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Published: April 11th 2006
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God defined the differences between men and women in two distinctive ways.
Firstly, there is their physical form. By now most of our readers should be of an age where these physical differences should be quite apparent; some dangly bits here a few extra handfuls of clay there… I’d be waffling and probably breaking Travelblog.org rules if I went any further with this…
But God has been left flummoxed by man’s (and woman’s) complete lack of satisfaction with the physical form they have been given. Imagine the look on His/Her bearded/silky smooth face when, having settled down for a century infront of the telly, He/She discovers “Gender Re-assignment” on the Discovery Channel. Now to an omnipresent being who’s seen a few things in His/Her time, this still comes as a bit of a shocker.
But to us more open-minded mortals, gender reassignment is just one of the many ways that the boundaries between male and female are being challenged. Thanks to the mass media, this is an accepted reality. With a little anaesthetic, a skilled surgeon and a healthy supply of silicon, you can fall alseep as Arthur and wake up as Martha.
Why then have we not managed to break
Knackered
If this photo had been taken a few seconds earlier I wouldn't have been able to use it because of the hand signals Vik was giving the smug prat at the top of the hill. THE final taboo?
Why does Gods final boundary still exist?
I talk of course about, that last bastion of gender definition, the bicycle.
Why can’t I; being me; being a man (and I emphasise the “man” part of that sentence), ride a bicycle that has mud guards, a rack and… and a bell, without being persecuted by my nearest and dearest? I want to live in a more tolerant world where I can ride a practical bicycle without being called “Poppins” by my own girlfriend.
Like all bigots, this belittler, who throws insults at me and my stylish, practical, Raleigh Pioneer (good solid name), demonstrates her ignorance by calling it “Poppins” because she thinks that Mary Poppins rode something similar. Oh my God! Like, how in-uneducateded are you? Everybody knows that Mary Poppins rode an umbrella (unisex). You’re like so thinking of Julie Andrews in Sound of Music. Tut.
Anyway, with Vik cycling 20 metres in front of me on her swanky all-terrain mountain bike (how many mountains are there on Jersey?!) desperately trying not to look like she was in any way associated with me and…. and “Poppins”…, we headed out of St Helier for the first
time since arriving on Jersey. We headed west with no particular goal in mind and ended up discovering the joy of Jersey’s cyclist friendly Green Lanes. With a winter sun on our backs and a packed lunch in our rucksack we meandered through these lane’s as happy as the day we arrived. This is what Jersey is all about. Eventually, after a few loops and twists we made it to St. Catherines.
VIK: Yet again I must interject to argue the point. I was not referring to Mary Poppins the character, more alluding to Julie Andrews and her general prim and proper way. Everyone knows Ms Poppins used an umbrella as her primary mode of transport and a hobby horse as her secondary vehicle. It has been a while since I watched said film admittedly, however I don’t have any recollection of her using a bicycle… By the way, has anyone else noticed how mean a lady she was? I remember being shocked when I sat down to watch it one Christmas. I had fond memories of a fun nanny type but she was actually a big nasty bully. V disappointing. Anyway, I fear we digress…
We cycled
Church and Cabbages
Actually, I don't know if they were cabbages in the field. But for the sake of this blog they were. to St Catherines Bay by way of said Green Lanes and then walked out to the end of the pier and admired the views out to what we think was France. Was v lovely if not somewhat freezing as I’d foolishly seen the sun and thought I’d be ok to go out without a jacket (I was looking for excuses as I stupidly only brought my ¾ length work coat and thought I would look like a pillock trying to cycle in it - don’t really know why I was worried given that I was out for a cycle with a lunatic on a ladies bike).
Robbie may say that there are no mountains in Jersey and indeed he speaks the truth but there do seem to be a lot of long slow hills which are a killer to cycle up. Not sure if it is Bob’s superior leg muscles or a superior bike (surely not) but he seems to be able to tackle those pesky slopes much better than moi. On the plus side going up hill does also generally mean there are fun hills to cycle down too and I’m definitely better at that part than Bob
and old Pops : )
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