This is not for charity
29.04.09 by Buffalo Bill
This guy, Julian (Emre on the forum), who is a London courier, and regular(ish) contributor to the MT forum, is going to cycle round the world. Why? Why does anyone ride a bike anywhere? Is it simply because they want to get from A to B? Or is the motivation, in the old cliche, more in the journey than the arrival?
From the site associated with the ride, ‘This is not for charity’, comes this polemic:
This is not for charity. This will not grin for the adverts and grimace for the film crew, this will not be narrated by a monotone harbinger of doom. This will not be the slice of human spirit to be purchased by Lloyds TSB, Profit Hunters or Bright Orange Futures, in order that they can claim to have the human concerns their businesses work actively against. This will not claim to be Everyone; this will reject the claims that a Telephone Company creates Everyone, because I know drug addicts and asylum seekers and shit hole towns that no Telephone Company has ever cared about or cared to even mention the existence of. This will not be the media and marketing carnival that encourages everyone to smile. This will state that society is not just not right but that it is wholesale wrong. That it is wrong for inept bankers to take multi-million pound, taxpayer-paid pensions, whilst forty-year old taxpayers work fifty-hour weeks at minimum wage to save their mortgages. Wrong that Tesco can trumpet 10,000 new jobs without mention of the 2,000 small businesses and livelihoods they help close down each year…
I am sure that all Moving Target readers will join me in wishing Julian the best of luck in his endeavour, which starts from Rouen cathedral, 10th June.
< disCONNECTED party 1st May - location TBC · London Cycling Campaign >
It’s said that at any one time there are only around three hundred people circumnavigating the globe by bicycle so Julian will be joining an elite crowd on 10th June. Bon courage!
— Jack Apr 29, 09:09 AM #
‘only’ 300 people?!
— lee Apr 29, 02:17 PM #
he’ll sell out in the end
or will he?
— lee Apr 29, 02:18 PM #
Is Julian having a leaving drink?
— overdrive Apr 29, 03:08 PM #
That’s what an American guy who was riding around the world and stayed at my place for a couple of nights last summer told me.
Having said that, he gave up his circumnavigation a month or two later. Due to being lovesick.
— Jack Apr 29, 07:31 PM #
Lovesick???WHAT THE F*CK!!!
— overdrive Apr 30, 10:13 AM #
I know. Seriously.
www.crazyguyonabike….
— Jack Apr 30, 01:51 PM #