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r:B
r:B
It appears it’s time to stand up and be counted.
I’m fed up listening to ill-informed pundits and self-righteous gobshites telling us how the Scots judicial system has to be run. Personally, I almost twitched with national pride – an infrequent emotion – to hear Kenny MacAskill announce the Libyan’s release the other day. There might always be doubt about the justice of al-Megrahi’s conviction but there should be no doubt over the compassion behind his release.
What disgusted – but not surprised – me was the political mileage the obscurantists and opportunists, even among the so-called “liberal” and “progressive” parties, have tried to make out of the situation. Any excuse to bring Scots back under Westminster’s heel…
The North British Conservative Club - I’m not aware of them having enough members to really be regarded as a party – could only repeat their usual whinge that, as Scots, we’re clearly incapable of governing ourselves. And New Labour’s London lackey in Holyrood, Ian Gray, appears to have developed psychic powers and believes himself somehow capable of channeling our “silent majority”. I can only hope the Scots electorate – generally not known for its silence – shows this charlatan the contempt he deserves at the next election.
As for our American critics threatening a trade boycott? Phew…you’d almost think we’d been illegally imprisoning foreign nationals in contravention of the Geneva Convention in a military facility on illegally occupied foreign soil and not even admitting habeas corpus!
I mean, if we’d done that – and hadn’t subsequently begged forgiveness from the “international community” – I would be too ashamed to show my face for a decade or two, never mind criticising others.
The world is still waiting for an apology for the US killing 300 passengers on IR655!
All we did was show compassion to a dying man.
Offended? Yes, I bloody well am!
r:B
Robert Burns...as he is known to the pigeons of Dumfries
Since we’re celebrating 250 years of the Bard…this is what I like to think of as his musings on the future lot of bicyclists.
I’m now arrived – thanks to the gods!
Thro’ pathways rough and muddy,
A certain sign that makin roads
Is no this people’s study:
Altho’ I’m not wi’ Scripture cram’d,
I’m sure the Bible says
That heedless sinners shall be damn’d,
Unless they mend their ways.
Robert Burns,
Epigram On Rough Roads, 1786
r:B
Many thanks to Transform Scotland for expressing enthusiasm in this blog and linking to it from their important and informative site!
Also thanks to a very old friend in Embro for dropping a link. Glad to see you’re causing as much trouble as ever..! :c)
Just - ahem! - don’t mention the trams…
R:B
The bicycle was defined as a “carriage” in an English court-room in 1879 – an attitude subsequently fossilised in a parliamentary Act of 1888 – at a time when the only competition for the road were pedestrians, horses and horse-drawn traffic; the bicycle was quite literally the fastest thing on wheels. This rationale would have seen the term extend also to prams and wheelchairs.
Indeed, until the change in local government legislation (1994?), I can attest that a local bylaw in Dundee made it illegal to “push a perambulator” or “move on roller skates” across the City Square – although I believe you could drive a herd of sheep down the main thoroughfare opposite the square on market days! Current UK legislation does, however, identify the potential for classifying push-along scooters, skateboards and roller-skates as vehicles despite acknowledging the obvious practical problems of enforcement.
As I’ve touched on briefly in an earlier post, any time the opportunity arose in the first half of the twentieth century to create a codified bicycling policy which would have made provision for cycle paths similar to those now envied in north-western continental Europe, it was rejected by cycling organisations representing the narrow interests of the (un)sporting minority. Thanks to these elitists, we now have the privilege of conveying our bicycles – and potentially skateboards and roller-skates – through the dirt and madness of today’s traffic as the alleged equals of cars, trucks and buses. This is clearly nuts!
In the past I’ve ridden – with no real concern – in traffic conditions that would simply terrify me today and I honestly find it increasingly difficult to advocate anyone take up vehicular city cycling. Some people may enjoy pretending to be a “vehicle”, not me…I just want to ride my bicycle.
Messrs Obree, Beaumont and Hoy aside, Scotland has another, lesser-known, bicycle-riding hero. Now, I’m not suggesting this is how to ride around the streets of Edinburgh, but Danny Macaskill is an excellent – if eccentric – example of why the notion of the vehicular bicycle is a nonsense. Let’s see you do this in a “carriage”…
R:B
Transform Scotland yesterday released a report which suggests the Scottish economy would benefit by as much as £4bn if cycling could account for 27% of all journeys currently undertaken by car.
This report should be welcomed as an important step in the case for an effective, modern cycling infrastructure in Scotland. The only real obstacle to this in the past has been lack of political will and this, in turn, is generally something that can be bent by judicious and repeated application of a suitably-large financial incentive. This report provides the fiducial clout.
This is a longer post than usual…but please read on.
