What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?

There’s a lot of handwringing going on at the moment. Apparently, we’re all doomed. Global Warming, the breakdown of society, crumbling infrastructure, the double-dip recession. Something — everything — is out to get us.

The reason for this gloom is not just that the northern hemisphere seems to be locked in the coldest winter for a million years (and I’m not exagerrating that much). I think it has something to do with a human need to parcel time up into easy to fret about chunks.

This time around the catalyst seems to be the end of the decade dubbed the “Noughties”, (although it isn’t. The decade ends next year — don’t get me started). Ten years in to the 21st century, we might be forgiven a little glance back to see what’s gone wrong (and it’s always the case that things have gone wrong).

Apparently, according to the self appointed opinion leaders, we’ve replaced the class war with an age war and mortgaged our grandchildrens’ future up to the hilt because we’ve had to bale out those individuals who wouldn’t bale us out. And despite our best efforts, it’s only going to get worse …

Well, my personal view of the past is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The problems of today are nothing new, we just talk about them in a different way. And because scared people are more eager to buy snake-oil cures, the “powers that be” have found a new and effective way of encouraging us to think that the world is indeed going to Hell on a handcart: bad news overload. After all, no news is good news.

Of course it’s been going on for a while. The quote that leads this blog is attributed to Plato (427-347 BC) and despite people of my parents’ generation bemoaning the fact that “kids were well behaved in our day”, there are documented stories of vandalism, cruelty and bullying even when the country was experiencing the “Dunkirk Spirit”. The same goes for finance, climate and the breakdown of society: it’s all happened before, believe me.

Actually, we’re most of us much better off these days: we have greater freedoms, we don’t have regular international wars and the average life expectancy keeps on rising (of course some people say that means we’re headed for a population catastrophe).

It would seem it’s not so much a case of glass half full. For some, the environmentally unsound glass is cracked and is completely empty.

To all of the moaning minnies out there, I have just one thing to say, cheer up for Heaven’s sake and give us all a break!

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I’ve been cycling to work for a few years now, albeit in several large chunks.

In this most recent chunk, I’ve been charging up and down the roads of south east London for around a month and I think I’ve noticed a few things which give me the perfect right to give pedestrians a piece of my mind. Don’t worry, I can spare it.

1. A cycle lane is for bicycles! Not for standing in to say farewell to friends, or repack your shopping, or look up at the fascinating architecture of historic London, or wonder why you’re surrounded by people on bikes.
2. If you want to cross the road look BOTH ways!
   London may be Europe’s most cosmopolitan city, but it is virtually the only capital city in Europe where traffic drives on the left. When crossing the road, look left AND right.
3. If you’re crossing and see a cyclist coming directly towards you, for God’s sake (and your’s) DON’T STOP! If you’re trying to guess which side he’ll overtake, so is he. Make deliberate moves.
4. You may think a collision with a cyclist is nothing to worry about, BUT IT IS! Remember Scott’s Law of the Bleedin’ obvious: “Ye cannae change the laws of physics, cap’n”. The equation is simple:  (Bike + saddlebags + cyclist) x speed vs Pedestrian = Ouch! What you’re experiencing in the resulting collision are the effects of something called Conservation of Momentum — you WILL get hurt!
5. Getting a bike moving from a standing start is not easy. Therefore, don’t be surprised if a cyclist is not happy if you press the button on that Pelican Crossing just as he gets to you.
6. Following on from Number 5 … very occasionally, even the BEST cyclists ignore red lights. If there’s no-one waiting at the crossing, or the road is empty (or even if it isn’t), cyclists have been known to treat a red light as a give-way sign.
7. Don’t be a prat. Do I need to explain that one?

Seriously, I don’t want to hurt anyone but in just a few years, the number of frankly suicidal pedestrians wandering aimlessly around London and stepping out in front of me seems to have skyrocketed. I know it’s not personal, I see them doing all the time.

It’s not even as if ringing my bell furiously seems to have any impact at all, even if I will. Firstly, many pedestrians are simply deaf to any warning sound because they have a personal stereo blasting in their ears, but more recently the number of blasted “pedi-cabs” now clogging up every narrow road in the capital desperately touting for business inanely by ringing their bells at every pretty girl who passes means many people now switch off to the time-honoured polite ring of a bicycle bell.

It’s got to the point where I’m even considering carrying a rape alarm to try to get stupid “walkfolk” to take some kind of notice lest I run over them and turn them into big puddles of strawberry jam.

To sum up, I just want to reiterate how some people are putting their very lives in danger. Even at slow speeds, the energy contained in me — a rather substantial individual — and my sturdy steel bike is enough to break bones and crack skulls, and I’m wearing a crash helmet and leg pads.

With the best will in the world, in a cycle/pedestrian interface situation, who is REALLY going to come off worst?

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