Two wheels – Good. Two legs – Bad!

The naked ambition of London’s army of ‘oh-so-on-message’ environmentally aware cyclists knows no bounds. Two weeks ago, spectators were spellbound by the sight of the naked rear of the Peloton wobbling its way past excited groups of children. Were the cyclists equally excited by the sight of the children? We are not told, though recent court cases have told of the corrupting influence that un-pixelated children can have on a man.

However, all such deviant thoughts were banished for the day; the police looked on smiling and cleared a path for hundreds of naked men displayed their matrimonial assets for the sake of the children. There was, said the Independent, a ‘strong environmental message’ in their behaviour. They were exposing themselves ’in protest against car culture, climate change and our dependency on oil’. That’s OK then, a naked prick penis that raises its head in support of climate change couldn’t possibly alarm and distress the children. Around 100 of the participants were such committed cyclists that they had to borrow a ‘Boris’ bike for the day….

Lanes were restricted on Marble Arch and Park Lane “due to large numbers of spectators observing the start of the World Naked Bike Ride event”.

Elsewhere in the British Isles, another ‘strong environmental message’ was being contemplated – regrettably, this message was displayed on two legs.  If only he had rolled out his message on wheels!

Stephen Gough was being invited to add to his collection of 53 convictions for appearing ‘naked in public’ with another for failing to observe the Asbo he was issued with last time he left court – in the same state in which he arrived – naked. So far he has been jailed for a total of 6 years, add another 11 months to that now…

Simon Jones, prosecuting, said the naked rights activist left the court wearing just his boots and socks still holding the order to cover his buttocks and genitals.…

Perhaps they should make the Asbos bigger?

Last time Stephen appeared in court in Scotland, the former Royal Marine arrived at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court in Fife in his own security van amid tight security with great care being taken to shield him from curious locals. He was accused, not of blatantly displaying himself in the middle of central London in front of the children, but of quietly walking ‘in the vicinity  of a children’s park. There was no suggestion that any children had actually seen him! 

Stephen is of course, the man popularly known as ‘the naked rambler’. Thereby lies his problem. 

On yer bike Stephen! Re-invent yourself as the ‘naked cyclist’ preferably with an on-message pithy message like ’3rd hand smoke kills’ painted on your back. Problem solved.

Moor
Larkin June 25, 2013 at 17:55

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/comfortable-in-their-own-skin-8671682.html

Germans like taking their clothes off. Nobody bats an eyelid about people
sunbathing or swimming in the nude. The practice is normal on nearly all
public lakeside beaches in and around Berlin and much of the rest of the
country. In the former Communist east, nudity was even regarded as a bit of
freedom of expression in an otherwise oppressive state. The recent additions
of nude hiking, naked bicycling and – not far behind – topless tobogganing,
complete the picture, or so I thought. Last weekend, while out walking in
Berlin’s Grünewald forest, a large area of woodland full of wild boar, and at
weekends joggers, walkers and cyclists, I was introduced to another aspect of
the Teutonic nudity cult. The figure appeared like a weird apparition some 200
yards away down a wooded track. Slowly as the figure approached it became
evident that it was a man out for a Sunday morning run. It then became
apparent that the man was wearing buff-coloured shorts. On closer inspection,
there weren’t any shorts at all. Then, if body language cannot lie, the nude
jogger was suddenly overcome with embarrassment. He turned his face to the
woods as he passed and tried to swivel the rest of his body in the same
direction. It didn’t quite work. Had it been somewhere such as London’s
Richmond Park, the nude jogger would probably have been arrested for indecent
exposure.
In Germany, running naked in the woods is not a crime. That said,
I still don’t know whether the Grünewald’s naked jogger was wearing running
shoes.

boilerman June 21,
2013 at 11:30

Don’t you just love the English legal system. It’s clearly an inconsistency
in the way the law is interpreted. We need some guidelines to be developed to
make it clear exactly what we can and cannot do. Or maybe we could think of
something better to do with police time.

I wouldn’t go naked myself you know but I’ll fight (well comment) for the
right of others to do so.

right_writes
June 21, 2013 at 09:43

Actually, I have just read this, and maybe it isn’t so “off topic” after
all.

Our rotten communist bastards that seem to have quietly, but completely
taken over our homeland, affect every single aspect of modern life in the
(Y)UK.

right_writes
June 21, 2013 at 09:26

This little piece is completely off topic Anna, but I thought that I needed
to re-post it here since it alludes to you and your blog which I enjoy muchly,
even when I disagree…

I stuck this in to a Telegraph blog by James Dellingpole:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100222843/if-the-nhs-is-the-envy-of-the-world-the-world-is-bonkers/?utm_source=feedly

“As far as I know the only nation that envied the NHS enough to copy it,
is Cuba, and then it only applies to the political class, so it is therefore
much better quality than what we get here, it only serves the upper echelons
of their communist party, as a reward for being loyal.

