtles passed them at speeds so speedy, only the truly damned would pedal at them.

When I arrive home I have to carefully scrape the crust of corpses carefully from my lips with care.

But I tell you, it has worked wonders for my lips, all that fly goo has left me with luscious, ever-so-kissable smackers. If only I could find some way of bottling it and selling it to posh chumps/chumpettes I would probably get rich. 

Or arrested. 

KISSY KISSY!

Heron Hitman

With his black stick legs stuck in the slick black canal water The Heron is the most awesome of all the motherlovin' creatures that litter my path to work. This guy is the coolest Bustard around, never moving a muscle when I pass right next to him on my bicycle-from-the-future. When he is flapping gracefully around in the sky bit of earth he looks so graceful and stuff, but what is best is that he looks exactly like a pterosaur.

He is also a deadly bad-ass hunter that uses total stealth like a Predator from that movie where Arnold Sweatynecker had to fight stuff...er...Kinder Egg Garden Cop-out, or something, I dunno, films confuse me, OK?

Anyway, I was having a lovely ride to work the other day, the spring sunshine was warm on my back as I slid, almost effortlessly, through the air that was in and around the canal path, my legs moving in a furious blur as they pummelled my pedals like two leg-like engines. The breathing gas about me was fresh and clean and I started to feel that the world wasn't maybe completely filled with horror, fear, despair and death, when I suddenly took a turn around a bend into a very dark area of the path.

The ancient trees grow very dense here, bending over to meet each other like sumo wrestlers, across the canal. Twisted gnarled Oaks and Ashes create a tunnel of dire gloom and watching terror that I fear to ride through. This particular morning that place of quiet horror was made all the more terrifying by the presence of a grey figure scampering about in the middle of the path.

When it saw me it stopped its incessant scrabbling and went on it's hind legs to look at me, it's hideous bushy tail shaking with a hideous hideousness that filled me with a hideous feeling, hideously like hideousness. Hideous.

I stopped my, frankly, incredible bike using it's brilliant Magura brakes, the red ones, they are the best, great for dry weather and wet, so easy to change as well, although adjustment can be a bit tricky, but when you've got them set up just nice they are AWESOME TO THE MAX, and stood there looking at the thing of evil blocking my way.

It was then that I saw the others, I had ridden right into a bushy tailed ambush! To one side, next to the canal water was another squirrel, and I can only guess at how many had closed the path behind me, I bet it was loads. Just as I thought this was it for me, and the squirrel I hadn't seen at first was about to pounce on my throat and rip out my veins and arteries and bathe in the shower of blood that erupted from my tubes of life, suddenly a beak like a sword shot out of nowhere and skewered the rodent alive!

The Heron had come to save me! In one incredibly swift motion he flipped the floppy nut-cracker up in the air only for it to land in it's wide-open gobble-chops.

"YEAH! TAKE THAT YOU NUT-NIBBLING TREE HUGGER!" I screamed as loud as my lungs could manage. The relief of not being gutted by some noisome fluffy beasts was quite obvious to the family that had just come up behind me, walking their dogs.

The Heron gulped down his meal and then flew off for an after dinner snooze in a tree or something, I guess, safe in the knowledge that he would always have a friend in me.

Please watch this video I shot as I think it explains a lot:

CLICK THIS TO SEE THE VIDEO IF YOU HAVE A MOBILE DEVICE AND YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO SEE IT ON THE 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?

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.

Pirate

I once saw a Pirate in the canal. I'll let that sink in.

He was doing the breast stroke, I think. He had a hat, waistcoat, eyepatch and stripy top. He splashed about in the grey brown water for a while, whilst his young non-pirate friends hollered and jeered from their canal boats. After a minute the friends laughs and calls tailed off and he was just a daft man in pirate costume that was about to get a terrible case of diarrhoea.


He swam to the bank and struggled to get up onto dry land. No one helped him as they had all lost interest and were back drinking and swearing at people. I stopped my bike next to his scrabbling hands to help him out, and for one short moment, as my eyes met his eye, we both knew that he would probably do something that stupid again in a pathetic attempt to impress his friends. 

That's just what us clowns are like.

It's hard to be ignored.

THE TAPPING OF THE CROW

If the weather is crisp and fresh like a new packet of Golden Wonder (and not a pack that has been in a convenience store for 15 years and you were in such a hurry you forgot to check the sell by date and now you feel robbed and are having to eat bendy 'crisps'), nothing can be better than pedalling along the frosty canal path on the way to work. One such early morning presented itself recently and I saw something rather peculiar on that morning that I just mentioned.


I had just gone around a bend and into a rather secluded area of the canal, when I saw a very ramshackle excuse for a boat floating perilously in the black, thick waters, tethered to the bank. From the front of the boat, which was furthest from me and so hidden from my view, I could hear a strange, hollow, eerie tap tap tapping.


