The clarity of mud

It's said that if you throw enough mud, some of it will stick. With local framers ploughing their fields, there has been a marked increase of the stuff left on the roads from tractor wheels, not to mention straw and broken branches from where lorries, packed with bales of straw, have thrust their way through narrow sections of road with over-hanging trees. I have to admit that I've been slightly envious of some of the cyclists I've seen with their ultra-light road bikes recently, but the cyclocross hybrid I own has proved invaluable negotiating the piles of the obstacles littering the country lanes and roads. And that includes the zombie road kill bait.

I bet the ghost of Jimmy Saville and the ego of Lance Armstrong wish they'd got something similar.

In both cases, all the good that they achieved can only be viewed now through a veil of urine and mud – which each man allegedly supplied himself.  

In the case of I-fixed-it-for-myself Saville, I am nearly incredulous at how he got away with it for so long without there being some sort of investigation. Nearly, but not completely. I remember the power and influence he had. Still, those who stood by, who did not say anything, who spoke about what he was doing in whispers rather than shouting it out from the rooftops, should examine what might have happened if they'd taken the risk of litigation and gone public. I know it's easy for me to say what they should have done, sitting at my PC on my moral high-horse, but how much mud are you prepared to put up with before you start complaining?

And then there's Lance.

Thank you, Mister Armstrong, for apparently urinating all over my memories of The Tour De France. It seems the US Anti-Doping Agency believes you to be bully. Were you someone else so confident in your power you had no fear of discovery? Tell that to the cancer suffers you helped inspire to fight their condition.

Here's to those who have the courage to blow the whistle. I salute you one and all.

And if you cup your hand to your ear and listen carefully, alongside the building crescendo of revelations, you can just about hear the sound of rectal sphincters being clenched by various DJ's and pop-stars.

Mud sticks ... and so does another substance.

 

Don't do stupid – it's just not clever.

Total recorded cycled miles since 21st July 2012: 1381