If you sit by the river eventually you will see the bodies of your enemies float by.... well, not one's enemies specifically, but dubious public figures whom one felt suspicious of.
The Tour de France is one of the few sports I am vaguely interested in, and for years the French authorities were extremely suspicious of Lance Armstrong's endless victories in it. They insisted he was doing it with drugs. As it happens, nearly everyone was using drugs on the Tour for a while - but Lance was always testing clean, and they couldn't touch him. People dismissed the French suspicions as a sort of chauvinism - the fact that Frenchmen weren't winning - and anti-Americanism, always a popular trop in French politics. A little while ago it was revealed that Lance A. was using drugs - and now it has gloriously been revealed that he was effectively pushing them to his teammates and doing all sorts of tricks and manipulations of blood and so on, and practically blackmailed the others to take drugs which he supplied. So, the French have been vindicated... Vive La France!
Meanwhile, the great Jimmy Savile saga unfolds - the Romans had a practice called damnatio memoriae where statues and public insciptions referring to the dead person were removed, broken or defaced -and this is exactly what is happening with JS. Quite shockingly, his family had had his headstone removed and apparently broken up. The charity that bears his name is thinking of changing it. More revelations are coming out - there seem to have been a remarkable number of children with learning difficulties amongst his victims - because they were less likely to be believed? Arrrrgh. I wonder what his nephew is feeling now? We haven't heard any more indignant comments from him. We have heard a great deal about the permissive workplace ambience at the BBC in the 70s and 80's though - Oh what a surprise! - not.
The Tour de France is one of the few sports I am vaguely interested in, and for years the French authorities were extremely suspicious of Lance Armstrong's endless victories in it. They insisted he was doing it with drugs. As it happens, nearly everyone was using drugs on the Tour for a while - but Lance was always testing clean, and they couldn't touch him. People dismissed the French suspicions as a sort of chauvinism - the fact that Frenchmen weren't winning - and anti-Americanism, always a popular trop in French politics. A little while ago it was revealed that Lance A. was using drugs - and now it has gloriously been revealed that he was effectively pushing them to his teammates and doing all sorts of tricks and manipulations of blood and so on, and practically blackmailed the others to take drugs which he supplied. So, the French have been vindicated... Vive La France!
Meanwhile, the great Jimmy Savile saga unfolds - the Romans had a practice called damnatio memoriae where statues and public insciptions referring to the dead person were removed, broken or defaced -and this is exactly what is happening with JS. Quite shockingly, his family had had his headstone removed and apparently broken up. The charity that bears his name is thinking of changing it. More revelations are coming out - there seem to have been a remarkable number of children with learning difficulties amongst his victims - because they were less likely to be believed? Arrrrgh. I wonder what his nephew is feeling now? We haven't heard any more indignant comments from him. We have heard a great deal about the permissive workplace ambience at the BBC in the 70s and 80's though - Oh what a surprise! - not.
No comments:
Post a Comment