Blog 146: Nicolas UnCaged

Everybody writes about Nicolas Cage, I know, but I read this and I just had to. I just had to.
I read this article on a website called Movie Pilot... you can read the full thing here if you want.

The headline reads:

Nicolas Cage Slept in Dracula's Castle to 'Channel the Energy', So Sayeth Idris Elba

Idris Elba, for those that don't know, is another actor. He's in the adverts for watching box sets on Sky and he plays Heimdall in Thor and Thor 2 - the guy with the big golden helmet who sees everything.
And he was also in Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance ...a film that was just...awful. Actually, to be fair, the special effects were incredible, and the Ghost Rider looked amazing in it, but everything else was really bad. Anyway, Idris said this about Nic.

"Yeah - Nic Cage came back one day on set, and he came down to set and he looked a little bit tired, a little bit - kind of like he'd been up all night. 

So I was like, "Hey Nic man, how you doing man" and he said "I'm alright" and I said "You seem a little spooked out"...

...and he said, "Yeah man, I went up to Dracula's castle...the ruins up in the mountains, and I stayed the night" and I said, "What?! Why?" and he said "I just had to channel the energy, and it was pretty spooky up there." We were shooting in Romania, Transylvania, and he just went up there to spend the night, as you do. And then he walked away."


When I read that I just thought it'd be incredible to watch how this played out in the film. So here it is, Nic Cage channeling the energy of Dracula himself... enjoy!

Blog 145: An NHSsity?

So I've been speaking to some friends, and found out a fair few of them haven't been to the dentist in, well, years. Like, literally years. And I completely get it. I'm tempted to just stop going myself.

I'll tell you why! I've never been to the dentist and been told anything other than "your teeth are fine, keep up the good work". Ok, once, a dentist told me I should get braces. I didn't need them though, they just stick braces on any kid growing up in the UK like they've got a quota to fill, and that quota specifies "one to every kid". My teeth have basically gone back to how they were because there was no way I was wearing that retainer at night. And it's fine, I can still chew. Trust me, I have no trouble eating.

The only other time I got told something different was "your wisdom teeth are coming through... go to this address to see this other dentist". So I went to this 'dentist' but it was just a guy's house, and then he told me "yeah, your wisdom teeth are coming through at a right angle to what they should be. But unless it hurts, we'll just leave them. We like to just leave wisdom teeth these days". So when I don't need braces, I'm held down and have bits of metal glued to my skull, but when my wisdom teeth come out at a right angle, betraying their molar friends, nobody bats an eyelid. And they never did hurt, so I didn't need to do anything. So basically, they could have summarised it as "your teeth are fine, keep up the good work". Thanks guys.

And doctors... Now, don't get me wrong, doctors are brilliant if you need one. If I need to have an operation for some reason and anyone other than a doctor is in charge, like, a builder or a lawyer, I'd be cross. But I always forget that some doctors are just like some people, and they have absolutely no common sense.

I hate going to the doctor now, because I've had a recurring problem with my back, and it's got to the point once before where for 5 weeks I couldn't lie down, and I couldn't sleep for more than 2 half hours every night. And I had to go to the doctor a few times with that, and every time I went back, the woman who saw me made me feel like an idiot and a burden.

I'm just going to take this opportunity to say to any doctors reading (and I know there aren't any, but still):

I am not a doctor.

In fact, you can put that in your records. Type my name in, pull my records up and just make a note at the top there. You can quote me on it: "This patient is NOT a doctor and has very little knowledge of biology and medicine, so will visit when something isn't functioning properly on his body".

So if a doctor tells me it's a trapped nerve, and will go in 2 weeks, and if after 5 weeks it's still there and I go back, and if after a year when I feel the same spot twinging like it's gonna go again any minute, and if in my uneducated un-doctor brain I, for some reason, think all of this means it could be more than a trapped nerve, then yes, I might come back to the doctor.