If you are an ordinary pleb, you are treated to an even less attractive
“free” system than us plebs here…

…complete with blood/puke stained beds, floors and walls, inhuman crowded
mixed wards… We are all too familiar with the standards in our own hospitals,
just drop those standards a bit and you have Cuba.

This is the sort of stuff that can only be imagined by and colluded in by a
bunch of lefty idealists, spongers and acolytes.

There is a blogger out on the interwebs called Anna Raccoon, and she has
recently been going through cancer, and being treated in the place where she
lives, which is rural France…

Some of the stuff is hilarious, some is poignant, some is very serious
commentary about the French NHS, which is a completely different animal that
awards real dignity to its users, gives real doctors and nurses a chance to
use their skills unimpeded by the likes of this Bower cow(er), and her idiotic
bureaucratic system of statistics and lies.

You see, the French, for all their strange ways, have collectively decided
that no-body should go untreated, there is a fund, organised by the government
to pay for ill-health care services, that are delivered by local, French
service providers… Not American international conglomerates… It even costs a
couple of percentage points of GDP more than ours, but it is a long way short
of the 18% of GDP that the US system which doesn’t care about over 40% of the
population there.

It seems difficult at first, seeing as our system is the envy of the world,
to imagine a system that doesn’t have as many bureaucrats as people with
pointy sticks to provide a system that truly is (or should be) the envy of the
world.”

Some of it might be a bit muddled, such is the stuff of people like me that
know a little about lots of stuff… I do have vast experience of the British
nationalised ill-health “service”, but none of the French system… but anyway…
there it is.

Frankie June 20, 2013 at 20:20

‘…a naked prick that “raises its head”. Excellent!!

I think Mr. Gough seriously needs to “GET A LIFE”. What sort of dipstick
goes to prison for such as this? The weather in the UK is miserable for 11
months of the year, so little or no chance anyway to ride round with no kit
on, unless you like freezing your bollocks off. Thinking about it a little
more, that is exactly what these twerps are – a bunch of frozen nuts.

Anna
Raccoon June 20, 2013 at 20:23

Ah, Prick Cyclists – they train for years to attain that title you know.
Mad as hatters, the lot of them…

Anna
Raccoon June 20, 2013 at 20:30

Argggh! I quit, I give in, how can I compete…..

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/20/man-dressed-penis-vagina-theatre_n_3472550.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Frankie
June 20, 2013 at 21:30

Proof, if ever it were needed that ‘truth is stranger than fiction’,
Anna…

charlotte June 20, 2013 at 19:36

They’ll have someone’s eye out, that’s how reckless it is. That young un at
the front will suffer in years to come for going out without a vest on. Not to
mention the piles he’ll get.

carol42 June 20, 2013 at 19:24

I think I have been finally rendered speechless by our crazy society.

Elena ‘andcart
June 20, 2013 at 18:18

I wouldn’t notice if a hundred naked bikers rode past my door, so
accustomed am I to bikers riding past my door. But “Naked” might do wonders
for The Tour de France. It has gotten very boring since Lance Armstrong
survived testicular cancer and went on to cheat his way through seven wins, if
in fact he cheated at all. He might just have been exposing himself. But it
ain’t the same since he was exposed. No fun at all, in fact.

Cascadian June 20, 2013 at 23:56

If you use a Boris-bike, please be sure to wipe the seat before use. I
don’t think it is the pricks we need to be worried about here, a plastic
seat against the uncovered anal region is surely a health hazard
in-the-making. That should attract the tourists.

Cascadian
June 20, 2013 at 23:57

Sorry, that was not supposed to happen.

Curmudgeon June 20, 2013 at 15:41

Just to play devil’s advocate but the cyclists are in England and the
rambler is in Scotland. Different countries with different legal systems.

Anna
Raccoon June 20, 2013 at 16:05

Granted that many of the earlier offences were ‘committed’ in Scotland
when he was making his way to John O’Groats, but the latest episode was in
Southampton.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-22971063

– precisely where another couple of hundred tossers were riding naked not
two weeks earlier, as per Woman on a Raft’s link……

rabbitaway
June 20, 2013 at 16:17

Anna – stop already with the Scotland – John O’Groats thing – they’ll
tie him into the ‘Others’ Strand of Yewtree !!!!!

Woman on a Raft
June 20, 2013 at 15:28

In Southampton a couple of hundred people took part in the ride on Saturday
8 June. Linked from the same page this story:
Boys wanted after flashing at
teenage girls in Thornhill area of Southampton (6/6/2013)

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/10469322.Boys_wanted_after_flashing_at_teenage_girls/?ref=ar

How is it that something can be a police-reportable offence on Thursday,
requiring e-fit images (of their faces) and appeals for the public to identify
them, and then 48 hours later it isn’t?

