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THE
BELLES-LETTRES OF BLOVIUS
My dear Mrs. Lenderby,
if I might intercede: the young man may well have had some knowledge
of the parentage of the rough chaps in question. By calling them 'bastards',
perhaps Mr. Gareth was simply being precise. Oh, I know that such a
term may fall afoul of the PC Police, but as my father used to opine,
'Always call a shovel a shovel, Theodore.' In any event, if you think
'bastard' is offensive, you should see the sort of language I encounter
as I continue my online research into into unusual gynecological events.
It is not to be countenanced! But that is another thread. I feel that
we are 'two peas in a pod', Nora - may I call you Eunice? Perhaps you
might be free for tea sometime soon? Your husband is most welcome to
watch.
I, too, am appalled
by Theodore's online manners, but I don't think he was attempting to
be amusing. That's just Theo's way. I can say this with some authority,
as I used to be married to the man. Though my husband and I are now
estranged, both legally and spiritually, I still keep tabs on him and
clean up his messes. A 20 year-old-habit is hard to break. Theodore's
addiction to the web - his 'studies' in particular - contributed mightily
to the breakup. Unfortunately he fancies himself some kind of latter-day
Sir Richard Francis Burton when it comes to women's private parts. I
can also cast light on his undoubtedly perplexing desire to call you
Eunice. This name is of Greek origin, and means 'good victory', you
see. It's an obscure and tedious reference of his which doesn't bear
close scrutiny. Kudos to you in your fight for decency on the web.
Oh AUNTIE. You
really are IMPOSSIBLE!! I have told You a Thousand Times to take more
care before accusing people, and Mrs Blovius is also a close Friend
of dear Algernon's Mother (I do hope He will not be too angry). She
has more than enough to put up with from that beastly Husband, without
You accusing Her of Deception. I think You should apologise at once.
Please forgive Her, dear Readers. I did tell Her the Bicycle was not
worth repairing, and Daddy has even said He will buy Her a new one for
Christmas, but She still wouldn't listen until She had not only called
upon the Wisdom of the Internet but also dragged the poor dear Colonel
down to the Outhouse to inspect the Damage. She is just so headstrong!
I'd
forgotten all about that thread. It's probably still going on, somewhere.
Imagine my chagrin when I discovered that my old hotmail account is no longer accessible due to the trifling matter of a forgotten password! I'd swear it was 'Little Richard', my pet name for my former husband's small intestine - how I cherished his alimentary canal. I wrote a very nice 'email' to Bill, explaining to him about my troubles, which include but are not limited to sciatica and a complicated tax situation, but despite his business acumen he has scant regard for his true customer base. Thus have I made the delightfully uneventful journey to yahoo. Nora and I have
had our differences over the years, however we agree wholeheartedly
on at least two things of which I'm aware: Satan is a very handsome
man with an immodestly large 'package' which he uses to attract women
(and dare I say men) of looser morals than ourselves; and Britain has
gone downhill - the gradient is perhaps as steep as 1 in 3 these days
- and is rapidly being vacated by people of discernment. I myself have
taken refuge these past several years in a tropical paradise which,
aside from an unfortunate infestation of Germans (no offense to anyone
here, except Germans of course, of which my husband was secretly one),
suits me to a 'T', though it lacks certain basic necessities such as
Marmite, which when applied with a practiced hand can be very efficacious.
About helmets, I have absolutely no opinion.