As I drew closer, in a mix of horror and fascination, I saw a large coal-black bird rapping it's beak on the glass at the front of the floating Crusty Jugglermoblie. With hideous trepidation I pulled up alongside of the demonic Crow, which ceased its ceaseless tapping and slowly swivelled it's head to stare at me, with it's unblinking jet eyes. It locked me in its feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic (warm-blooded), egg-laying, vertebrate animal gaze, opened it's beak-like mouth and then uttered what I can only describe as a croaking laugh. 


Was the monstrous Omen star laughing at me? Laughing at my face filled with horror, fear and despair? Laughing at my stupid bike gear I am forced to wear so funt-heads can see me on the roads? Laughing into my very soul, mocking my existence, echoing around the void in my heart?


My questioning was suddenly interrupted by the hatch opening on the boat and a hairy thing emerged clutching a bowl in it's claw.


"There you go, Russell, I've got our Sugar Puffs for you." and it handed the bowl to the embarrassed Crow.
All I can say is that I had the last laugh that day, a full ten minutes of laughing and pointing before the police arrived.

Who's laughing now? Not you, you Budgie banger! It's ME, Person on a Bicycle!

CELEBRITY SQUINTS

I have to admit that riding along the canal path to work can be a bit dull sometimes as it doesn't always act like a teenager on a bandstand, throwing up hideous stuff at me all the time and then running off. So, I have to make my own amusement, and one of the great games I play is Celebrity Squints.


I am meant to wear glasses due to my eye lenses being all inconvenient shapes, but due to the outrageous speeds I reach on my top-of-the-line future bike they are in danger of falling off every 4 seconds. So my eyes go sky-clad, open to attack from flies, killer bees and Crusty Children. This all means my eyesight is a little distorted and I have to squint like Clint Eastwood if I want to see any details. Facial recognition is also greatly impaired, so hence my game.


As a Person Jogging, or a Person Walking a Dog, or even another Person on a Bicycle comes towards me I squint at them very hard, my jaw jutting out like an offensive weapon, my eyes staring into their worried and frightened face as I try and guess what Celebrity they are, or  vaguely look like.


During this game Stars who have appeared in my eyes have been many, such as Dame Judi Dench, Sir Daniel Radcliffe and Lord 007 of the Sith Daniel Craig. The Dench is one hell of a Person Jogging, she pounds along scowling, and always puts in an extra burst of speed when she sees me coming, I guess to impress me. Radcliffe, star of those films about a mental magic boy, is very friendly though and always gurgles a merry hallo as he dodges out of the way due to me trying to get a close look. I do keep my distance from Craig though, because I've seen him in a film where he shot someone and played some cards and he was all ripped to the MAX and stuff as he was coming out of the sea in his speedos and I reckon he could handle himself even though he is only 3 foot 7 inches tall.

Hey! Ain't you that guy?! You know the one who has that stupid Blog?

ALIENS part 2 (which was ALIEN3 i think)

So, last time I recounted how I was run off the road by some crazy-assed dock wipe driving a UFO like they owned the planet. Well, I was so shaken up by this Close Encounter that I decided to leave the road of mystery and continue my epic struggle to get home on the canal path. Little did I know what was waiting for me on that route of twilight mysteries...that was because it hadn't happened yet...but it was just about to...


I pottered along the path, feeling relieved to be off the road and away from the Fear Of Real Stuff (FORS), but it wasn't long before the Fear Of Made Up Stuff (FOMUS) came at me like a crack tramp on acid. Questions raised their heads in my brain like ugly children at a birthday party. What was that just out of my field of vision? What was that sound in my ear holes? My speed increased. Soon I was flying along at almost maximum warp, oblivious to the hideous situation I was about to slam head-first into.


Suddenly, I saw something white step across the path about 20 metres ahead of me, from the canal and into the hedgerow, it's dark, oval eyes shining at me. What was it? I quickly arrived at where I had seen the thing walk, or maybe trot across, but as I slowed I could seen no trace of anything traceable.

Don't look at it! It's trying to use it's mind control on you so you don't believe my story!

I was distracted then by shouts and calls from up ahead by the Dundas Aqueduct. As I drew closer I could see the lights of many torches flashing in all directions like a gang of over-excited chameleons' eyes with beams of light coming out of them. I was shocked to see that the people holding the flashlights were police officers in search gear, in their other hands they held long sticks, which I assumed was for rummaging in the foliage and undergrowth. 


But what were they looking for?


They totally ignored me as I carefully negotiated my way past them and I only caught a few snatched words of what they were saying, but a chill ran the length of my spine all the same, "Bloody training courses", "Effin' chilly tonight", "Hey look, mine is a lightsaber, waaannng waaaannng!".


Telling words.


I put two and two together. It was a four that equalled the white thing was an escaped Alien, (and not a deer as my case worker has suggested), with the police in on the cover-up and trying to catch it. This was confirmed to me by what happened next.


I was so engrossed in what the police were up to that I let my inbuilt Crusty Juggler Canal Boat Person guard down. Out of nowhere one staggered towards me reaching out to grab my arm with it's filthy claws, "She's gone!" it wailed, it's fuggy, fetid breath wafting towards me in great alcoholic clouds, "She's gone, and she took all the feckin' 'ome brew wiv 'er." Water was leaking from his eye holes and snot was running out of his red hooter. It looked like a clown who had just been told that he could no longer go within 500 metres of a playground.

