Class warfare

On the way up to the bridge over the railway at Ewell West this morning, I was nearly run down by a middle aged lady cyclist, coming down from the bridge, rather fast, on the pavement, without bell. I don't think the pavement in question was dual use, although, to be fair, quite a lot of the pavements around Epsom are.

Which led me to reflect on the recent case of an East End lout who, a few months ago, ran down a pedestrian in Old Street and who has now been sent down. I thought it likely that had the cyclist been one of Boris's friends from the Bullingdon Club, rather than a lout from the East End, we would have heard rather more about how the pedestrian had stepped out into the road, not at a crossing, into oncoming (albeit silent) traffic, without looking and possibly while talking to her telephone.

From where I associate to those same friends, apt to be treated with kid-gloves when caught white-handed, stuffing powders up their noses. Just youthful high spirits, don't you know... An issue which Simenon was very much alive to, perhaps as a once poor immigrant from Belgium, putting these very glove words into the mouth of Magistrate Coméliau, somewhere in the story already noticed at reference 1.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/maigret-et-le-corps-sans-tete-suite.html.