And if you are a doctor, then maybe just realise that the majority of people who are going to come to you will, in fact, not be doctors. They will be ordinary people, with no medical expertise or training, and some of them are probably coming to you because they have a genuine concern for their health, and they made the simple mistake of thinking that doctors were there for exactly that purpose. Your job is to help diagnose people and help treat them. That's your job. So people who are ill will come to you and ask you for your expertise, because that is your job. You best get used to it.

So I don't like to go to the doctor, and after my recent visit, which prompted all this typing, I do wonder if we could do with testing them all and just getting rid of the naff ones, and just use google. We all do it, and to be honest, google is usually more right than the doctor. Most of my doctor's appointments go like this: Doctor gets it wrong, I google it and realise they're wrong, I keep googling and find out the right answer, I go back and say 'I think it might be this', doctor agrees.

Fairly recently, I had shingles. Just so you know, shingles is like a rash - it's chicken pox that lives under your skin for years and years and then just comes up along one nerve randomly when you're an adult (by the way, don't google it. It's grim. It looks like you're turning into a red crocodile, one nerve at a time). I didn't know what it was at the time. He told me "it's not shingles, it can't be, because it hasn't scabbed over yet. It's herpes. Take some of this stuff".

I didn't know much about herpes. I knew it was an STI from school, but I knew that thrush was too, and I also knew from my time working at a nursery that you can catch thrush from drooling babies, so it's not exclusively transmitted through...well, the S part of STI. So I googled it at home to see what it said about herpes. Again, I don't recommend googling.

Anyway, I discovered that it was exclusively passed on through skin on skin contact, and that it was something you only get around your mouth and your genitals. But my rash was on my rib, and I am a Christian, so I'm trying hard as you like to stay celibate until I hopefully get married.

One day my princess will come...

So I think it's fair to say, there's sufficient reason for me to think the doctor might have made a mistake.

Which made me a bit annoyed... maybe I'm being unfair, but if a doctor has that computer in front of them and reads that 'herpes is something you get on your mouth or on your dingle' while looking at a rash on your rib, you might just be prompted to ask a couple more questions. I'd expect a doctor, as he tries to ascertain whether I've got herpes or not, to at least ask, "Mike, have you erm...done it recently?" Because a very simple question like that could lead to a very simple answer, "no, doctor", which in turn will lead to the doctor not being wrong. I thought doctors have tests in communication so they are able to work out what's wrong, I didn't realise they just have to randomly suggest a disease and wait for you to google it and come back with the real answer. I thought we'd moved on from that.

Anyway, I spoke to a mate who had shingles a few weeks before I did, (shingles brothers!!) and he saw the rash and said it was definitely shingles. So I went back, and this time, a different doctor, as soon as I lifted up my shirt, said, STRAIGHT AWAY, "yeah, that's definitely shingles". She explained how shingles is also known as "herpes zoster", so that's probably where the confusion came from. I didn't tell her that her colleague had said "it's definitely not shingles because it hasn't scabbed over". I mean, what do I know? I'm not a doctor.

Blog 144: Tortilla Sky

Another one of my dreams, which I more or less remember,  features myself, my friend Iain, his girlfriend (who just became his fiance, so CONGRATULATIONS) but who will remain nameless because I don't know if they want me blabbing all over the internet, and my girlfriend who will remain nameless because she doesn't exist in real life and I genuinely can't remember the face or name she had in the dream. Sorry.

Anyway, we all went on a little holiday to Barcelona, which according to my subconscious looks a lot like my secondary school but a lot more autumnal because all the trees were well orange.

While we were there, we thought we'd travel on the famous cable car system which weaves it's way through Barcelona's heart. I've never been to Barcelona, so I have no idea if it has cable cars going through it or not, so that might be a stupid dream invention or it might be just completely normal.

Upon entering the cable car, which was about the size of the bus, you had a choice of normal, bus like seats, or like, a bag thing, that hung underneath the cable car. Like a scrotum.

Which isn't so odd when you observe the 

rest of the architecture in Barcelona.

