StreetCowboy

I thought Thorazine was the publication of the late Thora Hird fan club. I'm going to cancel my subscription now.

I think that's you he's talking to, Mr Globulin. @GammaGlobulin

Yerdedonthair aboot people wha invent personae, bytheway. Ah huvnae met an imaginary friend who wisnae hangin' round wi ' a right eejit. Raj

Pro-active culling. Only the good posts are left. This is the third time I've posted this.

Dogged perseverance.

Why stand when you can walk? - Johnny Cash

A line has only one side, and you will always find yourself the wrong side of it.

biscuits

Most squares have only one side, but they can't see that because they have flies in their eyes, which blinds them to human qualities such as dogged perseverance. Picasso's squares had two sides, though if they knew they're plaice they would have only one.

It's great to have an imaginary friend to look after you, even if its only other people that think he's imaginary. Ye're dedonthair, bytheway. Mebbe if yer pal had a facebook page he'd huv mair credibility.

In another forum I have developed something of a stammer, which is coming out a bit like "S S Cliff Richards' Summer Holiday", so you may miss me for a while. In addition to that, we breached CIVID SOPs when we stopped for a moment's chit - chat with Big G and his neighbours on our approach to the Chinese cemetery. I can see that passing motorists might have worked themselves into an intolerance at us stopping to chat at the side of the road, but the fact of the matter is that the carelessly parked Landrover Defender forced them to pass alternately in single file in any case. As we were passing where Sid's in Bukit Tunku used to be, many years ago, we caught up with a bunch of young boys, the rearmost two of whom were riding what looked like mountain bikes (with wide tyres and disc brakes) with flared drop handle bars and bar-end gear shifters.

Is anyone out to get you? Are they looking over your shoulder? Do you sometimes think that if you just kept quiet, they might let you get on with your life? Does your mother say "Ignore them, and they'll go away"? Do you ever imagine a time of peaceful meadows and greener pastures? Do you ever wish you had a longer stick?

I took a ride down to Gasing Seafood for wild boar curry for my dinner, And a bottle or two of Tiger while I waited. I had daydreamed past my exit off the Federal Highway bike lane, but there’s always another, and I followed the same route we’d taken last Sunday, past the Cobra club and the Thai temple. The food took longer than one bottle to arrive, but substantially less than two, so I tucked the half empty bottle into my bottle holder for sustenance on the way home. It was not till the traffic lights on Jalan Damansara that I had time to take a guzzle of it - the beer bottle is a tight fit in the holder, and I’d not want to wrestle with it rolling down the road. Last Sunday’s route has two tricky crossings of the PJ Gyratory, and I had to stop at the central reservation for a gap in the traffic; then you have to alight to get past a barrier across the road. With the shopping bike mountain bike gearing, I could get straight back on- on Sunday, we had had to walk to near the top of the little crest.

Dogged perseverance

You missed out on the Ladies' Road Cycling which was won by an amateur over her professional rivals. Amateur as in holding down a day job at the same time. But for the time being, not employed as a professional cyclist within a team.

Athletics is close enough to sport

Lustre. Lusters are in Nana Plaza.

That was his point. When you're dredging up The Two Ronnies, Monty Puthon, Billy Connolly... Back in the day, we had all some of us been away from the Old Country for a bit of a while, and one of our visiting compatriots brought a video tape, or a DVD or one a gramophone record or whatever was in vogue at the time, of a show that he assured us was the canine cobblers of current British humour - it was called "The Fast Show", if you are old enough to remember that. I am with Oldhippy. British humour was dead then, and Dr Frankenstein could not have revived it. A ad rehash of old stereotypes, without the humour of archaic nostalgia. If you want British humour, ask your grandad.

