The wonderful world of Rik ‘Ranting’ Harris

The England football team have redesigned their logo. Replacing the 3 lions with three tampons to signify their worst period ever!

Joking aside, the match was a disapointment for me (as i guess it was for the rest of the UK) and many questions i had went unanswered. Why the fcuk wasnt that butter fingers goalie replaced, more importantly, why was he even picked?!

On the upside it was good to see old golden balls back and it was even better to see that he has regained some of the old magic that i thought had gone with his silly haircuts.

Whats new in my life? - not much other than i have decided that the beast has to go, and soon. I need a break from owning a car for a bit while i get myself back on track. I’m growing up and the time for the hot hatch has come to an end. It was fun while it lasted but i really need a bigger car thats reliable, comfortable and standard!

The theoretical replacement list for the Golf is short and the winning contender so far is the Audi S4 which ticks all the right boxes. Big, powerful, subtle and fast (just ignore the MPG figures!). Will keep you all posted on what i decide.

Right off to bed now, have to be up early. Oh, new job is going ok, just incase you wanted to know

The Big Mac® - As tasty as it is i feel i have been cheated. Maybe i am the only person in the world that did not know the truth .. but incase i am not, i would like to share it with you wonderful people. You watch the cleverly constructed TV advert that promises ‘nothing but 100% whole beef’ and assume that the Big Mac® is more healthy than cycling 20miles a day.

Dont get me wrong - it does have two 100% whole beef patties, 100% pure shredded iceberg lettuce, 100% pure dehydrated white onions. But its what it comes wrapped in thats the problem.

Just get a load of this lot..

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Its finally happened. Ive flipped me lid, blown me top and opened a whole can of whoop-ass on a group of people. For 2 years I have driven into London, each morning leaving the house happy and jolly and arriving at work a fire breathing, snarling, growling maniac.
I do suffer from a mild form of road rage I will admit, but that’s just generally down a small minority of ‘mincers’ behind the wheel that I encounter. A swift divert into the lane to the left, a blip of the throttle, then back into my previous lane sorts out the mincer and on with my journey.

With road tax at £9,000 for anything over a 1.1, car insurance being the modern ‘over the telephone’ robin hood and petrol prices reaching a wage packet killing £1+ per litre I can understand why people would take to the road under their own steam.

Bikes are an ideal solution as they cost nothing to run, nothing to tax and nothing to park and keeps you fit too! - its win win win, right? Er, no.. WRONG!

The cyclist population explosion has caused HAVOC on the roads of London. Darting in and out of traffic, using any part of the road they feel fit to get ahead and get to where THEY are going, regardless of the carnage and frustration they leave behind. You know the sort.. your at a set of lights (the ones that stay green for 0.004seconds and red for 2hrs 15minutes) - you have a cyclist on your left, you have a cyclist on your right, itching to get off the line as soon as there is a gap in traffic.

The lights change, you wanna do a left, but you cant because the bike is there, mincing across the junction so you brake to let them go on their way minus the road accident, which delays you doing your right turn, which causes a huge line of BEEEEEEEEP! From the cars behind cos they get stuck as the lights change back to red.

So, they expect us to give way to them - and being vulnerable as they are that’s fair enough, but why cant we have the same courtesy the other way round? Do they stop at red lights? Do they bother to stop at zebra crossings? Do they bother to respect to ANY part of the highway code, other road users or even pedestrians? Simple answer is NO, no they don’t.

Janet being the level headed girl that she is has decided that she will argue the cyclists point, which suits me, so we decided to find out who is really right. Whilst out in the car together - if we see a cyclist waiting at a red light, with NO traffic coming, and he waits for the green she gets a point. If he waits for a gap in the traffic and then goes while ‘his’ light is still red, I get 1 point. This also applies to crossings, if there is someone on it and a bike just carries on, that’s a point to me, and vise versa.

Keep your eye on the menu at the bottom right of the blog ‘Cyclist scoreboard’ where I will update the score when I can

Whats your thoughts on cyclists in general?