Of course, the choice of normal seats only became apparent once I'd already climbed into the scrote bit and got myself all comfortable in the little hanging pouch, so I decided to ride it out despite the extremely rude American girls behind me who kept saying how weird it was for me to choose those seats. I lied to them and said it was traditional. Hopefully they climbed into one later on in an effort to experience the 'real Barcelona', the fools.

As the cable car meandered over the streets below, I began to realise that it was more like a roller coaster than a cable car. We were swinging all over the shop, my bundled up legs narrowly avoiding rooftops and trees and those wires that hang all over the place in cities. It was a bit scary at first but quickly became really fun.

And at the end of the ride, the cable car hit a slope down towards the floor, where it would then leave the cables that held it up and park itself on the floor. It was a huge downward slope, and was lots of fun, like a giant slide. But Iain got scared and rushed to the front going 'what's happening?'. He was all worried because he didn't realise the cable car ended with a slope and thought we were falling. Silly boy, everyone knows the cable cars in Barcelona slope to the floor and park themselves! That's when I woke up, but it's too early. So I wrote this, and hopefully I'll dream a bit more now as I wander back into my sleep.

Just like a baby.

Blog 143: Elm Street Smarts

I don't really have dreams very often, but I do enjoy having them because they're so weird, and I was told that keeping a dream journal helps you to remember them when you wake up. But what's the point in keeping a dream journal if nobody reads it, I hear you ask. Well, the same reason I keep a blog even though nobody reads it. Because what else am I supposed to do now that the internet has grinded away at my life until all that was left was twitter and sometimes this blog.

So here's the first of, if this theory of dream journaling works, a few blogs about what happened in my dream last night. I'll skip out all the ones where I'm on dates with Jennifer Lawrence because for the sake of this activity, it should be assumed about 3 of those happen per night, and occasionally in lectures or when I'm driving to work.

So last night I had two that I can remember, the first being mega exciting. I was on a weekend away with my old church, but with some people from my new church too, and my friends and I decided we'd go out on a motorbike. Our weekend away wasn't in the usual location of somewhere near Milton Keynes but was, instead, in the middle of a desert wasteland somewhere. Eventually, I suppose, you run out of things to do if you always go to the same place, even Milton Keynes.

Ok. Especially Milton Keynes.

Anyway, one thing that apparently happens in the desert, according to my night-brain, is that it gets dark really quickly, and you can't drive back in the dark. So we had to run back. The problem being is that the bike got left in the desert, and the desert at night is full of massive spiders.

How would our brave protagonist get through this quagmire of a problem? By now the audience would have been hooked, as I'm sure you are. 

We returned to the place we were staying, and told my friend and colleague/sort of boss the situation. A lady overheard and suggested we borrowed her truck to go pick it up. It was a sensible idea, but dream brains don't really 'get' sensible. So we ignored it.

Everyone tried to persuade me just to go and getting, but I hate spiders and was too terrified so I didn't. (Remember, this is a dream. I'm sure in real life I would have heroically fought back the arachnid aberrations and rescued that bike, along with a random hot piece of damsel).

In the end, My friend/colleague/kinda boss decided to go. Off she went, into the darkness, armed with nothing but her intellect and her tiny hands...

And that's when I woke up. I'll never know if she came back alive, with or without the bike, or if she ended up paralysed, entrapped in a web cocoon like Frodo, under the slavering jaws of a thousand prickly beasts. If you'd like to finish the story, fell free to use the comments box, if there is one.

The second dream was a bit more family friendly, except for the beginning. It started with a boy at youth group writing something extremely rude on a bit of paper. I can't really remember what but, oh, it was awful. So, as the leader, I asked the culprit to own up, and he did, so I told him off. But as I was telling him off, his mum came to pick him up and she got cross that I was telling him off. So we argued, with me pointing out that he'd owned up and it was REALLY rude, but we went back and forth and in the end, the only way to settle it was for me to race the boy on some weird virtual floating Tron version of Scalextrics. I was winning the whole way, but flew off the track at the last minute (stupid Scalextrics). So the kid won, and that meant his mum had won the argument. But then I said "I won", and she said "you can't do that!" To which I said "Well if he can be bad, I can be bad," and left the room.

