Ranting is about the easiest thing to do at this time of year; to your right a barrel of fish, to your left a shotgun. I did consider an electronic screech at the political correctness of office decorations but obviously The Sun could do it so much better. So instead, two more bad apples in the bag of all things commuting shall be cast out into the virtual compost heap.

Firstly pretend Policemen who, having narrowly failed to scrape in last time, wrongly escaped a righteous bruising. This part time ponces exist in the high-viz netherworld between security guards and traffic wardens. They can be easily spotted by some physical manifestation of the reason that even the hardly fastidious MET refused to employ them. This may be a forty inch waist, a sixty year age or a hundred fat chips on a shoulder.

They swagger around, accessorised by pathetic facsimiles of those bobbies gainfully employed, directing traffic, persecuting cyclists and being laughed at. And they have an image problem which isn’t going anywhere even with a name change. Special Constables became Community Support Police but this doesn’t hide a certain twisted desire to come home from work and put on another tie.

And because catching real criminals is difficult, instead they criminalise those they can catch. Including cyclists who perform acts of terrorism including running red lights, borrowing a bit of pavement to make a gap and answering back. In a year of yellow jacket overload, I’ve yet to see these sanctimonious busybodies do anything useful at all. And don’t give me this shit that they’re unpaid volunteers until you’ve asked yourself why that may be. No real friends and absence of personality ticks all the boxes for a bloke trying to bridge communities doesn’t it?

Citizen arrests and vigilante groups won’t solve the problem either but at least they’re a bit better dressed. More proper police please. And maybe we’ll take them seriously.

Secondly scooters. Specifically scooters not motorbikes and that’s an important distinction. Modern motorcycles are urban missiles piloted by a similar breed to us – living by the staying alive traffic rules. Scooters are normally driven by people in suits who lack the spacial awareness which would otherwise allow them to weave into gaps. Instead they just park up the arse crack of two stationary cars and we’re forced to queue behind them. And apart from that they’re just rubbish aren’t they? Fashionable in Milan, ludicrous in London and out-accelerated by anything with a pulse.

My motivation needs recharging so it’s with a happy grimace that my final 06 commute finished this week. I’ll leave you with a quote from a fellow street-lifer which neatly encapsulates my thoughts for riding through the winter.

When you’re thinking this crap about ‘might as well have another hour in bed’, remember that you’re actually already awake, and you’re not actually going to sleep for the next hour, you’re just going to try for a fumble, get denied, and get lie there watching the clock ticking down to he next ‘getting up’ point. Get up and ride instead?