You dope

Unless you are dead (or perhaps American, seeing as a certain L Armstrong esq. has retired from it) you can't have failed to notice that the Tour de France is in full swing. Now, let me say from the outset that I have nothing but the utmost admiration for these chaps because they ride something like 100 or miles per day every day (more or less) for about 3 weeks. Nothing gets in the way: Mountains, weather, spectators - it's just part of the race. But as it seems happens every year, numerous riders have managed to fail dope tests and have been disqualified (as have the teams in some cases), the latest being a pre-race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov *.

Call me old fashioned, or possibly just naive, but there's something funny going on in the world of long distance road racing. A quick search of the BBC News website for 'tour de france doping' provides at least 10 pages of results with storied for every year back to 1998 about cyclists testing positive and being disqualified or teams being disqualified for doping their riders. Google brings back more than two and a half million results and I'm sure they go back much further than 1998.

So with all this previous history, why the bloody hell do teams and riders persist in this activity? You'd have to be monumentally thick to think you're going to get away with it. So are the riders, team managers, doctors and all the rest really that dense? Are they all so convinced of their own genius that they believe they'll not get caught? Well, maybe some of them are but I can't believe that all of them are that dim-witted and narcissistic. I'm sure it can't be cheap to enter a team in the TdF which might have a realistic chance of winning so why risk it?

Of course, there's always the possibility that the testing system is rubbish and insecure, but you would think that by now that would have been found out if it were the case, so the only conclusion I can draw is that a not insignificant number of professional road racing cyclists and their teams are total dolts. I'm sure that one argument which might be put forward as justification for this cheating is that there's a limit to how fit one person can be (and for sure these guys are amongst the fittest on the planet, no question about that) so they have to try everything to get an edge on their rivals.

Sure, I'll go along with that but using performance enhancing drugs? Sorry but that's not how it works. Let's take that argument to it's ridiculous extreme, just for a chuckle:

Let's assume you took the German everyone loves to hate, Mr M Schumacher, when he was at the top of his game in Formula 1. He was nigh on unbeatable. Sure, there are technical differences in the cars but they are usually so small as a result of the stringent technical regulations (something that sterilises the sport and makes it dull) that they're not worth talking about. Especially if you compare Ferrari with, say Honda. They both have very deep pockets for their teams so there is no reason why one should be so much better than the other car wise (engine failure and the like aside). Now, let’s take Jenson Button, once billed as the next big things and the Great White Hope for British Racing (shame he turned out to eb an also-ran). There's no denying that they are both extremely good drivers - the top flight. But, as far as I'm aware, in a straight fight where both men finished the race, Button never beat Schumacher (F1 buffs please correct me if I'm wrong!).

How does this compare to TdF doping scandals? Well, what if, just to get an edge on their rivals, Honda had slyly added a nitrous oxide kit to Jenson’s car? Or maybe upped the cubic capacity on the quiet giving them another 100bhp? Would that be fair? No because it's against the rules and it wouldn't be the man doing the winning but the machine. But the crux of the matter is that Honda wouldn't do it. Oh, I'm sure that it would cross their minds if they were certain they'd not get found out but they know they will so it's a pointless thought which isn't entertained.

So why on earth do cyclists still do it? Only the riders and teams can answer that. Athletics used to be riddled with doping years ago but it ahs cleaned itself up and it is now very rare to hear of a top flight athlete being caught using performance enhancing drugs, but you can bet your last penny that when the TdF rolls around again, there will be at least one rider found to be doing something naughty. Perhaps cycling ought to take a leaf out of their book now and clean up its image before it's too late because eventually, the public will tire of it and what happens when the crowds don't bother to turn up any more?





* Worth noting that Vinokourov didn't actually take any drugs, it seems that the evidence points towards him having had a blood transfusion. I'm guessing more blood in the body means a better metabolism of oxygen and energy thus providing a performance boost.

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Thrill me

The is quite possibly the coolest thing I have seen in a long time. More than 1500 inmates from the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, Philippines, re-enacting the classic Michael Jackson Thriller video, complete with extremely ugly ladyboy. Man that rocks!

