She swoops in like a kestrel after a field mouse. Round and round, in and out. She trails her Bag For Life like a pennant on a battleship. She’s on the pavement, mums with prams are but a challenge. Teenagers gawp; I recoil. And she’s off in a waft of Estée Lauder. Is that a smile I see on her face? It’s hard to tell because she’s doing 40 in a 30 zone.
E-scooters get a bad rap. The reason is because teenagers ride them. And as we all know a teenager on a motorised vehicle that goes like the clappers is a recipe for doom. Recently my nephew, nominally a sensible sort, came off one. He was giving his mate a backie, hit a tree stump, flew off and it was Goodnight Vienna. His leg snapped like a lolly stick. There were ambulances. There was ketamine administered at the roadside. And a coterie of worried grandparents gathered around him. The problem is kids are feckless. They’re too close to the womb to know better. Pensioners, conversely, are too close to the sepulchre to care. There is an equality of madness.
Granny going full-pelt on the pavement outside the Big Tesco in Hackney was not on my bingo card
OAPs on scooters are a scourge. I must say I didn’t see it coming. Granny going full-pelt on the pavement outside the Big Tesco in Hackney was not on my bingo card. And yet I see it more and more. I wonder if there’s some sort of club? Pensioners may not trust internet banking but they are seemingly willing to put their trust in an unregulated motorised plank of wood. Which, incidentally, is still illegal on public roads, never mind the pavement. Hackney seems to be ground-zero for them.
Of course, east London has always had its share of eccentric modes of transport. When I lived in Shoreditch over a decade ago there was a man who went about on a unicycle. We always hoped he’d fall off. When I moved to Dalston another fella seemed to have an overwhelming attraction to his penny farthing. He sported a full tash and steel-rimmed glasses. I don’t know if he knew it was 2015.
Where are they all going? What’s the need for such speed? It’s not just that they’re a public nuisance. Retirement is meant to be a time of repose — a time of calm — not belting down Mare Street without a care.
I worry for them. And, God knows, I worry for me.
