This will hurt me...

So Bjarne Riis has confessed to what many long suspected: he was doping when he won the 1996 Tour de France. Coupled with Eric Zabel's admissions, some see it either as a sad day for cycling or a triumph for good over evil. I would have thought that winning the tour is a great achievement whether on the gear or not. Let's not fool ourselves, most of the top teams have had access to 'training aides' since the very beginning, whether it was ether to dull the pain at the beginning of the twentieth century, amphetamines in the 1950s or EPO today. The whole notion of a few bad apples is utter nonsense and reeks of 'head in the sand'. Open it up and let them go for it, I reckon.

Some time ago I posted BLee's test figures when broken down in 10 test blocks and found a pattern. It looked like: 1–10 : 48 w @ 19.37 11–20: 32 w @ 36.43 21–30: 32 w @ 40.09 31–40: 42 w @ 35.26 41–50: 42 w @ 31.95 51–55: 17 w @ 34.29 It has come to my attention that Steve Harmison has a similar pattern. His career breakdown looks like: 1 to 10 : 28 w @ 36 11 to 20: 59 w @ 19 21 to 30: 34 w @ 35 31 to 40: 34 w @ 32 41 to 50: 34 w @ 37 So it seems that they are as rubbish as each other.

I see that Lars von Trier has stepped away from making films for the time being. Thank god for that, for me, his films somehow manage to combine the worst excesses of ‘arthouse’ pretentiousness, wankiness of theatre and reductive nonsense that is just so mind numbingly dull of so much ‘European’ mediation on ‘America’ lately. A quick rundown of the movies that I've seen: Dogville , Manderlay and Dancer in the Dark fit the rant below, in my eyes. I’ll be honest though and admit that I couldn’t finish watching the first two of that list (life is too short). The Idiots was just dire. A bad film school experiment, European middle class-guilt nonsense. Zentropa / Europa was a more interesting visual experiment, but again, more ‘art’ than ‘cinema’ (in the bad way). Breaking the Waves I liked. The main character was annoying, but as a bit of melodrama wrapped up in art, it was easy to sit through and have a think about. I’ve seen bits of The Kingdom , but it never really got me (alth...

Quite. Gee they're ordinary.

ANZAC Day is a frustrating time of year for me, these days. I want to know, exactly when did people stop stressing the importance of remembering the futility of war ? All I hear these days is giving thanks to sacrifice, and valuing the freedoms we hold. Fair thoughts, no doubt, but it seems insulting to me that we've forgotten the importance of reminding ourselves of the complete and utter waste and tragedy of war. I could be wrong, but my memory tells me that was present in past ANZAC and Remembrance Days. One didn’t have to look far to find veterans more than happy to emphasise this. My own grandfather is a good example. He served with some distinction (unspoken, of course, until after his death) in WWII, and his own father was killed on the Western Front before he was even born. I’d like to think that such a man might have some perspective on the costs of war. He would curse down very quickly any self congratulatory tone on either ANZAC Day or Remembrance Day. It was a day of...

Here's a picture of Henry in his cot with a stuffed dog. He looks pretty happy here. I hadn't posted a pic of him, and thought I'd best, otherwise he'll be pissed off, and we don't want that!.

Watch the first Barrera vs Morales fight yesterday, whilst trying to keep Henry quiet (it worked!) By god that's a fight! In particular, Round 5 is right up there with the entire Hagler vs Hearns fight. The entire fight is fantastic, but the ebb and flow of round 5 never fails to get the hairs standing up on the back of my neck (which, I might add, Hagler/Hearns still does). If you haven't seen them already, check out the entire MAB vs EM trilogy (although fight 2 is a bit of a letdown, the other two deserve their legendary status). Also electrifying is the destruction of Roberto Duran at the hands of Hearns. Given the calibre of the guy, the power of Hearns is amazing, and sets up the proper context for the Hagler fight.