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According to the poet Lord Byron, the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, although a solo mission might account for why, according to Old Testament war correspondents, that invasion came to a sorry end.

The words of this poem sprang to mind when I glanced into the rear-view and side mirrors while heading down the M40 on Tuesday morning.

An army of 100 or so black-jacketed bikers on Harleys, Hondas, Suzukis, BMWs, Triumphs - in fact every make you can think of - were bearing down at speed.

They were occupying parts of all three lanes (on some stretches, some strayed on to the hard shoulder), overtaking, illegally undertaking and weaving in and out, missing front bumpers by inches, much to the consternation of other road users.

After talking to a colleague at the Oxford Mail, I learned they were part of a 1,000-strong party giving two-wheeled adventurer Charley Boorman a true bikers' send-off for his epic trip to Australia.

I cannot comment on the other 900 riders, but the ones I saw were not displaying the strict discipline usually associated with those men on these mean machines.

Many were risking star billing - at their funeral.

. . . which leads us seamlessly to what has turned out to be this week's topic - mishaps.

School's out, and young people paraded in groups large and small in the morning sunshine. Two teenage girls, a couple of boys of about the same age in faithful attendance, were in Queen Street.

The right ankle of one of the girls was encased in plaster. She walked unsteadily with the help of a pair of crutches.

"An accident?" I said, asking the obvious. "What happened?"

The others burst out laughing, unkindly it seemed.

Sheepishly, she said she had been engrossed in texting a friend and hadn't noticed a cover was missing from a small grate.

Her foot slipped into the hole and she fell, breaking her ankle.

"That must be really uncomfortable," I said referring to the plaster.

"Yes," she replied, missing the point. "I have to sit down when I want to text anybody. The crutches are such a pain."

A few days earlier, a woman, armed with an expensive camera, was pointing it at the magnificent magnolia tree outside the University Church of St Mary the Virgin from the opposite side of High Street. She took great pains to frame the subject in her viewfinder.

With her was a small terrier-type dog, the loop of its lead on the woman's left wrist.

Enter a cyclist, accompanied by his dog, which ran along in his owner's wake, without any tether. The terrier decided a scrap might relieve the boredom of being a photographer's silent assistant, and took off, barking fiercely. This caught the woman off guard and she was pulled for some yards in the direction of Carfax. The other dog couldn't have cared less.

Fortunately woman, terrier and camera were unharmed, but whether she composed herself and tried again, I cannot say as I dodged into Radcliffe Square. Somehow chuckles seemed unkind.

Perhaps it was divine retribution. A few hours later, I returned to my car in Sainsburys' car park at Kidlington, carrying half a dozen bulky items.

For conservation reasons, I had refused a carrier bag, a halo of self-righteousness hovering above my head. Taking a short cut between two vehicles, I pointed the remote control at my car. At the same time, a previously unobserved dog, of the German shepherd persuasion, locked in one of the two cars, barked menacingly and thumped the window.

The shopping, which included a small bag of salad potatoes, a loaf and a packet of cereal, leapt from my arms as I soared heavenwards.

Now it was the turn of three primary school youngsters to chuckle as, with backside in the air, I tried to retrieve the loaf and spuds from beneath a low-slung Toyota sports model.

4:34pm Thursday 17th April 2008

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