Bicycle Kung-Fu Fury

Bicycle Kung-Fu

I’ve never considered myself to be a violent man. Like most English people I am stereotypically polite, calm and spend a lot of my time apologizing for things I have not even done. In fact, like most English people the closest I have probably come to an act of violence is writing a strong letter of complaint after being the recipient of poor customer service. To put it another way; I have always considered myself to be a civilised person.

However, recent events have forced me to re-examine this assumption. It is entirely possible that I am not as peaceful as I once thought. In fact, looking at the evidence, I have come to the conclusion that behind this calm English exterior there lurks a violent animal, looking for any opportunity or slip up to get out. This would explain both the waitress that I accidentally attacked a few weeks ago and the most recent incident:

I had been calmly cycling from work to the train station, enjoying the ride and very carefully observing all the rules of the road. When I arrived at my destination I pulled up at the bicycle racks so that I could dismount my bike and lock it up for the night.

As I swung my leg backwards over the rear wheel of my bicycle I was unaware of the man walking directly behind me until suddenly…

BAM!!!

It was difficult to tell which one of us looked more shocked at what had just happened. He certainly looked like he was in more pain but mainly because I had just kicked him quite hard in the stomach.

It is hard to know what to say to a man that you have just accidentally reverse roundhouse kicked in the stomach like a scene from a 1980’s Jean-Claude Van Damme action movie. Somehow, “sorry I just accidentally reverse roundhouse kicked you in the stomach,” doesn’t seem like enough of an apology.

It had been a very impressive move, one that I’m sure the karate teacher I had when I was eight would have been very proud of. However, that didn’t seem like something that would give much comfort to the man standing in front of me clutching his stomach.

Instead I apologised for accidentally reverse round house kicking him in the stomach. As I had expected it didn’t really sound like much of an apology. He nervously smiled, nodded and accepted anyway. He seemed more concerned with putting as much distance between us as possible before I could anymore unleash more Kung-Fu Bicycle Fury upon him.

It was probably a wise decision. Who knows what I might have accidently done next.

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

18 Responses

  1. Niclas says:

    Again?? Duuuuude

  2. Ivilina says:

    …no invasion has been done without the occasional outburst of violence… You are just being a true invader Stu! :) nevertheless –> HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA!!!

  3. Niclas says:

    I almost dropped my pants while filling my wives tires in the garage yesterday, I wonder if I had been deported if I had, and if someone had seen me?

  4. Stultum says:

    Nah, Stu, you just experienced a bit of the Dutch custom of ‘complaining loudly about the small things, and not minding the big things’.

  5. VallyP says:

    Oh dear, I’ve missed a few posts lately! I loved this, Stu, mainly because I can imagine it so easily. I loved your ‘Lies about Holland’ post too!

  6. You were just honing your invader/kung-fu spy skills, whether intentional or not. For all you know, the victim in question could have been in the middle of planning to launch an attack on his own and your well-timed kick threw him off course. Carry on, then!

  7. Alison says:

    You’re obviously a super hero (or villain, perhaps). On the surface, you’re a mild-mannered Englishman. But inside, you’re mad, bad, and dangerous to know!

  8. dragon lady says:

    Funny, you were on the receiving end of this when you were little. I was wheeling you along in your pushchair when a man got off his bike and caught you right in the face. He couldn’t apologise enough.
    Just be thankful you didn’t aim a little bit lower.

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