That was me throwing
the apple, an orange pippin if memory serves; I was aiming at a nearby
rubbish bin. I blush to admit that I may also have been the malefactrix
in at least one of the swearing incidents. The occasion was an argument
with my former husband Theodore, who nurtures a pathological (he maintains
neurological) dislike for Bromptons along with an almost Tourette's-like
compulsion to comment on the pulchritude or lack thereof of folding-bicycle
aficionados of the female persuasion. I typically hold my tongue on
such occasions, as I have so often during our long and brutally wearing
post-connubial association, but alas I'd had about as much as I could
take and 'I could takes no more'. I told him that other people were
not put on this earth solely to be on the receiving end of his inappropriate
observations; the language I employed was uncharacteristically salty
and shocked even my own broadly liberal sensibilities. It was almost
an out-of-body experience, like much of our previous sex life. During
the course of our fracas I seem to recall hurling a particularly unladylike
epithet his way and watching in horror as it was absorbed instead by
a passing cyclist, who wobbled slightly but continued on with renewed
vigour, no doubt grateful to be in possession of a means of escape from
such a vile urban tableaux. I apologise unreservedly.
You are to be congratulated on your maiden voyage, and I will indeed 'watch out' for you as I am a single woman who, although well past the first bloom of youth, is yet able to command male attention, particularly as regards my legs, which as Abraham Lincoln might have observed are long enough to get the job done. Your story puts me in mind of my own journey into two-wheeled independence, prompted by of all things my ardour for one Theodore Blovius (esq.), then a promising young physician freshly installed in his new Harley Street practice. I was at that time a resident of Elephant & Castle, given to circumnavigating the large roundabout in search of girlish adventures, but forbidden by my dear skittish mum from enlarging my orbit. She even disapproved of my rapid cadence, which she ever regarded as unbecoming a lady. One day my skirts got caught up in the bicycle chain and dashed me to the ground, necessitating a trip to hospital, where I was to encounter what remains the one great, sad love of my life: Theodore. Oh, if you could have seen him then in all his musky glory! I was instantly smitten, though as anybody who is aware of our subsequent history, better I had cinched my skirts tight and not introduced them to that chain in the first place... Theodore consulted on my case, which involved abrasions of the most intimate nature, and, blinking shyly, advised that I visit Harley Street for a follow-up some weeks hence. My mother was appalled that I would even consider venturing north of the river, and insisted on male companionship in the shape of my cousin Leo, a strapping lad not much given to intellectual pursuits or personal grooming but possessed of a fierce protective nature for feminine virtue. Or so thought mum. He was easily bought off by a few sticks of hard candy and his first confirmed sighting of ankle; I was on my way. Oh, what an adventure! Even now my heart races to think of it. Remember that those were the days when female emancipation meant being allowed to use the tele-phone without asking first. I 'warmed up' for my adventure by racing several laps around the roundabout, revving up to a certain escape velocity of the heart, and was finally shot free of my clockwise prison. Of course, I immediately became lost. At one point I even washed up on Clapham Common, where my father often found day employment washing small dogs in vats of broth. Every road offered enthralling new vistas of freedom, subverting my sense of direction. My fellow wheelmen and women were obviously a very fit breed: I found it impossible to draft even the slowest of them, and my shouted entreaties for directions were lost in the eddies of their tailwind. I even dismounted my machine and draped myself across the tarmac like a 'speed bump' to better attract their attention. Still no luck, just a fresh appreciation for pneumatic tyres and a new collection of bruises for the doctor to examine. Eventually, with the help of a police constable who also requested hard candy, I bested the Thames and deposited myself into Theodore's clinical embrace. He was very thorough. Six months later we married. The bicycle is
indeed a wonderful invention.
