Seasons Greetings

It was very dark as I rode home the other night for the start of my Christmas break. I was going a route that I don't usually travel along, along where the canal path joins the river path in Bath, due to it being the hang-out of flailing drunks and school children desperate to stab something.

There's a bit that goes very thin, called the Cataract, and only one Person Walking/Jogging/on a Bicycle can pass at a time and due to my innate politeness I always stop my Top-of-the-Range Bicycle-from-the-future for other people to come through first. 

One thing I do expect is a "thank you".

I know that your not meant to expect thanks for your acts of kindness, and you'll only be disappointed blah, blah, effin' blah, but if I don't hear those two words, or something amounting to it, I start to lose my world-reknowned cool.

Well on this occasion, I saw another Person on a Bicycle approaching the Cataract and I stopped to allow their passage. The rider had no lights on their bicycle, and they were in dark clothes, and they had no helmet, and their bushy mad hair stuck out in all directions.

"Merry Christmas!" I merrily chortled in my merry way.

"You Bastard," said the approaching bike-riding darkness.

A red mist suddenly descended from the sky and wrapped itself around me and I started to shiver with it's intensity. As the unfriendly dark rider drew near to go past me, I could smell his fetid, drunken breath, see his terrible flame filled eyes, and I could feel the demons within him. I knew what I had to do.

Flinging out an arm, I caught him across the neck. He made an odd gagging noise and then toppled to one side, over into the scrub on the waters edge.

"I said, 'Merry Christmas'" just incase he hadn't heard me.

He was struggling for breath and didn't seem that keen on answering me. I got off my amazing bike, put the composite alloy stand down, and walked over to where he was lying, entangled in his bike and the undergrowth, a shaking, open hand raised towards me.

"Here, let me help you up." I said.

I reached down and pulled his bike out from under him. It was an inferior, old make, that was probably stolen or something, it didn't even have a motor. I threw it as hard as I could across the river. It hit the other bank, bounced around for a bit then splashed down and sunk out of view into the black water.

"Looks like your walking, buddy," I quipped.

Then I turned my head downward to look at his pathetic, frightened body far below me. He slowly reached into his dirty, oily coat and pulled out something, something small, furry, and full of the furious furry fires of fetid hell; a squirrel.

I stumbled away backward, reeling in horror, fear and despair. He placed the squirrel on the ground and pulled another from his coat, an then another, and another. Before long, he had pulled some thirty or more hideous, rodent nut-botherers from a hidden cavity in his abdomen.

Wow, I look AMAZING. Pee-oww! Bang! Splat!

The squirrels formed themselves into one enormous super squirrel and shot towards me, arms flailing like a flail. I neatly side stepped them and then pushed off from the ground and shot into the air, only to crash down again directly as a gnarled giant clawed claw grabbed me. I lashed out with my other foot and sent the massive mutant howling into the river water, where it thrashed around screaming the many tiny squirrel screams that come out of a mutant ginormo super squirrel as it drowns.

Glad that that was over I got back on my bike and headed home for the Christmas break, safe in the knowledge that I had struck a deadly blow against those who think "manners" are just a cockney gangster's territory.

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.

Theme Song

Hey! Got nothing better to do? Well check out this Link below. It's my very own theme tune. What? You think that is awfully egocentric of me to have my own theme song? Well, yes it is, but don't you, as you ride along the roads, have a three minute rant pounding on the inside of your skull to get out? Thought so, well here's mine:

LINK TO PERSON ON A BICYCLE THEME SONG, CLICK ME!

http://catnipp.bandcamp.com/track/person-on-a-bicycle

Or listen to it here on this video:

Or if you can't see that then try this link to the Facebook page to watch it there:

PERSON ON A BICYCLE THEME SONG ON FACEBOOK PAGE LINK


It has my complete and utter official endorsement as well as my distain and pity.
Anyway, for any of you chumps out there who are interested in these sort of things here are the 'lyrics':

Verse 1:
Hello, I'm Person on a Bicycle
My adventures they can be farcical
But I'm not typically typical
'Cause in a crash I lost a testicle
Attention I crave isn't medical
Although a creme I use is topical
Please don't be over-critical
Of when I ride reading my Kindle

Chorus:
My ravings are non-sensical
Horror, fear, despair make me cynical
I try and write it in an article
Called Person on a Bicycle!

Verse 2:
When I see a big vehicle
Squish a bunny I get hysterical
They tried to lock me in a hospital
Said my problems were purely psychological
Calling me a cyclist is not advisable
Machopaths and squirrels make me flammable
I don't want to get to technical
But fugg 'em, I'm Person on a Bicycle!

Chorus:

My ravings are non-sensical

Horror, fear, despair make me cynical

I try and write it in an article

Called Person on a Bicycle!

Horror
Fear
Despair
Horror
Fear
Despair!

Chorus:

My ravings are non-sensical

Horror, fear, despair make me cynical

I try and write it in an article

Called Person on a Bicycle!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

I'm Person on a bicycle

Not a tricyle

I'm Person on a motherlovin' Bicycle!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

I like the way everything rhymes with ickle. Sort of.
There you go, hope you have many hours fun screaming this at cars as they pass you by in the street. Go and shout it full in the face of some pensioners at a bus stop. Works wonders for the soul!
BYE!

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.

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.

FLATSO

I saw something on my way to work the other day that filled me with almost total horror, fear and despair.


I have grown unfortunately accustomed to seeing the small things of this world cruelly, but justly squished on the roads (after all, they really shouldn't be there, they pay no Road Tax after all), their bloody and torn bone-heaps littering my journeys. Avoiding their effed up carcasses can be quite a hazard. Many is the time I've quietly chuckled to myself as I swerve to bypass skidding in badger brains only to get in the busy traffic's way. "Watch out, wouldn't want me to join my flatmates on the road there!" I guffaw  to myself like an insane man.


Unquestionably, the most horrific of these victims to stupidity was one little fella I saw near to where I work down Brassmill Lane in Bath. I could see something small coming out of the road in front of me. Yes, coming out of the road! A gaping mouth (that is a bit of a theme with these guys), and arms outstretched, it was a squirrel that looked as if it was rising from the bowels of Hell itself. Squirrels are kind of grey coloured, as their name suggests I guess, and this chump was no exception. In fact, kind of road coloured. His back half had been so flattened that it looked like part of the road. Like some tarmac-based terminator reforming and then stopping reforming due to death, little nut-kins was frozen in a pose of not-quite-leaping to safety.


And all I could think about as looked down at his sad, confused, frightened, hellish eyes was, "That's one squirrel who's lost his nuts."

More horror than I can cope with. RECONSTRUCTION.