Fuck Off; when is it really appropriate?

My mum’s a lovely lady, but if I told her to fuck off every time she overdid the parsnips in a Sunday roast, I think she’d be a little upset with me. And rightly so. Because you can’t just go round telling everyone to fuck off, willy-nilly; it’ll only get everyone worked up and besides, it’ll soon lose its potency, if you do. No, it’s best to only tell someone to fuck off if they really deserve it. And to be fair, these days you’re never far away from someone that does. So to help you stay on the right side of your mother at Christmas; to safeguard the integrity everyone’s favourite expletive and; most importantly to make sure all the wankers of this world are put in their place every once in a while… here are five examples of when the term should definitely be used.

When a seller bullshits you.

I’m sure most of us will’ve heard all the same bullshit lines from fellers’ trying to sell us their bike. You could write a book of the bastard things. “It just fell over on the stand” or “It’s never been on the track, honest”. Two common whoppers they’ll do their best to feed you when you’re viewing a possible addition to your garage. Not all of them’ll be speaking with forked tongues because there are still a few honourable people out there, but those faint scrapes that run all the way down the exhaust pipe (the ones that Billy Bullshitter thought he’d polished out, but are still visible to anyone that with anything like 20/20 vision) tell a very different story indeed.

And I’ve never seen anyone put a little blob of paint or nail varnish on an end can at anything other than a trackday, so let’s nip that one in the bud before we start, you prick. There are plenty of other bikes out there. If you get the feeling someone is trying to make a cunt out of you, the best thing to do is tell them fuck all the way off. And then go and buy a bastard from someone who isn’t such a wank stain.

When someone drives a car like a dick, and then blames you for it.

Whenever you’re riding your bike through a busy or well-populated area there’s always a very good chance that, if you don’t have your wits about you, you’ll end up on the floor. Often via a car bonnet, thanks to its drivers owner. I know nobody likes to take the blame for an ‘RTA’. But if, whilst your picking yourself and bits of your bike up off the floor, said car driver tries to tell you it was your fault that they didn’t see you, you’d be well within your rights to give them a big fat ‘FUCK OFF!’.

Thankfully, we motorcyclists are an observant bunch (we have to be). We can quite often spot a piece of careless car driving with more than enough notice to take evasive action. The fact that we might have to do this numerous times on every ride is certainly an irritation. But when the shit-for-brains car driver flashes, beeps and/or ‘waves you a wanky’*, and in doing so suggests that you were the road user at fault, he too deserves a big old ‘Fuck off!’. You’ll need to shout this one as loud as you possibly can if you want to be heard. And even then you still might not be. But at least it’ll make you feel a bit better about the situation.

*Does the wanker sign.

When someone calls a professional bike racer ‘crap’.

This kind of behaviour is cuntistry of the highest order. Every now and then when I was growing up, if there wasn’t any football or lawn bows going on, I’d be able to persuade my local landlord to put MotoGP on in the pub. On such occasions, a selection of unlikely characters would gawp at the bikes going round. Sometimes getting really rather into it all. After a few rounds-worth of watching Rossi and co. doing their thing, all of a sudden half of the pub were experts in bike racing. And anyone that didn’t finish in the top ten was deemed crap. “How did he get a ride with a factory team, he’s fucking rubbish?” would be the kind of thing that I’d hear on a regular basis. “Just fuck off” was my usual riposte.

Anyway, I thought it was it was perhaps just an epidemic of idiocy, localised to my village, but it’s not. If social media has taught me anything, it’s that idiocy is a global pandemic. It doesn’t matter whether you’re perusing TwitBook or FaceGram, you won’t have to scroll for long to find one. You’ll quickly come across some dick who’s never raced a bike in his life (or been involved with bike racing in anyway, except watching it from his shit-stained sofa), voicing his opinion about how slow these professional athletes, competing at the highest level of their sport, are. What I want to know is how the fuck you’re qualified to lambast their riding skills? If they’re shit, how shit must you be? You don’t know what you’re talking about, so shut the fuck up, and fuck the fuck off.

When someone in shorts and trainers calls you a ‘power ranger’ for dressing appropriately on a bike.

The internet is top-heavy with videos of people wheelieing down the high street in tee-shirts, shorts and trainers. Granted their bike skills may be worth some admiration. But you do have to wonder how long it will be before they come a cropper. How long before they deposit some skin on the tarmac. And some bone. If that’s the way they want to carry on, then good luck to them. They’ll only have themselves to blame when it all goes wrong. But if you’ve got more than two brain cells to rub together you’ll realise just how foolhardy this type of thing is.

When I’m on a bike, particularly if I’m fucking about on the back wheel, I want to be protected. And if you think my one piece race suit makes me look like a power ranger, I couldn’t care less. When I crash (and it’s a ‘when’ not an ‘if’), I’ll probably be alright. When you crash, you won’t be. Your fancy trainers are going to look really trick when the paramedic cuts them off your mangled and twisted feet, aren’t they? I’ve crashed enough bikes to know how much it hurts, so yes, I’m going to wear the best kit I can afford when I ride my bike. And if you’ve got a problem with that then you can fuck off.

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When trackday lads act like they’re a better person than you because they’re in the fast group.

Whatever level you’re at as a rider, trackdays are excellent fun. For the ultimate novice though, they can be a little bit daunting. Really, they needn’t be because most trackdays are ‘grouped’ so the new lads don’t have to worry about the quicker ones on track. And off the track, 90% of them are well mannered human beings anyway. It’s the remaining 10% that spoil it. You’ll hear these wankers even before the day has begun. It’ll probably be in the queue to sign on or waiting for the safety briefing. They’ve always got a voice that’s louder than everyone else’s and it’s usually used to tell everyone how fucking amazing they are. Even at this point, whether they’ve addressed you or not, you’d be quite within your rights to deliver them a firm “Fuck off”, just to let everyone know your standpoint with regards to this total tosspot.

As the day wears on, when he isn’t laughing too loudly at his own jokes, he’ll be complaining about ‘traffic’ on the race track. Moaning about how everyone is far too slow for the ‘fast group’. To engage in conversation with anyone that displays this type of behaviour would be an act of the purest folly. If it ever looks like it’s about to happen, the best thing to do is look them in the eyes, clear your throat and in the firmest voice you can muster, tell them to “Fuck. Off.”