Sunday, July 24, 2005

something i have learnt about tour de france

tonight i watched some of the tour at the insistence of my sister and bro-in-law. my daughter, our dog and i are having a sleepover at sister's place, because i wanted to take her to see mr and mrs smith, just to see brad and angelina get it on if the truth be known. but for much of this silly film they basically try to kill each other.

anyway.

we had a date, my sis and i. she has two young children and needed a night out. we went to a bar and had one drink each. i know, mild as shit.

then we went to the movie. it was ok.

then we came back. and her husband was watching the tour. so i sat there, and despite my deep deep boredom with watching sport, i kind of sort of got a bit, just a tiny bit interested..

and that's when they told me some facts:

tour de france guys have to coat their perineums and balls with savlon. because of the boils you know. people have died during this race. people have plunged off cliffs.

we will never see lance armstrong ride again as he did tonight.

and the guy in the polka dots fell off his bike twice, and had to change doohickeys four times.

and then tomorrow, they all cruise into gay paree chatting as they ride in to the champs elysee, sipping champagne. sometimes eating lobster. i kid you not.

vive la france!

7 comments:

Fluffy said...

The tour is the best thing!

DJ said...

I think I'd rather watch a game of tiddlywinks

Melba said...

fluffy, my sister and brother in law were DETERMINED to convert me. they have been watching for about six years, i have been yawning whenever they talk about it, for six years. but i did enjoy it last night, and fear that i am turning into a potential sport watcher. even read an entire article on cricket the other day... granted it was in the Monthly magazine, wonderful writers who can even make cricket interesting to someone like me...

dj - what exactly is tiddlywinks? i have never known...

Aleks - Anarcho-Syndicalist said...

Like watching most sport, the tour de France is good in moderation.

I used to watch a lot of cricket with my friemds. Now I find it (and every sport) boring if I watch more than a little of it as I find it lacking in mental stimulation. However I still watch it with my freinds, not because I like enjoy watching it so much, but because of the company. I suppose watching the tour de France with your sister and brother in law was a bit like that.

Melba said...

hey aleks, yes it was. i guess i got infected by their excitement, but i was also interested in a lot of things, such as why they all had such skinny butts that wiggled very femininely from side to side as they pedalled [with the camera shooting from the rear] also how they knew which way to go, why some of them had their wheels closed in, while others didn't, and why one guy was going to ride with a bit of rubber hanging off his eye shields [cannot call those things glasses]. i yelled at the teeve, pull it off, pull it off, he heard me and did.

but i forgot to say, even though i wrote vive la france, i do pretty much hate the french, politically that is. but nevermind, can't be too one-eyed.

mj said...

Le Tour is awesome. I have loved it that SBS have shown it live for three weeks, but also that they have NOT dumped it totally in favour of the The Ashes Cricket. They've cut a nice balance between the two and not been as parochial as I'm sure any of the commercial channels would have been.

PiesFan90 said...

Watching the tour now, the last ride to Paris and I haven't seen the lobster come out just yet. There's a lot of chit chat and there is going to be a major spill on the cobblestones in Paris, they are wet as.