The wonderful world of Rik ‘Ranting’ Harris

Being a scallywag in a previous life i love watching all the latest ‘fly on the wall’ documentaries like Road Wars, Interceptors and police camera action – I enjoy seeing the old bill with their latest gadgets and high powered pursuit vehicles and I also like seeing Mr Chav get his just deserts as he corners on the wrong side of the road and runs out of talent – imbedding the stolen chariot into what ever solid object that was unlucky enough to be in its path.

I have been finding myself less impressed with ITV4’s police camera action lately.. and ive come to the conclusion its that twat Alistair Stewart with his dramatic, patronising tone – whilst sitting in some rally car, in full rally gear (including his ugly mug squashed into a crash helmet..) telling us all what idiots we all are for taking our hands of the wheel for a second as we scratch our knees.

‘People who let go of the wheel whilst driving are all rapists and murderers, its precisely these people who will be responsible for killing you and your family whilst you enjoy a leisurely drive in the country side on a sunny, Sunday afternoon……’

I think the poor bloke is a little confused. – the latest episode sees his new co-presenter, (cant remember his name, and cant be bothered to look it up as he is as interesting as Jehovah witness at a Christmas party) showing us how dicking around with a sat nav device is ‘distracting’ whilst driving, and all that are caught doing this should be taken from their cars and have their family shot in front of them.

Continue reading »

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..

Continue reading »

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?
 

WAYN = Where are you now. The latest craze in social networking websites, apparently. I know this because I get an email from them claiming ‘Dean Ablett has added you as a friend on WAYN.’

Why does this simple fact annoy me? Well it goes like this..

As I received an email telling me Dean has added me, we can assume Dean Ablett has my email address already. So instead of him signing up to WAYN, entering all his personal details, entering my email address, and then forcing me into signing up with them JUST so I can see the message, why the fuck doesn’t this Dean just email me directly and ask ‘where are you now, mate?’

Lastly, in the email from them it says ‘click here to confirm you are friends with Dean’ – what it actually means is, ‘come to our site and enter all your personal details, and we can get our numbers up’ So this will be another email that gets added to my ‘junk mail senders’ list. And dean, if your reading ‘mate’, just email me will ya.