Moor
Larkin June 20, 2013 at 15:49

The Home Office said the law would now apply only to those who
“intentionally expose their genitals knowing or intending that someone will
see them and be caused alarm or distress”. Naturists had told ministers that
the word “reckless” could hinder their “natural way of life”.
The real
target of the clause is flashers.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “We believe this change will reassure
naturists about practising their entirely legitimate lifestyle.”

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/johnnyjive555/Laws.htm

JuliaM June
20, 2013 at 16:35

If the ‘real target of the clause is flashers’, perhaps someone from
MinJust would like to explain how come I’ve got a post in draft about an
incorrigible flasher currently awaiting sentence after not one, but TWO
suspended sentences were breached.

The judge says a custodial might be in order. Not ‘will’. Might!

Woman on a
Raft June 20, 2013 at 19:00

Judicial creativity should be employed. Flashing is OK so long as you
are on a bike and can keep a straight face, so sentence him to a really
long bike ride. Sustrans list the long-distance routes and if he is
obliged to take one in December and January, he won’t have all that much
on show.

For example, Walney to Wear and Whitby is sparsely populated with the
punishment ring around Cockfield (I’m not making this up) if he attempts
to cheat. http://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/walney-to-wear-and-whitby-w2w

rabbitaway June 20, 2013 at 14:21

OMG Tony Soprano’s died …… Sorry Anna this was one of the best TV dramas
ever made – I’m shocked !!!!!

Moor
Larkin June 20, 2013 at 15:27

@rabbitaway
Checking out your cool new avatar makes me think that you
need to be careful not to become transfixed by the naked peloton…..

rabbitaway
June 20, 2013 at 16:08

Moor – now this fact is moor worrying – I’m so busy thinking aboot
Jimmy Savile that I’ve hardly noticed yer naked geezer on a bike – WELL
HARDLY ….. yes, I do like my cute wee bunny – nowt like me ….. of course,
one must maintain a modicum of ‘mystery’ ……

Ed P June 20, 2013 at 13:53

There might be a cockchafer on that bush…

Mark June 20, 2013 at 13:12

I love this equality under the law. Makes you proud to be British.

Moor
Larkin June 21, 2013 at 13:09

This’ll make you feel even prouder…………….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10120224/Couple-jailed-after-letting-40-teens-film-them-having-sex-in-public.html
Dogging
has become dichotomous too, not that I’m complaining.

benny June 20, 2013 at 12:43

Is it a GRAND PRIX?

Anna
Raccoon June 20, 2013 at 12:52

Excellent Sir – full marks!

JimS June 20, 2013 at 11:55

For a long time I’ve had in my mind the idea of a cartoon with a gang of
robbers exiting a bank on bikes, guns in hand and bodies on the floor.

Watching this going on are two policemen. The sergeant is saluting and
turning to his novice partner says, “It’s OK, they are cyclists!”.

Cycling has got to be the only activity with a modicum of danger that isn’t
being slated for a legal ban. Apparently it is up to the pedestrians and motor
vehicle users to watch out for them. (Overheard on a bus: “I don’t think my
bike’s brakes are working, the rear wheel slips on the road when I go down
hill”. No dear, you are going too fast!).

rdc June 20, 2013
at 11:22

….steven gough….. I take my hat off to ya fella…..

Moor
Larkin June 20, 2013 at 16:45

I do wonder how he finances his lifestyle.
Army pension?

rdc June 21,
2013 at 12:08

……. more importantly how does he cope in this crap weather we have
!

Moor
Larkin June 20, 2013 at 11:13

Just struck me that any Americans reading the title to this Blog might be
mislaed……

Anna
Raccoon June 20, 2013 at 12:49

Thank God someone got my little joke…..!

Moor Larkin June 20, 2013 at 13:26

The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said in a
hoarse, feeble voice: “I heard every word you fellows were saying.”…

Joe Public June 20, 2013 at 10:40

What a load of Bollox the message from those exhibitionists is.

If they had any real concern for the environment, they’d have protested
last winter when the snow was 4″ deep, and before the eminent scientists from
the Met Office admitted they didn’t know what caused Global Warming.

Mudplugger
June 20, 2013 at 11:27

Only problem with protesting naked in mid-winter with 4″ deep snow is
that it risks turning ‘exhibitionism’ into ‘minimalism’, thus missing the
point, so to speak. (But t’other gender could at least get somewhere to hang
their cycle-helmets, I suppose.)

Moor Larkin June 20, 2013 at 11:30

Looking at Anna’s picture I get the distinct impression t’other gender
isn’t entering into the full spirit of the thang anyway.

Anna
Raccoon June 20, 2013 at 12:51

I was amused by the proximity of an enterprise called ‘Pinnochio’s’ in
the picture. I did idly wonder whether they thought if they told enough
lies about climate change it might, you know, grow a little longer…….

me June 20, 2013 at 09:23

Google “pathological altruism”.

Moor
Larkin June 20, 2013 at 09:23

A stick in the spokes could prove fatal.