It’s little things that often cause the most discomfort.
A check on the weather forecast predicted it would be dry and a stiff breeze wasn’t due until later, so a quick early-morning spin on my bike seemed a good idea.
I’m returning to cycling after a few years, and despite now being a creaky Mamil – a middle-aged man in Lycra – the only way to deal with the distracting discomfort of a delicate derriere is to persevere, accustoming one’s posterior to a saddle that looks more like an instrument of torture than a seat.
The roads near Fyne Place are hilly and apparently used by the council as pothole nurseries, where these tarmac terrors are grown here until fully developed and of impressive depth, then dug up and offered to other councils across Scotland for use on their own highways.
I was riding gingerly over pockmarked road surfaces when I felt distinctly uncomfortable around the nether regions. Hitting another bump, the unpleasant sensation intensified.
I looked down and was shocked to see that I appeared to be leaking in a visibly embarrassing spot, and I don’t mean the litter-strewn Aberdeenshire coast south of Stonehaven, so skilfully cleaned up recently by volunteer divers and kayakers.
The front of my cycling shorts was suspiciously saturated.
Gone was any chance of stopping at a café for a coffee. Customers spotting my extensive damp patch would scarper aghast. Some things can’t be hidden by a face mask.
It was hardly life-threatening but little things can cause much discomfort. A case in point was the incredible angst shown by some people this week because their various social media platforms suffered an “outage”.
It’s a word overused by techies because it sounds better than “failure”, “breakdown” or “we don’t actually have a clue but are working on it”.
Perhaps they should try switching things off and on again, as they usually advise the rest of us to do when IT problems occur.
Interestingly, outage doesn’t have an antonym. You don’t hear of an “inage” or a “backage” when normal services resume.
No matter, it was as though people’s worlds had fallen apart. What were they to do if they couldn’t post inane pictures of what they had for breakfast, share images of what their cute cat did with next door’s goldfish, moan about something anonymously or promote whatever prejudice is their voice of choice?
When vacationers post pictures of their holiday destinations, comments from their followers are sure to include “been there” or “done it” or “doing it next week”. Almost as dull as the political party conferences, but not quite.
I’m not on social media, or antisocial media as I call it, so the outage didn’t affect me, but it’s a sad indictment of society that millions couldn’t cope without it, even for a few hours.
Whatever happened to speaking to other people by simply telephoning them? In fact, it was today in 1876 that the first two-way telephone conversation over outdoor wires was achieved by that Edinburgh-born genius, Alexander Graham Bell.
Perhaps people should start writing to each other again. Getting a friendly hand-written letter is so much more delightfully thoughtful than any electronic email or text. That said, it’s disappointing that a new set of Royal Mail stamps, celebrating the first England -v- Scotland international rugby match, held in 1871, ignores my own achievements in the game.
I was a founder member of my school’s rugby team and despite once losing 83-0 in a match during which we were lucky to score nil, we eventually beat all our local schoolboy rivals.
I reckon that Fyne legacy deserved recognition, although nowadays my nose is more likely to run than my legs as my body slowly falls apart.
But fear not, that embarrassing leakage on my cycling shorts wasn’t disconcerting bladder weakness. I discovered I hadn’t properly sealed the top of my drinks bottle. Whenever my bike hit a bump it squirted water upwards with unerring accuracy into my groin, like a schoolboy wielding a water pistol.
I returned without meeting anyone, thankfully, and dried out in private. I’ll be back on my bike soon, though. Can’t let little things cause too much discomfort.