Jeff's Christmas Blog

Dear all,

I am not a habitual Bible quoter (or reader for that matter), but this passage from Corinthians sprang into my mind the other day between Waterfall and Sutherland, and wouldn't leave. So it's going to make it into me Christmas update. Sorry for any offence - just don't take any; that's my motto.

51: Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52: In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the Last Trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians, chapter 15)

Yes folks, it's Christmas again, and that means it's that time of year. This can be done in reverse as well at no extra charge. As a bonus, I'll throw in a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to youse all for just $4.89, and that, believe me, is a bargain if ever there was one. Please send money to Jeff's Bilgespot, c/- The Steaming North, Australia. I'm not actually in The Steaming North as such, but it feels like it. For those with a geographical bent, I'm at my grandparents' place in Nelson Bay, approx. 200 km north of Sydney, and it's very steamy.

Thank you to all who have sent me Christmas cards and presents this year, but for those of you who didn't bother...don't think you are being removed from my email list that easily! Oh no, it's much harder than that. On a comparative scale, it's far easier to stop receiving offers for free Rolex watches and Viagra than it is to get off this spam list. I know where you are and I will track you down if you try.

Alas, this marks the end of my holiday period and that means that it's the beginning of my working period. I'm back on the job on Monday and will be going down to cover the Aussie Championships and Tour Down Under between January 11-24(ish). Jeez, that's nearly two weeks. I'd better make it my off-season. And in a cunning move to a) avoid even more Belgian winter and b) avoid getting deathly ill, I've delayed my return date to Belgium by a few weeks, until February 15 or thereabouts. Luckily I paid an extra month's rent on my place in Gent.

Speaking of holidays, an account of my holiday can also be mailed to you free of charge, save for the account itself which runs into several hundreds of dollars. This is on account of various activity nights over the past three weeks, and accounts of those can be read in the other updates on me Bilgespot. I have shown, conclusively I think, that lots of beer makes you dehydrated. I'm going to publish that as a Fact Worth Knowing, especially when you are in The Steaming North.

Anyway, it's been great to catch up with everyone over the past weeks, and I hope to do some more catching up before Departure.

Trophy Race reportage

There's not a great deal to report from the Easts Trophy Race, as it wasn't terribly exciting. Started with a bunch of 58 A and B graders, finished with a bunch of 25 A graders and a few disgruntled B graders who were chasing. There were too many teams interested in a bunch sprint so that's how it ended up. My plan was to try to assist one of the other Gallant Randwick Botany lads in the last few laps but several mishaps at critical points in the last three laps put paid to that. I managed to drop my chain (very rare on this bike), nearly hit Spongee Jenkins when he dug a pedal for the nth time, and nearly crashed into Katie Brown, who was warming down in stealth mode after coming third in C grade.

Oh well, Pat Naughton and I watched the sprint unfold from the back and saw some interesting shortcut tactics going on coming into the straight. Mr Fitzpatrick, S., guilty as charged, Your Honour. But José won it anyway so it was all to nought.

All up it's been a moderately successful summer for me here, with fewer placings but one win - so that's enough to keep me happy until next year. My sprint has completely gone to pot so I must be getting old, or not smoking enough.

Movies

The movie report will be even shorter than the race report because I haven't seen any movies at all in the last two months. I think most of my movie watching time has been taken up by recovery sleeps, and that's probably a good thing. But be warned, this section will be back, filled with more dross than ever before.

The Last Trump

Well, I've just typed over half a milli-simian, which is approximately ten times the output of a single monkey that has been employed to randomly write out the complete works of Bill Shakespeare. Basically, that amounts to a whole lot of drivel, and there's more where that came from. Mark my words.

For those of you who missed it at the beginning, and I don't blame you in the slightest if you skipped to the end to find out what happened, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and don't forget to hydrate properly.