Near and far

I ride a new way, aiming for the same destination. It's amazing how little deviation it takes to make the familiar seem like unexplored territory. I whistle a happy tune, with obscene lyrics rewritten as I ride. I reflect on how good it feels to be alone, out of the city, disconnected from the daily grind. At one point I almost look at the time, but think better of it. Why spoil the wonderful freedom from the temporal whip? I think of how strange it is that we strive to isolate ourselves from the wilderness, and then construct an artificial one. Of how fragile our existence is. Of how wonderful it is that this freedom is there for the taking, even in the city, if you take the time to find it.

Then I stop thinking, and look at the world.

There goes the neighbourhood

Broxbourne, a quiet little town a few minutes' train ride from me (or a few more minutes on the bike I bought there) has previously been known only as the birthplace of the fine composer Elizabeth Maconchy. But eek! It has become the new home of Mr Murdoch's empire of hatred! When the Current Bun moves next door, it's time to call for escape route.

Two wheels, solitude

It's surprising how many people you see by the riverside at night. Those kids having a smoke, maybe a cigarette, maybe something else, giggles from the dark far bank, men with fishing rods eking out those last few moments before they must return home. Riding in the dark, it occurs to me that if something were to happen, if a tyre were to burst or if I were to twitch so that I steered myself into the water or the other way into a barbed-wire lined ditch, there'd be no-one to help me, it'd be all up to me, and that thought seems more adult than going to work or paying bills. It seems true self-reliance, responsibility for one's own actions, but in a liberating way, not the things that ties us down that we define as "grown-up".

It's also rather satisfying to get home, see that there's a tube strike tomorrow, and realise that it doesn't matter to me. Fuck you, the RMT!

A heart for any fate

Freedom is on two wheels. As the days pass distances seem less, unconquerable Everests become gentle inclines. Irritants remain, of course, but suddenly seem to matter less, because within a few hours you'll be free again, playing chess with the traffic, and then gliding past water, wind in your hair, glad to be able to forego the rat's underground existence and instead enjoy the thrill of movement, the life of it.

Remember those online petitions the government was making such a fuss of encouraging recently? Did you feel cynical, like me, dismiss thm as a cheap publicity stunt that would be filed away and forgotten? Well, sometimes they work!

Earworms

One of the collateral delights of cycling through London is the music that appears unbidden in the mind. This week I've found tunes from Bill Callahan's new album popping into my head, as well as bits of The Rite of Spring and Carmen. Both these are understandable - I've been listening to the album a lot, and KSO is currently rehearsing the Stravinsky and Bizet (in arrangement by Shchedrin) and for our next concert. This evening, though, I suddenly found "Mack the Knife" running through my mind. Why should Kurt Weill suddenly pop into my head this way? Once these things get into your consciousness, they linger. I briefly wonder if the appearance of these old tunes will interfere with my own composing - a pre-existing idea in the head must make it harder to think of an original one, I conjecture - but I decide not to worry and enjoy the moment. It is a holiday weekend coming up, after all.

Things I saw this week when I did not have a camera to hand

A black swan.

A heron pause on the bank of a river before taking flight.

A horse underneath a motorway.

My uncle's remains lowered into the ground.

A baby's smile.

The sun on the water.

Two Wheels Good

I cycled to work for the first time today. I feel inordinately smug about this. I'll draw a veil over getting hideously lost in Maida Vale.

Xanadu falling

The unusual situation of a gloriously sunny bank holiday is a good excuse to cycle along the Thames pathway from Abbey Wood to Greenwich. Of all the things in London, the river is the one that most consistently makes me glad I live here, and the route takes us right alongside the water for most of the journey.

We round the Greenwich peninsula, and circle the Millennium Dome. I thought at the time, and still do, that the building itself is an impressive looking structure, hamstrung by a lack of purpose. The problem with it always was that they built it and then wondered what to put in it, precisely the wrong way round to go about it. So it ended up filled with tawdry, empty baubles, and now sits forlorn, empty and surrounded by decay, a beacon of broken promises and disappointment, an apposite monument to Blair's government. I reflect on Tony Blair, the man who was so desperate to be liked by everybody, and who ended up being liked by nobody much at all.

Top heavy

Big people on little bikes - what's that all about?

I don't mean commuters on folding bikes with little Noddy-wheels, although let's face it that does make you look a bit of a twonk,* but young men on little bikes that make them look like clowns. I see this a lot round my way,** and it puzzles me. Do they not realise they look like twats carting their adult bodies around on a child's wheels? Or am I just an old fart who doesn't get it because I'm not Down with Da Kidz?


* Bromptons are the cycling equivalent of Macs, they seem to induce a similar air of smugness in their owners that makes you want to punch them. Hard.

**My way being somewhere near Chav Central, which may explain something.