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whipped cream canisters.

I tried that when I was a student - it didn't work. I am disappoint.

You know what the problem with this test?

the dummy is inanimated.

You're right, without accounting for the effect that flapping your arms and yelling "OH FUCK" has, we'll never know if that inflatable space helmet is any good.

Excellent post Wen Jian. Maybe the internet homogenises every close knit group? The longer LFGSS exists, the more we'll hate each other's bikes. There's a lot of cultural capital here.

I think it probably does. When I was a goth in the very early days of widespread internet access, there were many different interpretations of what goth looks were like - some in frilly shirts and others in pvc, etc. But I think that over that time, a cyber/fluffy-influenced standard goth look emerged.

That said, if you go to Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig, you see a far wider set of interpretations. Perhaps the illusion of homogeneity emerges as the scene declines to fewer individuals. But perhaps it's because gothiques will make an effort to differentiate themselves when attending an event where everyone is a goth. The costumes they create for the Big Goth Holiday don't necessarily reflect their civvies.

Regardless of Europe's biggest goth festival, I still hold firmly that the internet causes the proliferation and standardisation of scenes. Take furries for example. In the 80's every boy fancied Cheetarah from Thundercats. but you got over it. Now the internet allows those people with an unhealthy interest in anthopomorphic animals to reinforce their predelictation and further, standardise behaviour within the clique (dressing up as a skunk/dolphin hybrid and 'yiffing'). Once upon a time, the 'proto-furry' would have not had such reinforcement and gone on to develop normally.

So yeah, hipsters are pretty much like fashionable furries, in my opinion.

By "the lower east side" you mean Bushwick.

I was basically thinking 'wherever that new branch of Pimps N Pinups has opened'.

Also the reason why the hipster look has not really changed is the same as why the punk look will never change, its a self serving subset of society that highly ridicules any people who deviate from the scenes norms. Sure shutter shards have given way to wayfarers and mow halks have partial give way to short dreads (with developments in Chill Wave and Crust/ Grind Core respectively).

That's the funny thing though; because whereas other scenes, such as punk xxxStR8EdGexxx, etc, were 'into' something, the hipster movement elevates a kind of offhand agnosticism. With the mowhawks/dreads thing are you referring to punk again? I was getting confused.

Wander around the more fashionable places of New York (and to a lesser extent London) and you will see verry few people doing the plaid shirt, skiny jeans thing. At least in NYC your way more likely to see leather jackets, dropped crotch, jewelry and drape on the men.

Is dropped crotch those jeans that don't fit the arse? I need to watch Zoolander again - thanks for reminding me!

get rid then.

Or eeducate people that you don't have to use them as they are not compulsory.

Doesn't the highway code state that "cyclists must use cycle lanes if it is possible to do so" or something like that? My take on it is that 'if safe to do so' is implicit in this and this is not always the case, but the statement has the feel of a command.

this is the blog post as threatened (with one of my favourite pics to illustrate)

http://www.kidbrookekite.co.uk/2010/10/kidbrooke-to-london-cycle-not-so.html

Nice blog. I agree with you on that pointless 2 lane thing at Tower Hill - actually impossible to use without breaking the highway code, since you can only access it from the pavement.

Excellent deconstruction of hipsterism there.
It's interesting how little the fundamental look has changed since 1999.

Yeah, I think this is because of the internet. The hipster village of cities all over the world kind or merge virtually into one enormous suburb - So you have Portland, Austin, The Lower East Side, Shoreditch, East Berlin, etc all kind of squished together in one big soup of plaid shirts and skinny fit jeans that don't fit your bum. And any minute changes to the look are instantly reproduced in all other hipster locales. It's quite an interesting phenomenon to be honest. I sometimes wonder if the internet has caused fashion and alternative culture to hit a kind of 'singularity' where all permutations coexist simulataneously, and the blending of these result in something completely undifferentiated.

Depressingly they also tend to possess better social capital ('who you know') which makes a huge difference in getting into certain industries, especially creative ones.

FTFY. No more depressing than completely blithe, entitled, idiotic guys guys getting to be investment bankers because their dad owns a yacht, I suppose, but it is annoying.

