Meet for the Sheep We’d arranged to see Sheep On Drugs at Fabric, in an area of London which has become a magnet for fashion victims and street crime – Old Street. To arrange a meeting place, there was the usual escalation of communication – first an email chain, then some SMS, but we had yet to resort to actual telephone conversation to arrange the details. The efficacy of electronic interaction had conveyed the plan – that w should meet at the Foundry – a pub with surely the worst site in the world. The poor web presence of the Foundry probably didn’t lead to its demise, though when I arrived at its doors at the allotted hour, they were firmly closed. The doors didn’t look like they would be open any time soon – the bar looked derelict. I was going to have to escalate to actual voice conversation with Zoe to rearrange our meeting.
Unstoppable force  I always think that people believe what they want to believe – whatever helps them at the time. Me, I often refuse to believe things about myself, as I don’t want to lose my self-image as playing a super-hero in the movie of my own life. Table football would be one example. There’s a table in the office, and despite numerous leagues and competitions which I have failed to win, I still think I’m the best person in the world at table football, and practically unbeatable. Douglas Adams wrote about an Electric Monk, who could simultaneously believe thirteen contradictory facts at once. The Electric Monk is not the super-hero I wish to play, but it is clear that anyone who loses games of a (pub) sport, but still believes himself to be unbeatable at that sport is clearly capable of great leaps of delusion if not faith.
Grip Sometimes the evidence does beat down the canvas walls of my self-delusion, sometimes it doesn’t. On a recent motorcross day with two friends, I was convinced I could not lose a race. After several races which saw me hurtle straight at an electricity pylon in lieu of turning the bike through the hairpin, go through crash barriers, and generally fail to beat anyone, I came to realise I wasn’t the greatest. Though I think the veins on my forearms were possibly the greatest and most pumped, given my intense vice-like grip on the handlebars which accompanied my maniacal efforts to remain atop my bucking steed of steel. That was one example of evidence beating my delusion. One other point: when designing a motorcross track, try to avoid putting a 100ft steel pylon in the middle of it. If you have no other option, don’t put a long straight and a tight bend just in front of it.
Pace Another example of my self-faith moving mountains would be at a barbecue at a friend’s house. His bicycle had a speedo fitted, and I was absolutely sure that I could get a higher top speed than anyone else present. I upped the record from 19.5 to a massive 23.5 mph, with my legs pounding the pedals as I gritted my teeth and got into the zone. Call it mind over matter, call it compelling self assured confidence, call it what you like, but I won, and I knew I would. Mind you, I never enter the lottery unless I think I’m going to win. I don’t hope I’m going to win. I know I’m going to win. Needless to say, I’m often surprised to find out I haven’t won, that I’m wrong, and that I’m disappointed.
Now what does this have to do with Sheep On Drugs, Old Street, and closed pubs? Well it adds a bit of context – my vice-like grip, my deluded state of mind and confidence in my own abilities, and it demonstrates that I know how fast people can go on bicycles. This is very relevant for what happened as I stood outside the Foundry, about to call Zoe from my cell phone. I started to look up her number on my phone in a long-sighted, “hold the phone at arm’s length” kind of way.
Snatch Feeling a hand reach over my shoulder and grab my phone, I assumed Zoe had arrived and wanted to signal that I shouldn’t bother calling her. I started to look backwards over my right shoulder whence the arm wielding the hand had come.
As the shoulder bearing the arm bearing the hand passed to my right, on a body on a bicycle, I like to think I realised that none of these things belonged to Zoe. As the rogue hand attempted to ferry off my telephone, I like to think that my super speed reflexes and superhuman strength actually wrested the phone out of the insistent grip of the powerful man trying to steal my phone. He failed to make off with his prize, my phone – this much is true, but in reality, I was too shocked for several heartbeats to figure out I had foiled a robbery by clinging to my phone.
Maybe it was a flood of high performance secretions surging into my blood, stimulating me. Overclocking my brain, so that a mass of thoughts could present themselves on the internal television where my mind decides what to do. The internal television where I star as the superhero in the movie of my life. Hyperfast thinking – the vision of an eagle, focussing on the would-be robber receding down the road. Perhaps it was a trick of my heightened senses, but he appeared to be pulling the hood of his anonymous dark sweatshirt over his head in a slow and nonchalant fashion. As I think about it now, it was clear that he must have been doing this with one hand, which was perhaps why he was not pedaling very fast – he perhaps was not nonchalant at all.
It was about this time when I also realised that I could run far faster than he was cycling, and that he was not a powerful man at all, but a lanky youth who looked like he needed a good shoeing to dissuade him from his life of petty crime. A lifestyle choice on his part that had left him ill equipped for his new career of phone stealing, give that I had, with no prior training, hung on to my phone as he tried to whip it from my outstretched arm. This is probably a lie. Actually I thought, “Tw*t”. I know this for sure, as this is exactly what I shouted at his back as he pedaled off. But I know I wanted to give him a paneling for his bungled efforts too.
Shoeing With a well timed foot in the spokes of a mountain bike, it is quite easy to unseat even an experienced bike rider as your shoe wedges against the frame of the bike, bringing it to an abrupt stop. Even a badly timed foot has a similar effect. The shock of the rider who has flown over his handlebars before planting his chin on the tarmac is sufficient to stun him for enough time for you to regain your foot from the twisted bike wheel.
By the time you have walked to the ex-rider’s prone and twisted body, there will probably be enough adrenaline in your body to dull the pain in your twisted foot. A foot that you can liberally use to dislodge some of the internal organs residing in the abdomen of the limp body from their protective tetherings. The noise of cracking ribs won’t make it to your brain – the excitement of the situation will cause your heartbeat to rise, and the blood vessels behind the outer ear canal to dilate. The canal will be pinched by the engorged blood vessels. This will impede your sense of hearing to such an extent that you won’t hear the approach of the cyclists accomplice from your rear.
The first you might know about this is the crack of a baseball bat on your shoulders. He perhaps was not brave enough to swing at your head. Perhaps he was smart enough not to aim at your neck and end up in the slammer for manslaughter. Either way, it will be the last decision he will make today with the baseball bat in his hand, as you whirl around and unleash a forceful kick to his kneecap, and in a fluid spinning move, you deliver an elbow to his temples, making him temporarily lose control of most of his motor functions. You might kick the bat from his useless hands as he crumples to the floor.
Vigilante Of course, none of this actually happens. I stood rooted to the spot in shock, with my blood boiling. After shouting, “Tw*t” at my assailant, I failed to do anything for about ten seconds, which gave him ample time to cycle off slowly into a back alley. But the fantasy violence which unfolded in my head made me feel less aggrieved. I still play the super-hero on the television set in my head which is showing the movie of my life. I still have my phone. And I now have a much clearer plan of what to do if I am in the same situation again. Not that I plan to become a vigilante, holding cell phones attached to pieces of cheesewire in my hand on the grim streets of Old Street, yanking the hands from hooligans when they attempt to grab them. That would be going too far.
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