T_S_A_R

pelliozotti has been suspended due to his bio passport being dodgy, he hasn't failed any tests though so i'd imagine this is heading for a long court battle. he did improve quite a lot over the last year or so and he apparently has links to the infamous doctor ferrari so it's not a massive suprise.

that's the spring classics finished. obviously cancellera came out on top with his two wins on the cobbles but evans, gilbert and vino will be delighted with wins they all badly needed for various reasons. team sky didn't manage much at all, they must have had the wrong colour of lighting on the buses. the giro starts in about ten days. i've no idea what to expect other than a few doping offences. if liquigas decide to put out their strongest team i think nibali or pelliozoti could win it. also maybe sastre or menchov if they decide the tour is beyond them now.

he's not in it. ms dhoni is the wk in the team of the year. prior was one of the cricketers of the year but that is a bit of a duff award considering you can only win it once. james anderson is in the XI ahead of dale steyn though which is ridiculous. in the ashes australia had 7 of the top 8 run scorers and the top three wicket takers. i think most people want to see a contest of skills and test cricket despite it's mammouth scale often doesn't deliver that. it's deeply unsatisfying to follow days of play and end up feeling the result was decided more by the weather or the wicket than by the players.

i don't agree about the IPL. this year's tournament has got off to a good start and i think it'll be here for a while yet. the T20 world cup and the champions league were pretty good as well last year, the CL was much better than i expected the aussie teams and trinidad and tobago were superb. the majority of people who want to watch cricket these days are on the subcontinent and it's natural that the main format of the game which is played reflects how they live (being able to watch a full match with result in an evening) rather than something which was designed for 19th century toffs. i'm watching the IPL right now i've just seen a great direct hit and chaminda vaas swinging one onto the stumps of sangakarra, the paying inidian punter is defintely getting value for money. compare that to the test that starts tomorrown, is anyone (that isn't getting paid to do so) going to watch the majority of it? i like test cricket but england's series against australia and SA highlighted some of it's problems. the got win and a draw despite being clealry inferior in every department to those two sides. is it too much to ask that a series that lasts a month or longer ends up with the better side winning? obviously test cricket can be great but the vagaries of the weather, crap wickets and the ability of guys like collingwood to block for days goes against.

the bird hosting the ipl coverage on itv4 is the single worst sports presenter ever to appear on tv. she makes sarah o sound like bill mclaren.

i finished the border trilogy. the crossing was the highlight but cities of the plain was enjoyable as well. beautiful prose from mccarthy in all three books and he managed to create a wonderful portrait of an old west and mexico that is long gone now. there's an overiding theme in the novels of "witnessing" things - the idea that you can't truly learn or take anything from the things that happen to you personally only by seeing things happen to others - that i'm still unsure of the deeper meaning of. overall an excellent trilogy with great atmosphere, great dialouge and truly deep and likable characters.

i'm an optimist and i want to enjoy it all so right now i believe that it's currently as clean as it has been for a very long time. i've got faith in the schlecks, evans, cavendish, hushovd, wiggins, cancellara and although contador's dominance raises suspicions i even believe he's clean. i think the biological passport makes all the difference as it swings the risk/reward in favour of riding clean. i've not read the whittle book but i don't generally like the guy as he tends to get published a lot in the papers during the tour and he weighs balance of the coverage heavily towards doping rather than the competition. team sky seem to be making themselves as popular as expected in the peloton. yesterday in oman they had held the lead jersey but had a go at the other teams en route for not working enough then accelerated during the feed zone which didn't go down well with the rest of the peloton. the peloton got revenge by attacking while bosan hagen (the race leader was taking a piss) which is against the etiquette but was seen as fair enough after sky's bad behaviour. the end result was sky losing the race lead and all their riders being out of contention. the team gb/brailsford ethos doesn't seem to be going down well in the peloton, they'd do well to remember that 9 can't beat 100 plus and as you said about simone it's not easy being the black sheep of the peloton.

