Le banlieue inutiles, qui fait partie de Lille, près de la frontière belgique, manque un journal local fiable, signalé cycliste locale Martin Walsh sur sa visite récente.

“C’était très ennuyeux à Faches-Thumesnil,” a dit Walsh, lors de sa visite sur son voyage à Beyrouth, au Liban. Il n’y a rien à faire. Il m’a fait chier.”

Les résidents de la banlieue étaient fous de joie. “Enfin,” dit l’homme locales Gaspard Henri, 58, “nous aussi nous pouvoins profiter de notre association avec St Neots!” Jusqu’à présent, seuls les conseillers de St Neots ont profité du système, cheque personne en visite en France cinq ou six fois par an pour un “engagement officiel”.

“Maintenant,” a dit M. Henri, “nous serons en mesure pour profter mal traduits, discutable ‘humour anglais’ tout les temps! Très bien!”

The Citizen’s friend Martin Walsh has made it through France successfully, despite attacks by scary dogs and not knowing the French for “call your dog off monsieur!” He is now deep into Germany on his solo cycle mission to Lebanon to raise money for MAP. Why not sponsor him?

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Standing outside a newsagents on Rue Henri Barbusse in the Lille suburb, Walsh stated that although pleased to have completed the first leg of his mission to Beirut, he was less than pleased to find that St Neots’ twin town was “pretty much just Eynesbury”.

“Honestly,” he said, “there’s a newsagents, a bakery and a few roundabouts. I never thought St Neots’ twin town could be more disappointing than St Neots itself, but clearly it is.”

Walsh then hopped back on his bike to continue his ridiculously long bike ride – next stop Belgium.

The Citizen Editor’s friend Martin Walsh is actually cycling from Dover to Beirut to raise money for MAP, a charity which provides medical services to Palestinians. To find out more or to donate please visit his Virgin Money Giving page. Remember to Giftaid it!

People have recently called Martin “fucking mental” for attempting the epic journey which he’ll start at the end of March.

But it’s recently been found that most people believe there is still daily bombing in the city, despite the fact the Lebanese civil war ended in 1990.

“There’s a saying about dicey ghetto areas,” said Walsh. “People say ‘it’s like Beirut round there’, but that’s just something people used to say in the late eighties, when Beirut was more like Tripoli is today.”

Indeed, Expert Psychologists have discovered a syndrome known as Total Chronological Disconnect, also known as 1984 syndrome, where people believe that foreign wars last pretty much forever.

Researcher Glen Cave said “I first experienced this when discussing my 1982 holiday to Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav punch-up was about a decade later, but still everyone asks ‘were you scared? Did you get bombed?’. They seem to not realise that wars do not always last forever.”

Indeed, 1984 syndrome readily applies to Lebanon. “It’s been twenty years since Beirut was a warzone,” says Cave, “but people still seem to think it’s getting bombed to shit every single day. Seriously, you know anyone who says bollocks to Malaga, let’s go to Lebanon this year? No. Neither do I.”

Walsh plans to cycle up to fifty miles a day on his trusty Halfords Apollo bike, which he bought second-hand for twenty quid off a bloke in the Market Square who was holding a bolt cutter. “It’ll probably be alright,” he said, “if it looks a bit sketchy I’ll divert, I hear Benghazi is nice this time of year. Frankly I’m less concerned about bombs and more about getting a decent pint!”

Well, he is a St Neots man now after all.

The Citizen Editor’s friend Martin Walsh is actually cycling from Dover to Beirut to raise money for MAP, a charity which provides medical services to Palestinians. To find out more or to donate please visit his Virgin Money Giving page. Remember to Giftaid it!

“This will give us great view of drivers knocking people off bikes and things, and we’ll be able to get out there straight away and tell plod exactly what happened and where the nearest gallows is,” said club chairwoman J P Swingemhigh.

“We don’t have much to do round here but we can certainly get a posse together when someone fucks up” she added.

The club, mainly made of cycling enthusiasts who believe that roads are only to be used for time trials, was first formed in the middle ages to clear the parish of heretics and witches. It now has responsibility for much wailing and gnashing of teeth and extracting flesh by the pound from any poor soul accidentally making an error in judgement. Despite numerous proven miscarriages of justice in the British Judicial System the society accepts without challenge any guilty verdict and campaigns for hanging as a minimum punishment.

“We’re a very friendly bunch really. As long as you’ve got some Lycra shorts and a vengeful personality you’ll fit in fine,” said Swingmehigh.

The Citizen understands that club membership is at an all time high.

By his own admission our illustrious editor was simply cycling along when he was intercepted by the recently formed Special iPlod Group (SiG) and given “a good talking to” for listening to “Now That’s What I Call Fen Folk Tunes I.”

Inspector Perry Grafham commented, “Chas & Dave – yes. Max Bygraves – yes. Pam Ayres – yes. Folk stuff – NO! We have enough trouble with trendy Goths and Post Modern Mods listening to stuff that went out with the Ark. We don’t want all this traditional rubbish creeping in too.”

We asked the Inspector about the safety aspects of listening on the move. “It’s bloomin’ irresponsible, we’ve got grannies blasting out Oasis, Blur clogging up the ears of our less able and kids downloading all that crap from the seventies. Our remit is to ensure quality ‘listening’ applicable to the area’s social demographic, it’s Chas and Dave or nothing.”

We asked about safety again…then gave up.

Noel Edmonds was unavailable for comment.

Sharon Kiley, a local mother, said “I saw one of these mainiacs ride straight over a crisp packet and I thought if that was my little boy playing in the road he could be killed or worse!”
Councillors have decided to act after representations were made by HiProfile Traffic Calming PLC. offering to solve the councils budget surplus problems.

Cyclewatch teams have been working in the High St. for a week now. Sydney Grosset the ‘team leader’ said, “Some of them ride so fast, we were really frightened, those chunky tyres are like a chainsaw coming at you!”

HiProfile’s plans involve a combination of concrete chicanes and rising mini-bollards triggered by excessive speed. There will be loudspeakers at stoplights which will deliver a stark warning:
“You have been seen cycling furiously, photographs have been sent to the authorities and you face possible prosecution!”
Those found guilty will have to wear a community waistcoat, saying “I cycle too fast and risk childrens lives” for a week (or even longer in serious cases!)

In other measures to cut the (potential) loss of life, a council spokesperson said a special fenced cycle lane linking the High Street with the station via Great Barford was being build “To make pople think twice before chosing a bike for the journey.” The LongStand bus company are contributing generously to the latter scheme.

Cyclewatch teams are meanwhile photographing cyclists for a ‘Naming and Shaming’ colour section in the St.Neots Citizen entitled “Just look at these irresponsible bastards!”

Story by PW