It's a long time since I've flown with them, but I always thought Cathay Pacific were the best. HK was a great airport to transit. If I had a choice, I would take Cathay over a carpet any day. Back in the day, I'd opted to go to the Philippines for the Calcutta Cup. I met by chance a colleague at the airport "Haway, Cowboy! You know the flights are all delayed because of a coup in the Philippines?" "Aye, well, I do now", and time ticked slowly by. We got away a couple of hours late, and the nice folks at Cathay gave us a HK$ 20 beer voucher to use while we waited for our connection at Chek Lap Kok. "Aye, right, that's not going to get us a can of Tsing Tao at the food court, and the flight is not leaving till 3 am (or some other heathen small hour of the morning, I forget the fine detail)" Top airport, by the way, Chek Lap Kok, and very well served by the MTR. We checked through immigration (plenty of time to spare) and strode purposefully to the MTR desk. "See day tickets? Can we come back after midnight on a day ticket?" Anyone with four hours to transfer flights who does not pop into Tsim Sha Tsui for a skinful is not making full use of the MTR. Prudently we took the penultimate train back to the airport, for fear of mishap, and we still had hours to wait, By this time the food court was all closed. And we still had our HK$20 scarcely-a-can vouchers... We went to the lounge. "We're booked on the sadly-delayed 1110 to Manilla departing at 03godknowshwen, and they gave us these beer vouchers. But the food court is all closed. Can we use these in the lounge?" "NO" "Well, Ive got a magic silver card" "Naebautherpal, inyego" "Yes, but then my buddy would feel all lonely down here..." "In you go!" I was struggling to get to the pub on Burgos Street before they closed around 0600 am, and the Calcutta Cup the following day was a bit of a blur after the anthems, A shame, really, as we won, and while it's nice to win when you're the better team, it's great to win when you're not. I have other fond memories of Cathay Pacific, but that is my fondest, and most oft-repeated. Unlike Cleopatra, I have never travelled in a carpet.

I posted elsewhere that I was delighted that Malaysia got a silver medal in the track cycling, and a chap on a motorbike said the same thing to me while we were stopped at traffic lights. National success builds up the image of sport in the country, and encourages people to take part and get healthy. Fresh air, sunshine, elevated heart rate and heavy breathing; what could do more to protect you against COVID, bar possibly vaccination?

Good to see you back. I hope you are well. I doubt there is anything so universally funny as melodic flatulence. Except maybe for men carrying ladders. SC

I discovered during the first lockdown that you can buy beer in supermarkets.

Flattery and idiocy are scarcely distinguishable. Nor genius. I have trouble distinguishing the lights on my way to bed after all these Tigers.

I think a lot of people die at just the right moment. If Jesus had lived another thirty years after his crucifiction, I am not sure that would have been helpful. JF Kennedy was made most famous by his assassination, and his earlier life would not have gained its historical importance had he dwindled gradually into obscurity, If God had wanted people to die later, or earlier, he would have had them smoke more, or less, or dealt with the sniper's bullet. Imagine if Ronald Reagan had become the martyr that Kennedy did? Everybody dies. None of our timing is perfect. But we do our best.

If I'd stopped to take a photo before we left, I'd not be posting this now. We'd done 60+ km - slightly longer than target - as our first ride after the strictest part of the MCO, and I felt much better for having left it a week since my second COVID jab, unlike last time. Anyway, we were glad to get to Sid's for a bit of refreshment, and we opted to loiter outside the shop next door, rather than looking like we were hanging around drinking outside the pub... There were a few others hanging about, slowly collecting take-aways and pausing for a bit of banter and some drink that could have been taken away, but was not. I re-checked-in en route to the wash room when my bladder was full, and while my buddy was taking his turn to go indoors, the police arrived. I'd left my bike on the other side of the street, not visible from the main road, but someone had kindly brought my buddy's bike into the pub forecourt. Since I had a check-in dated only a few minutes ago, I volunteered to retrieve his bike, although as I browsed the app I struggled to get a display that showed only the last check-in, rather than "Sid's: 1805; Sid's 1455..." anyway, I wasn't questioned, and I made a sHarp Exit. His bike is spectacularly light, compared to mine, only partly due to its small size. He brought my bike "I'm glad it was downhill all the way, I couldn't get my leg over the saddle". anyway, to get back to the point of the story, I could have taken a picture of all the coppers in the pub, but for sure he would have lost his licence for a crowd like that in these covid times, there was... - ok, maybe not dozens, but literally several of them, with no apparent attempt at social distancing, and I am sceptical whether they all checked in with the QR code as well. Anyway, I think the police did us a favour, as I was slightly dismayed to see on Strava that I had breached 60 kph down Science Centre Hill, which has a sharp left turn at the bottom, and the light was fading like an old pair of jeans when we left, so we were lucky to avoid the temptation of adding excess to sufficiency.