New Urban Cycling Tribes?

rml380z

Anyone recognise themselves in this?

(Warning, pretentious nonsense); http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/iain-sinclair/the-raging-peloton

EKE_38BPM

Just listened to that dick on Radio 4's Thinking Allowed. What a prat!

W1

What a vomit load of blithering, self-satisfied tripe.

notsoblue

Turgid.

il_principe

I've been a little sick in my mouth.

jimmypippa

We hope you enjoyed reading this free essay from the London Review of Books. Subscribe now to access every article from every fortnightly issue of the London Review of Books, including the entire archive of 12,574 essays.

Their hope was in vain.

Pseud's corner contains a better standard of writing.

rjsterry

+1 Giving it away free because nobody would pay for it, maybe? Couldn't force my way past the first paragraph.

hmbadger

jimmypippa wrote:

We hope you enjoyed reading this free essay from the London Review of Books. Subscribe now to access every article from every fortnightly issue of the London Review of Books, including the entire archive of 12,574 essays.

Their hope was in vain.

Pseud's corner contains a better standard of writing.

+1
I'd be amazed if even 0.1% of people read through the whole article.

mattsaw

I gave up after 8 words. What's it about?

pst88

tl;dr

jimmypippa

Mattsaw wrote:

I gave up after 8 words. What's it about?

See the sister thread about listening to "Thinking Allowed" on Radio4

I think both are trying to prove that the author can get so far up his own @4se that he's got back to where he started.

fuelex

Yawn..........what the fudge was that about, started skimming after the first paragraph and fell asleep by the 4th or 5th.

Nik Cube

what a load of shag arsed rubbish - and thats me being ever so polite

Stone Glider

Oh dear. I might have encountered this pece elsewhere but psued shields acted in time and I have no further recollection. It seems to tick all the boxes as far as self-absorbed clever-@rseness is concerned. I hope not too many trees died for this.

deptfordmarmoset

I'm disappointed, while I've never really felt like reading him, I've heard lots of good things about Iaiainian Sinciaiaiar. But I now know:

1) My 5-month old granddaughter, who very recently has been learning about the communicative efficacy of gurgling, is already better at constructing narratives.

2) While she's really not that good at spelling yet, she would not go to print with typos like ''Every inch peddled, every tiptoeing carbon-footprint advance, is a political act.'' There's no reason to suppose it's a subtle oh-so-more-knowing-than-thou play on words - IS simply doesn't know the difference between peddling and pedalling.

3) I have this completely impossible routine - it's a bit like doing the Knowledge on a bike. I know that I've ridden every London road between Walworth and Woolwich, between Bromley and Plaistow in the north and Bromley and Plaistow in the south, Beckton and Brixton. Most times I go out I cover a new patch, and this leads me up hundreds of cul-de-sacs and closes for no greater reason than to say that I've been there. My arbitrary routes wander less than Iaiain Sainclir does on a towpath.

4) It appears to have been a big week for mythologising cycling - it seems as though the media has suddenly set its sights on creating its own stories about the bike. And they're going round and round like a rim without ever getting closer to the hub.

5) My subscription to the London Review of Burks isn't looking very likely

heathy_76

As somebody who writes for a living, this is bordering on being unreadable and without doubt the most pretentious nonsense I have ever seen.

Do people actually subscribe to this?

P.S. It's actually quite poor, gramatically, as well.

jimmypippa

heathy_76 wrote:

As somebody who writes for a living, this is bordering on being unreadable and without doubt the most pretentious nonsense I have ever seen.

Do people actually subscribe to this?

P.S. It's actually quite poor, gramatically, as well.

I'm sure you write better - even Dan Brown writes better.

But this is a gem:

Triggered by an archive clip of his maternal grandfather, Herbert Morrison, another ennobled socialist cabinet minister, Mandelson launched into a memoir of cycling around Hendon, committee room to polling station, bearing leaflets, carrying messages as proudly as the freshly baked loaves in Ridley Scott’s celebrated commercial, shot in 1973, on the picturesque slopes of Shaftesbury. Carl Barlow, the youth who featured in the advertisement, underscored by the slow movement of Dvorak’s Symphony No 9, arranged for brass, went on to become a fireman in East Ham. And, presumably, to find himself caught up in the aggravations of the Thatcher period, the climate of economic belt-tightening and union-bashing. Lord Tebbit’s helpful remarks, delivered to a sea of grey heads, at Blackpool in 1981, in the aftermath of the Handsworth and Brixton riots, will have carried a special charge for Barlow. ‘On yer bike!’