I am generating a new thread because I do not wish to pollute Bob's 'My first commute to London' discussion with further off-topic ramblings. I note that the former Mrs Theodore Blovius suffers from no such embarrassment. She has always been strong-willed and outspoken, traits which are admirable in a woman but can be tedious in a wife. It behooves me to clear up a few misconceptions forwarded by Gertrude into the public domain. No doubt her intentions were sincere, but I have a very low tolerance for the viewing of history through 'rose-tinted Oakleys'. We did not in fact make our introductions at a hospital after she caught her skirts in the chain of a velocipede. What romantic twaddle! We met instead at Covent Garden, where she was selling flowers to augment the meagre income generated by her father's weasel-handicapping business. (Careful readers will note that already I have corrected several curious fictions, including Gertrude's perplexing assertion that she was seldom exposed to the milieu to be found north of the river.) I happened to be dining that night with a friend, Colonel Pennyfarthing, who for reasons known only to himself wagered that I could not teach the girl to ride a bicycle. Thinking this to be a coarse metaphor I readily agreed, and was already making the mental journey to a local merchant who stocks sheepsgut when it suddenly occurred to me that the Colonel was to be taken at his word: Could I teach this poor thing to balance herself on two wheels with concomitant self-propulsion? Forthwith I brought her to my lodgings to begin the education. It was not easy; somewhat like attempting to teach an otter to appreciate Mendelsohn. Still, she was game, and hardly seemed to notice the collection of bruises which soon appeared on her knees. It took a great good while to achieve her first success: the ability to balance which most even mildly symmetrical people take for granted. (Unfortunately Gertrude has received as part of her genetic heritage a rare condition which predisposes the organs on one side of her body to accumulate water and thus weight, setting her more or less permanently off-kilter. It's an odd thing to see and even odder to sleep next to, as I was to discover during our married life, when nights were filled with the not unmelodious tinkling of her internal fluids 'evening out'.) We soon solved this problem - which alternated sides according to a mysterious physiological schedule I will not go into here - by a complicated system of weights, which left her with the task of learning to pedal. Alas, for a woman this simple procedure does not come as easily as it does for a man. Merely observe and you shall see for yourself the almost majestic inability of the 'weaker vessel' to adapt her musculature to the required habits of motion and countermotion. I persevered. Tears were shed. I offered carrots and sticks with each turn of the cranks. Slowly, gradually, we achieved success. First 10 feet; then a block; then cross-town forays to Soho for more carrots and sticks. I knew that when she began pestering me to affix a bell to her handlebars to warn other road users of her confident passage that I had won Pennyfarthing's wager. I then had other
business to attend to involving the distribution of certain patent-pending
gynecological devices, which unfortunately took me away from my digs
for some time. When I returned my pupil had vanished. The housekeeper
tartly informed me that she was attempting the London to Brighten NOT
Hove run. Shortly thereafter she turned up at my door, sadder but incrementally
wiser. She had got as far as Lewisham and called on mater and pater,
eager to show off her new talents. It seems they did not recognise their
own daughter in lycra; and she was no longer welcome in her old haunts,
either. It was then that I realised that this was the woman for me.
Only later did it transpire that it wasn't - but that's another story.
[snip Pygmalion-inspired reverie] I do not wish to dwell on my irascible former soulmate's manifold errors, including his loveable misspelling of Brighton. While it's possible that I may have exaggerated a few minor details out of respect for what we once shared, my account sailed far closer to the shores of truth than yours, dearest. It does pain me to admit that the art of bicycling did not come to me as naturally as it does to others, sexist drivel notwithstanding. I still must cycle with a 5-lb bag of sifted flour on my left shoulder to balance things out. In point of fact I have much better 'road sense' than does Theodore, who I once witnessed shaking his fist in anger at a pelican crossing, and who after having had the benefit of many decades to learn the secrets of traffic lights remains utterly confounded by their colour coding system. Add to this the fact that he often refuses to merge on principle, demands 'personal space' of several hundreds of metres in all directions at all times, and hoots like a monkey whenever confronted by the inevitable traffic police his antics attract, and you begin to see the extent of the problem. He also enters the deep end when it comes to even the most minor of repairs. I take some pride in the fact that I am able to patch an inner-tube and be on my way in well under six hours; Theodore has been known to check into a B&B whenever he is so afflicted. Nevertheless, we
