You may have seen that the writer, painter and art critic John Berger has just died at the age of 90 and you probably thought, so what? I expect most people on here have never heard of him. But there is one thing that I bet they don’t mention in the media and that John was a madly passionate motorcyclist. He was a friend of mine and I went motorcycling with him, so I know. Put it this way: how many people do you know who get a Honda Super Blackbird 1100, then the world’s fastest motorbike, for their 70th birthday? And it’s not as if he was moving up from a C90. The Super Blackbird replaced a CBR 1000. To be honest, John didn’t need such massive power as he didn’t go everywhere at Warp 7, but he did use the bike whenever possible and almost never used his old 2CV car which was full of straw in the boot. And he probably used it to go from his house in Haute Savoie to Paris, which is quite a big old ride so a large and comfy sports tourer would do the job. His book To The Wedding is all about a bloke on a bike going to somewhere in Italy for a wedding, so he got around on it. The story of how I met John is a long one, so I will write it later or tomorrow when I have time and put it on my blog but I’d only ever heard of him because Motorcycle International got him to report on the Bol d’Or in the early 90s and do some drawings too, as a one off assignment. Quite rare for a Booker Prize winner to be writing in a bike magazine. You might also hear that he was a Marxist. He was very left-wing, sure, but Marxist is an easy label. In any case, John was literally about the nicest, kindest person I have ever met. You just can’t imagine him ever being involved in any kind of revolution; he only ever saw the good in anyone. He was a top geezer and I am very happy to have known him. Here is a shot I took from 2004. John and his wife are just about to hop on his bike to go to Geneva airport to fly to London for a performance of one of his plays that a friend has put on. You will notice (I certainly did) the lack of luggage or any really suitable motorcycle attire. Most people don’t take their bike to the airport (I don’t). I suspect it wouldn’t have occurred to John to do anything else.
i liked that that for all the right reasons. i would probably bore him shitless, but still sounds like my kinda guy. what an interesting life you lead glid, made more so and enhanced i'm sure by having known himself. :smileys:
How interesting , more poignantly so as 3 of my neighbours have been taken away in the ambulance in the last 24 hours , cert 1 , prob 2 , maybe all 3 will not be making a return , sad .
power of the interweb. dont want to clutter up glids thread, but, assume nothing unless you see the words come out their own mouths. but by glids account, i am sure its one of his.
No cluttering up can be done here. I mean it's an open forum and I started this thread for anyone to comment in whatever way they felt appropriate, should they wish to. That isn't clutter, is what I meant. To give you a little more background, John lived in a very rudimentary farmhouse, by choice, I imagine, in a tiny village on the edge of the French Alps. It had an outside bog of the composting variety. At least, I think that's what it did, but I don't think there were any chemicals involved. He used to clear it out once a year and wrote about that in a collection of essays. That particular one is called "A Load of Shit". He liked to help the local farmers in his village with the haymaking. He did it every year. So you have this completely unpretentious bloke who is a foremost intellectual. He would have made a great university professor, except that I can't imagine him for a moment having any time for university politics. I am very sad that he has gone, but I don't think he had a long illness, 90 is a pretty good age, he had a zillion friends and lived a very interesting life. I'm not sure when he stopped biking, if in fact he did. I noticed on the BBC documentary that the 1100 was in his garage at his Alpine house.
My girlfriend mentioned this to me yesterday. She was influenced greatly by a number of books he had written namely "Ways of seeing" and "Why look at animals". Sad day, she hopes that one day she would make as good a literary contribution as John did. RIP.
Thanks for posting @gliddofglood - I had only recently 'discovered' him via a Guardian article (book review if I recall) that led me to watch that recent documentary about him. I thought I saw him riding a ZZR Kawasaki on that documentary, as well? Another iconic fast touring bike... I noticed it parked up in the farm house I think, when they were interviewing his son (he was living in Paris at that point of the story). I hadn't realised he was a biker until that documentary, but he spoke on there of the fact that he loved the way riding a bike required/caused him to be fully present in the moment. That's a aspect of riding bikes I've always treasured, and I was delighted to hear him talk about that... What a great friend to have, and a fascinating mind. There don't seem to be many people like him left. A real loss, I look forward to reading more of his work.
Sounded like an interesting bloke....just the first pic (to me) inspires a truly laid back lifestyle...wish i was there now, not in a server farm where i cant even here myself speak and shouting at my mate next to me whose in turn looking back at me cupping his hand round his ear, mouthing the words "what the fuck did you say?" What id give to be sitting there and having a chat with what looks to have been a very interesting person indeed. RIP.
Saw this posted in the morning & had a slight hiccup when I read it as John Pilger...the austrailian journalist. Anyhow, Rip
I have now written a full blog post on John. Those who want to know more can find it here: John Berger: friend, motorcyclist, writer, painter, art critic - The Glidd of Glood Blog