That's what happens when you mess with church youth group leaders.

 And everyone cheered. What a great dream.

Blog 142: An Updated Enemies List

A while back I made a list of all my enemies. The list has grown because more people and things have annoyed me since then. Here is the updated list.

I should note, the Queen's been taken off my list. It's still annoying about the taxes but as you'll see there are greater evils in the world, and teenage me being all 'anti-monarchist' and 'cool' isn't helping solve the more serious issues. We're cool, Your Majesty.

1) Nick Hall - the guy who wrote an awful clue in a puzzle I couldn't win. All because he didn't make sense. I googled him recently to find out what he looks like. No idea if this is the real one but he looks pretty smug about something.

It doesn't matter how big your glasses are, Nick, you'll never see me coming.

2) Some guy called Hwoarang who kept killing me on Tekken once.

3) The guy who kept beeping at me to move into the slow lane on a duel carriage way, because I was going too slow. The fact that both lanes were taken up by lorries next to each other, clearly visible over my tiny peanut car didn't stop him from angrily speeding past and waiting for the lorry to overtake the other, exactly as I had done. 

4) The other guy who thought 'give way to the right at a roundabout' meant 'when you see a car coming from the right, drive out into the roundabout and keep driving, ignoring the other car and try and occupy the same physical space as that car when he's turning the way he's indicated'. Well, he'd either misunderstood it to mean that or he was an idiot, I don't want to jump to conclusions though.

5) Sombreros. I was carrying a sombrero and so I'm blaming sombreros. If it wasn't for the sombrero, my iPad wouldn't have fallen 3 feet and tested the protective case I bought. If it wasn't for the sombrero, the case wouldn't have failed that test. If it wasn't for the sombrero, I wouldn't have found out Apple charge £280 to 'fix' it. And if it wasn't for the sombrero, I'd never have realised that Apple has so much money that their way of fixing virtually any problem is to just give you a new one.

Terrifying.

6) I haven't got a sixth person yet but I'm leaving the number here deliberately, just so you know that there's always more room on this list for YOU. Watch yourself.

Blog 141: Hold the phone. Or throw it against a wall.

As I write this, I've had so many issues with my phone in the last week, that I now know Virgin's full number off by heart. And not just the '789' one you do from your own phone. I could literally get hold of Virgin Mobile wherever I am, as long as there's a phone. The only other number I know that well is my Mum's. I couldn't even tell you my Dad's without looking it up, and I struggle with my own, but Virgin's? Easy. It's like someone got a branding iron with Virgin's full contact details, physically opened up the top half of my head, pressed the red-hot brand against my purple fleshy brain and left it there for a minute as it burnt itself into my memory. Except it's not like that, it's a lot worse than that, because if that was literally what happened, I wouldn't have had to sit on the phone listening to Pharrell singing for hours on end.

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth. Clap along if you know what happiness is to you. Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do. It's the last thing you wanna hear when you're already a bit wound up because, oh I don't know, you keep ringing some guy from Leeds who you knew ages ago because for some reason your phone has switched his with your brother's. The last thing you want to hear is a little, tiny man, who's pinched Elmer Fudd's hat (because, apparently, you can't be a musician without strange headgear) singing and dancing his way into your ears, smug right up to his tiny eyes because he's happy and he likes clapping, just because he feels like it, and is also somehow able to have actual empathy for rooms that have no roof on them, and thinks that these roofless rooms would also be happy instead of hugely depressed that they're not really a room if they're just four walls without a roof, and therefore more of a fence. Or a garden wall.

He looks just like I do when I'm suffering with hayfever.

If anyone wants to ring Virgin, I can help. Don't go to their website; you don't need to. I can tell you right now. 0845 6000 789. Call that number from any UK phone and you'll be listening to a repetition of the word happy over some musical backing in NO time. Go on. 0845 6000 789. Call them. Let's all queue up and wait for advice that doesn't solve anything, but makes it all worse instead.

