Why no marshals visible on side roads at UK championship?

 

Guardian Angels once again provide safe passage for a major British cycle road race. I refer to Sunday’s (23^rd) British Cycling national road race championship at Saltburn in North Yorkshire won by Ethan Hayter (INEOS) with a late lone attack from his two breakaway companions. I was watching the event on Discovery Channel.

I couldn’t help but notice that once again, no marshals were visible on many side roads; nothing to stop a vehicle from being driven out onto the course which I presume is run under the otherwise excellent police escort rolling road closure system.

I apologise if I am mistaken, but I cannot image how it is  Spanish tv coverage of the Tour of Spain picked up a marshal on every junction viewed, and British camera's on home races here missed doing so! We couldn't see them because in  many cases static marshals simply were not deployed.

Besides, I was told years ago when I noticed this, that that rolling road closure provides all the security needed. I beg to differ.

They sweep by, pausing at side roads if cars are present to instruct drivers to wait. Presumably they are trusting drivers to decide when it is safe to continue. But what if there is a chasing group bearing down a few minutes later?

I have seen such a group pass unguarded junctions well after their escort has flown through. All it takes is for a car to turn up after the cop has gone.  And the chasing group is unsighted on a bend seconds away bearing down on what they think is a secured road!

This has been the case with the annual Tour of Britain. I think it was last year’s event when it was run at the same time as the Tour of Spain and this enabled me to switch between TV channels to watch both at once.

And I couldn’t help but notice that on the Spanish race marshals were visible on every side turning shown on the TV; or if no marshal, there was a rope or cones across the junction.

This contrasted sharply with the British event.  Although side roads in towns were covered, there was no one on several side roads in the open country.

So, either angels are watching, or Black Magic is at work, and vehicles approaching said junctions find their motors cut out and they roll to a halt until the race has gone by.

Meanwhile…..

MEANWHILE, the General Election looms on July 4.  Thankfully, the European Footy Cup, tennis and from this weekend, Le Tour de France, will happily provide distraction.

And then there are always the Television challenge shows, such as The Chase, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Pointless, and Mastermind.  

The  General Election, widely expected to be a most glorious funeral for Rishi Sunak and the disgraced Conservative party now dead on its feet after 10 years of fucking up our lives, will result, so everyone seems so sure about,  in Keir Starmer’s Labour party forming a new government and the Liberals becoming the new opposition party.

Unless, horror upon horrors, that grinning oaf Nigel Farage and his Reform party spring a nasty surprise?

Afterall, 17 million voters swallowed his lies promising a better life if they voted for Britain to leave the EU in 2016!

This column is supposed to be about cycling, and so without further ado, let us see what those tireless campaigners for Cyclists Rights, Cycling UK, are doing on the run up to July 4?

Their call strives to be heard above the noise of the traffic and remains unchanged – “cycling needs to become a major transport initiative”.

The response also remains unchanged for so far successive governments have turned a deaf ear.

And given the cost of living crisis, the NHS continuing to fall apart, the threat posed by climate change few want to face up to, the wars in Europe and Gaza, transport issues here barely register on the radar. It seems the big thing on our minds right now – but not mine - is European Cup Fever.

Spoiler alert: Look away now if you do not want to see the result of the European Cup final brought to us thanks to Dr Who taking a short trip into the future to reveal the following news: England 4 – Tory Party 0.

This means that Gareth Southgate becomes the new Prime Minister and his England team form the Cabinet. I imagine that Wembley will become the new seat of government.

CYCLING UK has announced 50 routes suitable for “all the family” and they ask us all to lobby our local candidates to “speak up for cycling.”

Over to Gareth.

On a different planet

 

I’ll be sorry when our neighbour and his family leave town.

Where are you going? I said.

Back home, to Sirius, he said.

Pardon? I said.

Are you serious?

Is that a pun? He said. 

Oh, how funny...No, purely unintentional, I assure you, I said.

Sirius – that’s 8.6 million light years distant, I said.

Yes, we dart back and forth, he said.

You better come in, he said. I owe you an explanation.  I know you will understand.

