Bikeov
This is a pearost. I am not sure if I made a "thonk" noise as my head hit the road, but I like to think it did.

~~~wavy lines~~~

Picture the scene if you will. It's Northumberland in the summer. The birds are tweeting and suchlike, and all is good with the world. This is the area that inspired Postman Pat.

I was around 8 years old. My parents lived in a village in the middle of nowhere (no shop, no pub, but there was a church...) Now, the newspapers got delivered to the next little hamlet around a mile from where my parents lived, and as a child I was entrusted to get on my sister's old bike (phnar phnar) and ride along the lane to get the papers.

My sister's bike was a monstrous green contraption that looked like it was made in a tractor factory in Treblinsk during the dark days of the Soviet Motherland. Somehow, bikeov (for that was what my sister had christened it) had made its way from the icy steppes to the slightly less icy hills of the north of England. Now, bikeov was far, far too fucking big for me, but as my sister had bought herself a brand new racing bike, and my old bike was far too small for me, and my parent's were tighter than an ugly nun's clunge, it was bikeov or walking. So, I picked bikeov out of the shed and wobbled up the road.

As I was returning with my newsly bounty (one could virtually hear bikeov complaining at the lack of state controlled media in the imperialist west - well, it was the Guardian) I saw a wonderful thing. It was half a broom handle. Discarded at the side of the road. Yes, OK, there was no broom attached, but to an 8 year old boy, suddenly, this was a gun! Huzzah! So I pulled over on bikeov, picked up my trophy, hauled myself back on, and started cycling away, with the pole held in something akin to a jousting position.
"Hmm," I thought as I rode along "I wonder if that scene in Indiana Jones really works." For those of you scratching your heads, I was of course referring to the scene where Indy sticks a flagpole through the wheels of a motorcycle being ridden by a Nazi. The Nazi then does a fairly spetacular somersault. I pull out the broom handle...

...here, things go a little fuzzy. I have had to work out the details afterwards.

I wake up to see a rather concerned neighbour standing over me. I can see sky....well out of one eye. The other eye I can see purple fireworks. Hmm...this is an interesting sensation. What's that noise? It seems to be a car. Mmm...this is nice and comfy lying here. I wont move too much. The neighbour has disappeared. I can hear him talking to someone quite urgently. Ah well, I might just go back to sleep....

....hey, what's this? I seem to be being lifted onto a bed. Ah, that's nice. My road was very comfy. Ohh...the bed seems to move. Oh, the sky's gone now. I'm in the back of some kind of van...oh well, quite tired....

...ah. I'm somewhere else. I don't know where. There's mum. She looks a bit worried...hi mum!!

....BLAUEUERUEURAGHHGHGHHHHHHHHHHHH.....

oh, sorry mum, I seem to have been a bit sick there. Why does my face hurt so much....?


I was in hospital for several days.

Bikeov survived in stoic communist style.
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Thu 21 Jan 2010, 18:23, Reply)