Blog 140: Train of Thought

I've decided to start writing about my favourite people on the train. Every time I go into London there's pretty much at least one person acting strangely, or looking out of place, or having a cartoon face that makes me want to draw them. But drawing people looks really suspicious so I'll have to write instead. They say a picture is worth a thousand words but I draw quite fast, and so I should be able to write about people in a lot less words.

The Bottle Lady
This lady had a bottle with an inbuilt straw, but the straw was broken. She kept trying to drink her water but she just couldn't.

GTA Man
He looked like the main character from GTA 4, but sleeping like a baby. He must have been up late, robbing banks and stealing cars from recently beaten policemen. Awww. Then he woke up and saw me watching him and I feared for my life.

Mr. Scoot

This guy wasn't technically on a train, but he made me laugh so much that I had to put him in somewhere, and he was still on my way into London so I figured it would count. And I make up the rules anyway, it's my blog, so Mr. Scoot is here to stay.

There's a bizarre trend in London of fully grown men using scooters to get to work. And obviously, I get that it's quicker and easier than walking, so I can see why they're doing it, but it still doesn't look right when you get 50 year old men in suits whiz zing past on a kid's toy. It's always funny. But Mr. Scoot was even funnier. As I was walking in, from around the corner, came Mr. Scoot, flinging around the bend and clearly not in control of his scooter. Narrowly avoiding pedestrians, Mr. Scoot tried to keep a calm expression on his face, but it didn't quite work. He'd lost control of his scooter. After nearly crashing into me, he was flung in the direction of the globe theatre. I don't know if he arrived safely at work that day. I get the feeling he probably got dead that day.

Blog 139: Agenda Bender

Some more entries into the gender diary. See my last post for more information on what on EARTH that means. These haven't been marked, so I haven't got red numbers for them. Feel free to comment with my man-scores.

Monday 30th
Watched Aliens. It's got guns in, and people explode from the inside. Man points, ker-ching.

Tuesday 1st
I drank some beer today.

Wednesday 2nd
Just killed a fly with this very diary. There is blood on this diary. It has had its man-baptism. It has been man-ified. Bet that fly wishes it hadn't come into my room now, not when there's a bloodthirsty gender diary on the loose.

Sunday 6th
Didn't write my diary for ages. Winning.

Friday 11th
I'm in a hotel room for a weekend away I'm youth-working on. I have a whole room just for me, giant bed, tele, en-suite. Literally loving it. I don't know how to comment on this in either a man or woman sense. I guess if I was really manly, I'd get a beer, watch top gear, and not wear a shirt all weekend. And fart. As it is, I'll live out of my suitcase (manly) but I'm oh so excited about the hair drier in the drawer. So as usual, I'm essentially androgenous. I did just turn over 'cos real housewives came on, though now I'm watching Dave instead. Sometimes it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, you still have to watch rubbish tele.

Saturday 26th
I've decided to take this diary more seriously. It's been ages since my last entry, and although I realise that missing 15 days is VERY manly, it'll come back to bite me. One day, I'll be too fat and have too big a belly to simply 'look' at what gender I am and when that day comes I'll be glad that I wrote it down.

Today started well. The new batman game (batMAN, not lady) was delivered. Then I travelled to Cheam to watch ice hockey (very manly sport). But, as usual, I ruined it all. I enjoyed singing along to Katy Perry far too much, and then I sat and talked to Nic for ages before getting on the longest 3 trains in history, terrified of the drunk people, and walking home in so much rain that it got up my nose.

Also, I think I caught a cold.

Sunday 27th
Storm? What storm? I laugh in the face of your storm, weather people. This storm is so girly, I might ask it on a date. (It'll probably decline).

Also, I watched Match of the Day AND the Italian equivalent last night. Serious football injection.

Tuesday 29th
Got in a bit of a fight today. This stupid guy kept laughing at me. He was really weird, he wore make up and had dyed hair. Anyway I punched his face and smashed him up fun-time.
Oh, wait, I confused myself for Batman, again. It's just such an easy mistake to make!

