onionbagblog
Bell End
There's a new boy on the block. Bye bye Vest Van, a big round of applause for the SW8 Bell Boy. It's reassuring to know that in these times of Tom Tom's and GPS technology, a good old fashioned bicycle bell is still ringing out loud and clear around Sunny Stockwell.
I first herd the Bell Boy shortly after we moved into onionbagblog HQ II. It was hard not to notice him - an early morning alarm call of a bloody loud bicycle bell, immediately followed by a battle cry of: OI!!!!
I ignored this call to arms for a few weeks, too busy unpacking boxes (and bikes) to be bothered. And then sometime shortly after the first gas bill dropped, I started to take an interest in the Bell Boy. But he turned out to be a rather elusive character on the local landscape.
RING, RING... OI!!!!
Blimey. I'm sure I just heard a bell, but what on earth is happening out there on the mean streets of Sunny Stockwell? With the block of flats opposite undergoing a major facelift (one workman, one decade to replace the double glazing,) I first thought that the bell was maybe linked to a telephone for the one-man workman. A similar RING RING can be heard around the Stockwell Bus Garage.
But how to explain the OI!!!!
By now I was becoming slightly obsessed by the Bell Boy. My highly constructed morning routine was even interrupted to be on Bell Boy Watch as soon as I heard the RING RING. I'd jump out of bed / the shower / mrs obb, each time I heard the calling sign. But despite the interruptions to my highly constructed morning routine, the OI!!!! had disappeared somewhere down the Clap'ham Road, quicker than I could see where it came from.
I learnt to live with this. RING RING OI!!!! - if you were to live in the countryside, the sound of mating crickets would soon blend into your aural landscape.
And then last week, there I was cycling back from a Clap'ham swim, and I heard it:
RING RING OI!!!!
The location of Clap'ham North was a good mile off the usual Bell Boy radar. The early morning timing was out of sync as well.
GOTCHA!
The Bell Boy mystery was solved: sorry to disappoint, but it's nothing more exciting than a middle-aged, long haired, smartly-dressed SW8 cyclist, who seems to have a thing about ringing his bloody loud bicycle bell whenever the slightest obstacle comes into his path.
A pedestrian? RING RING OI!!!!
An SW8 squirrel? RING RING OI!!!!
A discarded coke can being blown into his path? RING RING OI!!!!
It's a wonder that he has any energy left to actually turn the pedals, what with all that OI!!!! exhilaration.
I'm all in favour of cycling (you don't say...) but I think a little consideration for users of other forms of transport needs to be taken on board. Bell Boy believes that the highways of Sunny Stockwell are for his use only. I'd pay good money for a showdown at Stockwell Cross with Vest Man.
technorati: bell boy
| Monday 20 October, 2008 |
There's a new boy on the block. Bye bye Vest Van, a big round of applause for the SW8 Bell Boy. It's reassuring to know that in these times of Tom Tom's and GPS technology, a good old fashioned bicycle bell is still ringing out loud and clear around Sunny Stockwell.
I first herd the Bell Boy shortly after we moved into onionbagblog HQ II. It was hard not to notice him - an early morning alarm call of a bloody loud bicycle bell, immediately followed by a battle cry of: OI!!!!
I ignored this call to arms for a few weeks, too busy unpacking boxes (and bikes) to be bothered. And then sometime shortly after the first gas bill dropped, I started to take an interest in the Bell Boy. But he turned out to be a rather elusive character on the local landscape.
RING, RING... OI!!!!
Blimey. I'm sure I just heard a bell, but what on earth is happening out there on the mean streets of Sunny Stockwell? With the block of flats opposite undergoing a major facelift (one workman, one decade to replace the double glazing,) I first thought that the bell was maybe linked to a telephone for the one-man workman. A similar RING RING can be heard around the Stockwell Bus Garage.
But how to explain the OI!!!!
By now I was becoming slightly obsessed by the Bell Boy. My highly constructed morning routine was even interrupted to be on Bell Boy Watch as soon as I heard the RING RING. I'd jump out of bed / the shower / mrs obb, each time I heard the calling sign. But despite the interruptions to my highly constructed morning routine, the OI!!!! had disappeared somewhere down the Clap'ham Road, quicker than I could see where it came from.
I learnt to live with this. RING RING OI!!!! - if you were to live in the countryside, the sound of mating crickets would soon blend into your aural landscape.
And then last week, there I was cycling back from a Clap'ham swim, and I heard it:
RING RING OI!!!!
The location of Clap'ham North was a good mile off the usual Bell Boy radar. The early morning timing was out of sync as well.
GOTCHA!
The Bell Boy mystery was solved: sorry to disappoint, but it's nothing more exciting than a middle-aged, long haired, smartly-dressed SW8 cyclist, who seems to have a thing about ringing his bloody loud bicycle bell whenever the slightest obstacle comes into his path.
A pedestrian? RING RING OI!!!!
An SW8 squirrel? RING RING OI!!!!
A discarded coke can being blown into his path? RING RING OI!!!!
It's a wonder that he has any energy left to actually turn the pedals, what with all that OI!!!! exhilaration.
I'm all in favour of cycling (you don't say...) but I think a little consideration for users of other forms of transport needs to be taken on board. Bell Boy believes that the highways of Sunny Stockwell are for his use only. I'd pay good money for a showdown at Stockwell Cross with Vest Man.
technorati: bell boy
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