The Surrey With The Fringe On Top

Twat bikes. Not one of my expressions. It comes from one bar, and I'm naming no names as there may well be customers pedalling about on twat bikes. What's a twat bike? A trike. That four-wheeled surrey with or without a fringe on top, with or without a horse's head at the front, with or without some holiday brains in control or more often out of control. That trike that is taken to the open carretera and wielded like a dodgem, while all the time the "driver" is seemingly blissfully unaware that there are some industrial twats behind the wheels of cars who could quite easily take him and his trike out.

You know, you don't want to spoil people's fun and it has to be understood that everyday life here co-exists with that of the holidaymaker, but there are some things that just make little sense. Like trikes. Like trikes on the main roads. Like trikes being driven down the centre of the main roads. Like trikes with small children hanging on to the horse's head as they are pedalled frantically down main roads. There is a dividing line between holiday brains and crass irresponsibility. My guess would be that in health and safety and child-protection-obsessed Britain, an infant atop a horse's head on a trike on an A road would have social services round in a flash. But it's ok here as it's holiday time. Of course it is.

Many a time I have written about the roads here and many a time more will I doubtless write again. There has been a further growth in no left turns from and into the carretera between Alcúdia and Can Picafort. You wouldn't know it. From one such now prohibited turn this morning emerged a tourist coach. Perhaps like cyclists, coach-drivers can do as they please. It seems like it at times. The other development, that of further speed restrictions, is destined to tax the patience of what is an intrinsically impatient beast - the local driver. I've started to take a certain perverse pleasure in sticking to the 50kph speed that is at it should be between the Magic and Pointed Thing Roundabouts and between the Eden Center roundabout in Playa de Muro right through Can Picafort. It is a perverse pleasure; to see in the mirror the mouthing and gesticulation of the driver behind. Stupid of me, but there you go. Of course, it is possible to overtake, and the roundabouts themselves are used for this purpose. You can more or less guess what will happen. The guy behind has been up your backside, the road goes to two lanes coming to the roundabout, he goes one lane, you go the other and he looks to hurtle past on the in or outside (because no one knows which lane to be in by the way). Way to go, and he does.

And the season starts to home into view and the weather will start to warm up, and the roads will fill with more trikes and more people sticking to the speeds and more impatience, and the annual nightmare will start all over again. The joy of motoring - Mallorca-style.


QUIZ: Yesterday - Queen. Today's title - where does this come from?

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