Last night's commute home was interesting. Cycling through the backstreets of Angel, I saw 3 boys, about 10-12 years old, squirting each other with a small fire extinguisher - one of the dry powder types. I thought about explaining why this might be a bad idea - if there's a fire, someone could be hurt because the fire extinguisher is missing; and I think it's a fairly serious offence to monkey around with fire safety equipment, isn't it? Anyway, by the time I'd thought it through it was too late. In any case, I didn't want to get squirted.

Later, I was doing my usual cyclo-mingling with the pedestrians for 100 yards outside my train station (I take a folding bike on the train and cycle at both ends of the journey), when someone suggested I should be on the road, and that it was illegal for me to cycle on the pavement. Which of course, it is. However, in my defence I said...I always cycled with extreme caution when among pedestrians, often dismounting (I'm not a BMX maniac racing through the crowds leaving a trail of chaos behind). Also, the stretch of road I'm avoiding is notorious for fast traffic, and has a right hand turn 2/3 way up a steep hill on a left hand bend - not nice on a bike. As for the legality of it, I'm pretty sure he was about to get into his (polluting, resource glutton) car and go speeding home at occasionally more than 30mph. Another chap joined in with an indignant "yeah, it's really annoying - everyday some cyclist zooms by and nearly hits me!" - which is a cause for concern, but not exactly my fault. I mean, everyday several pedestrians throw themselves into the road in front of me, causing me to swerve - but I don't blame all pedestrians for the few that are suicidal. I tried really hard not to be aggressive and unpleasant, but to remain coolly confident and explain myself. I'm not sure they cared - I think they just wanted to have a go at someone (bad day at the office, perhaps).

About 500 yards later, as I was reflecting on the iniquity of it all, when I saw about 8 youths meandering toward me on their BMXs. We were on a split pavement - 1 half cycle-track, 1 half pedestrians. No pedestrians around, and the BMXers were sauntering across both tracks. I kept my head down - no eye contact is key - and pressed on towards them. They made no effort to make space for me to pass, and I had to brake hard to avoid hitting one of them (who was concentrating on writing a text message at the time). As I came to a halt he looked up and spat a huge gobful of saliva at my head as he passed. I stood there stunned, the spit dribbling of my helmet. I turned to look at the group who had moved on 5 yards or so, and the gobber stopped, turned, looked at me, and said something like "come on then!". I thought it best to be on my way...