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p6
 Depressed? Suicidal? Put down that plastic bag and get
your head out of the gas oven. There's a quicker route to your pre-paid plot in Abney
Park. Just take a quiet stroll along the pavements of N16 and in the time it takes to cry
out 'Oi this is a bloody pavement not the A32!' you'll be mown down by some 9 carat moron
on a push bike travelling so fast they make the Tour de France look like a bunch of
district nurses on their village rounds.
Most people I know have taken to inching painfully along the street spread-eagled against
the nearest wall or weaving in and out of the 'traffic' like American footballers charging
for a touchdown. And it's getting worse.
Everybody's at it, from striped suits in bicycle clips with briefcases strapped to their
sweating backs to motley gangs of jeering mountain bikers bearing down on terrified OAPs
and braking buggies. Someone's going to end up in the Homerton pretty soon.
Each morning a sweet faced blonde-haired boy heads down to Grazebrook School from the
direction of Marton Road, whizzing along the narrow Lordship Road pavements, purposefully
deaf to the concerned tut tuts of passers by. One day he'll be killed if not by me then
someone from the lengthy list of local resident volunteers I'm in the process of
compiling.
It is of course illegal, ha ha, with an instant fine of £20 should anyone have the bottle
and foresight to prostrate themselves in front of a bike and make the necessary citizen's
arrest. But we all know that in good old Stokey you'd be met with egg on face, tyre marks
on arse and a rat's eye view of a one fingered salute disappearing into the distance.
WHY do they do it? I haven't ridden a bike since my stabilisers fell off but it can't be
any quicker than being on the road and it's a darn sight more hassle what with the rest of
us walking around as if we owned the pavement ?
Perhaps it's just another of those myriad examples of what makes life in Stokey such an
exquisite tightrope walk between fun palace and hellhole.
Since the last issue and my diatribe on dog shit I've been accused of being one of those
dreaded bourgeois arriviste reactionaries, ta very much luv, that's a typical Stokey knee
jerk to a determined point of view. Well the Range Rovers are moving in from Islington
like a plague of locusts now mate, so come in, your time is almost up. Personally I can't
wait for some good old middle class success-driven back-up.
Question is, is it possible to have a friendly caring, laid back liberal community buzz
without the aggression, squalor and plethora of antisocial 'up yours missus I'll do what I
wants'? Discuss.
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