Whine of the Week: Pavement Crawlers

The nights really are drawing in. My curly breath on the way to Sainsbury’s prompted me to buy a cheap bottle of House Merlot and some mulling spices.

Back in the set, a sachet, some honey and extra cinnamon sticks later, a full saucepan of Dowell House Special Mulled Wine was ready.

Thermosed up and taken to a friend’s room, the wine’s sweet, spicy and slightly tangy flavour was enjoyed by all. Here in the comfortable settings of a second court room, just above the buttery, I eased into this week’s whine: pavement crawlers.

Thermos full of wine, mind full of hate

Picture this: you are late to lectures. In a hurry to meet that 9am you barely woke up for. You are stomping along the pavement, doing some odd trot halfway between a run and a walk. You are flying. Glancing at your watch you think you might just make the opening lines of Dr Hanke’s latest attempt at singing, then bang.

Congestion.

Fucking pavement crawlers.

Just get out of my way, you slow walking cunts (not you fireman)

These sub-human creatures that glacially saunter along were overlooked in the latest euthanasia debate at the Union.

They range from the understandable old lady with a tartan trolley, to a couple holding hands or at worst, a bunch of teenage girls. Despite their origin they are always deeply annoying and quite frankly dangerous. I don’t want to be run over when I overtake these gut wrenchingly, lethargic, sloth-like, snail shelled, thick-witted creatures.

Acceptable. Just.

In my world, which by definition is the right world, there would be clearly defined and marked overtaking lanes in the pavement. Crawlers would be consigned to the inside lane and walk in single file.

They would have wear some sort of fluorescent top to mark them out and go to speed awareness classes funded by the NHS, to get them up to the nationally accepted average walking velocity of four miles per hour.

To enforce these new rules, hefty punishments would be inflicted by a mob of hired thugs. Any crawler that does not stick to lane discipline or misses a class will be dragged into an alleyway and given a test on the latest episode of the Archers.

Who got trampled on by a bull at the end of these week’s omnibus?

If they fail, an official mobbie will slash their Achilles’ tendons and leave them in a gutter with a clarinet and sheet music to Land of Hope and Glory. These new, official, ex-crawler buskers will lighten up the town with national marching songs and make sure everybody keeps up pace.

Under this regime, no longer will you be late to lectures. The pavement will be a clean and safe place, where people can walk freely in the knowledge that they will not knock over old ladies, or be run over by a truck when avoiding fourteen year olds with brown paper Primark bags, or be prosecuted for injecting people who walk under one mile per hour with ricin.

This will be a Great Britain with efficient pavement usage.

To paraphrase Martin Luther King:

“I have a dream that every pavement is free and that this mulled wine will never end”.