[QUOTE=niels.;1711760]lol

^^ sums it up.

you have to be able to laugh with anything ^(as long as its not a personal attack).
you get offended, your loss.
whats the difference between not being allowed to laugh with the holocaust or with a picture of the profet mohammed..?
QUOTE]

One's incredibly bad taste, the other is breaking a cultural and religious taboo. It's like feeding a jew bacon and then going "hee hee hee! Ur relijun is teh stoopid!"

Darwin in action

Should you then knock them to the ground to stop them being hit by a car?

Should you chase after them and point out their fuckwittery?

The moral complexities of riding a bike.

I wouldn't take either of these courses of action if I were you DJ, she'd probably try to beat you up!

fixed

Shai Huluud? Drowning a baby Maker to get the Water of Life?

I'm loving the elephant's foot idea. Or maybe you could stick a big white old-school trainer on the end of the forks?
Where are forumengers with elite photoshop skills when you need them?

In the last two weeks I've seen three different young guys riding round in a permanent wheelie position, only dropping their front wheel when they have to stop. I reckon by Christmas they'll be riding round with no front wheels on, given the natural human tendency to take any new trend as far as it will go (cf arse-hanging-out-of-trousers look).
Any other notable developments in street-level cycling fashion?

Are you predicting the advent of the unicycle? Or perhaps the front fork will end in a skid like a helicopter's. Or maybe an elephant's foot?

Sorry for the hijack but does anyone have any strategies for dealing with serious anxiety about dental work?

Having a wisdom tooth out today at a new private dentist after the NHS one I visited would not have it that the lignacaine anaesthetic was not working until I leapt out of the chair when the drill hit the nerve. This was not the first time this has happened and I now have serious problems getting myself to the dentist, I've been putting it off for 8 weeks but now the cocodemol isn't working and I have to get it done.

They've said they'll try a bunch of anaesthetics and give me laughing gas but I still really don't fancy it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's anxious about dental work so what does anyone else do?

And yes I will HTFU etc...

Not very helpful, but the best advice is get a good dentist. Once you've been to someone decent the fear fades quickly. My girlfriend's dad does my teeth and after the initial shock of being whisked to the surgery on the Sunday, the first weekend that I met them, I no longer really fear dental work at all; he's just really good, methodical and calming. He's like a craftsman.

I don't think you can generalise about German dental care standards, though. The old 'look how good the German health system is' adage we heard endlessly under the Tory government in the 80s (endless jibes about the NHS etc) is utter bollocks. I went to a doctor about an ingrowing, infected toenail, and she gave me an ointment based on tar. I then went to a podiatrist, who gave me a mixture of antitbiotics aluminium and witchcraft. I moved back to the UK, the doctor took one look, put me on antibiotics and arranged for me to get the damn thing operated on, which is exactly what needed to be done in the first place.

On Saturday, replaced my (cracked) chopped drops with a major taylor drop bar, to see what it was like.

On Sunday, the fail began.
1) replaced my GF's front tyre and inner. She's German, so on Dunlop/Woods (or in German 'Blitz' ) valves and I intended to change her for Schraders so she can go longer without re-inflating them. After fitting the front wheel back on and reinflating, I was just bent over and unscrewing my track pump when what looked like rubber bubbles bulged out from under the tyre, right next to the valve and my face. Before I could react, the inner tube exploded. about 4 inches from my face. I've shot a .45 pistol and this was louder - my ears were ringing for about 15 minutes.

I carry on fixing her bike, and soon after we're ready to cycle to the British Museum to see our friends.

At this point I rapidly realise that with the sexy new drop bars my bike is utterly unrideable - I'm 6'3" and the drops 'shorten' the bike too much - I can't pedal comfortably - my knees keep hitting my chest and elbows, and steering is difficult - further to that I can't find a comfortable hand position from which to use the brakes. It's like trying to ride a bike for a child or a monkey. I wobbled to Central London in constant fear of collision and/or death - thankfully my predicament was abundantly obvious to all the taxi and bus drivers we encountered and they took pity upon me. The same was not true of the ferrarri driver near Barbican.

Epic Fail has never been a more appropriate phrase. I have no-one to blame but myself...

Spelt and spelled can both be used for this purpose.

Are you sure? I know 'dreamed' and 'dreamt' is like that, but would expect 'spelt' to be sematically blocked by the hippy grain (as indicated above).

^ not only

Even Fallout is retro-futuristic and nobody has the right to slag off the Fallout 3!