did have many happy years together if you group them concurrently. [snip delusional verbiage] I confess there are occasions when I turn one speaker of my 'hi-fi' towards the other at a distance of no more than a few hundredths of an inch, twist the volume up as far as the knob will allow, and let Wagner battle Wagner woofer to woofer. I do this whenever I'm attempting to digest one of the former Mrs Blovius's communications. There's something about the muffled racket that fills me with a strange feeling of intellectual satisfaction, if not peace. There can be no doubt that the 'tall-tales' featuring me and authored by you or the roomful of monkeys you employ are of breathtakingly little interest to the denizens of this newsgroup, Gertrude. Yet you persist with this medium to broadcast even the most fleeting bubble of what passes for thought which makes the short journey across your mind. Even as I pop these bubbles you persist. And so I become a slave to this miserable keyboard when I really do have better ways to spend my valuable time. For example, I am currently hard at work on a device to be fitted to bicycles of the fairer sex which will enable them to park their machine whilst it remains freestanding, rather than lean it against a tree or some other large immovable object - fine for their menfolk, but an abhorrence to a woman who is much less pleased with scratches on the pretty paintwork. Yes, I know all about 'kickstands'; don't make me laugh. The designs are an affront to even an amateur mechanical engineer such as myself. Even in the prototype stage my Vertical Bicycle Enhancer shames the competition. That it adds approximately 17 stone to the weight of the average bicycle is but a minor detail which I shall possibly address with the use of 'space-age' materials such as Bakelite. Thus it should
be apparent to even the most casual lurker that when the precious synapses
of my brain are rerouted for the purpose of curbing the more egregious
figments of your imagination, humanity loses much in the bargain.
Linnaeus himself
would be pleased with your classifications. As it happens I have self-published
a monograph on the subject of helmets and the quality of the brains
they purport to protect; one day I plan to make it available to the
public, when I deem the 'common man' to be ready for my startling revelations.
In the mean-while I shall content myself with relating the following
anecdote: Theodore, being nothing more than a man, is blessed with the memory of an addled sheep, but no great harm done - I am here to set the record straight. While it is true that our honeymoon in the general vicinity of Dorking had its moments of high and low comedy, the incident of the tandem fits into an entirely different category altogether: tragedy. Sharing a two-seater with Theodore is like being tied to a mast with Captain Queeg but without the promise of strawberries to sweeten the deal. He is of the disposition that a woman does not belong in front (or on top, but that's another matter), and should a woman be so unfortunate as to reverse this natural order of things, he will expound on the flaws of such an arrangement at considerable length and volume. While it is not unhealthy for a man to entertain a certain sense of mastery, or even to have a passing fondness for ball-bearings in proper context, there is something to be said for the strong silent type. Yes, I cut our journey short, and yes, poor Theodore took a tumble, injuring his pride more than anything. However I have yet to meet a whalebone corset outside of a museum; it perplexes me that I find myself wearing one simply to provide my former husband with his 'moment of inspiration'. What next, clipless stiletto heels? My less fanciful
recollection is that Theo took to wearing a garden-variety helmet for
times when he wished to pursue his questionable studies in the shed,
a ramshackle affair far more dangerous than even the M25.
I found myself at the website in question after accidentally 'googling' something dreadfully inappropriate due to keyboard error (the cause of many heart-attacks amongst the elderly and well-reared, according to the British Journal of Medicine); the contributor roster may be long and occasionally illustrious, but the lapses in taste and good sense are equally astonishing. After much frustrating navigating and wincing, I located the relevant article here, lurking in an apparent subset of the main bikereader site devoted exclusively to the writings of one of the lesser lights in the literary firmament. This particular spider-hole is accessed via clicking on the recumbent gentleman irritatingly lounging about on the main page. Suffice it to say I cut, pasted, then immediately fled the scene. As for Theodore's
monograph, to my knowledge it remains unpublished because he has yet
to locate a vanity press which will accept a manuscript in crayon. The
illustrations alone are enough to get him listed by the authorities
as a candidate for electronic tagging.
My dear Mr Hansen,
while it is true that Theodore anticipated many 'Kodak moments' as we
explored our feelings for each-other, and was careful to pack a camera,
the film was later confiscated by our B&B landlady in lieu of payment
for a damaged trouser press.