Saturday 2nd
Helped my dad with the gardening, which is very manly. I worked mega hard. So hard that I later found a leaf somehow in my belly button. I let him stay there a while, rent-free, until it got to a stage where I felt he was taking advantage. Overall, I felt like the gardener who Carly Rae Jepsen fancies in the Call Me Maybe video. But instead of her living next door, I just have the creepy old guy with grubby fingers who works in the shop down the road, and the people who built their bathroom next to my bedroom and who sometimes wake me up with all the...noises...

The gender diary may return in future. We'll see.

Blog 138: Aide Man-oire

I've got a friend who studied geography at University, and he told me that as part of his course, he had to keep a 'gender diary'. I laughed because it sounded exactly what it turned out to be. A hilarious activity forcing you to judge all your actions and force them into categories of 'male' or 'female' activities. He told me that I couldn't laugh at him because I'd never tried it. So he bought me a diary and made me start keeping my very own gender diary.

As I said, this activity forces you to be, well, a sexist, basically. So before you read on and go "Oh what brutish and old fashioned attitudes" please remember that I'm always only ever being facetious.

Here's the first few entries, and I'm sure there'll be more to follow.
Oh I should add, my friend has marked some of the entries on their manliness. That's the red numbers at the end of each entry.

Monday 23rd
I have to write a gender diary. Diaries are pretty girly so I'm already losing not losing...that suggests that being a girl is losing. Anyway, it's emasculating. But I've just been to the loo and can confirm I have the man "set" so there's some points in my favour there.
2

Panicked a bit at lunch, someone said both toilets downstairs were ladies. That would be bad for my masculinity, as well as possibly lead to arrests. But then I remembered there's a urinal in there so I'm ok. I did sit down to have my wee though.
-4

Tuesday 24th
I watched 300 last night. If marvelling at the conquests of bold King Leonidas isn't manly then I don't know what is. It also gives me something to aspire to.

King Me-onidas

Wow. Just wow.

2

I wish I could say I ate a burger for lunch, but I didn't. I had salmon and cream cheese, and french fries. They only have 80 calories.
-2

Wednesday 25th
Didn't do anything particularly manly or womanly today. I did eat some chocolate cake...which is ok I guess but not exactly a steak. Or beer.
0

Thursday 26th
I can't really remember what I did on thursday. I read the whole of Romans, for work. That's pretty epic, I guess. If King Leonidas read the bible (I'm guessing he didn't) he'd probably read the hard books all in one go too. It's probably the reason I can't remember anything else, it left my brain a bit sore.
-1

Friday 27th
Had to clean up after youth group but my normal co-worker was elsewhere and so I asked a parent to help lead. They had to take kids home so cleaning and locking up was just by me. I felt like a single mum...so it's kinda girly but it's also pretty strong, so a bit confused.
0

Saturday 28th
Major step in the wrong direction. Bought loads of organising stuff for my course. Then spent my DAY OFF organising and making it all look pretty. I even had a highlighter out at one point. I don't know what came over me.

I also bought a pencil case that looks like a shoe. I used to just carry a biro in my pocket. I've changed, for the worse.
-6

Just finished decorating all the stuff for my course. It DOES look fabulous.
-2

Sunday 29th
Just spent the evening recommending friends films. I suggested the Amazing Spider-man, 500 Days of Summer, the Mexican & Mean Girls. Not once did I mention Goodfellas, or Die Hard. I sicken myself.
-2

Monday 30th
Learnt some words in greek.
διότι ούτος νυξ, εμείς φάω σε κόλαση!
(Translation: Because this night, we eat in hell!)
This is one step closer to King Me-onidas level. He was spartan, and so probably spoke like this (but with a Scottish accent).
3

My total so-far: -10

Blog 137: Post-humorous

I really dislike my old self, the guy who sat at his computer on Friday 5 September 2008, at 13.53 and typed a title: "Blog 1", thinking a blog was a post, not a web space for posts. Now every time I add something to this blog I have to follow some bizarre self-imposed tradition of calling every post another Blog, and no matter how much I try and think outside the box, I can't find a joke that I can retrospectively apply to it and pretend that's why I did it. I'm stuck calling every single post 'Blog something' and I'll never escape. And everyone will think I'm just some idiot who didn't know the difference between a blog and a post. At least I got 133 words out of it though.

