Er It's not a bleedin HARLEY!

Did a stint recently for a local community group

Anyway I had to dress as Father Christmas and run the grotto for the kiddiewinks - all great fun.

Organiser says to me,

“wouldn’t it be great if you arrived dressed up on your Harley?”

Me : “er it’s a Ducati…”

Org : Yeh ok - we could park it inside!"

So we went ahead and it went down a storm, however during the session the organiser said -

Org: “It’s going really well! Tons of kids outside and they LOVE your Harley!!!”

Me : “er Mandy, it’s a Ducati…”

Org : “Oh yes sorry”

Afterwards she put up a FB page about it and put…

“A big thank you to Santa who turned up on his Harley!”

Bloody hell , Mandy is a lovely person but like a lot of ‘civilians’ ANY big bike is a Hardly … and like Porsche or Ferrari people assume that they are the best, biggest engined . fastest and most impressive bikes in the world…

and she has no idea just how offensive it is!

Platonic ‘Theory of Forms’ innit?

Plato said that for every object or thing in the world there is the idealised object which forms the basis of our understanding of objects that are like it - e.g:

These Forms are the essences of various objects: they are that without which a thing would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless tables in the world but the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them. Plato’s Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and also is the essential basis of reality.

For people who don’t know anything about bikes the name Harley Davidson for obscure cultural reasons is the only motorbike that has vaguely impinged on their consciousness so for them ‘Harleyness’ is the essence and idealised form of the object ‘motorbike’.

can i please go and slap her for you? :smiley:

That’s a brilliant way to look on it Ninja!

…and Alba I would say yes but in all other ways she’s a brilliant person! Thanks for the offer though I may well come up with an alternative soon :smiley:

Bravo Ninja Junkie! Very elegant explanation as to why some people are just dumb-asses! I am thinking this lady must be quite old (50+) for her ‘idealised object’ to be a Hardly. I think younger people would (and in my experience often do) use a Ducati as their ‘object’. Sometimes think I should get one, just so I disappoint fewer people!

You just need to hang with a younger crowd Ross!

Spot on Ally she is! … and maybe I should! (well most of the LBers are a younger crowd - does that count? )

I have often heard ‘civilians’ using Hardleys as a ‘Black Catting’ device.

( Black Catter = an old navy term for someone who, when you tell them you have a black cat always has (or knows someone who has ) a black cat that’s bigger and blacker than yours)

For instance;

BCer “Nice bike what is it?”

You “It’s a Fireblade/R1/ZX10/Gixxer/Panigale/MV F4 Testarossa/Rocket III/GS1200/1000RR” (enter your choice of decent bike here)

BCer “My mates got a Hardly-Davidson!!! *pause” thirteen hundred cc’s you know!"

You “er,right”

:crazy::doze::laugh:

Thanks guys! That philosophy course I did twenty years ago has finally become useful. :smiley:

I’m impressed Ninj, the basis of stereotyping in the human condition in a simple paragraph. Most eloquent

Thanks mate - It’s amazing to think that outside of time and space in Plato’s ‘world of forms’ there exists an idealized GSXR rider wearing white trainers and tracksuit bottoms who is the essence of all GSXR riders.

and an idealised Harley rider in cut off denim waistcoat, patches, bandana , sunglasses

and a GS rider in a suit who’s crashed through the touratech warehouse.

Love the black cat story, unfortunately my mum and step dad are just like that - they seem oblivious to how cringey and annoying it is. My mum doesn’t try to keep up with the Jones’s - she thinks they are the Jones’s!!

And a woman cleaning up with her “Hoover”. :blink::ermm:

I thought it was gixxers , in blue and white … Every noob wants one of them .