Category Archives: Not Cycling

The return of Richmonditis…the end of an era

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT’s enjoyment of AFL has been greatly reduced by the sudden loss of form from his beloved Richmond team. Tumbling from 7w 5l to 9w 12l as of today. Pretty much everything that could go wrong has gone, losing close games, night club indiscretions and a lascerated kidney for Dustin Martin all against the background of the COVID pandemic.

Now season is being closed out with retirements of club stalwarts, rumours of feuds with AFL HQ and general bad tempered sniping from Carolyn Wilson. This is all just starting to feel like 2012 to 2016…sigh. MMT just has this feeling after watching the young Swans team dismantle Richmond at the G on a sunny Saturday afternoon that things were amiss. The impression was further deepened by the trouncings the Tigers received from Geelong and Melbourne.

So where to now Tigers, what is the future without Cotchin, Martin, Riewoldt, Edwards, Grimes, Caddy?? Premiers 2020 to rebuild in 2022? Still 2017 to 2020 has been a thing of beauty. Lets hope the next premiership isn’t 37 years in the making.

Richmond tragic to the end,

Marv

MMT is not a happy camper… :-( YAFV strikes back

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT is not a happy camper. After a year of really good health, presumably due to COVID lockdown and working from home, he’s been sick with Norovirus.  ‘What the heck is a norovirus?’ MMT hears his loyal readership ask.  Well, it’s a very small and very contagious virus that causes gastroenteritis aka in MMT’s case stomach cramps and ghastly diarrhoea.  In MMT’s case its about 99.9% certain that he caught from close proximity to his weaponised pathogen carriers (WPCs), aka his kids, via their Childcare. This is what the little rascal looks like under an electron microscope. 

Little bastard - YAFV
How can something so small cause so much trouble?…Ladies and Gentlemen, the Norovirus.

In case you, dear readers were wondering, the Norovirus is named after the city of Norwalk, Ohio, USA where an outbreak occurred in 1968. Apparently, this is when Western medicine figured out what was going on. So in the dubious honour of being completely nobbled by this stomach virus, aka the Winter Vommiting Virus …ghastly…. MMT now has a new FLA for his blog tags. YAFV, which stays for Yet Another F*&king Virus. After the last 12 months, MMT surmises that entire population is fed up with YAFV. After this illness, MMT is beginning to think that may be Howard Hughes was on to something.

The trouble with Norovirus is that there doesn’t appear to be much that modern medicine can do about it.  MMT visited his GP clinic a couple of times and was given a prescription for anti-nausea/cramping medicine. The second visit resulted in a ‘sample’ test which confirmed a very high viral count.  Both times the doctor advised aganist antibiotics, correctly. That kind of medicine simply doesn’t work against a tiny virus. Now in most normal human beings this lasts a few days, at worst 2 weeks.  MMT had it for 17 days.  This pretty much ruined Easter and any plans about around cycling or even being well enough watch it via GCN+ or SBS.

Norovirus is a serious business.  In fact, putting aside COVID’s awful fatality fate, Norovirus is  very bad news and its largely gone under the radar.  According to the USA’s Centre for Disease Control, there are upwards of 680 million cases a year, resulting about 200,000 deaths. Sadly 25% of the fatalities are children under 5 in developing countries. Most of these deaths arise from dehydration.

There doesn’t appear to be any vaccine for this on the horizon, unlike Coronvirus.  To make matters worse the virus seems to mutate like crazy and a victim only needs to ingest approximately 20 virus particles to become infected.  About the only effective mechanisms available to prevent the spread of the virus are social distancing and vigorous hand washing.

So there you have it, Coronavirus be damned, watch out for the dreaded Norovirus

Later

MMT

And suddenly the world seems like a safer and saner place….

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT’s Blog has rarely strayed into political commentary, but after being glued to ABC and SBS’s coverage of the American election in early November, its time the gloves came off. Donald ‘Dump’ Trump was finally visited by the karma fairy. All the lying, cheating and no doubt soon to be revealed stealing has caught up with him and his cronies.

Finally, sanity prevails….thank you America’s voters.

Trump’s reaction of hiding in the White and sulking is a fitting footnote to his presidency. The American people living in the states of Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, who voted for the Biden-Harris ticket, take a bow. You’ve restored America’s international standing and made the world just that little bit better. Thank you.

MMT is going to have this put on a t-shirt….

Aside from die-hard Trump supporters, the most aggrieved group in American society, who will dearly miss Trump, are cartoonists. Once Trump is dragged by the Secret Service out of the Oval Office, what will they have as inspiration? So while this blog is openly disparaging of Trump and his lackeys, it offers its condolences to cartoonists world wide.

The following is smattering of cartoons that have caught MMT’s eye over the last couple of weeks

No doubt history will say that Donald Trump’s presidency was one of the greatest periods of time for political cartoonists.

Anyhoooo, that will MMT’s last foray into political commentary for this year, cycling is much more interesting.

Until next keep safe, ride safe and Make American Great Again

MMT

Reasons to be cheerful in Melbourne…Take 2

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT has been floating around on cloud nine since last Saturday. Two near miraculous events occurred. The first, back to back premierships for MMT’s favourite AFL team, the rampaging Richmond Tigers. The second Jai Hindley took and briefly held the Maglia Rosa in the 2020 Giro d’Italia.

MMT will focus Giro result first. Eventually, Hindley finished second overall. Geoghegan-Hart from Team INEOS took 40 seconds off Hindley on the final stage’s time trial to cliche the title. The result was the best ever result for an Australian, surpassing Cadel Evan‘s third back in 2013. All the more remarkable, as it was the a 24-year-old’s third Grand Tour start and he had been riding as a domestique for team-mate Wilco Kelderman, in the midst of a pandemic. So to honour Jai Hindley, here’s a picture of the man himself, dressed up in Pink.

Here’s the man of the moment…Jai Hindley.

Before MMT moves on he should also point to the astonishing performances of two other Australians at the Giro, Rohan Dennis (INEOS Grenadiers) and Ben O’Connor (NTT Pro Cycling). Rohan Dennis practically towed Tao Geoghegan-Hart through the mountain stages of the last week and set up the Brit’s Giro victory. Ben O’Connor an unheralded West Australian, won the mountain stage 17. A big chapeau!! to both rouleurs.

Now the other reason, Richmond’s win in the 2020 Grand Final, was all the more surprising given the Geelong Cat’s 3 goal advantage in the second quarter. MMT had gave up that point and turned the telly off. MMT has been repremanded a number of times by team management (aka his wife) for loud and ‘blue’ language that might wake the team’s junior members.

Opps this photo may have been ‘acquired’ from somewhere else 😉

So near 3/4 quarter time, MMT looks at the AFL app on this mobile phone and discovers, much to his disbelief, that the Tigers are now 2 points up…WTF…you beauty. Of course, the man of the moment was Dustin Martin, who kicked 4 goals on his way to a 3rd Norm Smith medal. In years to come the pundits will talk about how good this guy is. And to think the Tiges very nearly traded him to the Giants back in 2016. MMT thinks the Tiges dodged a bullet. Martin may be the million dollar man at Richmond, but few would argue that he’s not worth it.

Anyhooo…MMTis getting all misty eyed about the Tiges and its good time to sign off. One more thing….MMT has completed 9,000km in year for the first time…woo hoo 😉

Until next time, keep safe, ride safe and go Tiges,

MMT