I know it’s not exactly fashionable nowadays for a Labour member like myself to welcome with open arms a policy of a Conservative Mayor of London. But I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway. The Barclays Cycle Hire scheme, launching next Friday (July 30th) has the potential to revolutionise the way we get around this great metropolis. How long have we looked on to cities like Copenhagen, Amsterdam & Zurich with their fancy bicycles and cycle-friendly policies, while we put up with uncivilised busses & tubes?

That it took Boris Johnson, London’s somewhat entertaining, but according to some a serious thinking, Mayor to bring a London-wide cycle scheme which will be accessible to millions of people, is a shame. That doesn’t mean we should look down our noses on it though.

From next Friday, people all over London will have access to bicycles in many local neighbourhoods across town. I’ve already spotted two of them very close to where I live. For an annual membership of £45, users can take a bicycle from their local “docking station”, cycle to their place of work, a restaurant, the shops or a meeting with friends for up-to half an hour completely free. When you consider the amount of London that can be covered in 30 minutes by bicycle, it’s clear that this scheme has the potential to replace thousands of bus & tube journeys per year, and simultaneously improving the health and well-being of Londoners.

As the London Cycling Campaign points out here:

…cycling reduces the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke and promotes good mental health.

Everybody recognises that London is oftentimes a grumpy, frosty city, home to millions of people in too much of a rush to smile, take a deep breath and enjoy the wonders that wandering through this amazing city can bring. If cycling improves the general demeanour of even a small percentage of our commuting population, it will be a great benefit to us all.

Ken Livingstone and Oona King, who are both running for Labour’s endorsement for 2012’s mayoral election should recognise the benefits that this cycle scheme should bring, regardless of the fact that Boris Johnson brought it into being.

This Londoner for one, can’t wait to give the new scheme a spin.

I write this in the knowledge that I have to leave Beirut several days before I intended to. A mixture of circumstances have conspired to get me back to Britain this weekend rather than next Wednesday. Somewhere in the process of getting here I’ve injured my foot to the extent that I cannot walk without it hurting. Beirut isn’t the kind of city where you can sit around – you need to get out and walk, a lot! And walk I’ve done, today at least, with a great deal of pain.

Beirut is by far the craziest city I’ve visited anywhere in the world. The single word I could use to describe this place would by schizophrenic. This is a city of amazing contrasts. I live in central London and I’ve never seen so many Range Rovers or Mercedes in a single day. Those luxury cars share road space with the archetypal white jeeps with a big black “UN” painted on the side (they’re here as part of the UNIFIL peace-keeping & stabilisation mission). At the same time you’ll find children tapping the windows for change. The downtown/”centre ville” area is absolutely pristine – cleaner even than Geneva. Other parts of town are shabbier, but overall Beirut leads other cities in the region in terms of cleanliness and tidiness.

Last night when I arrived, after spending about an hour walking around the Gemmayzeh district, I was under the false impression that Beirut is a city of serenity. Today’s experiences have proven otherwise. The noise of the traffic here is inescapable. The fumes from the car exhaust are ever-present. I have never seen traffic chaos like I saw today. There is serenity in places though, like the main Al-Omari mosque, which is one of the most beautiful structures I’ve seen – it’s like a huge yellow & blue diamond just fell out of the sky. You can’t walk anywhere near it without being captivated by its beauty and presence.

The Beirutis too are a contradiction in terms. You have the most glamorous looking people who could compete with the elites in London, Paris or New York. But they share a city with people at the far opposite end of that spectrum. A vast swathe of land between the seafront and the main down-town area has been reserved for luxurious high-rise apartments buildings, and hotels like the Four Seasons with its imposing security barricades and Lebanese tanks and soldiers on guard outside. The Hezbollah area in the south, quite close to the city’s international airport is a little less glam, but it appears on the outside at least, to serve its purpose.

People say that the Lebanese are quite an insular people, and I have mixed feelings about that. It’s not terribly difficult to start a conversation with people, but also I can see that many Beirutis can come across as snobbish and closed off. If you know people here though, I guess you might see things differently. People in the Middle East are usually impressed to speak to a white foreigner (this sounds awful I know), but not here. They don’t really give a damn who you are, because you’re in Beirut!

This is the last post from Lebanon – I will post some pictures I took when I get home.

I’m sitting in a cafe in downtown Beirut, minutes from the Mediterranean coast. It’s around 18c outside, and quite a clear day. I arrived in Lebanon quite late last night but I’ve already had a bit of a look around. My sprained foot really isn’t helping matters, and I’m quite annoyed at Orange for not allowing me to use my phone/Blackberry here at all (not even for phone calls). But hey, I’m in Lebanon so I better try to enjoy it a bit!

First impressions are that this is a very rich country for the region. The roads and infrastructure generally seem very good, despite the regular power cuts here at Costa Coffee. The roads weren’t as scary as people said they were. The airport is quite new. The streets are safe 24/7 apparently, and so far I can see that people are very friendly and helpful – it feels safer than London. The plane had some ridiculous turbulence at around 10 minutes from landing – around the same spot where the Ethiopian Airlines flight went down earlier in the week. One of BMI’s flight attendants was injured, and the other attendants came dashing through the cabin with a look of death on their face. But hey, it got the passengers talking to each other.

The taxi driver from the airport showed me the boundary to the Hezbollah controlled area. Apparently I’ll be arrested if I go there, although they say that Hezbollah are quite friendly and very nice whilst arresting and interrogating trespassing foreigners… I’d rather not find out.

Now, after four espresso macchiatos, I better go and do some sight-seeing and take some more photos.

I’ve just read that the Lebanese PM Sa’ad Hariri fears an incursion by Israel soon. Jolly good – that will make this trip even more exciting then.

The picture here is of the Al-Omari mosque in central Beirut, which I took this morning.