with a chair and so ending up in a correctional institution . His family were decent but he was a born thug . Some days at lunchtime I ’ d run home to see mum , slipping through a gap in the railings , but she was a mess so I ’ d run back and get hit for my troubles . Sometimes I punched someone and ran off again , the fear in my stomach making it impossible to think .
Tap , tap , tap , the man was still striking the rim , tap-tapping in between the heating , then hitting it hard and immediately stopping to check that he hadn ’ t caused the metal to split . A lot depended on this man helping me , and only looking back many years later did I understand what it meant to have my life put on trial for such a small thing . I closed my eyes like a small child , knowing that one misplaced blow could render the rim useless , making it impossible for the tyre to be fitted properly and hold any air . That would be the end of my record attempt . If thoughts could hold their breath then I was mentally free diving . Only by motorcycling around the world , absorbing the minutiae of ordinary life , could I know how to distinguish between what is ordinary and what is not . In my simple world , red and blue were easy to see but vermillion and cerise were what I looked for . Dun was a horse colour that stood out against sand and brown while tangerine was more interesting than orange . Only by deconstruction do you start to understand how colour is part of a visual spectrum that exists only as a wave , something the brain has to interpret . In this way I decided that as long as my eyes were closed I could be anywhere I wanted to be , or nowhere at all .
Eventually the old Bulgarian chap with light grey hair and a kindly round face had reshaped the rim sufficiently for me to reseat the tyre . In his garden chickens cruised for scraps and children had soil in their hair from rolling around with the puppies . I paid him some money , got on my bike and rode non-stop to Istanbul where 15 hours later I was met by the Triumph service people . They gave me a new front wheel and helped me get on the flight to India .
On the plane I read about computers , the size of a room 30 years ago and now a small box sitting in my lap . An article in the in-flight magazine considered the development of artificial intelligence . If you accept that the human brain and nervous system can be reduced to a network of trillions of electrical connections , then it is only a matter of time before computers can be produced that are powerful enough to mimic a human being . . In The Singularity Is Near , computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil theorises that by 2029 desktop computers will have the same processing power as the human brain , and that the development of artificial intelligence will ultimately surpass the currently-accepted limitations of human progress . He terms this the Law of Accelerating Returns , setting the date for the ‘ Singularity ’ – a ‘ profound and disruptive transformation in human capability ’ – at 2045 . By a strange coincidence , other scientists predict that this will also be the point at which humans will have outstripped the resources available on this planet and will no longer be able to grow enough food to feed themselves .
The plane landed . I found a small hotel near the airport and through a previously-arranged contact met a man who would help me expedite the bike ’ s passage through the multiple layers of Indian bureaucracy . It took 48 hours to get the bike cleared by Indian customs after which the cargo agent guided me from the airport to the docks to the Indian Automobile Association where certain faxes from their counterpart in the UK were requested . Once these arrived it was back to the office of the freighters , then back to the docks and finally to the airline company to help with the release of my bonded cargo at the airport . A signature from the Municipal Corporation of Bombay Authority allowed me only 48 hours in the city before penalties would be invoked . “ Chai before you go ?” said the Bondsman , and he dispatched men to guard my bike while we drank and exchanged convivialities . Then it was time to leave . On the streets of Bombay by the airport , dust danced on beams of sunlight decaying in the thinning daylight as I raced off into the traffic .