Relevant to all PTW's
Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 6:28 am
Shameless promotion of the NABD and some of what it does.
The Agony and the Ecstasy?
(No it’s not about catching your foreskin in your zip while on E’s)
I’m sure a lot of people think my life is just one long party (the chance would be a fine thing) but the sad fact is that as chairman of the National Association for Bikers with a Disability the past twenty years of my life have involved lots of quite serious stuff too.
Not that I’m saying the “serious stuff†can’t be enjoyable too! I get immense joy from helping disabled riders to enjoy the freedom and independence that bikes and trikes can offer and as a born-and-bred Socialist I get enormous pleasure from the fact that the NABD has remained true to its objectives and has never been allowed to become a corrupt gravy-train for greedy directors and employees like so many charities are.
The NABD still has only two paid employees (the ladies who administer the office) and the rest of us remain fully voluntary without recourse to cushy expense accounts and subsidised jollies. Keeping it this way has sometimes involved quite a lot of “serious stuff†when unscrupulous scumbags have tried to corrupt our fine association for their own benefit but again I have taken great pleasure from seeing them booted out on their arses.
Of course the world is not a perfect place and there are times when even a dedicated Hedonist like myself cannot find any joy in some aspects of it. A good example of that is the hours of mind-numbing tedium involved in reading shit like the “Consultation on a Proposed European Commission Regulation on the type approval and market surveillance of 2- and 3-wheeled vehicles and quadricycles†and worse still, the actual proposals themselves.
What the hell was nature thinking when it produced the dreary-minded boring bastards who formulate these mountains of utter shite?
The titles given to these things should give you enough insight into the mind-set of these parasitic worshippers of tedium but if you’re still not sure, let me give you a completely random example of the way the proposals are explained in the 148 page document (yes really 148 fucking pages of drivel that ‘yours truly’ had to wade through!) produced by the civil servants of the Euro-gravy-train:
“For the sake of clarity and completeness, it is important to point out that the data provided by EuroStat can only be used to gain a generic picture of the Cycle and L-category vehicle market since it lacks precision in two important ways. First, the data includes the manufacture of cycles which is problematic in the sense that the cycle market strongly varies from the PTWs market. The cycle market is very diversified and heterogeneous in terms of producers which often constitute of micro companies.â€ÂÂÂ
And they started that paragraph with “For the sake of clarityâ€ÂÂÂ… Are they taking the piss?
Well, of course they are!
People like them have been taking the piss out of taxpayers since the first tax was invented to pay for the whoring and warring of the world’s original parasitic elite!
If you want to read the whole thing (like you do?) I suggest a large dose of amphetamine sulphate to keep you awake, then go here: http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/i ... 152_en.pdf
The fact is that some of us have to read this sort of shit so that we can warn you and try to do something about it when the Euro-monster tries to add yet another level of control onto all of our lives. There are times when I could happily say “Fuck it!†and go off for cocktails and a laugh. And indeed there are times when I do just that! But then I come back eventually and read the shit and formulate the response because despite my hatred of boredom and puerile civil servants I am addicted to the joy that even the smallest of victories can bring. At the end of the day I suppose that is why people like me generally put in the time and effort without getting paid for it? We are addicted to the buzz we get when we make a difference.
My point is (in case you were wondering by now) that I truly believe life to be about joy and happiness. Though we may often have to do things that bore the shit out of us we have to look for the pleasure we get from the results of that effort. Sometimes that pleasure may not be obviously apparent so you have to look for it but generally there is some gratification to be had from most types of effort. The trick of course is to find it and squeeze every last drop of joy from it!
Of course the opposite also applies. If something gives you great joy, you have to be willing to put the effort in to maintaining and protecting it!
So which Rider’s Rights group are you a member of? Or is the joy of biking not worth the tiny effort of joining one for you?
For NABD (All bikers are welcome to join & support our work, you don’t have to be disabled). http://www.nabd.org.uk/membership/index.htm
For MAG. http://www.mag-uk.org/en/joinmag/a6318
For BMF. http://www.bmf.co.uk/pages/join.php
Take your pick, join one or join them all. Help to protect your right as a biker to squeeze every last drop of joy out of living!
