Day 82 On Yer Bike !!

Being able to cycle again reminded me of this.....

Go away! Clear off! The phrase dates from the 1960s but later gained the implication that one should go and look for work.

This sense was popularized by in a speech at the Conservative Party Conference in 1981 by Norman Tebbit, then Employment Secretary, when he said that his father had not rioted in the 1930s when unemployed but ‘got on his bike and looked for work.’

1983  ‘ON YER BIKE, Tebbit!’ became the slogan of right-to-work marchers, to the delight of Mr Tebbit's supporters"

Boris seems to have taken his advice to heart !

There is another theory that it originated in Wales in the 19th century. You see in the Welsh valleys there was a tendency for young men to marry local girls. After several generations, in really small communities, everybody was closely related to everyone else. The advent of the bicycle was a godsend and many a you man was told to 'get on your bike' when be came calling on his 1st cousin once removed. So it was a quick pedal over the hills and far away to find a fresh wife.

This new approach, policed by the church, resulted in a welcome breath of fresh air, so to speak, blowing through the Welsh valleys. And a good thing it was too as there's many a morose maudlin Welshman who could rightly blame his state of min on his too near relatives.  

 And all this somehow brings me to

"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle "

Seems to be disproved here :~)