Sinclair C5 Man

It’s been pretty quiet here for the last few weeks. No movement on the demolition as yet so I’ll just have to wait until more news is forthcoming. So with no relevant news on the horizon I’ll delve back in time to retrieve a few memories of a rather odd neighbour we had in London. Yes another one, we really were blessed.

I’ve related tales of Wayne & Waynetta, Ricky and Bianca and the O’Learys so now we come to Sinclair C5 Man.

Whereas we shared actual walls with our other three nightmare neighbours Sinclair C5 Man lived over the road . . . . with his mum. He was a man with many talents, most of them were a little bit odd to say the least.

We first noticed his presence because; well quite frankly he was hard to miss. I think the first time I saw him he was wobbling around the street on a unicycle. Nothing says “I’m a socially awkward attention seeking tw*t” like riding a unicycle in front of your own house by yourself when you’re over 30. I mean fair enough if you’re a dreadlocked hippy in a home knit jumper juggling fireworks in Covent Garden, then oh yeah you’re most likely not that socially awkward, but the rest of the statement probably still holds true.

Over the next few months we saw him on many other forms of transport: bikes, cars, vans and the unicycle. He also had a dog (which he didn’t use for transport) and most importantly a big crush on one of my housemates and yes he had a Sinclair C5 too, hence the nickname. As nicknames go it wasn’t overly original but it was to the point and accurate. For anyone who isn’t familiar with this remarkable form of transport it’s one that is synonymous, at least for most Brits over 35, with the triumph of ego over reality.

Wheeee look at me on my C5!    No thanks Clive, you look like a tw*t!

Clive Sinclaire’s vision was to create something that was cheap and energy efficient, however it looked like a dust buster on wheels and was about as safe and practical as running blindfold round the M25 at rush hour. We already had motorbikes, scooters (for the Mods & Rockers amongst us so we could be energy efficient and cool) and pushbikes. The C5 was a master class in misjudging your market.


If you are in any doubt as to just how unsuitable they would be as a form of transport, here’s an advert from Hoover offering to service it for you. Reassuring isn’t it, we sell vacuum cleaner bags and fix your road worthy vehicles. C5 Man used to whirr around the streets in his Sinclair C5 in a rather sinister fashion eyeballing our house as he glided by.

A less than reassuring advert for C5 Servicing.

Most of Sinclair C5 Man’s appearances near our house coincided with the object of his affection’s proximity to our front door. We think his appearances were most likely attempts to demonstrate his love and worthiness as a suitor, on one occasion he even loomed over her when she was snogging her boyfriend on our front doorstep, not a very welcome or appropriate interruption. On another he leapt out of a skip to greet her as she walked home from a late night visiting her Gran across London, a heart attack is obviously the manly way to say “I fancy you!”. Imagine that ladies, it’s like a fairy tale isn’t it. I mentioned the dog because he also used to encourage his dog to leave deposits outside our house, not on the pavement which would have been disgusting enough, but actually on the doorstep.

You’re probably asking yourselves how she managed to resist such romantic overtures as random late night skip attacks, dog sh*t deposits and regular displays of random vehicular prowess, well she must have been made of stern stuff because she did. I should also point out that if I remember correctly this was the same housemate who engaged in regular conversation with a rheumy eyed old chap as he sat on a wall on our route home from Clapham Junction Station, until we pointed out to her that we avoided him because he had his flies unzipped and his knob out; though that could have been another housemate to be fair.

Dirty old man!

As an aside C5 Man wasn’t differently abled for those of you who are thinking I’m being mean to someone who seems so obviously unable to relate to other humans. Sinclair C5 Man was just a massively inappropriate prick with no idea of how to talk to women and all the passionate subtlety of a brick through a window, I suspect he would have been the boy at school who punched you in the head before he asked you out on a date. Mostly however even though his overtures were odd, irritating and a bit disgusting they didn’t start to get really alarming until after the object of his affection moved out.

Quite a while after she moved out my new housemates and I had friends round for dinner and were sitting in our living room having a nice chat when we noticed a red dot of light focussed on the forehead of one of our guests, the red dot then slowly moved round and settled on the forehead of every woman in eye line of the bay window in the front room. This was unnerving to say the least and it was obvious that the light was coming from C5 Man’s house and was some kind of laser pointer mimicking a sniper.

We went over to knock on the door, but there was no answer, so we called the police and they had a nice little chat with him about threatening behaviour and harassment laws and that was mostly that. This incident left us feeling anxious and not at all comfortable in our own house for a few days, knowing that someone was observing you and picturing training imaginary gun sights on your forehead isn't a nice thought.

After that we were rather less tolerant of his juvenile displays of machismo and challenged him if we saw him and his mutt approaching our front door and more importantly we threatened to tell his mum.