Easy for you to say

Cycling and aggression seem to go hand in hand in the UK these days. I ride to work about once a week, and it's a rare commute that does not involve someone driving aggressively around me, or more usually casting some casual abuse in my direction.

But occasionally some interactions with the motoring public almost defy description and analysis. These was one, last Friday, that left me more befuddled than annoyed, and for once, there was no outright aggression. This time it was wrapped in a not-so-invisible cloak of passivity.

I was riding home from work, through a village called Nailsea. For once I was on a well-lit, quiet street, with few parked cars, two carriageways and (shock) a smooth surface. Topically, and topically, I was ablaze with lights like the proverbial Christmas tree, with lights, reflectives and hi-viz galore about me.

My on-bike Garmin sat-nav was doing glitchy things, so I pulled over into the side of the road, under a lamppost (for illumination), but also to make myself extra visible, to sort it out. The road was residential and quiet (Whiteoak Way if you want to look it up), and quietly fettled. A couple of minutes, and a couple of cars, had passed, before one drew up behind me and honked on her horn. I looked up, saw the whole road was clear, and gestured her to use the empty space on the other side of the road.

She pulled up alongside me, wound down the passenger window, and the conversation went like this.

"When I beeped you, there was a van coming the other way, and I couldn't get through"

"Well it's clear now"

"But I couldn't get through with you there"

"Well just wait then"

"But I have somewhere to be, I need to get somewhere to get to urgently"

"Well, you're wasting more time now talking to me"

"But I'm being very polite"

"Yes, and so am I"

"But someone might run into the back of you"

"I don't see why they should, you didn't! I'm well-lit, in a very visible place, there's plenty of room to pass..."

It was at that point that her time-pressure must have overwhelmed her and she drove off.

This interaction left me perplexed for days, and I chatted it through with a few people, all of whom had interesting perspectives on it. Maybe she'd had a bad day, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe I was looking at the situation differently to her, you'll find a lot of people who will say I should have got onto the pavement, which to be fair I could have done.

But in the end, whether the aggression was active or passive, it was still there, and it came, in my opinion, from a sense of entitlement. As in "this is my road, not yours, you get out of my way". It's something I think we have more and more of in our culture. Not just on the roads, although it's pretty bad there. But in many of our interactions, in shops, workplaces, and most prevalent of all, in our political discourse.

An expectation of our "rights", then drives all kinds of horrible behaviour, whether it be passive-aggressive, shouty trumpeting of self-righteousness, smug gloating about getting one over on others, or outright aggression and violence. All driven from this believe that if my rights are being challenged, someone else should be on the receiving end.

By contrast. Christmas Eve, cycling home (no Chris Rea jokes please), through Dark Lane in Sandford. A car driver patiently waited to pass me where most don't, until the road opened up and the way was clear. The car drove alongside and the window was wound down, and the woman in the passenger seat, exclaimed to me "Merry Christmas". So it is possible. Better.

A new decade is coming next week, my seventh. One that always seemed so far away. I'm not saying I always react in the way I'm preaching about here. But I'm going to do my best to do so from now on. Put me straight please if you see me displaying a sense of that entitlement, and not enough kindness, empathy and understanding. Our roads all lead to the same place and I believe we would be better off if we all realised that a bit more, and turned our paths away from the road we are on now. It's not a nice journey.

Enjoy your road.

 

 

Take me to that other place

I used to laugh at those circulars you get this time of year. The ones that attempt to tell you all about how much better other people's lives are than yours, but don't. What else is a blogger's end of year post but that?

Anyway, in times like these there's no real need for any of that. Most of us are so narcissistic that all of our witty. clever, erudite lives are all over various forms of social media. Believe me, no one is listening. So let me be quite clear, to quote one of our recent clutch of Prime Ministers, I'm doing this for me. Prime Ministers are like West Ham managers. They used to last for ages and now they come along faster than London buses.

I've been ill a lot this year. So fewer (thanks Stannis) kilometres on the bike than for many a year. But what with Everything that has happened around all of that, I'm feeling very optimistic about my cycling for 2020. I think I may have finally have kicked the habit of kilometres for kilometres sake, and the gym work I've been doing seems to be paying real dividends in terms of the metrics.

But. It's still about Joy. It has to be. I have won the lottery of life to be fair. Born at the right time in the right circumstances with a lot to be thankful for. As I'm fond of reminding people, none of us are going to live forever, I've had a pretty good life so far, and the overall quality, if not the elasticity of my face's collagen, seems to be going up.

I know that for many, many people life is tough, unfair, a struggle, sad, depressing, achingly lonely. I count my blessings. I also know that by and large, most people are doing their best to be kind, friendly and decent.

With the demise of Game of Thrones this year, it's hard to find heroes. But we actually don't need them. There is more that unites us than divides us, if you want to be. As a wise woman once said to me, "do you want to make a difference or just a point?"

And if Game of Thrones teaches us anything, it's that Dragons and big armies don't win you love or kingdoms in the end. So as an even wiser woman said to me, "Be Generous", because if you want it to be, every day can be a beautiful one.

Merry Christmas