ALIEN BOOB JUGGLIN' FREAK.

"Your Alien lover almost run me over on the road after she left you," I blurted. "She was driving her spaceship like a looney, but don't worry because she must have stopped and got out because I saw her going across the canal path, but watch out, a police search team are after her. What planet is she from? Is it nice having sex with her? Have Aliens got great boobs?"


For some reason, the crusty one backed off rapidly with a look on his face which I think was of horror, fear and despair.


Some people just won't be helped.

How I imagine they were in happier times. One filthy river dweller and their alien/deer Hybrid love interest.

SNOW!

You know that white cack that falls out of the sky sometimes?


No, not bird doodoo, the other stuff, that comes out of those other, fluffy, ominous sky hangers. Yeah, you got it SNOW. Now, some people I know are desperate for it to snow, They think that it is just effin' fantastic, because it can stop them from going to work and breaks up the monotony of getting a constant work grinding.


I, on the other hand (which is covered in a top-class techno-top goretex glove, which cost me a shed-load of wonga), I am less enthusiastic. "Hey, you grouchy cokesupper!" you might shout at me across a busy street, for not liking the White Death, but this isn't the case. I like throwing balls made of the mushy crud, and sliding down hills on an old shower curtain on it as much as any toddler, but when it comes to riding my bike on it, I want to fubb it's shit up.


You see, when it drifts, ever so gently, down from the sky, the first place it settles on is the canal path. It is also the last place it will cling onto well after the rest of it has turned into brown slush puppys in the gutters. When this happens, the path turns from something quite lovely and safe to a wild place, full of primeval horror and ancient fears. Bands of starving Crusty Juggling Canal People maraud through the misty drifts with impunity, their enormous packs of snarling dogs desperately snatching meat where they can.

In snow no one can hear you scream. Well, they can, but no one gives a crap.

Trying to ride your futuristic two-wheeled space-age transport thing on snow is an acquired taste, and I've fallen off more times than I can remember now (due to head injuries), so I am not looking forward as many others to this impending wave of white and icy man-traps.


Going on the road is a total no-no. Last time I tried that my gears froze in first gear, and although I was very good at going up the shiny slopes, the 15 mile tail back of very patient and polite drivers got a bit testy when I could only do about 8 miles and hour on the flat. This led to me being encouraged  out of the clear salted strip of road and into the soft welcoming sludge at the side of it. As I lay there with the soft flakes falling onto my bewildered face, starting to bury me, all I could think of was, "I hope when I am found come spring time, and they try and straighten my frozen corpse, they don't accidentally snap my cock off."

FEAR!

I want to talk about FEAR, but I can't because I'm too scared.


Only joking! But seriously, Fear is no joking matter. Unless you are scared of jokes, then it is. Look I don't really want to get bogged down in all this, I just want to discuss the two types of Fear. There is Fear of Real Stuff and there is Irrational Fear. Which is worse?


I will give you an example of each of the two types and maybe you can decide for me, I am too in the thrall of my fears to make any judgements. That's what fear does, it makes you crazy if you live in it for too long.


Anyways, here is the first example:


You are riding your cutting-edge two-wheeled pedalec bicycle along the A36 coming out of Bath. It is raining in great black sheets, ice cold in your eyes. Cars continue to speed on their way home past you as if you weren't there, and you're all alone and yet surrounded by people at the same time. A bus overtakes you with not enough space between it and the car coming the other way. It pulls over and over, closing the gap you are in until hardly any road is left for you. You look up, almost in slow motion at the blank faces staring down at you from the greasy windows, the sick yellow glare of the buses light illuminating every line and crease surrounding their dead black eyes. You think, these can't be the last people to see me alive, please no! You think of your family and how they will cope without you, will they ever be able to put the TV on? That is when the crushing fear hits you like a harpoon ploughing deep into the flesh of a white whale. What if they can cope fine without me? 


That was fear of real stuff. Scary, huh? Now here is an example of Irrational Fear:


You are riding down the canal path at night and it is black, and eerie. Sounds from the trees and hedgerows are magnified into strange muffled calls and whispered words. You can see well in front of you due to your light, which is awesome and cost you almost 300 quid, but outside of your white hot beam is total dark. You think you can hear something rushing along behind you and you furtively glance over your shoulder to see what can be there. You can see nothing, no light of another person on a bicycle, nothing, but you can feel it is there. You pedal harder, but an image flashes into your brain of something following you, something with over-large eyes and sharp, bared teeth, a mockery of the human form, going ever faster, matching your frantic speed with ease, riding on a bike that is better than yours! THE HORROR!

Who knows what horrors lurk in the dark places of the earth?

So which is worse? All I know is that, if it gets too much, irrational or real, on either route, I swap to the other and instantly feel better. I could save myself from a spider by jumping off a cliff, and be gladly dragged from a cliff edge by a helpful spider. Weird.