There followed an absorbing hour during which I learned that our neighbour was in fact from another galaxy. I’m a hybrid, he explained.  Your weather, the air, doesn’t suit all of us. My family has begun to suffer. As for your politics!!!! You’re always fighting wars.

I asked him, why come here in the first place?

Well, we like to travel, he said. We have mining rights on what you call your moon, and your place was handy to visit when taking time off.

Are there others like you? I said.

Oh, yes, tens of thousands. We’ve been here for thousands of years. Your governments are fully aware.

We’re everywhere. The entire staff of Waitrose, or “partners” they call them, they’re all hybrid.  Even sport. Exceptional in endurance sports due to having two hearts and enormous lungs.

 A few are pro cyclists. I can think of one in particular, leaves everyone behind when he attacks. His name escapes me.

Many of the Grand Tour winners were/are hybrids, as is the entire Norwegian cross-country skiing team.

How come you look very similar to us, if rather tall, I said. 

Pure chance, he said. Your people call us the “Tall Whites”. But we’re not all that tall.

Let me ask you, I said. Why has all this been kept a secret?

Ah, well, the truth is your governments, including religious leaders wanted to tell everyone years ago, in the 1950s.

But the Federation of Galaxies forbid it. You are not ready for this. There would be a great social unrest, even revolution. I mean, in the UK alone there were 17 million who voted for Britain to leave the EU – which demonstrated a very poor grasp of reality.

There are thick people like that all over your planet.

And it isn’t for the Federation of Galaxies to tell you the Truth, although it is out there in one form or another, for those who look for it. You have been prodded often enough. The carefully crafted films and sci-fi novels, for instance.

But otherwise, our policy is of non-interference with another planet’s evolvement, he said.

So although you are here, it’s not an invasion? I said.

Oh, no. We’re not into using force. Besides, imagine the supply lines? He said. The cost of assuming control. Much better to let you children of the universe muddle along.

Oh, we’ve helped you along the way. All this new technology that has been rushed in over the past 70 years. From Velcro to Smartphones, all your IT stuff.

But not weapons systems or anti-gravity drive propulsion…Too advanced. We are after all 50,000 years ahead of you.

It would be a bit like giving Christopher Columbus the plans on how to build a Trident nuclear submarine, saying, go on, Chris, build a couple of those.

No chance.

We did interfere a little. Stopped the Cold War for instance. Demonstrated we can shut down

your nuclear missile capabilities if necessary.

Your tinkering with atomic power is worrying because setting those fireworks off would have ramifications far beyond Earth. The ripple effect would knock worm holes out of kilter for a start, sending us to, say Venus, instead of here. And you don’t want to go to Venus, take my word for it.

So don’t you worry your little heads about Putin’s military chiefs who have threatened the UK with nuclear-inspired Biblical type flood to drown you all. 

Exploding a nuclear device in the Atlantic.  Voila. Huge tsunami, so high it would race across the entire breadth of England and Wales at 500kph drowning everyone and radiating the land for 100s of years.

He knows we won’t let that happen, while we are still here.

What do you mean, while you are still here?

We're all going. Two years and we'll be gone.

That's about the time when rising sea levels will begin to take back the land.

Southern hemisphere will take a really bit hit first, and the millions of displaced people will head north, to Europe. You'll have a lot of new neighbours camping in your gardens.

Let's face it, you've will never change your polluting ways which have led to climate change.

Truth is, you're fucked. So were out of here. Waitrose will feel the brunt of it first, no staff. We're flying them out in the first wave.

Oh, dear, I said.

So will you tell the other neighbours who you are, I said, getting back to basics.

No, no. You may, if you like!  They won’t believe you. We’ll tell them we’ve gone to Bristol, he said.

Have you finished you new novel, I said.

Yes, it’s called “Life, the universe and the end of dreams” He said.

 Inspired by Douglas Adams, author of the marvellous book,  “Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy”.

Very funny? Not bad – Adams knew. I think he may have been one of ours. He was pretty close. Touched a nerve back home, I can tell you.

We'll let you know when were off. We'll have a farewell drink down the pub, he said.

I'll look forward to it, I said.