You lot prefer moaning by a massive margin. Well, you can't say you didn't ask for it.
I'm typing this with even shakier hands than usual this morning, and not because I haven't had my usual breakfast Chartreuse. I may have mentioned in passing that I'm a cyclist, just now and then. I cycle for pleasure and leisure, but I also cycle to work and back every day for convenience and because I take environmental issues really seriously. I've gradually extended my commute to make it a decent work out, and I'm scrupulous when it comes to the rules of the road: no cycling on pavements, no slipping through red lights or jumping pedestrian crossings, I have full lights and I stick to speed limits. My current route takes me past a private school, a grammar school, two primary schools, and FE college and several multi-lane junctions and roundabouts.
This week alone, an SUV driver fully blocked the pavement as I walked along and motioned me to move onto a busy road to get round him, while on the bike two vehicles have pulled out of junctions when I'm actually crossing it, another overtook me as I signalled to change lanes, two more have deliberately run fully-red lights, and one of my own colleagues made me skid to an emergency stop this morning when he turned right into my path to get into the staff car park. I actually pursued this one to have a word and all he could say was that he 'didn't see' me: it's a bright sunny day, I'm wearing bright colours and the road was otherwise empty.
The school run drivers are worse, and there's obviously an economic/class element to it: the private school and grammar school drivers are the least attentive, and they drive the biggest cars: most of the worst behaviour is by 4x4 owners. They're also the ones most likely in my experience to indulge in a little recreational cyclist abuse: apparently buying a 3-ton 7ft-wide 5.0 litre vehicle to transport one or two people is 'normal' while owning a 12kg one-wheel drive vehicle that emits nothing more than CO2, sweat and – under pressure – fruity language is freakish and selfish.
I'm no saint. I'm bitter, sarcastic, far too angry about too many things and generally misanthropic, but I do see cycling as my contribution to the common good. I could have spent my money or got into debt to buy myself a Range Rover. Instead, I've removed virtually all the metal and fossil fuels that go into producing a car in favour of something that runs on lard and pork scratchings. I've helped cut down on congestion and my reward is a twice daily faceful of poison, terrible road conditions, no serious cycle lanes, a near-daily encounter with mortality, abuse from motorists and a completely indifferent response from my employer, which provides no facilities for cyclists and has long since given up on even maintaining a facade of environmental concern.
My immediate colleagues get a lot of thoroughly justified amusement from the sight of me in lycra and helmet: it's very far from being a pretty sight. That's fine, but what really worries me is that when this city and places like it need a break from cars – every single school round here is bathed in illegal levels of NOx and the city is being throttled by congestion – the only cyclists out are angry road warriors armoured and paranoid. If I'm out there wondering whether today will be my last because that school run parent is too busy texting to look while he or she pulls out, what hope is there of getting children, commuters, the elderly and leisure cyclists out there? What hope of ending the slow suicide of combustion engines when a massive proportion of the motor industry depends on persuading people that having a massive vehicle is a sign of success and power (SUVs, or 4x4s, were developed after the American motor industry discovered that their potential purchasers were paranoid sociopaths, and decided it was a good dollar, as Keith Bradsher's excellent book High and Mighty explained years ago). One would have thought that having been caught deliberately poisoning the planet, Volkswagen might have learned a little humility, but no: here we find them advertising their latest SUV to aggressive, selfish people.
I'll say this. The majority of drivers I encounter are careful and courteous, especially lorry and bus drivers who have clearly been well-educated for the most part. I'm also aware that there's a small minority of cyclists who take stupid risks or ride dangerously to others. However, on a social level we have organised working life and our living and working spaces to make them as immediately and longitudinally dangerous as possible to the most harmless people pedestrians, cyclists, children and the elderly.
OK, and breathe. Off the bike it's been a fine week. Friends have succeeded at things, others have had babies and teaching has been a delight (Hamlet in one class, The Handmaid's Tale in another). I'm halfway though Jonathan Coe's Middle England and mostly enjoying it, and I'm re-reading Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race in preparation for next week's classes. It's bracingly blunt. Most enjoyably of all, I went to an amateur dramatic production of Agatha Christie's Black Coffee last night, featuring several of my colleagues. Obviously being a ironic cynic (or cynical ironist) steeped in literary satire, my expectations of Am-Dram were snobbish and mean: The Play That Goes Wrong, Noises Off (OK, not about Am-Dram but theatre nonetheless) and many more had led me to think this would be amusing rather than absorbing. Plus the opportunity to tease my friends couldn't be passed up. I was so wrong. The play itself was terrible: almost a parody of its own genre, the country-house murder with added McGuffins, but every time I thought it was irredeemable, a really sharp line popped up, particularly about Italians and their supposed penchant for poisoning. Not many of the audience laughed at these: I hope because casual Europhobia isn't funny any more, but maybe because the Brexit-age crowd may not have seen them as satirical. But anyway, it didn't matter that the script was dreadful and occasionally an actor forgot a line: it was just lovely to see my friends and their colleagues having so much fun and putting themselves out there for the entertainment of the crowd. I certainly couldn't do it. It ended up being one of the most enjoyable nights out I've had in ages - bravo!
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