On your bike! Please keep this oar-ful contraption off the road
With idiot cyclists jumping red lights, electric cars zipping by in silence and scooters speeding on the pavements, you might think Britain’s streets couldn’t get much more dangerous.
But you haven’t reckoned on the Road Rower, a mash-up of the bicycle, the rowing machine and the stretch limousine. ‘it looks like it’s come out of Frankenstein’s workshop,’ said touker Suleyman, eyeing it with dark suspicion on Dragons’ Den (BBC1).
the contraption, about the length of a family hatchback, was a rowing machine on two wheels. its rider powered it along by hauling the handlebars back like a pair of oars.
Legal constraints prevent me from saying what my first thoughts were when inventor Rupert Cattell revealed the device, though it’s fair to say i wasn’t thinking, ‘that certainly looks safe.’
Dragon Stephen Bartlett tried the demonstration model, but it didn’t move: the back wheel was clamped off the floor. Rupert explained that there wasn’t enough room to manoeuvre in the cavernous den.
if the turning circle is too big for a warehouse, how is anyone meant to steer it through London traffic?
Strangely, the Dragons — who will gleefully stomp on proposals for innocuous widgets such as
LANGUAGE BARRIER OF THE
NIGHT: The characters in The Madame Blanc Mysteries (C5), Sally Lindsay’s cosy crime tales set in Provence, break into French now and then, with subtitles. That’s bizarre . . . it implies that, the rest of the time, they talk English to each other with Inspector Clouseau accents.
detangling hairbrushes and plastic goblets pre-filled with wine — didn’t ask many difficult questions.
Basic safety issues, including how it is steered and how quickly it stops, were not addressed. i couldn’t work out how riders were meant to indicate (surely you need both hands on the row-bar at all times) or even how it’s possible to balance when you’re rocking back and forth.
None of the millionaires offered to invest, so perhaps they simply couldn’t be bothered to ask. ‘Some things are just not meant to be, and that’s one of them,’ muttered Peter Jones as Rupert left.
they were far rougher with Dan Robson, the entrepreneur behind a garden seed kit called Grow Sow Simple. ‘You’ve got a great idea but i would doubt your business acumen,’ touker announced.
Peter added with a sneer, ‘A dragon can’t teach you common sense.’
Common sense and business acumen do seem to be in short supply on this show. three applicants — Suzanne, Aston and Omar – came hoping for a £50,000 cash injection into their perfume business.
Dragon Sara Davies offered it to them, in exchange for 15 per cent of their business. the trio turned to Stephen and Peter instead, and invited each of them to take 10 per cent, for £25,000 apiece.
they walked away with no more capital than Sara was offering, but gave away an extra lump of their shares. Work that one out if you can.
Louis XV (James Purefoy) was giving away 50 per cent of his kingdom to his mistress, Madame du Barry (Gaia Weiss), when he had the bad luck to contract smallpox and snuffed it, in Marie Antoinette (BBC1).
that’s unfortunate for us, too, because the king and his concubine have been the two liveliest characters as this sumptuous but slow-moving costume drama unfurls.
Far less silly or explosive than Channel 4’s Russian royal extravaganza the Great, this series has been accidentally topical as it explores the rivalry between the Dauphin (Louis Cunningham) and his bitter younger brother, Provence (Jack Archer).
‘he’s the heir and i’m the spare,’ snarled the second-in-line, livid at being sidelined by courtiers who outclassed him in experience, patience and braincells.
Provence’s mood got worse when Du Barry turfed him out of his apartment so that she could commandeer it for her dressing room. Just wait till he publishes his memoirs.