Being superior you mean? :wink: Ps to just put this to bed.......bikers are meant to be bad ass! Its the law :tongue:
Is it just me that finds Facebook the hangout of the sad and needy. Why would I want to look at their holiday snaps or photographs of them in poses showing how apparently brilliant and hilarious their life is. I do kind of get the irony of the above sentence, seeing as I'm posting on an internet forum mind
Your comments seem to have hijacked the thread Supermotoboy, so I'll try to address the original thread too! We Brits are clearly a bit defensive. I previously lived in Spain for 3 years, and became fluent in Spanish (though I wasn't hired for my language skills, in fact I didn't speak a word before arriving - typically English!). So I have some idea what it's like, and how hard it is, moving to a new country and trying to figure out how everything works. Just posting a letter ain't so obvious when you're new in town, and most people don't realise this. Everything you do without thinking at home is suddenly a new experience, and its exhausting. So first comment is that I take my hat off to you - proper English that is! Your colloquial English grasp is particularly impressive - I could do business all day in Spanish, but then if I went out to a bar with friends I'd get lost in translation as all the idioms and phrases flew around and over my head. I have to say that many parts of Britain, and segments of society, are not always most welcoming of foreigners. I say that as a Brit who is half Chinese, and married to an Indian! But its very dependent on where you live and whom you mix with (I'm no snob by the way, I grew up on a council estate where my mum still lives). London is the most multi-cultural city I know. But having lived in different countries, the UK is not unique in having cliques or making foreigners feel like outsiders. It's human nature, I fear. This politeness thing is a question of manners and linguistic style IMO. Some Brits have no manners, and you seem to have met most of them; so I apologise on behalf of the rest of us! But the 'soft' communication style you observe is often about avoidance of directness and protection of privacy, not just about being polite. We don't get to the point easily, we keep to ourselves and like to protect our territory, and we don't express feelings openly. In Spain you say good morning to strangers in the lift, in England you avoid eye contact. But one emotion we seem to be good at displaying publicly is anger. There do seem to be more angry people in UK than most countries I have visited... but then much of my experience of other countries is the business traveller's one, which is hardly a representative one. There's a fabulous book called, "Watching the English" by an anthropologist that I read whilst living in Spain, and had me laughing out loud. It's the best source of insight into the English that I know. I seem to be waffling... Very British that... I do think it's typically British to envy others and want to knock them down off their perch... Perhaps it's linked to our love of the under-dog, and general reluctance to stand out or flaunt success; unlike the typically more brash Americans, who admire success... I love that they are more likely to see a Ferrari and think "I'd like one of those someday, must work harder" versus the common Brit who thinks "rich git". Though I guess us Ducati lot don't mind standing out so much ;-) I agree many non-bikers seem to think biking is just too much like having fun, throwing all caution to the wind, and breaking rules and being antisocial (The British do love rules) whilst secretly they wish they could do the same thing... I hate people who say they hate bikers, generalizing their bad experiences in their little minds. There are too many 'little Britons'. i still love it here though...
Come down south!!! As I have bored people with a thousand time, I was seriously injured in a bike accident (not my fault) last year. My five months as an impaired person (I walk with a stick most of the time) revealed the true nature of folk. Doors are held open, lifts are held, I get ushered to the front of queues, cars stop to let you cross and I've even had complete strangers offer to put things through the checkout in the supermarket when I had only one small item and there was a large queue (I should point out they even declined payment for the item) It has been a truly humbling experience, stand up and be counted Milton Keynes, could it be the best city in the UK? I think so.. I'd also like to point out the above were not exceptional instances, people here really have been incredible. We are a highly cosmopolitan community, I'm sure a Scandinavian would be made very welcome here.
Outliar and Phil, thanks for the cheering up, very much appreciated - and sorry to chewy for my hijacking og The thread - i swear it wasn't on purpose
Hey, no problem for the thread hijack. My original point was that its interesting how the majority of citizens of this fair isle see motorcyclists as the unacceptable face of fossil fuel usage, who want to go fast, and waste fuel for the most selfish of reasons, and who clearly have a death wish. I have a problem with this sort of attitude on a number of levels, and its not just motorcycles which are affected like this, Im also a private pilot, and much of the objections to people flying about the place in small aircraft seem to be rooted in similar prejudices. I wonder how we can combat (in the nicest possible way) their unadventurous commonplace, boring view of the world?
I think I've been lucky, I've just moved onto one of the more upscale areas of Milton keynes where Mercedes and Porsche are on virtually every drive. I couldn't imagine a less stereotypical biker friendly area. Imagine my shock when I found a tangible number of people in my street (and estate) are bikers. There is also a very nice yellow 748 on this estate (any one here? Yellow 748 in Shenley church end?)
No, that's a dim person from oxford. MK is a very misunderstood place, there are some lovely areas, and it was (and quite probably still is) the greenest city in the UK, with 40 trees per person. It also has the best air quality of any city in the UK due to its layout which moves traffic better, and seperates housing from through traffic. I moved here from Bedford, and I will never return, MK is so much nicer. We have an awesome ice hockey team too!
