^{by way of {the incomparable Nick Wooster}}

I would like to formally request that this poster be placed in every train car and bus. Now. Please.

_{{By way of  Vintage Poster Blog}}

I’ve permitted my system to run down. Been fighting a lossing battle against a pretty awful cold for the past week. Nothing has helped. Sadly, it appears Vigor & Co are no longer in business. Blast!

Let me just say that yes, I am aware posts have been few and far between here. A combination of ungodly project deadlines at work and a man flu that could fell a grown woman contributed. Things should level off somewhat over the coming weeks. In the mean time I can think of no better subject to belatedly welcome in the new year than when the Peanuts met Amblyopia ex Anopsia.

Published by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in January of 1968. Full comic available for download here (link to page - not direct download)

Sure I’ve considered cycling to work, especially on gentle spring days but then there’s bound to be some level of physical exertion which invariably leads to copious volumes of perspiration and all in all that just can’t be very sensible or healthy. Many will scoff but I’ve read up on the subject. I refer to the March 1906 issue of ‘The Captain’ for evidence. For those not familiar, The Captain was a monthly magazine for young boys published in the U.K. from 1899 to 1924 and is most notable (as far as I’m concerned anyway) for publishing some early works of P.G. Wodehouse.

In the afore mentioned issue of this publication is a column entitled The Cycling Corner penned by one Archibald Williams (there aren’t nearly as many Archibald’s running wild as there used to be). A full page of this particular column is available for one and all to view here but allow me to highlight two of the more salient points raised:

Point the first: "Sensible folk dislike to see a boy crouching low on a cycle, like a monkey on a stick, in the endeavour to ape the ’ speed merchant’ of the racing path."

Point the second: Moral Dangers  "...the fact that a cyclist can cover the distance from X to Y much quicker than a pedestrian has its dangers. It is apt to breed a habit of leaving things to the last minute."

I am not a monkey on a stick nor am I a speed merchant and I always do my level best to give moral dangers a wide birth. Add to the mix overly agitated thermoregulatory activity and you have yourself one non-cyclist…with knobs on.