Insulting Myles

Emissions: going the distanceLast weekend's revelations about the paltry mileage rate increase awarded to cycling civil servants was not well-received in these quarters. The first pay rise since 1990 and it goes from a measly six cents to a pitiful 12 cents? And this when their colleagues are getting up to 126.01 cent a mile for driving their cars? 'Twas an insult of the highest order; nothing less than a crossbar to the nether regions.

I can only imagine that most uncivil of Civil Servants, Brian O'Nolan (aka Myles gCopaleen, aka Flann O'Brien) would have been equally unimpressed.

O'Nolan was a great man for the deft art of ripping strips of bloated, self-satisfied flesh off petty bureaucrats and pompous politicians. But he was also renowned for his theories on, and the eulogisation of, the lowly bicycle. Even the pen name Myles gCopaleen - "Myles of the Little Horses" as Béarla - can be seen as a nod to the bicycle. For what are bicycles but little horses for the modern man?

Faced with such bureaucratic stinginess and snobbery, I like to think that O'Nolan would have set his not inconsiderable intellect to work on turning the situation to his benefit.

Sadly, O'Nolan struggled for many years trying to stretch his meagre salary to supporting both his family of mother and ten siblings and his systematic alcohol habit. Thankfully, for us, his financial predicament indirectly led to the creation of Myles and his appearances in this very newspaper.

Always a cunning and inventive sort, Myles would have seen there was lucre to be had from this.

Faced with the prospect of easy money, Myles would have tasked his Research Bureau with devising a mileage-generating machine. It would presumably involve a machine comprising a bicycle placed on rollers that were linked to an odometer recording the distance travelled.

The beauty of this contraption is that it would enable him to sit astride his bike generating drinking money while simultaneously working at his desk. If questioned by a "superior" as to what he was doing, he could reply that he was at pedal with two birds that he was killing with the one stone.

Once his week was up, he'd tot up his mileage and claim his equivalent of 12 cents a mile. If, as was oft the case, he was too scuttered drunk to perch on the bike himself, he would wield his fearsome temper to berate some terrified underling to pedal for him. Either way, he'd be quids in.

One of my favourite Flannerisms is the theory that habitual cyclists are rendered part-bicycle, and their bicycles part-human, by the atomic transference occurring during the contact between buttock and saddle.

With this in mind, I initially thought the mileage machine would have its downside - namely, that O'Nolan would become so bicyclised he'd never be able to sit down, only stand with one elbow perching himself up against the bar. But then I remembered that's precisely what he wanted the cash for. He thinks of everything, Myles. Much to learn, have I.

While we're on the subject, the notion of atomic transference came to mind recently as I perused a breakdown of the mileage covered by various ministerial limos over the past few years. I reckon the reason Minister for Handing Out Cash Brian Cowen was so stingy when upping the proceeds for pedallers is that he knows most of his fellow ministers have far too much limo in them to ever hop up on a bike.

Take Minister of State Éamon Ó Cuív, mar shampla. Records show his ministerial motor has done starship mileage - a phenomenal 292,800km in 20 months. That's nearly 500km a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. The poor man must be a good 80 per cent limo at this stage. 'Tis the bouncing that does it. Being Minister for Areas with Rubbish Roads, one imagines the buffeting of the ministerial buttocks is not insubstantial.