Bits about Cars and Bikes...

Cars…

Since our office at work closed and we all moved to the Preston office I have tried various ways of getting too and from the city. Well, two actually… by the train (see my other blog thing) and by car. Today I am going to discuss cars. I can now say I know the M55 like the back of my hand, and I could travel along it with my eyes closed, which I sometimes do if I am tired (just kidding).

But by travelling along a busy motorway each day one gets to know various motorists and their little ways. Not the actual people themselves… I don’t wave to them and say, ‘Hi, how are you this morning. Bit chilly/warm/wet (please delete as applicable) today, isn’t it!’ What I do mean is that I can tell various types of driver.

Middle lane huggers… why? There are no vehicles whatsoever on the inside lane for miles and miles (in fact there is tumble weed)… why are you in the middle lane? Move over! Yet they don’t do they. They stay there defiant, like Gandalf: ‘The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun! Go back to the shadow. You shall not pass!!’

Bully boys… I have decided to do what everyone should do with bullies, and that is ignore them. I am overtaking in the outside lane, I am going over seventy… Just because you come right up my arse flashing your lights in a bid to make yourself look like a cock, doesn’t mean I am going to move over. I will do, but when I am good a ready.

Those people who overtake you and cut in in front of you. ARE YOU TRYING TO CAUSE AN ACCIDENT, PRICK? No, seriously, do they actually realise what they are doing?

But the fun doesn’t end on the motorway…

When I come off the motorway and head along Garstang Road (this is the road that leads into Preston), I find that someone is usually behind me trying to pass me. I don’t mind BMWs or Audis at it (these people are rich and stupid, they cannot help it), but when you find a car such as a Citroen C4 badgering you, you have to ask yourself… why? Perhaps the driver is a beamer man trapped in a Citroen’s body? Maybe his ‘other car is an A4?’ Or is there something more sinister at work? It is a little known fact that if you rearrange the letters to Citroen C4, they spell out ‘Child of Satan.’ Oh, actually they don’t do they… anyway… If you record the sound of a Citroen C4 and play it backwards, you hear chants of ‘I like demons…’

Seriously though, there are some very good and courteous drivers, and I don’t think all Citroen C4 drivers are like that…

…or do I?


So… Bikes…

In the background I have a typical biker song on: ‘For Those About to Rock’ by AC/DC, so the mood is set. I guess I could have chose ‘Born to be Wild,’ or ‘Ride like the Wind,’ but I don’t have those songs in my CD collection.

I am not going to slag motorbikes and moterbikers off here (not much anyway), as I used to own my own little Honda CG125 as a young lad. Also, bikers on the whole are quite big and mean and wear lots of studs, have names like ‘Smoke,’ or ‘The Kid.’ They drink gallons of beer and have long beards. You don’t want to upset a man (or woman for that matter) who has a beard. History has shown us that a person with a beard should not be angered. Look at Genghis Khan! And let us not forget Father Christmas – we all know that if we are bad he won’t bring us any presents on Christmas Day…

Oh, how I loved my little bike, though: the feel of the wind upon my face and all that, but I had to get rid of it so I could start driving lessons and begin my life as a motorist. In those days, though, there wasn’t as much traffic as there is nowadays and you are dicing with death as a bike rider these days. It’s not so much the bikers, it is all the careless motorists there are in existence, plus the ones high on drugs and drink. Driving without due care… excess alcohol.... Heck, if any of my two children decide to get a motorbike when they are older I think I might arrange for it to be stolen, or let the tyres down so they can’t use it!

I respect those bikers with the big Harley Davidsons as they roar past me on the motorway (not only because a lot of them have beards). I guess I am quite envious of the freedom they have, yet I am a little bit concerned too. If their beards get too long, the hair might get tangled in the spokes and cause an accident. Sometimes, though, I do feel they are going just too bloody fast. I live on a main road and hear them thundering past at speed sometimes. There is a speed camera not far off and usually one of two things enter my mind as they zoom past: 1. They might end up losing their licence, 2. They might end up in hospital/the morgue/the back of a lorry* *delete as applicable.

So… on the whole I don’t mind motor bikers… I said on the whole.

The kind of bikers I really abhor are the ones on the small 50cc mopeds that sound like pissed off bees trapped in a jar. You know the kind I mean don’t you! (These are driven by teenagers who don’t have beards). They weave in and out as though they are made of jelly, they go fast, then they go slow, they latch onto the back of your car and don’t appear to be looking where they are going… ever! They seem to have the attention span of a goldfish and they usually travel in packs of three as well, taking turns at leading (still without looking where they are going). It’s hard to shake them off as they are like small creatures attached to a whale… Best to let them pass and latch on to some other bugger…

A bit about Trains...

I sometimes get the train to work – I have done this since the Blackpool office closed and we all moved in with the lovely people at Preston. Before Christmas, during all the snow and freezing ice I got the train more often, but now I just get it occasionally. Why, you ask? Why not get it every day, save petrol, save wear and tear, keep away from the hustle and bustle of traffic, along with it’s road rage and arsehole drivers. Why? Because trains are, on the whole… crap!

There is one train that runs once an hour from Blackpool South to Preston, and there have been occasions when it has not even bothered to get as far at Blackpool South, but stopped at St Annes, leaving all the pissed off commuters standing at the platform to get even more pissed off.

The other day (or t’other day, as we say up North), I got the train from Squires Gate. It is a small station, but there is CCTV and a tannoy thing that tends to work only occasionally. As I arrived at the stop, the tannoy went off and a rather posh sounding lady informed all commuters that ‘Violence and vandalism would not be accepted at that station.’ I was pretty miffed as I was just considering what kind of violence and vandalism I might try that morning. Instead I pulled my Ipod out of my pocket and began to unravel the headphones. It was, though, a pretty ludicrous thing to tell the commuters. As if an announcement such as that would deter any would-be Violence and vandalisers? Would they quickly put their spray cans away or fold up their flick knives with a, ‘Oh, well, guess I won’t be doing any of that today – the posh lady said so!’ I don’t thing so.

That lady has spoke before, and she likes to inform us that the next train to arrive at platform two is the 7.45 to blah blah. This is quite strange, as there is actually no platform one. Not unless this platform is in another dimension, or another reality, like Platform 9 ¾… Perhaps this platform (one) is the train to hell. And only the dead can board it. I fear that day when I hear her say, ‘The next train to arrive at Platform 1…’

Other than inform commuters not to smoke or that there is CCTV in operation, the lady does not speak much. One day I would like her to say something like, ‘Wassap!’ Or to play a few little songs and have a chat with us, like Chris Evans on Radio 2.

Trains are okay really, when they arrive. They are far too expensive though. In a world in which the government want us all to be a bit more greener, they should not be charging £6.90 for a return to Preston from Blackpool. And they should be laying them on more often! Might as well go to work in my gas guzzling, pollution-creating car…