When I am out and about on my bike, usually having been to the market and therefore having loaded my panniers with fruit and suchlike, I feel no shame at getting off and pushing up hills, even quite gentle slopes. There was a time when it might have been a matter of pride to reach the top puffing and panting but my legs are not as young as they were in those days. Helpful passers-by, the sort who love to “encourage” you by telling you run faster if you are jogging, often suggest that I should get a motor. I confess to being more than a little scornful of those who have given in and added a motor to their pedal bikes. In much the same way I growl at people who cycle ln the pavement. Those who cycle on the pavement are often just out for a leisure and pleasure ride, not serious cyclists. I fall into that category myself by the way. We leisure and pleasure cyclists should stick to bridle paths, routes with proper cycle lanes, and quiet roads with little traffic. We certainly shouldn’t be cycling on pavements where we inconvenience pedestrians. Oh, and we should wear helmets and have lights on our bikes.
That little rant was provoked by an article about e-bikes and their use by delivery people working for a pittance, most likely on zero-hours contracts, delivering meals to people who can’t be bothered to cook for themselves or even go out and collect the stuff themselves. There’s even a special section of the police force in big cities such as London on the lookout for illegal e-bikes travelling at ridiculous speeds. Legal e-bikes are restricted to something like 15 miles per hour. Some of the illegal ones can reach 70!! There’s often a vicious circle at work there as well: people traffickers tell their “clients” that they can pay back the cost of being brought them into the country by working for a food delivery company, riding around on an illegal e-bike, giving almost all the money they earn to the people traffickers! The cruelty of the world is truly astounding! Here’s a link to the article which triggered all this ranting.
And here’s a link to an article by Adrian Chiles in which he rants about hold music, the music played into your ear as you wait to be connected to some service or other. Intended to be fairly anodyne, and to reassure you that you are still “connected” in theory and that the line has not dropped, it can really drive you crazy.
This reminds me that I need to phone my doctor’s surgery to arrange a routine appointment. There is an added annoyance in that phone call as a rule: a voice which tells you, again supposedly reassuringly, that you are “number … in the queue”.
The headline to an article in this morning’s Guardian tells me:
Spain and Portugal wildfire weather made 40 times more likely by climate crisis, study finds.
Wildfires were 30% more intense than would have been expected without global heating, scientists say.
Goodness! How surprising! I think I could have told them that!
Here in our bit of the UK we have had some quite torrential rain over the last few days, albeit with some sunny spells between the showers. I doubt that this rainfall has refilled the reservoirs but it may have gone some way to prevent further wildfires in our area. At the least it may have discouraged people from going out to have barbecues (potential fire-causers) in local beauty spots.
Among the various things that were not generally available in this country when I was growing up - tangerines at some other times of year than Christmas, pineapples that didn’t some ready sliced into rings and put in tins, rice for purposes other than making rice pudding, hot cross buns all year round and not just for Good Friday - is the avocado pear. I don’t think I even knew such a thing existed in my early childhood. Anyway, it’s something I like to add to salads or to serve in a variety of ways. Granddaughter Number Four, 9 years old, has long been a fan of avocado. In fact she likes a nice crispy salad with a good vinaigrette dressing although she eschews tomato. Even baby spinach goes down well. The problem with avocado is ensuring that you buy one at the correct stage of ripeness: firm enough to slice, ripe enough to be tasty but not turning to mush! Now it seems that some branches of Tesco supermarkets are going to try out machines that will test the level of ripeness of avocados before you buy them - almost certainly not our local Tesco!
What a good idea! I wonder if they might try out a similar machine to measure the ripeness of melons which can look beautiful but be rock hard when sliced! Just a suggestion!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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