26. Milo and Me.

It’s not easy carrying the show pony gene.

The line between observant and performative is thin. Thinner still if you’re writing from the middle.

The quiet times are worst. In a retrograde it's tempting to make stuff up. Or blow it up.

Blowing up the car would’ve been great content. But an act. All a bit Tik Tok. That’s one of the things that put the skids under the idea in the end. Oh, and laziness. That blast radius wasn’t going to calculate itself.

I wasn’t going to work it out either - this isn’t a job you give to someone who got 35% in school cert maths - but there was quite a bit of work required at my end nonetheless.

What really gave it the ass card, was the need to get permission from the company who made the explosives, just to make sure that blowing up a BMW 'aligned with their brand values.'

Brand alignment. I thought all of that nonsense was well behind me. Also, you make explosives. I want to blow something up. Hello? Manhattanhenge couldn’t be more aligned.

For fucks sake.

The plan was to trade the car for an e-bike. This was a good idea back in November when I first thought of it. With an e-bike I could go wherever I wanted quickly. I’d get fit. I’d be nimble.

So we went out. Test drive, first date, whatever. I proposed. A couple of weeks later we got married. Honeymoon didn’t last a week.

I’ve fallen off twice and I wasn’t even moving. The bike weighs 35kgs. It should probably have a number plate. I’ve got two locks because although this bike is called a ’Scout’ it might as well have 'steal me' written all over it.

Then there’s the bike cover and the fact that I have to dress like an orange road cone every time I get on. This would happen with any bike to be fair.

Nimble it isn’t.

The real reason I’m going cold on the idea is that I don’t actually need a bike. I’ve got used to taking buses, trains and walking, which is better for all sorts of reasons. I can look around for starters.

So yeah, I’ll let you know when the jury comes back.

Of course, every decision still has to be made. Good and bad. Mad and messy.

In my case they were also documented. I had receipts. As the youngsters say.

Milo and Me is an unedited transcript of the decision making process from woe to go. Such as it was. Nearly a year's worth of stops, starts, maybes and what ifs. All recorded. When I read the verbatim questions and answers back, I thought it might make for an interesting book.

A prequel to the catastrophe.

Nothing is performed for the keyboard because the book idea arrived afterwards.

I wrote the synopsis below for a publisher. But maybe I’ll self-publish a limited edition. You know, for Christmas.

Odds are I'll change my mind about that too.

I'm getting quite good at it.

November 2025

Milo and Me.

‘May the bridges I burn light the way...’