blackrat - @ 20six.co.uk

There’s a website called ‘am I hot or not?’ residing on a server somewhere out there that makes an amffice:smarttags" />using, if inane diversion from the pressures of day to day life. I mention it only because its name rather aptly sums up the dilemma facing all despatch riders in central London at the moment – Hot, or Not?fficeffice" />

Not being gifted with ESP, I wouldn’t even like to guess at the weather outside as you sit reading this. But as I write, the temperature outside is nudging 91oF, road rage is in danger of becoming an Olympic sport and tempers are short. Summer – albeit temporarily – has most definitely arrived.

Not that I’m bemoaning the fact. London truly comes alive in the summer, bathed in golden sunlight and absorbing the deep azure colour of the sky, the Thames looks oh so beautiful. And whilst tempers may be short as mercury rises, there is a definite spring in the step of most. And who is to moan when the average woman walking to work appears so captivating as to prove more of a diversion than roadworks and an obligatory left turn on Regent Street? As the temperature rises, so too do hemlines – these, friends, are dangerous times!

Yet, joshing aside, the dilemma facing your average courier at the moment is all too real – what is the solution to working in town when the temperature rises this high? Leaving home for work at 08:00, it’s warm, but not oppressively so, so full kit is the order of the day – gloves excepted. The jury is still out on gloves – sensible, yes, practical, no. Simple equation of risk/reward solves that one – in London, where speeds are fairly pedestrian, you sacrifice their protection for the ability to work. Given the number of times that a day spent working the central postcodes will mean that you have to mount and dismount the bike, taking your gloves on and off to write down details, they stick to your sweaty digits like glue and are about as effective as two slippers by Sir Douglas Bader’s fire.

The problem though is later in the morning as warm turns to hot - where to draw the line of risk and reward justifying the sacrifice of protective clothing. The mind is a complex thing, but it seeks to provide solutions and until a cost-effective and practical elucidation reveals itself, there can be but one answer – leather jeans and a cotton tee shirt are the sartorial elegance of choice for thousands of couriers across London this season.

By the way, Pledge or Autosol to polish your halo, sir. Yes, you. The one tut-tutting over there at the stupidity of it. You’d never ride in anything less than full protective gear, would you? If Neil Hodgson can cope in a race suit at Misano in 90oF heat, then so can those couriers. Well, no actually, they can’t.

90oF of heat in central London feels like a blast furnace; the buildings absorb and reflect the sun’s heat making the temperature feel that much higher. Add to that that your bike’s engine is running at just over 100oF and slow-roasting your legs; that you are filtering most of the time and denied the cooling breeze of speed; the fact that stairs and not lifts are the order of the day at most locations…get the idea? Work in a jacket in those conditions and heat exhaustion becomes a very real possibility.

For all that, though, there are limits. As in all occupations, despatch riders are a macro culture and so reflect the extremes and idiosyncrasies found in society as a whole. And whilst society has those who appear to have crawled from the shallow end of the gene pool whilst the lifeguard wasn’t watching, so too does the despatch industry. Such as the courier I witnessed riding a CBR600 last week. In a pair of shorts. Yes, shorts ONLY. No top, socks or footwear, people, this fellow’s only protection in a get off would have been his radio, slung across his bare shoulder. Road rash? In an accident, this guy wouldn’t have had so much as a postage-stamp sized flap of skin left on his body for surgeons to graft. Candidates for the Darwin Awards, form an orderly queue this way, please…

12.8.03 13:27

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Oh, that picture accompanying my last enrty? Well, it's not entirely gratuitous, having some relevance to the article it accompanies. Nice ass, but guess what it would look like after her B/F loses control and throws that nice red Duke down the road. Gravel Rash? Yes please, sand my skin with wool wire!

Beleive it or not, I took this picture whilst covering the recent Gay Pride march in July. Girls. Straight. Enjoying an impromptu party at the roadside in Picadilly whilst 35,000 gays, bis and lesbians marched by.

Can't help thinking that the girl on the left in the pink vest could make a passable living as a double for SJP in 'Sex and the City'.

12.8.03 14:04

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There's been something of a furore over the conviction yesterday of that 19 year old paedophile for attempting to procure a 9-year old girl for sex. Lots of banner headlines in the tabloids, and web forums are alive with cries to 'string him up', lynch him anh have him hung, drawn and quartered.

But delightful as it is to see him beginning his sentence, I find there's something just a little distasteful about the lynch mob mentality which seems to accompany any mention of 'paedophiles' in the news.

