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Comments

  • A major misjudging of humour there.
  • Very stupid. Aparently this guy has been known to run. So has he been lucky enough never to encounter to$$ers whilst running?
    It's not just cyclists of course as we know. My mate and I were on about it last night. He has had a bottle of milk thrown at him (full) and been shot with an air rifle in a park. Brings a new meaning to that "shoot the runner" song.

  • Some chavs tied something between two fences on a canal tow path where I ran. Fortunately it was waist height and although it hurt it snapped when I ran through it doing more damage.

     Only good thing is the type of people who do that aren't likely to be picking up their ideas frmo a column in the times.

  • kk - I couldn't have put it better myself
  • i'm so glad he retracted. i just invested loads of money in DuPont, and the company that makes those little leather peaked hats with chains on them. if there had been a widespread cull on cyclists i'd have been ruined.

    now play nice, and stop throwing your litter in hedgerows
  • "based on last year's figures, 200 protests would place the article among the commission's three most complained-about stories"

    I found his apology a bit dismissive, hopefully the commission will turn the heat up.

  • Candy you in lycra?....

    Yep his apology is a bit "headmaster told me to say sorry" type.

  • I have to say I don't, and don't know many runners that do, throw water bottles in the hedge. If anything we have more respect for our surroundings.

    And yes, a bit dismissive. If he meant it (though I assume not literally) then he shouldn't have apologised?? Just a thought.
  • I think the problem was not that cyclists may take it literally, but that cyclists feared that there are enough nutters out there that would take it seriously and start attempting to behead us.

     Agree, not enough, but then I'mn sure there is a legal issue here in that if he strays from the 'it was a joke people didn't get' approach then some of the incitement acusations made to the police may be harder to defend.  Perhaps that's why the 'apology' is worded that way.

  • Yeah, the other day I wrote that it would be a good idea if someone was to fire bomb the offices of The Times because the crossword is so hard... I was only joking, it seems my sense of humour was misunderstood by some people at the Times and the forces of counter terrorism - I apologise I suppose...
  • Would that be firebomb or petrol bomb?

    Small diffrence that can be twisted in the eyes of the law......image

  • I was misquoted... I meant 'Flame' The Times as in say nasty things about

    ... what are all those armed policemen doing in my garden?

    Erm... I might be away from my PC for some time

  • what are all those armed policemen doing in my garden?

    Gardening?

  • Two of them are carrying 12 bore spades and the others are tooled up with 9 millimetre trowels...
  • I thought he might be talking about the chav-on-a-bike type 'cyclists' who give the rest a bad name. The types who terrorise towns by thinking red lights at junctions or crossings don't apply to them, who just hop up a kerb onto the pavement if the streets are busy or who play 'chicken' with runners (on the pavement).

    Having been hit by these types, had a training partner skittled by one and been in a fair few near misses I would agree that those types could be culled.

    But when he talks about targetting country lanes that's hardly what he is talking about!!!

    How many of us know people who have been hit by cars or had near misses when riding exactly as they should but have come across a driver who didn't think cyclists counted as road users. One of my friends recently had some nasty injuries from a crash on a quiet junction with perfectly good visibility where a car came straight out into him. The driver said he hadn't seen him in a tone that suggested that made it ok and it was the cyclists fault. Another driver who stopped (he'd been waiting the other side of the crossroads and seen him perfectly clearly) said the only reason he hadn't seen him was he hadn't looked, my mate was in high vis gear.

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    I work in London, and regularly have near-misses when up to seven (I'm not making it up, I counted them) cyclists at a time go through red lights on pedestrian crossings.

    I wouldn't shed a tear if one of them came a cropper, but that's not the same as advocating decapitation.


  • I think decapitation is extreme. (You can't have a minor decapitation can you?)

    What I meant is I might be able to understand the rant (or attempt at 'humour'????) if that was what it was about.

    But he is quoted as talking about country lanes where cyclists are taking their lives in their hands and are far more likely to be the victims of bad driving. In car vs bike clashes we all know who comes off worse!!!

  • Wilkie, I hear you, and am the first to verbally lay the boot into the bad town riders, but by the same score then some pedestrians are like lemmings and do tend to just step out into the road if there is just a cycle coming and not a car.  You see them look up, make eye contact and then just step out.  Hello, I'm 100kg, riding at 25mph and have no smooth bonnet for you to slide off (although the 100kg would imply some form of cushioning effect should you not be impaled by the bars). 

    I think the point has been made on the other threads, there are bad drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, and journalists, but lets not assume that all of a specific group are as bad as the worst.

  • Ernie - decapitation is always severe. You are right though. He's quoted as saying "A festive custom we could do worse than foster would be stringing piano wire across country lanes to decapitate cyclists" That doesn't seem to target the urban menaces Wilkie is talking about.

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭
    You're quite right D74 - I've run over a few bad pedestrians in my time!
  • Just had this on email :-

    Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding a Matthew Parris column in the Times headlined ‘What’s smug and deserves to be decapitated?’.  The Commission has received a high volume of complaints about this piece.Consequently, the Commission is shortly to consider whether the article breached this Code of Practice (http://www.pcc.org.uk/cop/practice.html).  We will endeavour to revert to you with the outcome of the Commission’s assessment just as soon as possible.

    Do let us know if you have any queries in the meantime.

    Yours sincerely

    Patrick Evenden

  • JjJj ✭✭✭

    "we will endeavour to revert to you"

    I think there's a vacancy for a sub at the Commission...

  • I think there's a vacancy for a sub at the Commission...

    at the up most speed!

    Did anyone see the "road rage" programe last night?

  • DONT START ME ON THAT BLOODY PROGRAMME!

     'Cycling is a way of life, when you get a bike you buy into the ethos'  FRICK off do I, it's a way of commuting quicker and also getting an extra 8 hours of bike training a week with no time lost.  I still own a car and drive.  That programe implied all cyclists went through red lights mowing kids over and deliberately stops traffic to harp on about 4x4s and ride naked to hug trees.

     And then they go on about highway engineers that ignore pedestrians and just design for cars.  Really.  I'm surprised I've kept my job and have some weird false memories of STARTING with the pedestrian phases and then adding other traffic when I was working on behalf of Transpoirt for London and Westminster City Council desingning their junctions and traffic lights.

     Typical lazy 'journalism'.

  • Hear hear D74

    I did note the most of the "cyclists" (naked mob and critical mass) not a single decent bike between them. I mean they did't even have toe straps!

  • Oh I watched 'The Others' on BBC2 last night that was scary.

    Dont think I'll bother downloading that RoadRage programme then.
  • Itll drive you nuts Cougs dont do it , I watched dawn of the dead on C4 instead!
  • I dunno the school run mother arguing with the traffic warden is classic.

    "But if I get more parking tickets, my husband will take the money out of my clothes budget"

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