the corner office

Of course, if you're going to (literally) bump into another cyclist on the way home, you don't really want it to be the punk rocker lass in hotpants and knee-high stockings because everyone gets the wrong idea. This, naturally, is what I did tonight. I was behind her at a traffic light, she pulled off, I pulled off, looked down to get my shoe clipped in, looked up (too late) to notice she'd stopped again, slammed on anchors and *bomp*, left my bike with a small scratch and her stockings laddered.

I apologised profusely and she apologised profusely saying she had a migraine and wasn't feeling too great and doing silly things, and some dudes in a white van rode past shouting 'yallright love?' and I dunno how many other people passing comments or tut-tutting as they went past, and another cyclist guffawing 'you were too busy looking at her legs', to which I quite reasonably pointed out that if I'd been looking at her legs I'd actually have seen her stop.

Aaanyhow.

For the past 7-odd years that I've had this blog, my about page has said "I'm a won't-get-a-haircut-I-just-won't-dammit thirty-something South African." Now it just says "I'm a thirty-something South African."

It was long overdue, and finally it was time. The barber thought he'd died and gone to tonsorial heaven. "I ain't cu' 'air this long in the 48 'ears I been a barber," 'e says. (Which says more about the average Chislehurst hairstyle than my hair, which was long, but by no means Rapunzel-esque). "I'm a barber, I like to cu' 'air, I don' like all this fiddlin' abou'", he says more than once, "nowadays every'un jus' wan's a bi' o' fiddlin' about wi' 'eir 'air, I li' ta cu'" and "I'm 'avin' fun!"

I have made a new friend.

By agreement we experimented a bit. So we started out doing the short-back-and-sides with a mop on top. Kinda slick in a Gestapo officer kind of way, but I've never really aspired to looking like a Gestapo officer so decided to give that a miss. We went down to what he said was a 'French crop, been in fashion for 20 'ears nah.' That wasn't working for me either, so we decided to try a #4 all round. After more than decade of gravity, even a #4 was looking a little unruly, so in the end we went down to a #2.

Missus likes it and Leo approves. About 5 minutes after getting home from nursery school Mom asks Leo "have you seen that Daddy's hair's all gone?" "yeah it's all gone" mimics then looks again and the shock of realisation "it's all gone!", but thankfully followed by "it looks cool!"

So that's OK then.

So today was fun. Mom's in London doing her thing at the British Museum, so it's a boys' day in. Perfect time for Junior to decide to start chomping on a coin, which turns into gag-gag, which turns into Dad's life flashing before his eyes and thinking jesus, I'm going to have to stick my finger down my son's throat, turns immediately into gulp-gulp-gulp then wait-a-minute-I've-just-swallowed-the-damned-coin then waaaaaah then oh-wait-I'm-OK-now and then back to as if nothing had happened.

Dad took Google's advice and took Junior to A&E anyway, where Junior got x-rayed (big-ass coin, in belly) and poked and prodded and sent home, with advice to Parental Units to listen very carefully over the next few days for a coin-on-porcelain 'clink' when it's toilet time.

Kids.

I know it's summer and all, but there are some things which just aren't done and cycling home topless is one of them. Especially if you're a dude.

Heading home tonight on my bike, and ahead of me in the bike lane is a pretty young thing on her trendy bike, and she flicks her left hand, flick, flick, white blob still sticking to a finger, flick again and a big ball of chewing gum splats down onto the road.

I'm normally a placid kinda dude, and a bit of a chicken, so I surprised even myself when, as I then passed her, I turned to her and said 'that was disgusting.'

Now, I'm not sure what response I was expecting. But I know I definitely wasn't expecting to hear a cheerful American accent saying 'oh I know... but I was really battling to breathe?'

Bit of a blow-up today about the retirement age increasing. Being forced to retire if you're still capable and willing is unfair, but forcing people to work longer, is a far more complex issue. Of course it sucks, but 65 was presumably a fairly arbitrary number anyway - just ask Greeks whose retirement age is lower or Germans whose retirement age is higher. Ask women who get to retire earlier in many countries despite having higher life expectancies and not traditionally doing jobs which entail heavy labour.

So many people are rightfully aggrieved at having to work a year longer in their specific types of careers, but you'd be hard pressed to argue that 65 was that much better for all of them, in the first place. (Thus manifests the suboptimality of the State.)

It goes back to a little rule I've learned in life: people are always disproportionately unhappier about having something taken way, relative to the happiness they got from it, than if they'd never had it in the first place.

This week was a milestone on the bicycling front. I cycled all the way into work and all the way back, all 4 in-the-office days this week. This was quite a big deal for me because a few short weeks ago it was pretty much unthinkable. 140-odd miles (and quite a few calories) later, and it's done.

Gravity and biomechanics waged a slow war of attrition on my muscles and some of my what you might call 'pressure points'. Yet I persevered. London was not to let me off that lightly though, and my triumphant, if somewhat ooh-ooh-ow-ow-punctuated ride home this evening was undertaken as the heavens dumped a load of ice-cold rain upon my phearsome symmetry.

Cycling in a rain jacket is partly pointless though. It's waterproof so the rain doesn't get in, but since air doesn't get through either, all you do is trade getting soaked from the rain for getting soaked from your own sweat. Maybe some people prefer this, you never know where the rain's been. At least you're bright and yellow and and visible and you look Prepared, so people in cars don't think you're just some poor bedraggled schmuck who got caught in the rain. You look like you Mean To Be There, and that's what matters. Can't show the car drivers any sign of weakness.

Getting up the stairs is a bit painful tonight, though.

We were kept up last night by the inconsiderate neighbours who were still making a racket at 1 in the morning, with a karaoke machine singing Little Mermaid songs. I don't know any Little Mermaid songs, I took Ronwen's word for it.

I've been diligent with the cycling this week... these days I cycle the full distance into work in the morning, and then cycle across London to Charing Cross to catch the train home in the evening. That takes me through Hyde Park and Green Park, which are really pretty this time of year.

Today, though, I decided to take things to the next level. In addition to 17.4 miles into work this morning, I decided to do the full distance home as well. To add a bit of zing to the experience, I decided to take a different route home - instead of a northwards arc via Lewisham, I'd try a southwards arc via Tooting and Streatham. That would ostensibly reduce the journey to closer to 16 miles, and I'd covered a large part of the route en route to and from a family gathering on the weekend. What could go wrong, I thought?

Ah yes, what could go wrong? A good old 'spot the stiff' line if ever there was one.

The first thing that went wrong is I'd gotten a bit mixed up based on the weekend journey, chose the wrong main road which I rather pig-headedly kept going along (that war memorial where I turn has to be coming up any minute now dammit) and ended up doing a not inconsiderably greater number of miles than I'd planned.

I must accept that without my co-pilot (no, not Jesus), I'm rather stuffed when it comes to navigation. It's not many a man who'll admit to that, but this one will.

The second thing which went wrong is that I was reminded yet again that when you're in a car you don't register just how steep hills actually are. The Streatham area has some monsters. The southern arc is a hard core route, even I wasn't dragging it out with detours.

Still, I made it and I'm rather proud of myself. I might be crawling around the house tomorrow, but tonight, I'm conquering and almighty.

Father and son square off over dinner, as is their wont.

"Please have this mouthful, then you can go back to sitting there looking angst-ridden"

"Don't want angst. Angst awaaaaay!"

"OK, tell you what. Have this mouthful, and you don't have to have angst."

*has mouthful*

A personal record in cutting things fine. Submitted an assignment to UNISA 52 seconds before the deadline. Thank heavens for broadband!