Saturday morning was cold, very cold. Car windscreens were iced up when I peered outside and I knew then that the balaclava was absolutely necessary and so were many layers of clothing: a teeshirt, a hoody, a heavy jumper, then the rust-coloured jacket and, of course, a scarf. The other day I'd tried to wear glasses with the balaclava, it didn't work; the glasses kept steaming up making it impossible to see.
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| Andy on the ride out of Tatsfield village, Sunday 11th February 2018 |
At 0700hrs I opened the front door and stepped outside into the cold. Amazingly, it was light enough not to put on lights and this really was amazing. It's getting lighter and lighter. Only a week ago I had to put on my lights until I reached the green, and not long before that I had to keep them until we reached the bus stop or Westerham. This is great news as it means we're on the home straight towards summer and things can only get better. Yes, we'll probably get the odd soaking now and then – that's a constant threat throughout the year – and yes, we might need lights in a thick fog, which can creep up on us at any time of the year; but by and large, the colder weather may still be with us, but it's getting warmer by the day, and brighter, and that's all that matters.
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| My Specialized Rockhopper on Warlingham Green, Saturday 10th February |
Andy was delayed, not by much, but we ended up heading for the Tatsfield Bus Stop – the fast way – instead of our planned visit to the Tudor Rose for breakfast – fortunately, I'd made the tea. While cold, it was bright and there were clear skies and when we reached the bus stop we had plenty to chat about, namely hypocrisy and ideology, and I suddenly realised how much of Noam Chomsky's
Who Rules the World? I had taken on board. Okay, look, you could read this book and argue that the author has one major premise: that the USA is not to be trusted, they are the warmongers, the troublemakers, what they say goes, they support the Israelis and literally let them get away with murder. Did you know that since 2014, asserts Chomsky, the Israelis have killed more than two Palestinian children per week. Did you know that, despite numerous agreements being reached in search of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, the Israelis really haven't taken much notice of the tenets of any agreement drawn up, they constantly flout the UN and continue to this day to build illegal settlements on what is essentially Palestinian land. And guess what? The West simply turns a blind eye and has done for years. The Israelis have been getting away with murder for many many years and will continue to do so. Their aim is basically 'ethnic cleansing' and you'd be well advised not to listen too carefully to the propaganda put out by the West via the BBC and other news outlets.
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| A new World War One memorial at Tatsfield village |
Now Chomsky might be wrong. Perhaps he is; perhaps the message from his book – that the real big bad wolf is the USA and everybody else is simply misunderstood – is simply wrong. And let's be honest here: I trust the Americans to come to my aid in times of trouble. If it wasn't for the Americans I'd be speaking German and driving a Volkswagen. That said, I wish I could speak German and there's nothing wrong with a Volkswagen.
One thing I can't stand, however, is blind faith. Blind faith in anything is troublesome. I know somebody who has blind faith in technology; he's always banging on about driverless cars as if they're the Holy Grail; they're not! Let's be honest here, driverless cars, when they become commonplace – if they become commonplace – are going to be run by big business, people like Branson, and furthermore it's another way that freedom is being taken away from the individual: no longer will we drive ourselves to our destination, we'll have to pay 'Virgin Cars' in order to get anywhere. Slowly, the world is becoming a Philip K Dick novel – big corporations running everything (think Elon Musk, a potential Bond villain if ever there was one).
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| A scruffy-looking yours truly on the 269 passing a frozen pond on Saturday's ride |
Last year, at a conference in Brussels, I put this question to a panel of experts on the subject of technological change: "Doesn't the autonomous car take away the freedom of the individual? Presumably the car that arrives at my door will be owned by a third party, most likely a large corporation, and, therefore, the man in the street loses control, he is reliant on somebody else, 'the man', for his freedom. Won't this make the whole concept unappealing?"
It was a question that the panel debated for some time and while nobody really came out and agreed, my view is that the driverless car will curtail individual freedoms and should be avoided at all costs. Surely driverless trains first.
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| Jacob Rees-Mogg on the front cover of Private Eye's latest issue |
And with 'blind faith' comes the hypocrisy of the idealogues. There's nothing worse than ideology. It leads to blind faith, oddly enough. We all believe that Russia is the big, bad wolf. Everything the Russians do is supposed to be wrong, they're influencing our elections (are they?), and they're up to no good on many levels (really?), but ultimately, even if they're not up to no good, the governments of the West want their people (you and me) to always believe that the Russians have no good intentions whatsoever. It's all rubbish. I know a few Russians. I spent some time in Moscow not that long ago and I found all the Russians I met there to be fantastic people. I walked from one side of the city to the other late at night and never encountered a single problem. But it's never the people who are fault, it's the governments behind them.
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| Lycra monkeys – you don't see many of them when the weather's cold... |
Andy and I sat at the bus stop drinking tea, munching biscuits and discussing these very subjects and then, feeling suitably small and insignificant in the greater scheme of things, and insecure in the knowledge that 'the state' cares nothing for its general population, putting the welfare of large corporations way ahead of the man in the street, we pedalled off in the direction of home along the freezing cold B269, parting company on Warlingham Green and promising to be back for another ride on Sunday.
From noon on Saturday it rained non-stop and didn't really stop until the early hours of Sunday morning. When I woke up and peered outside the roads were dry and the car windscreens were clear, no sign of any ice. But when I found myself outside, wearing many layers and the balaclava and scarf, I realised that the clear bright skies and the crescent moon were a disguise – yes, even the weather wasn't to be trusted – perhaps the Russians had something to do with it. It was better than Saturday, but there was still a cold breeze and one we didn't notice on the outward ride to Tatsfield village (a change is as good as a rest).
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| Warlingham Green, 10 February 2018 |
The subject of today's conversation was rip-off Britain. I enjoyed a pub lunch on Saturday in darkest Sussex. Sandwiches cost £8.90. That's a lot of money for a sandwich, but it's par for the course. Everything is really expensive, everywhere, and unnecessarily so, and it goes right across the spectrum of anything we buy. Value for money simply doesn't exist anymore, even in 'the sales' where I'm always highly suspicious of the displayed prices. A pair of walking boots in Millets during a big sale? Something ridiculous like £87.00 and that's reduced from £115.00. Well, I don't believe that for one minute. I reckon that the stores put up the recommended retail price and the customer simply buys the product at the original, pre-sale price (or thereabouts). You can't trust a businessman – that's always worth remembering. All they want to do is make a profit and they don't care about anyone or anything that might stand in their way. People talk about privatising the NHS. That can only mean one thing: we will all be convinced by doctors to 'have things done' that doesn't need doing. It's already happening in the world of dentistry. I know somebody who was told that they needed a 'deep clean' and that it would cost them something like £300. That person went to see another dentist and was told they didn't need anything of the sort – she saved herself £300. But think of those who just accept what they're told.
The ride home was fine, but there was a strong head wind as we rode towards Botley Hill and a very cold breeze as we rode along the 269 towards the green, where we parted. All the way home I found myself wondering about Elon Musk and his Falcon Heavy rocket that lifted off from earth last week carrying one of Musk's Tesla sports cars. Can you really trust a businessman who is capable of launching a rocket into space? Apparently, the aforementioned Tesla is orbiting the planet playing David Bowie's Space Oddity on continuous loop and I found myself wondering, as I sang the lyrics to myself, whether or not I had synched up with the recording playing at that very moment on board the Tesla. I'll never know, of course. "Planet earth is blue and there's nothing I can do," I sang as I passed Warlingham Sainsbury's en route to the green.
Next week we WILL have breakfast at the Tudor Rose.
