Crested fauna

Yesterday, on my way back from a particularly electrifying session of physiotherapy, I was passing by the cavernous entrance to a motorbike garage. Inside were various two wheelers, ranging from the usual scooters, which make life difficult here, through to sleek racing bikes with lightweight frames and low-slung handlebars. A smell of two-stroke hung in the air...

Out of this cavern hobbled an old man of at least eighty, with what I can only describe as a dirty old man's raincoat. He was grinning as he hobbled across the workshop floor towards the sunlight. Then he stopped. I thought he was going to talk to me.

Instead, he turned towards a silver scooter - one of those fat, streamlined ones which looks like a fairground bumping car - unlocked the 'boot' behind the saddle and pulled out his helmet, one of those integral bone domes which make people look like the Mekon from Dan Dare.

Looked at from closer to, once he had donned it, I could see it was a hilarious affair, covered with dayglow flames from hell, and surmounted (as a final rage against age) by a fifty centimetre high mohican plume in bright orange. It was like a bronze age warrior's helmet. Dirty old man's mac aside, he would not have been amiss at the siege of Troy...