Anyone else hear this?

[dubscratcher]

Thinking Allowed, BBC Radio 4, the metaphysical image of the bicycle in literature and London.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y2sj7
(first 11 minutes)

 

[one-eyed_jim]

Here's the related essay:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/iain-sincl ... ng-peloton

Erudite, but quite negative (the bike as a social symbol for toffs, pseuds, politicians, and jobbing columnists), and somehow very empty.

"The rise in the social status of the bicycle has much to do with the sense of entitlement of public school, Oxbridge-educated politicians. Prefects and scholars in Victorian, post-imperialist institutions were the only ones privileged enough to cycle: one-handed, flop-haired, gossiping in dog Latin, between house and dining hall, classroom and chapel. The bicycle being as much a symbol of caste as the ankh of an Egyptian priest. Ken Livingstone, for strategic reasons, supported the cult with Marxist rigour."

 

[azaro]

What a load of verbose, misguided, elitist old bollocks!

 

[gibbleking]

wasnt written by sgw was it?



a symbol of caste ...how ridiculous...comes across at reaching for context to fly in the face of actual fact...cycling is classless.....perhaps ken liked it so much it was because all those years in london was enough to prove to any one that driving a car in london is nowt but trouble........if ken and boris both ride then this proves the fact ...both end of the political spectrum both indulging in the same pastime...proves no research was done just espousing some one sided vitriol for some one who wronged him/them in the past...if iwrote this formy english i wouldnt have got an a like i did in me mocks

 

[Andy R]

wasnt written by sgw was it?



a symbol of caste ...how ridiculous...comes across at reaching for context to fly in the face of actual fact...cycling is classless.....perhaps ken liked it so much it was because all those years in london was enough to prove to any one that driving a car in london is nowt but trouble........if ken and boris both ride then this proves the fact ...both end of the political spectrum both indulging in the same pastime...proves no research was done just espousing some one sided vitriol for some one who wronged him/them in the past...if iwrote this formy english i wouldnt have got an a like i did in me mocks

Presumably your punctuation and use of capitals was better back then? :roll:

 

[gibbleking]

wurse...its cos i tipe on the worlds smallest phone keyboard...

 

[dubscratcher]

What a load of verbose, misguided, elitist old bollocks!

I concur.