Righteous Brothers’ Unchained Melody

Actually the opposition to the local section of the London Cycle Superhighway (currently in construction) is more malodorous than melodious though unchained and unhinged this lot of killjoys certainly are. Mind you, they're not much different to their forbears who saw in the arrival of the railway tracks the advent of degeneracy and no doubt had they been around in Edison's days they would have ordered him to switch off the light. So immersed are they in awaiting the redemption that they cannot contemplate other improvements in their sorry lives and so they worry that a cycle route through 'our' area may herald the arrival of something clean and fresh to replace the old and staid they are so fond of. And as to where it might lead, that is one route they would rather not go down, but to them it's quite enough that it takes you beyond the confines of Stamford Hill, Go- forbid.

There's not much point trying to persuade such kind of the advantages of a cleaner, healthier, quieter and safer mode of transport. God created cars on Erev Shabbos bein hashmoshes and who are we to reduce their use? As for the environment, stop worrying already and it will be alright. The eibihster wouldn't have made an XC90 if He thought it might destroy His universe and stop believing everything that scientists tell you. And anyway it's only 0.4 of a mile in our area so what's the big deal, let them go elsewhere.

Don't think we're alone in this either because we're not. There are 3,300 'local' people who oppose the route. Now local is a hip and modern word which can be stretched and contracted according to its needs. In this case, of the 9 shops where a petition, supported by the loony if not sinister UOHC Modesty Squad, was available to be signed, fewer than half are anywhere near the route and 2 are outside Hackney altogether. Of course, we're not into borough and ward boundaries unless we're trying to throw an election and what matters here is the line of the hypothetical local eiruv were it not banned by this same lot. Similarly, not one of the 3 councillors who selflessly made their homes available for the same purpose represent or reside in the ward where the cycle route will run through. And if you look at the one available page of signatories (below) many live in E5 and N15. But, like kedushe, 'local' has no geographical limits and perhaps, on a quiet night with the right type of wind, the sound of a loud bicycle bell on Heathland Road can be heard even as far as Theydon Road.

This generosity is not limited to geography and aims to be as inclusive as one might hope. The Petitioners, like the Tribune, want you to know that there is a Black, Polish and Muslim Community living here too. How strange I've never noticed it before. It must be thanks to the irresponsible landlords who are regularly admonished for admitting 'inappropriate tenants' to the area but now we are to embrace the rainbow stuff in order to oppose the most rainbowy pastime of all, cycling. Interfaith is wonderful when a camera is pointing at you but it's in-yer-face for the rest of the time. They even called a 'local' meeting which they made sure no one knew about just in case someone with an opposing view turned up. Debate, as we well know, can be a dangerous tool in the wrong hands. Someone might even have pointed out the real heimish-but-dead cyclist who may have been alive if he was on a route segregated from those wonderful metal boxes on wheels.

But this isn't just any dumb ban like the ones we've come to love to hate, this one is dead serious. There are no less than four reasons for banning the bikes. Traffic. Parking. Safety. Kids. Do you have no heart even towards our precious kinderlech? Ok, amongst ourselves maybe we don't mamesh give a damn for safety and barely one for kids but what's that their business? Anyway they don't need to know about it unless that meshigene blogger opens his mouth again. But shoin we're not like that all the time. We do after all have 3 ambulances on permanent standby to care for our safety though still the accidents keep on happening, but that's because our skirts are not long enough.

And so if safety is your concern naturally ban the bikes. They might soon be banning goldfish in case they bite the hand that feeds them but ribono shel olom we're talking about kiddies not fish. Hang on, we've even got a statistic. According to the Tribune, we probably have the largest child to adult ratio in Western Europe. Don't you just love that 'probably'. I mean, why stop at Western Europe? Why not the Western hemisphere, or north of the equator, or the entire universe bar Bnei Brak, Karachi and Marrakesh? The fact is that we have loads more kids than we can ever dream of looking after and still we're going strong. And so ban the bikes. Ban them today, ban them tomorrow and ban them forever because we have a ratio, don't you understand?