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Copywrong

There can be few more odious organisations in the world today than the RIAA. Essentially, their remit sounds like a good one - protect the interests of music artists and their intellectual property. After all, musicians earn their money from entertaining proles like us, so they deserve to be paid for what they do, right? I'd not argue that point, for sure, and I'm happy to pay for my entertainement. Even stuff I download, I only download to see if I like it. If so then I buy the CD as I'm mildly anally retentive and like to have the originals.

The problem is that the RIAA have gone a bit mental after winning a few battles against file sharing and the like. Instead of protecting artists rights they now mostly sit rocking back and forth with globs of spittle at the corners of their collective mouths trying to think up new ways of making themselves look mean, petty and stupid and by extension tarnishing artists with that reputation as well. It would appear that their collective God complex is so great that they are even throwing their weight about in the name of artists who don't even want the RIAA to act on their behalf.

This has been going on for several years: This 2003 San Francisco Chronicle article is one example of artists being unimpressed by the RIAA's bully boy tactics and general ignorance. Much as I dislike the band, Nine Inch Nails provided DRM-free versions of songs from their new album some of which were in formats ready for remixing using sequencing software. This was something which was actively done by the band with their record labels full knowledge and blessing and yet the RIAA tried to stop the marketing campaign by sending legal threats to web sites hsoting the files.

Want more? well, this year the RIAA set up a hip-hop DJ and producer well known (and well respected) for making mixtapes by hiring the guy and his sidekick and then arresting him for making the mix they requested (the full story is on the NY Times website but the miserable scrotes insist you sign up before you can read articles on their site so I'll leave that to you to decide if you wish to do). Apparently, it is well known in the industry that there are many acts who would not have achieved the level of exposure and, by inference, income that they have had they not been featured by DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon on their mixes. Nor was there a single artist who was identified as feeling wronged by Drama and Cannon, yet the RIAA still took it upon themselves to act like arseholes.

They're utterly incompetent too. There are numerous examples, but I'll list just a couple.

1) They tried to sue a dead 83 year old grandmother who had never owned a computer.

2) They tried to sue another grandmother (bit of a theme here - perhaps they think grandmothers are a softer target than tech-savvy kids?) for allegedly downloading, amongst other things, Snoop Dogg.

3) Just for completeness, they tried suing yet another granny who didn't even know what file-sharing was. Unfortunately for them, she is countersuing alleging that the RIAA used an unlawful private investigation in their original lawsuit against her. Hopefully she will win and make them look as stupid as they really are.

Clearly, the RIAA is inept in the extreme. The above three incidents are far from isolated and they don't just target little old ladies.

Now, their latest wheeze is to order the removal, from YouTube of course, of around one hundred instructional videos which have been posted by a well known guitar teacher. In fact, between this guy and another well known teacher, there were close to 200 videos. One is based in San Diego (David Taub), the other in London (Justin Sandercoe) and both are professional guitarists. The videos mostly show the basics such as picking, chords, scales and so on, but you cannot teach any instrument successfully unless you teach real-world examples of tunes. However, because the guy used a Rolling Stones song, the RIAA have decided to stick their oar in and claim copyright infringement.

Truth is, these videos don't even feature the whole songs, just sections to demonstrate the practical application of the techniques being taught. To have two professional guitarists provide effectively free tuition is fantastic; there are plenty of people out there who would love to learn guitar but don't have access to that level of private tuition and now they've been denied it again by a group of self-important greed-mongers who are only interested in feathering their own nests no matter what the costs. There are still some instructional videos on YT from Sandercoe and the ever astounding Tommy Emmanuel (amongst others) but it's a sad day for music that it has come to this.

Want to know the real rub? You can bet your life that even if the Rolling Stones said "No, we don't mind - it's good to inspire people with our music, let them carry on" the RIAA probably wouldn't care. Somehow they have a mandate to do as they please regardless of the wishes of artists and yet still they claim to be protecting the interests of said artists. Seriously, somehow these self-righteous morons have to be stopped because it is out of control and all they are dooing is wrecking peoples lives and the reputation of artists and the music industry in general. Speaking as a hobby guitarist I'm very miffed that they have targetted music teachers. After all, without instructional sessions from teachers, there wouldn't be half as many musicians out there and the RIAA wouldn't have anything to do.

Actually come to think of it that's not such a bad thing at all...

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