Sir! A man
who can fearlessly introduce Goethe into this thorny topic of debate
is to be reckoned with. As the polymath himself said just before he
shuffled off this mortal coil, "More light!"
You could have almost described my former husband: it's not so much the grinding metal, the sirens, the blood; it's the insurance paperwork, the rehabilitation, the memorial services for innocent bystanders... I was a passenger for quite a few years, and count myself fortunate to have survived my tenure with sanity intact. Under no circumstances was I permitted to drive while Theodore was in the car; 'It is my right as a man', he used to intone solemnly, clutching a letterhead from the Institute of Advanced Driving for further proof (if such was required) of his credentials. It was only much later that I learned, quite by accident, that the letter was a misdelivered subscription offer for the institute's magazine and that in fact he possessed no licence whatsoever except for a Bulgarian fish-paste import licence which was later deduced a forgery. As for speeding,
I am in agreement with your wife regarding parallax, a well-documented
phenomenon affecting most cars of British manufacture.
It is my unpleasant task to inform the newsgroup at large that a person shortly to be introduced to my solicitor has ignored copyright law and common decency by publishing this on his web-site. I do not recall giving my permission to reprint words which I have lovingly crafted from my own personal gray matter; others of you also quoted may feel the same. It is an outrageous situation, not unlike the Matrix Churchill affair. Some may cry 'There
is nothing we can do about it; it is the way of the world, Theodore',
but my legal advisor informs me that, given a suitable nonrefundable
retainer, he will construct a case for a class-action suit, with the
possibility of substantial financial compensation based upon a per-word
basis excluding prepositions, dangling participles, and ill-considered
metaphors. On this issue I must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my former husband, though I have my doubts as to the quality of his firm of solicitors after I visited their registered office and was directed to a tanning booth, with no legal advice forthcoming even after I had selected 'Hawaiian sunset'. Theodore is optimistic that the class-action suit will be a glorious victory, and has already spent his share of the punitive damages on a Moulton, which he intends to dismantle and 'improve' following the instruction of voices in his head. I prefer not to
count my chickens before they are hatched. Having said that, it is true
that I am considering investing in a chicken farm which eschews the
brutal battery-hen method in favour of free-range discotheques which
encourage the natural rhythm of the birds, thus improving egg production.
All the more reason
to seek legal redress.
Sometimes it takes a complete stranger to knock one from one's deleterious orbit of self-pity and corrosive introspection. I am indebted to Anonymous Idiot and Lieutenant Nettles for their enabling commentary, and Mr Chapman for his providential insight - Theodore and I employed the rhythm method with decidedly mixed results better detailed in alt.parenting. To celebrate this fresh state of mind I have turned a deaf ear to the siren-call of poultry and decided instead to invest any compensation into a recumbent bicycle. It is my sincere hope to 'get back in the saddle again'; it might as well be a comfortable one this time around! And what better way to insert myself into a desirable social circle? Perhaps knowledgeable members of the group can assist me in launching this endeavour. Many years of 'sitting up and begging' (encouraged by you-know-who) leave me unprepared and not a little trepidatious at the skillset required to pilot such a vehicle. Does anyone know if there is an Open University course which may be helpful? Where are my hands best employed, above or below? LWB, SWB, or somewhere in the middle? Long wheelbase models appear to be more dignified, but decidedly out of fashion. Is orange the new black, as I am given to understand? As long as I'm splurging, should I invest in a SON dynohub, or can I continue to make do with my torch? Granted the duct-tape around my head has always been less than comfortable, though the roll was a wedding gift from my father. What speeds may I be expected to achieve? The faster I escape into this new life the better, but once I get there I do hope I won't be expected to be a 'speed-demon'. Is there coercion amongst recumbent owners to maintain a certain velocity? I would be most
grateful for any advice offered concerning the above queries.
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