Come on, let's be honest, our care for kids is really legendary and so they should not be occupying West Bank with bikes. True at shaleshides at a corner shul near you kids run amok on the streets unsupervised because dad's head is in the herring and mummy's fussing over her latest salad recipe to match the colour scheme of the tablecloth runners, doilies and napkins. Fine, that is excusable. But we do encourage them to walk to school, don't we. Is that the honking of a white van I hear? Must be my ears because you cannot but marvel at the skill and dexterity with which they beg, borrow and steal just any terminology they can lay their fingers on in order to turn it on its head.

If there is a single local cheder or school that has a walk to school policy, or, worse still, a walk to school day, it must have bypassed me but then we're kenainehore a sizeable oilem these days and I can't know everything. He has to go to shachris, her cordless is stuffed in her turban and little Chaim's school's walking policy takes him from the front garden to the rusting van door for an overcrowded quarter-of-a-mile ride to school. Is that not a policy? Only white, beer-bellied tattooed UKIP voters may drive white vans but we mustn't? What kind of discrimination is that, you irredeemable antisemite? Just stand on Stamford Hill or Amhurst Park any morning and watch the manoeuvres of the safety-conscious fathers criss-crossing lanes of traffic, cutting up buses so that their kids aren't at the mercy of psychopathic cyclists and that'll give you an idea of what safety is all about.

Because if you come to think of it, true Toiredike safety is in as smooth a car ride as you can get. This is why we put a spanner in the spokes of the notion of speed humps on Jessam Avenue (where a child was recently run over) and neighbouring streets with the able assistance of our elected councillors. Who cares what logic they employed on that occasion? Safety means Perek Shira 40 days in a row and let everyone else die in a pile-up. As one of the opposing councillors said to me, the issue here is the erosion of the rights of motorists. Give him at least credit for his honesty.

It's not all safety though, they're also worried about congestion, again notoriously caused by bikes. Visit the Dunsmure Road strip of the bike route on any morning and watch the mayhem. Actually, having cycled past there on many occasions a large part of the congestion is caused by the lollipop lady crossing kids walking to school and so we should campaign to ban her too. Besides the tznius issues of a lady telling men when to stop their cars, if only she weren't constantly stopping all those cars then the traffic would flow. Ban the cyclists, ban the pedestrians, close that silly school to which parents walk their kids and just join the car revolution. Amen.

Look, while no one's around let's face it, it was the UOHC that was honest about it and who would expect anything less from them. We just don't want them commuters passing through 'our' streets. As a friend said to me, no self-respecting chasidic community will allow cyclists traversing 'their' area without a fight. We haven't imbued our streets with all that kedushe for some young, fit, attractive, liberally minded and often so dressed cyclists with tight lycra bottoms to pollute our refined spiritual environment. If you haven't watched Queen's Bicycle Race you should chas vesholem not do so because the pritzus is simply mind boggling, but we shan't take lessons from anyone on cycling being a 'clean' alternative. It is filthy for the fingers especially if your tyres are as flat as your brain and even dirtier for the neshome, Go- forbid.

Yes, this area belongs to US. We can use our cars for minche/mariv and clog up every local street because we care about parking, and as for a bike, well, es past nisht. We can close the streets for funerals and rebbes, hachnosas sefer torahs and tashlich, we can burn chometz on the streets minutes after the council has cleaned them and we can burn our schach at 12am and sod the neighbours. A simche hall is where we decide to put it and if your neighbour is Jewish even better. Let them grit their teeth and block their ears because it's still preferable to making a complaint and being labelled a moosser. If we have cyclists of our own they're more like the Real McGoy rather than a heimishe specimen in a clapped out Previa or shiny SUV and so can safely be ignored. As for the women, well minicabs aren't cyclists so what does it matter to them? And the kids, they’re in cheider most of the day anyway so it hardly make a difference.

But if we still don't win the argument we can always resort to drugs: we don't do drugs, we don't mug old ladies (and you know who does those) ergo the streets, the airspace, the very air we breathe all belong to us. And if you're still not convinced we might even have a statistic to prove it.