{"id":37,"date":"2007-06-21T08:52:39","date_gmt":"2007-06-21T07:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=37"},"modified":"2012-05-05T11:08:59","modified_gmt":"2012-05-05T10:08:59","slug":"nemesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=37","title":{"rendered":"Nemesis"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘So Meesstair Bond<\/strike> Jones, we meet again.<\/em>‘<\/p>\n

My arch-enemy\u00e2’s implacable bulk loomed immovably in front of me.<\/p>\n

Actually I’m not sure if ‘loomed’ is the right word in this context.<\/p>\n

The Bricklayers Arms, south London.<\/p>\n

Let me explain.<\/p>\n

I left Docklands yesterday evening at about 18.30.<\/p>\n

And arrived in the house in Brixton at 20.10.<\/p>\n

Yep, it took over an hour and a half to travel thirteen miles.<\/p>\n

Or…<\/p>\n

At 19.45 I was still only a hundred yards north of The Bricklayers Arms.<\/p>\n

Staring at it.<\/p>\n

The journey took so long my imagination kicked in.<\/p>\n

It almost seemed to be taunting me, The Bricklayers Arms.<\/p>\n

Its lip-curling sneer dared me to crawl another half metre further forward.<\/p>\n

Suddenly its character changed from Blofeld to Harry (of the Dirty variety).<\/p>\n

‘Think you can make it punk? Think you can get another handful of centimetres further forward, do ya? Go ahead and try punk. Make my day.<\/em>‘<\/p>\n

I looked around at the other road users and wondered if they too were\u00a0having hallucinations.<\/p>\n

The girl in the Porsche next to me seemed intent on collecting three points for nattering in to her mobile phone whilst at the wheel of the car.<\/p>\n

She also spurned her compulsory seat belt.<\/p>\n

I mentally composed a new public message seat belt campaign:
\n‘Notice to drivers, the penalty for not wearing your seat belt is death<\/em>\u00e2’ – accompanied by a suitably gory picture.<\/p>\n

Bit too hard core do you think?<\/p>\n

The driver of the Lithuanian-registered builders van behind me picked his nose and flicked ash in to the lap of the motorcyclist; shoe-horned between the van and a traffic bollard the motorcyclist brushed the ash from his lap, raised his visor and shouted ‘Oi!’<\/p>\n

The van driver either didn\u00e2’t speak English or chose to ignore the motorcyclist’s existence.<\/p>\n

I wondered if the Lituanian-registered van had any insurance.<\/p>\n

It was an interesting spell of people-observation but I really could have been more productive.<\/p>\n

Over an hour and a half!<\/p>\n

Thirteen miles?<\/p>\n

Welcome to 21st century London, folks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘So Meesstair Bond Jones, we meet again.‘ My arch-enemy\u00e2’s implacable bulk loomed immovably in front of me. Actually I’m not sure if ‘loomed’ is the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}