We’re very pleased to have some supportive comments and discussion of what we’re trying to do by Brian Palmer, who cycling cognoscenti will know from his blog washingmachinepost and his curation of all things Robert Millar and that his blog is named in hommage to the great Graham Obree, two rightly legendary cyclists, and,we’re pleased to say… Scottish!

It is particularly pleasing to be mentioned in piece which also discusses Brian Eno!

He says:

however it cannot be denied that, if something substantial requires to be accomplished on a national scale, the most direct way to do so would be to approach government with a plan of action symbolised by a petition of many signatures, or on one or two occasions, by more direct and higher profile action. the latter is the mode preferred by next month’s pedal on parliament taking place in edinburgh on 28th april. in one fell swoop i cannot disagree that i have perhaps alienated a substantial portion of readers, because the parliament of which i speak is that ensconced in holyrood, edinburgh and likely only concerns cycling residents of scotland. however, as the principles of the protest cannot be said to concern purely the scottish pedallist, there may be nuggets of their wisdom that could be transplanted elsewhere.


it would be hard to argue that any of the [manifesto points] are new and innovative. they may not have been previously presented in such a coherent fashion, but i have come across at least a few of these before, more often levelled at local government than that of national level. that, however, is no good reason to leave them sitting rusting on a bike shop shelf somewhere. on reading through the eight points constituted above, i don’t believe that much has been done with respect to any, though i’m willing to be proved wrong.

This makes a good point – perhaps we are also providing a list of needs that other nations and regions can use in campaigning. It would be very gratifying if we were part of a bigger change…

Nice discussion of us in the Washing Machine Post