Saturday, August 16, 2008

0808160900 Vespa


I went to the Vespa dealer on Thursday to pick up my scooter but was told that it was not ready however it will be ready on Friday morning. The friendly and helpful staff seemed to realise that if my scooter would be ready “first thing on Friday morning” then logically , it would have to be ready “last thing” on Thursday afternoon. “I’ll call you when it is ready” was the assurance offered as I set off to wait for eight hours on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. I decided to start my research for a GPS. I searched the Hong Kong Yellow Pages and it showed that in all of the land with a population equal to Queensland, there was only one listing for a shop that specialises in selling these little marvels of electronics that significantly add to the realism of pretending to be James Bond.

While looking for the last and only shop that sells GPS units in Hong Kong by wandering aimlessly in a town that had the same letters albeit in a different order than the town I was looking for, and while waiting patiently for the call to
say that my life would no longer be Vespa-less, I stumbled upon a Chinese book shop “Ahh”, says me to myself, but not too loudly “ this looks like a great place to soak up a few hours.” I read the back cover of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink for the fourth time and made an instant decision that I did not have to buy it. As luck would have it, the Chinese book shop was having a back-to-school sale and there was a multitude of text books for Chinese students on how to learn to speak English. One of the many problems that I face while pretending to be a teacher is the ongoing need to produce that elusive product of teaching called “lessons”. For me, being a teacher is more like being an actor that has the good fortune to be an extra in a Kung Fu movie – he has to know enough about martial arts to be convincing, even if his role is to fall down after Jackie Chan gives him a good solid kick in the head. As a telecommunications technician pretending to be a teacher, my role is more like a comedian that has to write his own show. I need material to be engaging and entertaining while being true to the reason that I was hired in the first place – to teach English. I couldn’t believe my good fortune at these English textbooks. The books are full of lessons – already prepared on a CD – all I have to do is print and present. It is like being an apprentice cook, who has studied the fine culinary arts, and has slaved and experimented in subtle textures and flavours, by adding a tincture of cinnamon here or some Nepalese whopping vanilla there, all in the endless and noble pursuit of perfecting his own special sponge cake and then, while shopping in the markets for some exotic ingredient, he suddenly discovered that he could have bought a better product at a discount from Sarah Lee.

This is the fourth time that I have picked up a new motorbike. The most exciting part is the first ride, while waiting with the engine revving, for that break in the traffic.
One of the first motorbikes that I ever owned was a little Kawasaki 250 – it did not quite have enough power to be scary. The next bike was a Yamaha XT600 – it had the power to
be scary and my first ride had me suddenly on all fours in the middle of the road looking startled and bewildered while wondering why my motorbike was no longer in its correct position uptight and underneath me, but instead it was all the way over there lying on its side spinning in a circle like a 1980's break-dancer.

The first ride on my BMW K1200S did not go without incident. The dealer asked me, as I finally sat on my bike and started it, if I could handle it. I didn’t know whether to take his strange comment as an insult or a warning so I took that comment as half of each. The first manoeuvre on my K1200S was to get out of the dealers driveway – sounds easy – the throttle on a K1200S delivers the full range of power in a quarter of a turn. I had to, on the first attempt, balance enough power to get rolling against the embarrassing possibility of stalling
- or the other likely scenario where the new rider rockets into traffic with legs wide apart in a desperate grapple for balance while wobbling the handlebars left and right in a fruitless attempt to avoid pedestrians and other solid immovable objects only to end up with the option of controlling the process of stopping safely under control taken from him when the bike tips him off and falls over and does an expensive slide into a parked car. The first turn that I would ever make on the most powerful bike that BMW every made would occur 0.2 seconds after completing the first ever start-off manoeuvre into traffic. A reasonable amount of revs, smooth out the clutch and the next bit will seem anti-climatic when I mention that a few seconds later I was trundling along on the most powerful superbike that BMW have ever produced capable of a top speed of 300 kilometres an hour at a rather more sedate and pleasant fifty-five. I had to stop at a set of lights and so I had a few seconds to appreciate the riders-eye view of my new BMW and while doing so I was interrupted by the sound of sirens. A fire engine was approaching the intersection and I had to make a small everyday slip-in-front-of-the-next-car type manoeuvre. A K1200S is not exactly a light bike, the designers really wanted the riders to take advantage of the 122 available horse-power to move it forward, however moving the bike backwards was never a design consideration. A handful of revs later I zipped in front of the cars, all went well, “Hey”, says me to myself, “I am getting used to this bike.” Minutes later I was confronted by the bane of everyone using the road – roundabouts – the fear of roundabouts is not that I don’t know how to use one, it’s the fact that everyone else does not use one the same way. I saw a car indicating to get off the roundabout – so I pulled out in front of him, expecting him to make a left turn to get off at the next exit, familiar story here, we have all seen it, instead he continued along in the roundabout as if he was heading towards a spatially-displaced left turn that exists only in another dimension. I stopped, and then stalled my new K1200S superbike in the middle of the roundabout. He stopped and beeped his horn, the cars behind him also stopped and so began a series of events that would create a traffic jam that rapidly extended towards the state border. I was slightly flustered but calmly pressed the starter button – nothing happened – what amazing BMW safety feature was trying to save my life now? I squeezed the clutch, pressed the starter – life! Off I went in second gear, like a diesel truck, into the roundabout then with speed and confidence building in direct proportion to each other I went out the other side and disappeared into the distance leaving the cars to beep their horns at each other in an attempt sort out their own mess.

I picked up my Vespa scooter on Thursday afternoon, at the end of the day, at the
start of peak-hour traffic in Hong Kong.

This is what it looks like when I stop.
This is what is looks like when I go.

The answer to the question of “when am I going to publish this?” is; I am working on it.



Never do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtHlkxEO1k8

References:
http://www.gladwell.com
/archive.html

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