Blog 136: Back in the Saddle

Britain has seen a new face of oppression and of fear. Where once there were bikers, hoodies, chavs, people with ASBOs, skinheads and those scary people who wear lots of black and make up, a new hydra raises up its head.

They have a disregard for the rules. They do whatever they want to, regardless of the law or what others feel. And the worst part is that the law, as it stands at this moment, protects them.

This new problem finds itself around towns like where I live, invading roads, and even some cafes. These lycra-clad evil doers have become far too common in the last few years and today I realised that it had gone far enough.

Cyclists are really annoying.

There they are, cycling away. The fact that they're not actually in any professional competition doesn't stop them from wearing the tightest clothes. They say its so they can shave a few milliseconds off their time, but I doubt if a casual sunday ride will be completely ruined if they were out on their bikes a bit longer. I mean, if they love cycling so much, surely they'd all wear as much of their clothes as possible so they can be out longer? The real victims, of course, are those who have their...ahem..."stuff"... waggling around in front of us like a pendulum while we're trying to keep our eyes on the road.

And do they just like, go into shops like that? "Oh hello Gary, sorry I'm milliseconds late for Lydia's funeral but I haven't shaved my legs today. Do you mind if I just sit in the front row in my sweaty not-so-super-hero costume, with everything just hanging out?"

They cycle right in the middle. The amount of mental over-takes I've had to do in my little car is ridiculous. Flinging my little tiny matchbox car into the other lane to get around a bicycle happens way too often. There I go, rattling away like a Scalextric with an engine that can barely cope with rapid acceleration, flying towards a massive lorry while someone dressed up like a feminine transformer wobbles around in the middle of the road. At rush hour. On a main road.

But ok, the roads aren't just for cars I suppose. It's probably for the best that they're not cycling on pavements. But if you're gonna stop your bike and pull up next to your friend to have a chat about what the best cream is to use when shaving legs, I'm sure you could do that on the pavement. Or you know, anywhere that's not taking up an entire lane, on a bend. So I'm there either beeping my horn at two skinny teletubbies who for some reason are giving me evils, or again, I'm overtaking in ways that would make Vin Diesel wet himself.

Pedestrian crossings? Ah who cares, I'm on a bike. WOOO! Roundabouts? Meh, I'm on a bike. All road courtesy, sense and rules go right out the window when you're on a bike (not that they have a window). Flinging past pedestrian crossings when there's clearly a load of cars stopped to wait for the old woman who's crossing is not a good idea. Because you might hit her, and going the speed your going, you might kill her. The cars are stopping because it's the law and because they don't want to kill anybody. You're not stopping, and it's not because of some rule where if you're a cyclist, you're allowed to kill people. You're still not allowed to kill people. Stop. Going. Around. Like. Crazy.

The worst bit? Did you know, apparently if a car hits a cyclist, it's automatically the car's fault (well, the driver's fault). So if a car hits a cyclist who's decided roundabouts are only for people without skin tight clothes and flings in front of the car at 30mph out of nowhere, it's the car's fault. If a car hits a cyclist who is wearing black lycra, on a dark road, at night, with no lights on, or even one tiny naff light on the other side of the bike to the car, then that's the cars fault. As a result, cyclists have got this weird sense of safety, and do the most insane stunts, flying around, backflipping, bouncing here and there and all over the place, oblivious to the screeching brakes and tyres flying off and crashing into shop windows and the utter destruction their bikes leave in their wake.

By the way, if you go to Cambridge, the cyclists get road rage and shout at you. Which annoys me but it's also kinda funny so they can carry on if they like. And they don't wear lycra. They wear tweed.