Emissions Kilian DoyleResolutions time again. I'm still of the opinion that writing such lists is as worthwhile as wearing clean underwear every day in case you get hit by a bus. (Now, honestly, how often does it happen? Is the minimal risk really worth all that pant-changing? And do you think nurses ain't seen it all before?) But, apparently, it's the done thing.
I must admit having to stifle a few chuckles at my 10 promises from last year. Be nice to taxi drivers? Make friends with the motorbike courier fraternity? Let the air out of a motorbike cop's tyres as he's admiring his tightly-leathered physique in the window of Clery's on O'Connell Street? Dig a dirty great hole under Leinster House in which to put Dublin's first Metro Station? (Sure why bother - aren't they digging enough of a whole for themselves?)
The folly of youth, eh?
In fact, the only two of the 10 I managed were to get health insurance and be nice to herself with a view to securing increased access to the Suzuki Swift of which I am so inordinately fond. The health insurance - while a source of relief for my poor frazzled mother - is somewhat of a double-edged sword. Now, whilst whizzing through traffic on my bicycle like an amphetamine-fuelled ant through a nest, I feel an extra cloak of invincibility shrouding me. "Hit me?" I think as an articulated lorry grazes my ear. "Go on, I dare ya. I've got a lawyer and health insurance. Do your worst, tough guy."
But then, as I realised only today, a BUPA card in your back pocket is wholly inadequate at cushioning the gluteus maximus against the hard thump of concrete.
I have therefore whittled down my resolutions to two. One of which is none of your business, but suffice to say it should greatly enhance my claim to use of the Suzuki. The second, more immediate, resolution, is to fit a stylishly curved yet fiendishly lethal set of bull-bars to my bicycle. There must be a whole yard filled with them somewhere in Meath since the EU directive banning them on SUVs was enacted.
See, I came a cropper on my bike the other day. I was ripping along the outside lane on Dame Street at 30, as is my wont, carefully noting ll around me and assuming - foolishly as it turned out - that everyone else was doing likewise. Coming to the traffic lights outside the Bank of Ireland, the pedestrians were doing their usual trick of breaking the lights and legging it like it was last orders at the suicide booth.
This is an everyday occurrence. We have an unwritten agreement - they stand stock-still, eyes wide, transfixed at the sight of this sullen, unrelenting demon bearing down on them, and I stare menacingly and point self-righteously at the little red man as I zip past. It's almost become a game.
But one slightly-built young woman obviously hadn't learned the rules. She just ran. I swerved to avoid her, but she decided to bolt for it just as I was alongside her, thus bumping into my shoulder and sending me arse over tip into the gutter, leaving me ignominiously splayed upside-down like a drunken turtle. I was mortified. And my gluteus maximus was left feeling like it had been used, double-cheekedly as it were, to demolish Ballymun flats.
Hence the bull-bars. I'll just rename them lemming ploughs to avoid legal retribution from the EU, and I'll be invincible. "But how was she? " you ask, as indeed I did myself at the time. Not a bother on her. Fair play, she barely even broke her stride. I was amazed and, despite my obvious vexation, mightily impressed.
If you're reading, madam, I hear the Irish rugby team needs a new hooker, now that the Wood has turned to smoke. You'd be perfect.