That's two of the worst films this century, though - if you'd chosen Northern Lights, you would have given me difficulties. As for Fallout 3 - in games, nerd detail works.

Wen Jian, you are a fool... Steampunk is off the scale cool, you moronic sphincter slug...

I like the way that there's this whole hand-crafted thing out there, but it's basically about sewing cogs to corsets. You can sum Steampunk up as 'fussy and inelegant'.

Thick framed glasses? Check
Chest tattoo? Check
Fixed gear related sleeve? Check
Probably hipsters...

They look like LARPers to me. You can tell by the fat and the satin, and the general ugly. Oh, and the home-made steampunk goggles. Not even hipsters think steampunk is cool. My guess is that they went to a pub-night larp set in a Victorian retrofuturist dystopia, probably they're pretending that they're on an airship or something, and they're not merely chatting, but 'roleplaying'. It's like chatting, but it isn't real. In any case, fatty doesn't get either - she just simpers vacantly at passers-by, hoping to draw them in.

If only he'd remembered to hyphenate poop-shoot that would have been admirable. Though slight shame he appears to have signed it "Prick".

Doesn't he mean 'chute' anyway?

"Hotlines Show in Brick Lane, East London, was busted into last night. Stolen:- Nukeproof Scalp DH bike, yellow with green proto Marzocchi 888 forks, and a whole heap of Lapierre's"

"Welcome to Brick Lane, my friend..."

Is James Joyce no?

If it were James Joyce he wouldn't be smiling. He'd also have a notebook and very obviously be writing "...then the old man will masturbate (but don't actually write that bit)..." in pencil, having written almost exactly the same thing 15 times and then angrily scribbled it out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/11430299

Hahahaha! I reckon the boyfriend has been rumbled!

Also, the picture that they've used make the lass in question appear to be naked, which is somehow poetic...

Take a step back, one more, one more...

I can see why that might be considered hipster, but I must confess that someone who just outright dresses old-fashioned instead of mashing it up with neon socks or Kanye West shutter shades is a 'chap' in my book, and a jolly good one too. Boy needs a pipe though.

Well, it would be lovely if we could have lots of 2 metre wide mandatory cycle lanes and contraflows and separate cycle phases at major junctions and all that jazz, but this is London and not Denmark, so what they mean by "cycle lane" is a network of 2 foot wide parking bays and gutters. And the latter is what usually happens.

Well that's my thought too - it's better to have integrated cycle routes, using quieter residential roads to 'follow but not use' major routes, than it is to - for example - paint a green stripe down Tottenham High Road for taxis to ignore.

http://www.haringey.gov.uk/LIP

Not very sexy, but could be interesting for some of us. these are the results of their consultation - they are soliciting comments up to the 8th of November to frontline.consultation@haringey.gov.uk.

The main aims are:
• Reduce Haringey’s deprivation and health inequalities by improving access for all to essential services, including health, education, employment, social and leisure facilities across the borough.
• Ensure Haringey’s transport network can accommodate increases in travel demand by tackling congestion, increasing sustainable transport capacity, encouraging modal shift and reducing the need to travel.
• Facilitate an increase in walking and cycling to improve the health and wellbeing of Haringey’s residents.
• Reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on Haringey’s transport network and reduce the number of casualties among vulnerable road users.
• Increase transport access and connectivity to and from Haringey’s key employment and regeneration areas, including Wood Green town centre, and the growth areas of Haringey Heartlands and Tottenham Hale.
• Improve air quality within the borough through initiatives to reduce and mitigate the effects of pollutant emissions from road and diesel operated rail transport.
• Reduce Haringey’s CO2 emissions from transport by 40% by 2020 through smarter travel measures to reduce car use and encouraging the use of zero or low carbon transport alternatives.
• Reduce crime, the fear of crime and anti-social behaviour on all modes of transport and in the public realm in Haringey.
• Improve the condition and legibility of principal roads, cycle paths and footways within the borough, having regard to the public realm, and increase satisfaction with the condition of the network.
• Ensure that transport protects and enhances Haringey’s natural environment including biodiversity, geodiversity, landscape, townscape, cultural heritage, water resources and land.
• Minimise the effects of unpredictable events arising from climate change on the transport network.

However the main thrust of their cycling plan appears to be the development of a network of cycle lanes. I'm not sure how you all feel about that, but I know opinion is divided as to whether segregation of traffic is necessary or indeed beneficial.