It brings to mind that 'Brass Eye Special' by Chris Morris which Channel 4 broadcast in July 2001. Perhaps not unexpectedly, the backlash arising from the broadcast was huge - the biggest in ITC history apparently. Channel 4 alone received over 2,500 complaints about the programme.

And then it was announced that our esteemed government, those arbiters of all that is good and righteous, had intervened in the form of Tessa Jowell, SecState for 'Culture'. She announced her intention to complain to the ITC and prehaps investaigate whether greater powers were necessary.

Sensitive subject, yes. But I feel that those that were been most vociferous in their complaints rather missed the point of the programme, namely that it satirised the obsessive media hyping of the issue of paedophillia.

It was this media-driven hysteria which ended in 2000 with an appallingly ignorant crowd visiting abuse and violence on the home of a paediatrician when they 'confused' the two words and thought that the plaque outside her home from where she practised identified her as a child abuser.

Satire is an old and well-trodden path, the stinging response to those that 'get above themselves'. Unfair to lay blame at the door of Chris Morris, the satirist who wrote and produced the show - that was his right, his money. Channel 4 delayed broadcast from the original time slot after the disappearance of Danielle Cable, to protect her parents' feelings. The eventual broadcast was at a late hour, and was prefaced by a strongly worded warning that could have left those who might take offence in no doubt that the programme was not for them.

People were vociferous in their complaint that the topic should be out of bounds for satirisation - Why? Why should any subject be out of bounds? Channel 4's remit since its inception was to be different - it's never catered for the masses.

The way Morris presented was very, very funny. Nobody was harmed, no children corrupted and the issue of paedophillia was not trivialised. What he achieved was to show how a few 'B' list celebs would sacrifice their integrity for ratings and in so doing expose their sheer ignorance and gullibility. God, how I laugh even now at the sheer sanctimony, the pious manner in which Messers Phil Collins, Kate 'Rent a Quote' Thornton, Seb Coe et al prostituted themselves for a little more coverage.

This program was never going to change people's views. It was never going to appeal to all. It was never going to further the protection of our children. What it did was take an irreverent sideswipe at the mass hysteria the media have engendered on the issue of child abuse and to make a lot of over-inflated egos look very silly indeed. Perhaps most laughable though was the way in which the 'great and the good', particularly members of the government, rushed to condemn the program, in many cases without having even watched it. Home Secretary David Blunkett was reported to have slammed the program, although I find it difficult to imagine quite how he could have been offended when so much of the satire relied on visual cues. Still, why let the truth get in the way of a sounbite?

Paedophilia is a dreadful, pernicious crime which reaches far across society, at every level. But screaming 'adults' forming vengeful rent-a-mob crowds and hysterical responses are not the way to deal with it.

12.8.03 14:47

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Working from home is impossible in this heat and humidity. Fine, my office here is like space in 'Alien' - no one can hear you scream. So I can sit here in mufti, drink beer and nobody's any the wiser. It doesn't though offer me the one thing (alright there are several but this is the onlyone that counts RIGHT NOW) that I miss from corporate life...

Aircon. Whilst the rest of the country has seen an end to the 101^oF record temperatures, there still seems to be no end in sight to the abnormaly hot and humid conditions we're experiencing in London and the South East.

Anybody would think I'm complaining! Hardly. But I've got to find some inspiration for work soon or I'm gonna go all 'Black Hole' on yo' asses and implode.

12.8.03 16:43

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Right then. Light blue touchpaper. Retreat to a safe distance. Apply flameproof coat and...Incoming!

LIPSTICK v DIPSTICK

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Ask a man to comment on his driving ability and you’ll be forgiven for thinking you are talking to Michael Schumacher when he replies. You see, without wishing to gild the lily, in our own minds, we are. It’s a genetic thing, as integral to our being as the x and y chromosomes that dictate our sexuality.

Now ask ffice:smarttags" />us how we rate the driving of others. Unfortunately, there isn’t an allegory that suitably illustrates the contempt in which we hold other road users. In fact, with the exception of closest friends, other drivers are about as much use as a pair of slippers by Sir Douglas Bader’s fire.

And then, there are the women.

Well now look, I’m sorry. White men can’t jump and women can’t drive. It’s that simple. See the car that’s straddling the middle and outside lanes? The one that’s travelling so slowly, it’s in danger of being overtaken by continental drift? That’ll be a woman driving.

Recent research carried out by the RAC found that whilst just 9% of women considered men were the better drivers, a whopping 45% considered that women are. There’s objectivity at work! If you’re a woman, that means there’s almost a 50% chance that you concur with that belief. If you’re a man, it means that you’ve just looked into the viability of obtaining a helicopter licence.

