Recreation

On my daily walks, in which this, currently closed, cafe is roughly the half way point, I have started to notice lots of motorcyclists.  It is possible that they are all going shopping for the tiny amount of produce one can carry on a motorbike or are  in the process of caring for people at risk. However, from their speed and the fact that they are usually in groups of two or three, I doubt it. I'm a tolerant sort of chap and have not paid it too much attention - until today.

About ten minutes into my walk, I saw that a motorcyclist had fallen from his bike and was lying in the middle of a busy road. Two people were helping him.  I rang for an ambulance.  I was told that one would come but that, as they are extremely busy, they could not tell me when. By this stage three people - it turned out all off-duty nurses - were tending to the fallen biker who was moving and talking, apparently not badly hurt.  I left the scene.

It then struck me how irresponsible such recreational bikers are.  Riding a motorbike may be jolly enjoyable and not easy but I don't think it counts as exercise.  It is also not unknown for bikers to have serious accidents. Such accidents, right now, absorb scarce NHS resources as well as involving a risk for those in close contact with the victim. I know that walkers, runners and cyclists can also have accidents or be taken ill but by exercising, they are trying to stay healthy at little risk to others.

I don't think it is significant that as I arrived at the scene of the accident, I was listening to today's previously unheard album - Maggot Brain by Funkadelic - my favourite on which is the title track.

Hans Holbein the Younger painted a Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze in 1532. The merchant was a trader from Danzig (now Gdansk) one of the Hanseatic Ports - an association of towns formed to protect its merchants against pirates, competition and princely despotism.  A sort of early European Common Market.

Hanseatic merchants in London had a very restrictive life.  They all had to live in the Steelyard (which was made of wood) on the banks of the Thames. They could not marry and all ate together.  Contact with locals was monitored since the English government feared espionage and the spread of subversive ideas.

Holbein painted a number of portraits of such merchants, a new artistic practice of depicting people other than royals, classical or religious figures. It is thought it may have amounted to some sort of notice of the merchant's skills and reputation, as the portrait of Georg Gisze is full of details of his office equipment.  It is also a lusciously painted work, with superbly realistic cloth on his sleeves, a delicate bunch of carnations and an oriental carpet on the desk.