Sadiq Khan is - and I hardly dare say this to you - an advocate of the bicycle as a means of transport.
The bicycle! After all, what can be more ungodly than the use of a bicycle?
Brothers and sisters, I sense doubt among you. What, you are asking yourself, could be more simple, ecologically friendly, unpolluting and space saving than a bicycle? What could be nicer, you may ask yourself, than a gentle trip down a cycle superhighway - whatever that is - on a sunny afternoon in the summer time?
Sisters, I must ask you to leave the blog now. Your menfolk - ideally husbands, as this may be too delicate for a brother or father - will have to interpret the following to your own emotional states and intellectual frailty based on their own knowledge. I am unable to share this information safely with a wide range of people of the alternative, submissive, complementary and in all ways definitely equal if slightly more fragile gender.
Bicycles, brothers, depend upon the use of our legs.
There, I have said it. What more can I add than that? Can you imagine a young lady of the opposite sex, legs working rapidly as she cycles down the road in a pair of Spandex trousers or - according to the weather - flowery skirt with broad-brimmed hat? Do you realise that her cycling will almost certainly be making her more physically fit? Can you imagine her, slightly out of breath, struggling up the hill from Bletchley towards Bow Brickhill? Can you imagine it?
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| A Clergyman tries not to think about cycling |
Well, stop imagining it. It is most ungodly. What do you think you are playing at? You are worse than the heathen.
That, brothers, is why cycling is ungodly. We know the punishment that God set aside for those that cycled in the Old Testament - he broke their chains (Psalm 107:14).
No, brothers and any sisters who, disobeying Paul's instructions on obedience, have remained to read this full article. The Lord is a lamp unto our feet, not our handlebars.
Ye godly in London, come out of her, for great is the fall thereof. The evil bicycle has won the day.
Did the venerable Archdruid not notice that Boris was an advocate of the bicycle too?
ReplyDeleteYes I know that. But Drayton never got past his shock at Boris's hair.
DeleteDrayton is obviously kin to the Laestadians, a 19th century revivalist movement in Lapland, who condemned the bicycle as an instruent of Satan, because it allowed young men to go courting in distant villages. The stricter Laestadians also rejected hats for women (rather than old-fashioned headscarves) and collars and ties for men. Naturally, also television, radio, and so on, but also full-length curtains ("The devil's underpants") because what righteous family had anything to hide?
ReplyDeleteThere is a more lax branch of the movement which has spread widely in Finland and even to North america. I know a descendant of the founder.
I believe in parts of Norfolk the cycle was regarded as a great blessing as it enabled the enrichment of many local gene pools.
DeleteThe issue in London isn't Mr Khan's preference for the bike, but the overwhelming number of pedicabs to be found around the central area, evidenced in the BBC 1 programme on Oxford Street.
ReplyDeleteThey are an obstruction to the free movement of Public Transport and all of those Millionaire's Mercedes (other super cars are available) around the inner London boroughs.
I hope that Mr Khan gets a grip of these pedicabs and bans them completely to allow, the unimpeded free movement of the Upper Class and celebrities and reality TV personalities around the capital.
He will be performing a service for the rich and advantaged, just as Borish did.