Magnanimity

 Followers of the Bears on the Book of Face will be aware that we like to watch a bit of athletics. Not so athletic yourself, are you? Ed. We have attended the 2012 paralympics, the Commonwealth games in Glasgow, a Diamond League event in Birmingham (all detailed in various blog posts) and, most recently, the Para Athletics World Championship and the IAAF World Championship. It is about the latter event that I would like to make an observation or two.
I was appalled to hear the booing that greeted Justin Gatlin each time that he was introduced for the 100 metre qualifying and semi final. Yes, he has served bans for drug offences. "Has served" is the key part of that sentence. It is in the past. Nobody booed when Dwain Chambers returned from a ban. Nobody made a fuss when Amantle Montsho ran yesterday in the 400 metre heats, having served a two year ban.
The difference, of course, is that they were not running against Usain Bolt as Gatlin was.
Now, we are huge fans of Mr Bolt. The man is truly a legend. However, in his last 100 metre race, he was beaten. Sad, but true. We were there. We saw it. I photographed it.

The finish line

 He was beaten by Christian Coleman who, in turn, was beaten by Justin Gatlin. It is reasonable to assume that all were rigorously tested and it is, therefore, reasonable to assume that all were running clean. Not the end to a brilliant career that everyone expected, but there it is.

 

Bolt congratulaes the winner

 If Usain Bolt could go out of his way to congratulate Justin Gatlin, why could the public not be equally magnanimous? 

The Large bear has been de-viced

Well, the title of this post is not strictly accurate. I do have have a few vices left including a propensity for copious amounts of profane language. This is mostly aimed at TV quiz show contestants who really should know a few things before applying to compete and any driver who I think is not as adept as me. That would be most of them because you are a driving god - Ed.

 I know that Sir Walter went to a lot of trouble to bring it over from what is now Trumpland, but, after 40 years, I have stopped smoking tobacco. The story has already been described here by Mrs B. The abridged version boils down to the fact that I have not had a smoke since November 10th last year when I had an unplanned trip to hospital. Although it has turned out to be pneumonia rather than anything more sinister (this was only really confirmed last week), I came to the conclusion that I had being playing the percentages long enough. There was also a bit of "guidance" from Mrs B and Numbers One, Two and Three Sons. However, I like smoking and, despite coughing my spleen and various other internal organs up, I was missing it.


So I got this

It really is a viable substitute and it makes me look intelligent.

Anyway, back to work tomorrow - i can't wait.