Out For The Viscount
“IT is for a single adult cyclist,” says Richard Cross, operations director for Strida UK Ltd.
“The bike rack is not deigned for carrying anything more than a folded up jacket, a small box or a light bag. It is certainly not to carry a child.”
We could go on to add that the bike rack aboard the Strida foldaway bike (RRP £219.95) could carry a folded up pair of Comfi Slax, an ironed pink shirt and a pressed copy to the Daily Express.
But as we muse on the multiple benefits of this bike – which for another £85 can be equipped with mud flaps, folding pedals and a “fancy saddle” – we become too shocked to think.
“That’s lunacy, Linley,” says the Express’s headline. “With his four-year-old daughter clinging precariously to his coat, crazy royal pedals to school through London traffic.”
This madcap royal is Viscount Lindley, carpenter to plutocrats and fellow bluebloods. The daughter is Margarita Elizabeth Rose Alleyne Armstrong-Jones. And the pair, and their bike, are on their way through Chelsea to Margarita Elizabeth Rose’s etc. school.
He’s “VISCOUNT LOONY (Mirror). He’s the “reckless royal”. Margarita Elizabeth etc. “is left dangling just inches from the road” as her dad pedals onwards.
Roger Vincent, of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accident, says “the child could easily fall off…she could be run over”.
He’s not wrong. And while Roger sees a steam roller trundling forwards and Margarita Lizzy etc. trying to pull her little foot free from a patch of newly laid Tarmac, the Mail sticks up for her dad.
“Just because a child is born into the Royal Family, it doesn’t mean she has to be mollycoddled,” says the Mail.
Indeed. And, in any case, a passer-by tells the paper, “I could hear him saying to his daughter, ‘Hold on tightly, hold on tightly’ all the way.”
All is well. And the Mail hears Linley’s spokesman say: “This is a short-term measure until he gets a new bicycle.” And a new machine is on order. It’s a Pashley Sovereign bicycle.
Made entirely from wood from sustainable forests, the Pashley boasts a larger rack and a sturdy wicker front basket.
Avalable in “regency green” the Pashley comes with hand-lined enamelled mudguards, tyre driven dynamo lighting, skirtguards – and a “ding-dong” bell.
It’s just the thing…
Posted: 26th, September 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
