Mandate to the masses

I started cycling to work again yesterday. Yes - get your laughs out of the way - a slightly post-Christmas-rounded musician wobbling on a bike heading for Fitzrovia. Ha ha! It as taught me various things:

1. Taxis
I hate London taxis even more than I do as a pedestrian - not only do I know that they are expensive, speed up towards traffic lights, try to play skittles with unsuspecting walkway users, and pump pedestrians' lungs full of poisonous fumes, BUT they also persist in having a unique interpretation of the Highway Code that suggests cutting up cyclists and zooming past them with a centimetre gap. AND to the man (or woman) who invented their high acceleration (which sounds like a V1 rocket coming in to land), I would like to raise a punch.

2. Yummy Mummies
Yes the ladies who spend their days driving their 'Chelsea tractors' to the shops to bring in a harvest of rocket and balsamic vinegar for tea (along with the odd fur coat or two). Life owes these ladies everything. It particularly allows them to jump traffic lights, park on double yellows while they nip into Costa in West Hampstead for a little pick me up whilst they source their feta cheese (and forcing the poor cyclists out of the bus lane and into the main lanes where they meet more Y.Ms), and slow down whilst they phone their poodles to tell them to put on the kettle.

3. Mercedes Drivers
Yes. When I was young it was Volvo drivers. But then I did grow up in the rural countryside. In London, Mercedes drivers seem to have the right to sit in the Cycle Boxes and junctions. Well clearly, they have money so can do anything!

Yes. Rant rant rant! But it is not over yet. On the way home yesterday, I popped into Sainsbury's supermarket where I purchased some coffee beens and one or two bits of Italian food to cook for dinner. People are so rude in supermarkets. Firstly, the ladies (and I'm afraid it is always ladies in my experience) who walk through you pretending they haven't seen you, or who just expect you to stop and let them past; obviously I do - I'm a gentleman, but no doubt if the shoes were on the other foot, I'd be called all sorts of chauvinist-type names. Then there are the people who, when you are looking at a shelf, come and stand in front of you without even excusing themselves. RANT RANT RANT.

But yes, why am I ranting? It occured to me that these people fall into the flaw in society that we all fall into - in fact I've already fallen into it several times writing this. It is the 'mandate' philosophy of life.

I fall into the situation all the time; I subconciously think that if a friend does something, it is alright for me to do too even if afterwards it offends the way I wish to live my life. In other words I assume by example that I have been handed a mandate. Taxi drivers have their own Highway Code handed on by implied mandate to one another, Yummy Mummies buy rocket and park their cars anywhere because their mandate is passed on by other balsamic vinegar harvesters, and it is alright for me not to reply to e-mails that I know replies are expected from simply because other people do it to me. It is abhorrent that I do it; it is abhorrent when other people do it to me.

Amongst my New Year's resolutions you will find my desire to cycle more and shape up a bit, to drink less in order to preserve my income a bit (and thus write more blog entries), and to stop myself being led by other people - to ignore implied mandate - 'oh he/she does it so it is fine for me'.

Mandate to the masses. I'm off to drink some balsalmic vinegar.

JL

Long time no see?

Yes. I've had a month off writing on my blog. You may have noticed?

I've discovered that one of the problems about my life is that I do far too much; this busyness naturally affects all of my administration - and this includes my blog...

Apologies all!

Please find below a couple of photo albums of things I have been up to recently. Hopefully I will get to write something tomorrow!

New Year's Eve

Work Party

JL