Firstly, and most importantly, I am not saddle-sore!

Secondly, I did not blast, and I am not an angry cyclist.

This will mean nothing to anyone who has not read this week’s Crawley Observer, where they put my photo of a short stretch of cycle path on page two with various ‘quotes’ from me – mostly just lifted from this site.

You get the impression that I spotted the photo opportunity while I was cycling up Southgate Avenue, but the truth is I saw it from the car a while ago but only had the chance to get a decent picture while I was out canvassing just over the road on Saturday.

The even sadder truth is that I have not actually been on my bike for quite a while, and it has been even longer since I rode it regularly. I think I still have a cyclist’s mentality, but could not claim to be one, let alone an angry one.

I do know that the path continues on the other side of the concrete bits – but I took the photo to look vaguely amusing, not to highlight a serious issue. Southgate Avenue is not great for cycling, but it is better than it was. Recent roadworks have removed some of the obstacles from the way, although it is true that I would not consider using it personally, and its not as perfect as the WSCC spokeswoman makes out.

Having managed to survive cycling through the Wandsworth one-way system twice a day for several years I wouldn’t think twice about doing Southgate Avenue!

One last point: the Creative Commons share-alike license I use says that anyone can use my pictures, even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the work. I didn’t see any credit for the picture at all. I’ll let that go if they say nice things about Labour during the local elections.

Next time I see the reporter from the Observer I think I will have to deliver his paper to him in such a way that he knows what it feels to be saddle-sore 😉 But he probably knows, since news-gathering now seems to consist of sitting on one’s arse looking for stuff on the Internet.

Still… they do say there is no such thing as bad publicity, even though I usually prefer to have none just to be on the safe side. I should have put up a picture of my tattoos instead: I would have got on page three then.