Leelu and Nim - great present, thanks!

Big thanks this morning to Leelu and Nim for the lovely present, unfortunately it seems to have been delivered to the wrong address.

Here's the video.

Laugh? I certainly did!  In case the link doesn't work for you, it's a report on the BBC news (and therefore true) that a woman in Lyme Regis found a "rather large, red-coloured animal" in her back garden.

Lyme Regis, by the way, is a very small village on the south coast of England, famous for producing fossils. It's one of my favourite places, and I shall be even more keen to go there now, to pick up my present from Oz.

This woman thought it was a fox (*snorts with laughter*) until it started hopping around at high speed. Here's a fuzzy still from the fuzzy footage. It's clearly not a fox.

Digression: there is a reference to the RSPCA, which is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - a charity created in 1824 to campaign against, as the name suggests, cruelty to animals. Interestingly, the NSPCC - National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children - was not formed until 1884, 60 years later, and is still only a "national" society, not a "royal" one. Shows how much the English think of their pets, doesn't it?

Anyway, the interviewer says "Were the RSPCA able to give you any clues as to what they think it might be?"  Woman answers "Not really."

For heaven's sake, I'm a botanist not a biologist but even I could say with certainty "It's either a small Kangaroo (note spelling) or a big Wallaby, and has probably escaped from a local zoo/circus/private collection."

I would probably add "don't try to catch it, let it eat the grass and the leaves, you could try tempting it with cheese-flavoured crisps" although that last one is from the internet, and we all know how reliable that is...

So, on to Cycling: Tour of California, in all the glorious sunshine, California Girls, Daisy Duke shorts with bikinis on top, sunshine, heat, mmm, lovely.

Stage one: Ah.

Not so good then.

Gnasher, what were you thinking? You were supposed to order the sunshine!!

So, Stage one cancelled.

Odd news, the organisers changed their rules about doping just a few weeks ago, on the 3rd Feb: they changed the rule that says that no-one is allowed to participate if they are under investigation for doping.

This meant that Lance Armstrong, who is still under investigation, after all these years, would have been able to participate. But for some reason he didn't. So, that didn't work, then.

While checking this out, I found a video featuring Jensi, one of my favourite Leopards, who has been talking to Steephill TV - I love Steephill TV, it has the worst Gui but the best content on the internet, regarding who is in each race, stage details etc. - about how to pronounce his name properly:



Quote of the day: he says he can't tell us how it is most often pronounced wrongly, as he's not sure all the viewers are over 18. Yes, I think we can guess what he means! I also liked his nicknames - Jensi, Ze Chermann, or Big Fellow. (*snorts of laughter*)

Back to the Tour - Stage Two: moved at very short notice to Nevada, who were delighted to be suddenly hosting the event. The townspeople deserve huge credit for organising themselves so well, so quickly. I can't imagine what my town would do if told that a major race is coming through tomorrow....

I won't be seeing the footage until the weekend, so there's no point me trying to tell you about the race, but Ben Swift won the stage, yay! And one of the SpiderTech riders, Kevin Lacombe, lead out the sprint finish and came fourth, so well done SpiderTech,  Svein Tuft must be very proud.


Stage Three: Greg Henderson of Sky won the stage! This means that Sky are now leading the GC with Greg in first place, Ben Swift in second. LLB will be so pleased!

The final lap was quite hairy.


Baden Cooke of SaxoBlank - right - hit the ground very hard and ripped the backside out of his shorts, as you can see here.

But he managed to remount, and finished under his own steam, as did Will Dugan of TeamType 1 and our Jensi, who both had a bad crash right at the finish, in the lead out to the final sprint.

And of the Leopard boys? Linus came in 25th, Jakob was 43rd, Andy  50th. Poor Jensi limped in 4mins 37 seconds down in position 132, but at least he finished, yay Jensi!

In the GC:

20  Linus
48 Jakob

65 Andy
78 Steff'n'd'neff'll
91 Anders Lund
100 Martin P
108 Martin M
132 (by coincidence!) Jensi

And there is plenty of time yet for things to change!

Oh, update on the "Wallaby" story - I love the way they put the word in quotes, to indicate that they're not quite sure that it really is a wallaby - apparently we have a number of wallabies living wild in the UK!! Amazing!!