Maybe it's a sign of creeping years, but I bought a touring bike recently. I needed a commuting beast to withstand the rigours of the winter tracks and tarmac.

I wrote to the local farmer who graciously granted me the right to cycle off road across his land. The formal agreement I had to sign felt like something from the Middle Ages, I was a mere serf from the lower echelons appeasing the lord of the manor. It excluded the 'lord' liability from just about any misfortune that I might befall on his land.

I mounted my steed the other morning, and made my way up the farm track, casting that classic touring look, drop bars, panniers and sensible fluorescent strips. Touring bikes do have an image problem, but they are simply excellent (yes, I am also a Volvo driver).

The fog was lifting, and I was being careful not to fall off, as I would probably be scraped up by a tractor and fed to some hungry pigs. In the distance, out of the mist, the local radio telescopes started materialising. They looked like Regency goblets on a giant's dinner table, the angular geometric ironwork glinting like sharp cut crystal.

My mind wandered to a recent meal a local Italian restaurant. I had ordered a glass of red wine and this goldfish bowl appeared before me. A hideously large 250 ml of thick dark Montepulciano. You may as well have treated the stuff like beer and given me the bottle to swig. No respect. The huge glass could have doubled as a water tower for the local community.

The news in the UK is buzzing with talk of excessive wine measures, more worried about the alcohol consumption than the more salient point of killing the subtlety and enjoyment of wine. It is hard to find the friendly 125ml glass anywhere these days. I had a third of a bottle before me. The poor modest Montepulciano just wanted to be appreciated, not flagrantly splayed in such a bold, vulgar, profligate fashion.

Large glasses would not be so bad if the restaurants could measure lesser amounts into them, but wine should not me thrust from pillar to post, poured into some dirty measuring vessel prior to landing in a glass lagoon. You have to end up with a variety of those unpleasant plimsoll lines on the side of the glass, a bit like drinking a urine sample from a beaker.

The radio telescopes behind me I had safely negotiated the farm. My touring bike and I arrived at work looking like the homemade wonky windswept muffin (bloody fan assisted ovens), that I plucked out of my pannier to accompany my early morning cup of tea.

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