Fat Man on a Bicycle

In a fit of pique this week, at the striking bums of Metronet, I shelled out on a commuter bicycle, namely, the Strida. Rather strangely, I'm very excited about riding it on Monday, after testing it out this weekend.

The current betting is that I'll last about three days before regurgitating back onto the dreadful London Tube. However, I hope that I can carry it on much longer (if a satanic Transport for London's bus driver doesn't kill me first with a murderous left turn).

So why am I contemplating joining the collectivist herd of socialist-environmentalist-anarchist-take-yer-pick human haters of Old London Town, in their angry waspish uniforms of Lycra? Well, (1) if it's good enough for Bonson Jorris, then it's good enough for me; (2) I really can't hack the sovietism of the idiotic Tube any more, especially the Central Line; (3) I need some more exercise and fresh air; (4) I want to die, killed by a London bus driver.

Let's see if I can do more than three days and can hold out from morphing into a human hater myself, demanding that others be forced to pay for more cycle lanes and be forced to stop using their own preferred means of transport. In the meantime, if you spot a Fat Man on a Bicycle, looking lost as he cycles across Hyde Park on a triangular orange contraption, resplendent in a Henry Hazlitt T-shirt or an England rugby shirt, then wave, say "You are Jack Maturin and I claim my ten pounds!" and then tell all your friends.

Oh, how I'll laugh. And BTW, I may wear a bright yellow helmet for visibility, but I will never wear Lycra. Joining the herd is one thing. Looking like them is entirely another.