Invader Stu: bicycle Kung Fu fury

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 apologising 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.

Unleashing the barbarian

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. That is the only thing that would explain this 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!!!

Stu van Damme

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 1980s 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.

Apologies are tough

Instead I apologised for accidentally reverse roundhouse 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 unleash anymore more Kung Fu Bicycle Fury upon him.

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

Invader Stu is an accident-prone Englishman who has been suffering from Dutch culture shock for the last ten years. Enjoy his stories, more of which can be found on Invading Holland.