What to make of the story about the man who has been put on probation for attempting to have sex with his bicycle?

Its easy enough to make jokes about it, and the headline seems to say it all, but I think the man in question has had a bit of a rough deal. Not that I want to encourage anyone to go around having sex with bikes or anything, but what harm was he doing?

Its not as if he was out in public defiling a bike shelter. He was in his own bedroom at a hostel when cleaners came in. Would they have involved the police if he was just knocking one out with a copy of Razzle in one hand?

The cleaners say they knocked on his door and had no reply so they then used a master key. For some reason I was reminded of this passage in Spike Milligan’s novel Puckoon:

‘Where the hell is Puckoon?’ Webster was about to ask, when there was a combined knocking and opening of the door, the speciality of landladies in need of scandal

Worst of all for the trick-cyclist, he was placed on the sex offenders’ register for three years. Admitttedly his behaviour was bizarre, even for someone who had been drinking a lot, but he was doing nothing illegal, and he was doing it in his own bedroom, and with his own bike.

He claims it was “caused by a misunderstanding after he had too much to drink”. Hmmm… One hell of a misunderstanding, although I’m sure plenty of holidaymakers in Faliraki have woken up to worse after a night on the sauce, but even if it was pre-meditated bike-shagging I don’t think it merits going on the sex offenders’ register.

At least he wasn’t riding it on the pavement…