Reserving the right to be angry about most things (alternative headline: Clapham SUV deflations - it wasn't me but I wish it had been)

Yeah sorry it's just a basic Range Rover again, there's many bigger, uglier more repulsive and offensive SUVs out there I know (I mean the latest generation of AUDIs and Volvos and Porsches and Mercs and Beemers are just so provocatively hideous in their absurd, elephantine bulk - but I can't face looking at them long enough to take or edit a photo)

Have just lost the 89th of my 90 cat's lives as a geriatric cyclist in London. Alive but shaken, I'm in no mood to cheer top govt ass Grant Shapps on his latest anti-bicycle musings. Nor will I shed a tear for the people who insist on driving bus-sized cars (SUVs) around the cramped streets of London, when some activists let their fat tyres down.

Last week it was a saloon car taking chance to turn right off Lavender Hill, seeing no oncoming vehicles, not seeing oncoming old git on 1978 biciclette. 

It was one of those moments when you know you're going to die if you don't pedal just that bit extra hard to get your self out of the way of this  jet-propelled BMW's surging arc across the carriageway. Driver notices me too late, but I hit the pedals just hard enough to be merely buffetted by the slipstream  of this metallic behemoth. Like crossing the wake of a billionaire superyacht in the Solent.

(Mental note to self: well done, you've learned the lesson from the time this happened, on the same road, in 2006. That time you squeezed the brakes with all your strength and still hit the car which wasn't aware of you until your nose splattered onto the windscreen, right in front of the surprised chap driving it. Ambulance and cops and so on, 3 months to recover.)

So, this time I get off lightly. As usual I raise fingers behind back and keep going as fast as possible, fully expecting said motorist to have taken offence and decided to off me in a street fight.

This was third time in recent weeks that a cat's whisker has separated rider from being not just a bag of bones but a bag of broken bones and crushed innards.

And yet the bliss of cycling home on these warm days, after maybe six to 10 hours standing or sitting around for money, seems more than worth all the risks.

In truth risks to life and limb come as often from other cyclists and even more often from stealth-bomber electric scooterists.

So many old and new reasons to be angry; nothing clears the snot-stuffed soul more quickly than an adrenaline rush followed by a wallowing in a hot tub of justified anger. 

Yes it's absurd. It's got to the point where other people's anger (say about loud music on the SW4 Common) makes me angry.

But I reserve the right to be angry about most things as long as I express this anger safely and with good humour. Laugh after you curse them, smile a string of expletives. How many times has someone yelled, in best south London fashion, "faarkin' karnt!!" out of the window of their vehicle. It's usually either a battered white delivery van, or a high-end SUV. Back in the 70s it was often a Jag Mk 10.

So, didn't even try to suppress huge grin when the story of London's deflated SUVs made the evening news. Turned out it was a branch of Extinction Rebellion doing this at first, who are now more often calling themselves the Tyre Extinguishers. 

It started in London and Edinburgh and other cities with pockets of arrogant wealth, and has now spread across the UK. In Edinburgh a local cycling forum says the problem of oversized private vehicles hogging street space is just as bad as in London (see: http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=20914 )

When it started, this deflationary movement targetted Clapham once or twice - but it has not reduced the popularity of SUVs. Some streets, such as Orlando Road, have absurd numbers of the newest and biggest and shiniest SUVs.

Seems the activists, in true ER style, are adding wit and ingenuity to their direct action. The tyres are being slowly deflated by inserting a lentil or similar small legume under the valve cap, then screwing it back down to gradually release the air.

There's also an explanatory leaflet stuck under the wipers of all targetted vehicles. All of which   you can be sure will merely increase the rage of the SUV owners as they attempt to head off next mroning.

I'm aware that this tactic is a blunt weapon. There may be people with reasons for owning such a thing in a congested urban setting. They may have no choice. But the opposing reasons can't be dismissed. These vehicles are just too big for London's 18-19th century roads. They ooze over parking bays all over zones 2 and 3. They steal space and light as well as fill your face with fumes of various brake linings and fat-tyre compounds.

At least tax them more heavily, for god's sake - even after 40 degrees day, no politician seems to be capable of acting swiftly and decisively to kill the causes.