Rick Hulse
(N.B. This article was originally written for and published by 100% Biker Magazine)
The Agony and the Ecstasy?
(No it’s not about catching your foreskin in your zip while on E’s)
I’m sure a lot of people think my life is just one long party (the chance would be a fine thing) but the sad fact is that as chairman of the National Association for Bikers with a Disability the past twenty years of my life have involved lots of quite serious stuff too.
Not that I’m saying the “serious stuff†can’t be enjoyable too! I get immense joy from helping disabled riders to enjoy the freedom and independence that bikes and trikes can offer and as a born-and-bred Socialist I get enormous pleasure from the fact that the NABD has remained true to its objectives and has never been allowed to become a corrupt gravy-train for greedy directors and employees like so many charities are.
The NABD still has only two paid employees (the ladies who administer the office) and the rest of us remain fully voluntary without recourse to cushy expense accounts and subsidised jollies. Keeping it this way has sometimes involved quite a lot of “serious stuff†when unscrupulous scumbags have tried to corrupt our fine association for their own benefit but again I have taken great pleasure from seeing them booted out on their arses.
Of course the world is not a perfect place and there are times when even a dedicated Hedonist like myself cannot find any joy in some aspects of it. A good example of that is the hours of mind-numbing tedium involved in reading shit like the “Consultation on a Proposed European Commission Regulation on the type approval and market surveillance of 2- and 3-wheeled vehicles and quadricycles†and worse still, the actual proposals themselves.
What the hell was nature thinking when it produced the dreary-minded boring bastards who formulate these mountains of utter shite?
The titles given to these things should give you enough insight into the mind-set of these parasitic worshippers of tedium but if you’re still not sure, let me give you a completely random example of the way the proposals are explained in the 148 page document (yes really 148 fucking pages of drivel that ‘yours truly’ had to wade through!) produced by the civil servants of the Euro-gravy-train:
“For the sake of clarity and completeness, it is important to point out that the data provided by EuroStat can only be used to gain a generic picture of the Cycle and L-category vehicle market since it lacks precision in two important ways. First, the data includes the manufacture of cycles which is problematic in the sense that the cycle market strongly varies from the PTWs market. The cycle market is very diversified and heterogeneous in terms of producers which often constitute of micro companies.â€ÂÂÂ
And they started that paragraph with “For the sake of clarityâ€ÂÂÂ… Are they taking the piss?
Well, of course they are!
People like them have been taking the piss out of taxpayers since the first tax was invented to pay for the whoring and warring of the world’s original parasitic elite!
If you want to read the whole thing (like you do?) I suggest a large dose of amphetamine sulphate to keep you awake, then go here: http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/i ... 152_en.pdf
The fact is that some of us have to read this sort of shit so that we can warn you and try to do something about it when the Euro-monster tries to add yet another level of control onto all of our lives. There are times when I could happily say “Fuck it!†and go off for cocktails and a laugh. And indeed there are times when I do just that! But then I come back eventually and read the shit and formulate the response because despite my hatred of boredom and puerile civil servants I am addicted to the joy that even the smallest of victories can bring. At the end of the day I suppose that is why people like me generally put in the time and effort without getting paid for it? We are addicted to the buzz we get when we make a difference.
My point is (in case you were wondering by now) that I truly believe life to be about joy and happiness. Though we may often have to do things that bore the shit out of us we have to look for the pleasure we get from the results of that effort. Sometimes that pleasure may not be obviously apparent so you have to look for it but generally there is some gratification to be had from most types of effort. The trick of course is to find it and squeeze every last drop of joy from it!
Of course the opposite also applies. If something gives you great joy, you have to be willing to put the effort in to maintaining and protecting it!
So which Rider’s Rights group are you a member of? Or is the joy of biking not worth the tiny effort of joining one for you?
For NABD (All bikers are welcome to join & support our work, you don’t have to be disabled). http://www.nabd.org.uk/membership/index.htm
For MAG. http://www.mag-uk.org/en/joinmag/a6318
For BMF. http://www.bmf.co.uk/pages/join.php
Take your pick, join one or join them all. Help to protect your right as a biker to squeeze every last drop of joy out of living!
Rick Hulse
(N.B. This article was originally written for and published by 100% Biker Magazine)