You see, to a man, his car is more than just metal and rubber. From boyhood, he’ll aspire to own one. When finally he reaches maturity and secures the necessary funds to buy his wheels, he’ll cherish them like his heart’s desire. He’ll spend whatever it takes whilst learning every aspect of what makes his car tick. He knows that car. He loves it. And he doesn’t just drive it – it is a part of his very existence.

A woman on the other hand sees her car as an extension of her handbag. Ask her what she drives and she’ll tell you its colour. She may know where to put the petrol. There was even once an example of a women who knew how to change a wheel. But there, sadly, a woman’s knowledge of her car and its capabilities ends.

I’ll concede that women are probably more cautious drivers. However, ‘driving’ must also include knowledge of your vehicle and the ‘cause and effect’ of your actions upon it and in this respect, they fail. Miserably. I have yet to meet a woman who knows what happens under the bonnet and drives accordingly. Burning the clutch, crunching the gears, running on low tyre pressure/oil/water and turning the wheel when the car is stationary are all commonplace. And that’s before they set off!

Let’s consider the facts.

A woman’s legendary ability at multitasking lets her down badly when driving, making her a jack of all trades, master of none. We’re hopeless at multi-tasking so are better able to concentrate on the matter at hand, being more single-minded and focused behind the wheel. As a man though, my single-mindedness is no match for when my bladder’s about to burst. When stuck in traffic, miles from succour in the form of a Public Convenience, my awareness of the non-essential minutiae of driving - like speed, road positioning and other vehicles - goes AWOL. My ability to concentrate on anything but the matter at hand couldn’t be worse if I was trying to recite Shakespeare from memory whilst locked in a room with a single-minded Jodie Marsh kneeling before me. It’s a well known fact that women – and mothers in particular – have weak bladders. What chance have they got in a similar situation?

A man has spatial awareness designed-in from birth. To a woman, it’s anathema - like asking her to explain the offside rule during a football game. If you want to see the evidence, take a trip to your local Tesco car park on shopping day and see how many attempts it takes the average woman to get her BMW compact into the space vacated by the shuttle bus. Then try and find a woman who can reverse into the gap.

A friend of mine was rear-ended recently by a woman on the A40 when she didn’t notice that he’d stopped in traffic because she was looking down to get something out of her handbag. When he got out of his car to survey the damage she was incandescent with rage at him for having had the audacity to stop in front of her. Her rage was not assisted by the fact that she was running late – due to having run out of petrol!

Oh, and the object she’d been looking for in her purse? It was a Kohl pencil. She’d been applying her makeup whilst driving to work.

12.8.03 17:51

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NOW WHAT?

[ spooks ]

Going by some of the comments on the BBC's website HERE, I'm not the only person left reeling by last night's final episode of Spooks.

The relationship between Tom and Christine was brilliantly handled in last week's episode, moving and emotional, but last night's was just superb. Tightly directed, well paced and brilliantly acted by all the main characters, and what a stunning end. Is Tom dead? Will Harry survive? Does anybody else care?

It'll be interesting to see where the scriptwriters go with series 3 but it's gonna keep quite a few of us guessing.

Still, if Tom's written out, he'll be able to keep abreast with what's happening on set when Keeley Hawes gets home at the end of a day's shooting.

What with the hole left in Sundays with first, Top Gear and now 24 finishing and now Monday night's black hole created by Spooks, what now? Wait until Autumn 2004 for Spooks?

Not fair.

12.8.03 18:59

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MUSIC TO MAKE YOU WEEP

Was reminded last night of a stunning peice of muisc by the composer John Williams which he wrote for the score of Schindler's List.

If you wathced 'Don't Drop the Coffin', ITV's brilliant documentary on Bermondsey-based funeral directors Albin and Sons, you'll have heard it. Albin's organise a memorial each Christmas for the families of all those they have buried and in the build up to the event last night, the producers had employed the Spielberg epic's main theme on Violin as played by virtuoso Itzhak Perlman, a haunting, evocative melody laden with angst and the echoes of the Nazi attroicites.

The score is rich with ethnic nuance and despite it's sad and mournful tone, which could only be done justice by a violin, there's an element of hope running through the melody. The theme showcases the composer's masterful orchestral/choral subtlety to brilliant effect and evidences a substance which has been absent in some of Williams' other movie scores. The emotionally compelling score for Schindler's List also won the Academy Award for Best Dramatic Score. A truly haunting peice of music, guaranteed to make your eyes sting.

13.8.03 09:55

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