Long time readers - I'm thinking about you quadrupalegics who are unable to click away to another page and who have therefore stuck around for a while - know I'm ambivalent about Lance Armstrong. I take his full measure - that includes being a freakishly good racer, an apparent doper, a guy who was wrapped so tight that he could win the TdF (clean or not) 7 times in a row but who is so personally unravelled that he can't maintain a personal relationship, a guy who apparently blackmailed, threatened and cajoled people to be silent about his secrets but who is capable of great generosity and openness, a guy who could be a nasty competitor or nasty ex-friend but who can also be loyal to a fault. The more I ponder his dual nature, the more I find him fascinating and impossible to dismiss as either a cartoon hero, or a cartoon villain. What is he, a character from a Joseph Conrad novel?
So I thought
this bit at Burt's was a little over the top and deserving of a response. Sure, it's easy to parody the Lance supporters. But it's just as easy to parody the Lance detractors, who are just as comical in their over-the-top raving. It's a bit like Orwell's Two Minutes' Hate in 1984, right down to hairy-fingered emailing of the latest Lance doping conspiracy theory.
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