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There are exceptions to this, however. I'm talking about behaviour so antisocial that it can drive even Patience McPatience into a furry of rock-throwing rage. Environmentalism, for a kick-off.

The idea that the world should spend more averting climate control, over which we may - or may not - have any control, than we spend providing drinking water for the starving and diseased of Africa. That kind of thing really pisses me off.

And then there's campanology. Those who think it is perfectly acceptable to climb a church tower six nights a week and allow everyone within five miles to hear them 'practising' for an event that no-one goes to anyway. i.e. church. Why can't they take up the piano instead. Then we wouldn't have to listen to them getting it all wrong.

It's a tradition, they say. Yes, it is. Like burning witches and persecuting Catholics. Two other traditional church pastimes that have been dropped.

Biking falls into the same category as bell ringing. You can still wear your leather romper suit. You can still accelerate from 60 to 150 in minus 1.3 seconds. You can still crash and die so that someone in need of a spleen may live. But you absolutely do not need to deafen everyone in the process.

Hammond says that this is part of the appeal of biking, the sense that you're being a bit rebellious, and yes, even a bit frightening. I think he likes to think he's something of a Hell's Angel, but it's hard to be scared of a man whose feet don't touch the ground when he's on his Yamuki Davidson.

And it's hard to conceive any situation that would make James scary. Even if he leapt out of a forest on a dark night, brandishing a blood spattered axe and going "grrrrrrrrr", he'd still be good, old affable James. I'm sorry. I'm not scared of bikers at all. If they crash into my car, they crumple and I go home and have supper.