It's one of my favourite moments in cinema, Dustin Hoffman's wiry little Ratso Rizzo slamming the hood of an oncoming car and giving a car driver what for for almost knocking him down as he crosses the road at a busy New York crosswalk. I like it so much that I almost considered Rizzo's retort as the title for this book. After all, I am walking here, and I do not prioritize pollutants over natural aboriginal self-cleansing technology. At any rate, I actually used the phrase today, not at some errant cab driver in the busy city, but at two middle-aged mountain bikers in the empty hills who were piling down a narrow path that I was walking in the Kilpatrick Hills. I heard them behind me and turned around to acknowledge them but did not give way to them. This didn't stop both of them piling down the steep and dangerous rocky slip that I was currently negotiating. As I dodged to one side almost straight into a gorse bush, I shouted Rizzo's refrain. I also added that they, along with their mountain biking brethren who enjoy tearing up hills with their overpriced tricycles and flashy clownsuits, should show some respect not just to walkers but to the hills themselves. They both looked perplexed as if I had just spoken to them in Greek. 'But we're allowed to cycle here', the fat bearded one replied. And that meant they got the standard riposte: 'Just because some moron says you can rape the Earth with impunity doesn't mean you should'. Before shooing them away like the sleepwalking (sleepcycling) violators that they are.
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