the key word there is credibility implying that the worth your experience as a reader is partly determined by what others think of the text. if you like dan brown then that should be enough for you, so many people get defensive about what they like for no real reason at all. at the same time a lot of people seem to want to put things which aren't to their tastes down to make them feel better about themselves, this actually seems to be the entire point of the internet. i can't read dickens or hardy but it don't think it reflects badly on me and i wouldn't deny the qualities other people find in his work. kurt vonnegut is incredible. it's humbling to read him so simply explain the world and humanity.

if those three are middle brow what the hell qualifies as high brow?! midnight's children was voted the booker of bookers, amis has dominated the broadsheets this year and eco is probably the leading post modernist author. i hope there's not a secret level of literary snobbishness that i don't know about, i'm quite proud of my bookshelfs;) the high vs popular culture debate will go on forever. it's got nothing to do with the actual art and more about people feeling uncomfortable about their tastes or wanting to be congratulated for what they like (or in some cases just consume). on pretty much every measure of assesing the quality of a novel midnight's children beats the da vinci code except for on personal taste which varies from reader to reader. if you prefer dan brown to rushdie don't feel the need to be defensive or to talk up it on the context of great literature just have confidence in your own opinion in the knowledge that no matter what others say the most important thing is how each individual reacts to a work of art. anyway i'm reading the border trilogy by cormack mccarthy just now, all the pretty horses was wonderful and right now i'm 1/3 way through the crossing which is just as engaging but a lot darker so far. i ordered some andrie makine last night after having a swatch of this thread and i'm looking forward to that. i also got moby dick for a pound the other day so after the trilogy i'll get wired into that.

you're actually almost forced to believe landis's lies because it's impossible to comprehend that anyone could be so stupid. complete meltdown in stage 16 where he comes in ten minutes back then the next day wins stage 17 by five minutes on his own<_<. then when he very unsuprisingly fails a drug test he claims that drinking whiskey the night before the stage had given him testorone levels 4xs what they should be. what's actually comforting about this is that when big riders have been caught doping recently it has been fairly obvious even from watching the stages that it is likely they were cheating. landis, vino, ricco, schumacher, kohl, rebbelin and de luca all stood out a mile and it was no suprise when they variously got busted. what's annoying about that is when you watch the difference between ricco in the mountains and a mainly clean peloton in the 2008 tour and de luca and the rest in the 2009 giro you realise that it would be impossible for anyone to win the tour clean before the doping controls got tightened and the epo test was introduced. there's is no way in the world i'll believe that armstrong won clean all those years when his main rivals and his closest team mates have all been caught doping. his achievements considered on a level playing field are staggering but with almost everyone else doping and him clean it's impossible. i don't hold a grudge against any of the riders who doped as they were all in a bad situation and had very little choice. however the fact that armstrong benefits so much from his image and uses his power to influence things in cycling and beyond even although all the evidence points towards him doping does my head in. hopefully one day landis or tyler hamilton will grow a set of balls and come clean and the full livestrong sham will come tumbling down.

i'm already developing a deep loathing for team sky. the assumption that track success will just transfer to the road does my head in. team gb is succesful on the track because they have by far the most money and the best cyclists from other countries all concentrate on being pro road riders. aprt from hoy and pendelton the british track team seemed like an arrogant bunch of p***ks, if team sky take that attitude into the peloton they'll have an uncomfortable year. there was a bit in one of the papers with brailsford banging on about how their high tech bus, lightweight bike paint and kit and other techinical nonsense was going to give them a competitive edge. if the guy thinks mood lighting and sports psychology is what you need to compete with contador, schleck, valverde, sanchez, hushozd, cavendish, cancellara ect then he's in for a big shock. on a more positive note i'm looking forward to the season. the main thing is to hope that all the riders stay clean, especially the returning rasmussen, vino and ricco. the tour route looks a belter and hopefully we'll see a bit more competition this year. last year the middle week was dire because contador was in control and astana were so strong, this year the talent should be spread round a bit more makng it competitive and hopefully guys who for one reason or another weren't in the GC shake up last year (levi, menchov, evans, valverde, sam sanchez, sastre) will be involved at the sharp end.

i love jacques kallis. his complete refusal to actually get into a decent shape for a pro sportsman is amazing. he might even be the top player of the past ten years, he's done it consistently with bat and ball.