I went to London today on the Oxford Tube. I left my bike chained to a post on the pavement just outside University College on the High Street - near one of the pick-up/drop-off points. When I got back around 7pm, I found two Post-It notes on my saddle. One of them read "No Way"; the other "Fuck U". They were written with different pens and in different handwriting, from what I could make out. "I say, what a jolly little Christmas message!" I thought to myself. Had I, perhaps, upset Lord Butler by inadvertently nicking his favoured parking place? It didn't strike me as pertaining to the old boy's idiolect, however; and in any case, it just isn't cricket to reveal one's emotions in public in such a manner, even if it was by the proxy of his secretary. I was rather perplexed. Or was it indeed a feisty dialogue between two ill-disguised bike thieves who were eyeing up my red splendour-machine, thus:
Jolly Robber 1: "What do you think of this little beauty? Is it worth lifting the bike over the pole and scampering with it?"
Jolly Robber 2: [Returning inconspicuously a few minutes later once his mate had retreated a safe distance] "Get away, old chum! It is not worth the toil. I say, look, it doesn't even have the brand plate underneath the handlebars. And looky here, those rear brakes could do with some re-adjusting. I think we should find a more profitable target."
...But not in so many words...
Ho, and indeed, hum.
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