27th October The GTGPiS

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Tuesday 27th 40F, 5C, thin high cloud, almost still. My ear stopped whistling loudly some time in the evening but still feels like it is pressurized. The forecast is dry with fairly light winds.  Will I be allowed out?

Gull parking 1.

Today's news is that the Danish police admit that 60% of drivers are traveling too fast, particularly on rural roads. So, yet again, the police will be out in force with their speed cameras in the coming week. Though there is absolutely no mention of how many drivers completely ignore double white lines as if they were invisible.

Did I mention the driver who was so incensed at being caught in the Danish police's speed "trap" that he drove 4 meters, or over 12', onto the verge, to smash the camera? £25k for the camera plus the speeding fine is likely when he appears in court. And worth every penny for the heavily burdened taxpayer.

Gull parking 2.

The prisons are full with those who always blame others for their own actions. Infant school bullies who never grew up to question themselves. Instead of those who merely "grassed them up" to avoid an assault, robbery, torture or even murder. The shop staff who were assaulted or murdered simply because they resisted the nutter's robbery. The wife beaters who blame their spouses and kids for their own habitual problems and crippling inadequacies. The mass murderers with assault rifles and no marbles. The unemployable racists who blame others for taking "their" jobs.

Not that I am [remotely] equating the speeding camera "smasher" with any other form of criminal behaviour. Merely pointing out the general psychological trend. The driver who blames the cyclist for being mown down is no different. The: "The stupid old bat got in the way while I was doing 100mph taking a perfect racing line through the chicane in the shopping precinct," mentality is rife throughout society. In one form or another. It's always some other person's fault is the way to the top. If you can get away with it.

Like the piss-poor driver of the pickup who badly overshot the junction and then bawled me out for noticing that he, and he alone, was putting my life in danger! Oh for a helmet cam at times like these. Except that in Denmark it is illegal to share film or images online of The Holocaust. Or anybody doing anything else which might identify criminals and undermine their absolute human rights to commit daily genocide. A lad who was badly assaulted [hospitalized] was recently fined for releasing film of his attackers on YouTube. No doubt the ambulance chasers got the perps off with a caution for "boisterous behaviour." Elsewhere, film and images of criminal activity are rife and often the only form of justice available where the police are involved. Remember the school bully who always blames the "grass?" Fuzzy logic! See image for how they see our world.

Then there are the countless GTGPs [GotToGetPasts] who will cheerfully push any cyclist off a cliff to gain one place on the road behind the lemmings queuing in front of them. The GTGP's are fully paid up members of the slack-jawed, car advertising and hype appreciation & insanity Society. Lifelong members of the Top Gear presenter's [deep] brown-nosers and habitual low profile, tire lickers. They confuse mass produced car ownership with some exalted position in the "performance driver's" rather vague hierarchy of the road. Usually placing themselves somewhere between an Old Money Rolls Royce [with the default, plastic front spoiler] and a Lamborghini [Chelsea tractor] with faux carbon fiber, adhesive vinyl on the roof.

Such 'doolally' delusions demand that they must take their rightful place on the road or die kill die kill die trying. And that certainly does not include sitting behind a cyclist who is blocking their view of the traffic standing at a complete standstill only 20 yards up the road and for the next 10 miles kilometers!

 Advanced spillage

Note how aptly the GT [grand toorizmo] and GP [grand prixkes] affectations apply to these drooling, driving nutters. The only thing missing [apart from the lack of active brain cells] is the "i." The problem is always where to place their own damned "i." [For insanity!] Did you hear that the family is trying to sue the manufacturer's of the car in which the illegally speeding driver killed St.Paul Walker! 'Nuff said? Thought so. ;)  Have a nice day! As every Danish checkout operator is now trained to say. Usually in Danish but you do find the odd smart Alice who recognizes a thick, English accent at several meters. I lige måde!  

It only took quarter of an hour to extract the difference [with menaces] between two tins of soup at the shelf price compared with the till price. And why didn't I do this and why didn't I do that? Why didn't they just charge me what the huge sign on the display said? Why don't they employ enough staff with basic literacy to know the difference between 5 and 11? And why is there no consumer protection in Denmark when they are a member of the EU? Doesn't any of their publicly unrepresentative nonsense spill over the open borders?                                 

In the UK, even twenty years ago, the trading standards were red hot on till pricing not matching the marked shelf price. Some chains paid huge fines for having a different price on the till. Denmark has no trading standards and no consumer protection. At all! It's every man for himself and you had better bring your own axe if you want consumer rights at the till! In the UK shops would get into trouble just for having low displays in the aisles. In Denmark the shops leave their crap all over the place including on the floor or on a single pallet. Getting past them when they are shelf filling is like taking an advanced course in contact sports! The Head Gardener and I often joke about "not getting in the way of the staff."


Today, I rode mostly in a circle, in bright sunshine. To take in all the reachable villages with charity shops, while looking for another belt for the goth saddle bag. Lots of excellent hills! Only one [fairly] useful belt. Before leaving I had removed the rack and fitted the Junior saddlebag. I even gave the trike a rub over with a rag and a quick polish with fine ScotchBrite fiber.

Everything is disposable these days. It used to mean building a huge barn to last half a millennium. Now all you need is a really big bin bag and a tractor with strong arms to stack your bales.

I still had to take the massive Abus U-lock lock to protect the trike under insurance rules. Imagine a parallel universe where cycle thieves are ritually hung with an inner tube. [Site of attachment optional!] Or another, where cycle lock manufacturer's suffer a similar fate. For the hideous crime of flogging complete and utter tat which weighs more than a bike and costs a large fraction of the fragile pile of built-in CF obsolescence and rust prone jewellery-priced accessories. 40 miles.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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