Hoggart again

[661-Pete]

More hogwash from the Hogg... A well-know Grauniad-based cyclist-hater of years back, he's been very quiet of late (I wondered if Rusbridger had quietly gagged him).

Not any more, it seems.

(about half way down):

✒ I've often thought that some cyclists are trying – and failing – to deal with their hostility against the world. The ones who nearly run you down then swear at you for getting in their way, for example.

Brighton has a fine cycle path that runs the length of the prom, and people ride down it at top speed, yelling at anyone who dares cross it on their way to or from the beach. One woman bellowed "cycle path!" (so near to "psychopath") as I walked past when I wasn't even on the wretched strip. It's not so much "get out of my way" as "get out of my sight". For some, the very existence of a legal pathway is a challenge, and plenty of cyclists speed down the promenade anyway, aiming for – then just missing – old people, mothers with pushchairs, toddlers, government ministers and so forth

(*sigh*) words fail me...

Well, I know Brighton pretty well (he, presumably, was only there because of some political beano or other). Such 'infrastructure' as exists in the city (and there is plenty of it) is laughable. I never use it: the roads will do for me. That 'top speed' he refers to is a scientific impossibility. Any cyclist who wants to go on the apologies for cycle paths has to be slow. Slower than me. And that means real slow.

The point is, he goes on at great length about the worst in cyclists - which we all know does exist. Not a whisper about the best in cyclists - which we all know exists too. Not a word about the sheer pleasure of cycling which makes so many people choose it. Not a word about the thousands - maybe millions - of perfectly ordinary cyclists who blend perfectly with the rest of society....

Of course you will say, he's one of many, so what? This bothers me because he's the Guardian's pet columnist - and, for my sins, I'm a Guardian reader ...

 

[orbiter]

............This bothers me because he's the Guardian's pet columnist - and, for my sins, I'm a Guardian reader ...

Likewise. But he irritates me on so many topics I've just given up reading him. I used to like his writing years ago but he seems to have turned into an total curmudgeon as he's aged. Best ignored.

 

[CotterPin]

I have found it better for my blood pressure to avoid him at all costs. He is a smarmy political sketchwriter who's writings appear to be in the lowest form of cheap humour and rehashed jokes. The News Quiz is much better now he has gone. The best moment in his tenure as presenter of that programme was when Sheila Hancock (I think) took him to task vigorously for his anti-cycling views.

 

[dellzeqq]

Hoggart. You just have to remind yourself

- David Blunkett
- Boris Johnson
- Petronella Wyatt

there, all irritation has been replaced by pity and amusement!

 

[Molecule Man]

I used to like him on the News Quiz, until I heard about what happened when word got out that he had also had an affair with David Blunkett's lover.
The week it came out, I was expecting the panel to give him a justifiable mocking, but there was nothing. I later heard that he had brought his wife and children to the recording of the show and sat them in the front row to discourage any mention of his indiscretions.

His anti-cyclist bleatings used to annoy me, but I stopped reading his column long ago.

 

[661-Pete]

His anti-cyclist bleatings used to annoy me, but I stopped reading his column long ago.

Me too, but others, easily-swayed people among them, still do. And there's always the online edition, and the Search button, just in case...