I’m starting to feel a bit less dead, although my whole body aches when it experiences even the slightest bit of cold. I put all my clothes on and I made a cup of tea about two hours before I was supposed to go to work, but then I chucked it all in, took it all off again and lay on my back shivering into my electric blanket.
Eventually time took its inevitable course and I had to put all the clothes back on and get the fuck out of the flat. This time I at least remembered to put the black shirt on top of the pink jumper. Stealth colour. I’m wearing my Halloween personality right now. He’s just as twinkly but a little sterner and everything is black. Just another aspect of the clown. Oh how I love to puncture you if you take yourself too seriously.
Here I am again in The Flask, listening to people who will be on the tour. Numbers will be down, but it’s shitting it with rain and they don’t use the rain app I have which shows me the clouds and makes me into a weather prediction demon (thank you Extreme E).
It’ll stop raining just after we start and it’ll hold off all evening.
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So today I’m experimenting with these Dott scooters. I’ve brought my licence. Unexpected hurdle jumped. Chris forgot his stuff, so I sent him in my first ride all the way down and back up Swains Lane. It makes no sense for him to leave the doctor’s bag in The Star. But yesterday, for a brief impractical moment of idiocy, he thought it did. I’m glad I have this new and rather odd subscription. They’re very OCD about things but they kinda have to be so they can work out who chucked their scooter in the river.
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I was pretty much ready to be positive about Dott until I tried to take it back to Bergman through the Heath.
No Go Area.
I got as far as the top of Parliament Hill when it decided to cut out and put a 2mph limiter on. I was in so far in blood that to go back were as tedious as go o’er. Even trying to ride it down the other side of the hill I had to occasionally kick the fucker. Then when I had finally slogged the bastard thing back onto the road it kept on switching the limiter on and off because for Dott, Rules>Safety. Fucker cut out under me once and very nearly threw me under a bus. Dott Scooters: Another Thing That Looks Like Freedom But Really Is Jail. There’s your new marketing strategy you chumps. “To avoid a fine, stick to the permitted route,” it says, and fuck you. If you issue that fine I will never pay it. And if someone else issues it then it’s none of your fucking business.
And that is what happens when I try to do things laid aside for those younger than me. I notice the freedom creep where I’m not supposed to. It is getting faster and faster, that creep, and we keep on getting baited into supporting giving away everything. Boiling frogs.
You can still hang someone for treason for playing bagpipes on Hampstead Heath. It doesn’t affect our day to day existence. Dott is an obedioconpany, but considering they almost threw me under a bus their thrust is not about protecting the rider, it’s about protecting obedience. It makes about as much sense as the bagpipe law. Twits.
Fuck I hit publish instead of schedule. Meh.
AlBarclay 