The bit in white has even less point than the rest of that paragraph.

Or, "Peter Mandelson wrote a memoir about cycling around Hendon as a political activist, after seeing archive footage of his maternal grandfather, Herbert Morrison"

What's happened to "avoid cliches like the plague"

deptfordmarmoset

jimmypippa wrote:

heathy_76 wrote:

As somebody who writes for a living, this is bordering on being unreadable and without doubt the most pretentious nonsense I have ever seen.

Do people actually subscribe to this?

P.S. It's actually quite poor, gramatically, as well.

I'm sure you write better - even Dan Brown writes better.

But this is a gem:

Triggered by an archive clip of his maternal grandfather, Herbert Morrison, another ennobled socialist cabinet minister, Mandelson launched into a memoir of cycling around Hendon, committee room to polling station, bearing leaflets, carrying messages as proudly as the freshly baked loaves in Ridley Scott’s celebrated commercial, shot in 1973, on the picturesque slopes of Shaftesbury. Carl Barlow, the youth who featured in the advertisement, underscored by the slow movement of Dvorak’s Symphony No 9, arranged for brass, went on to become a fireman in East Ham. And, presumably, to find himself caught up in the aggravations of the Thatcher period, the climate of economic belt-tightening and union-bashing. Lord Tebbit’s helpful remarks, delivered to a sea of grey heads, at Blackpool in 1981, in the aftermath of the Handsworth and Brixton riots, will have carried a special charge for Barlow. ‘On yer bike!’

The bit in white has even less point than the rest of that paragraph.

Or, "Peter Mandelson wrote a memoir about cycling around Hendon as a political activist, after seeing archive footage of his maternal grandfather, Herbert Morrison"

What's happened to "avoid cliches like the plague"

Count the number of words! IS uses more and therefore gets paid more.

Simon the Pieman

I read a book by him and another author called Rachel Lichtenstein - Rodinsky's Room. They took it in turns to write a chapter. I did try with his chapters but just ended up skipping them. Not my taste but some people like him.

Kieran_Burns

Good God in Heaven now we know who stole all the commas :shock:

Does anyone remember the Red Dwarf episode with the garbage pod where Rimmer is writing out his logs (via the skutter)?

Found it!

Waiting for God.

RIMMER: (VO) After intensive investigation, comma, of the markings on the
alien pod, comma, it has become clear, comma, to me, comma, that we are
dealing, comma, with a species of awesome intellect, colon.
HOLLY: Good. Perhaps they might be able to give you a hand with your
punctuation.
RIMMER: Shut up.

So Arnold Rimmer wrote that piece.

Mark Elvin

What a load of old shite. What fuckwit wrote that. My 6 y/o daughter could have done better.

Agent57

tl;dr

owenlars

rjsterry wrote:

Couldn't force my way past the first paragraph.

+1

hfidgen

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Good God in Heaven now we know who stole all the commas :shock:

Exactly, what I was thinking. A pile of gloriously over the top, steaming, turd.

Sewinman

Literary flatulence.

What does the first sentence actually mean? :? Mandelson was filmed in a car, then his office?

Justatheory

I'm so pleased I'm not alone thinking this is pretentious nonsense.

Crawler2

It made my browser crash.

Jay dubbleU

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Good God in Heaven now we know who stole all the commas :shock:

Does anyone remember the Red Dwarf episode with the garbage pod where Rimmer is writing out his logs (via the skutter)?

Found it!

Waiting for God.

RIMMER: (VO) After intensive investigation, comma, of the markings on the
alien pod, comma, it has become clear, comma, to me, comma, that we are
dealing, comma, with a species of awesome intellect, colon.
HOLLY: Good. Perhaps they might be able to give you a hand with your
punctuation.
RIMMER: Shut up.

So Arnold Rimmer wrote that piece.

No a Rimmer educated scutter wrote that piece - I always wondered if I'd find a use for the green one

noodles71

I'm thinking I should give him £50 to go get me some of that stuff he must be smoking.

I'm sure we were not sharing the same planet with this guy when he wrote this.

rjsterry

Has anyone on here posted a comment (or letter as they prefer to style it) on the LRB website?

Garry71

Mattsaw wrote:

I gave up after 8 words. What's it about?

Bloody lightweight, I read a whole line before giving up.