For various reasons, I was motivated to write a dog days of summer edition of this periodic epistle. One was that I came across a draft of a pre-website edition of the newsletter, when it was my practice to include an accumulation of past highlights at the bottom of each week's news. No one has been sending me good jokes recently, so I thought I could repeat some, fittingly at the bottom of this message.

Many of us have some interest in summer cycling but watching the Tour in its entirety can be a challenge. Here's an eight minute highlight package from the organizers.

Here's a different perspective, apparently compiled by an indie producer, with time on his hands and some arrangement with Eurosport. It's probably the first video on the site, but you'll likely have to click "no, please help" when it tells you it's not available. How the Race Was Won - Tour de France 2018 - Full Race.

Special Offer from Pratte Ski International

Buying propane, insurance, real estate and Dynastar skis, Lange boots and other things at Squires are pretty much year 'round propositions, and we trust you'll keep our loyal GDHL sponsors in mind when the time comes for you to do so. (Just click on their logos in every newsletter.) However, our friend Michel Pratte's training camps are very much focused on the off-season and now is the perfect time to book a trip to the premier camp - Zermatt from 22 September to 2 October - especially when Michel is offering a $100 discount to GDHL racers and their friends. Click here for the website, or better yet click here to send an email to Michel. Below are a few of my favourite reasons for going to Zermatt.

Apart from the skiing, Zermatt itself is a pretty cool place. It's mostly only electric vehicles, but some of the posh hotels have horse-drawn carriages to collect you at the train station. The horses wear diapers to avoid fouling the footpath. The churchyard cemetery is full of reminders of those, many British, whose motto regarding the Matterhorn was perhaps "Veni, vidi ... and whatever the Latin is for I fell off."
Skiing there is a genuine Alpine experience - a gondola and two cable cars to reach the top of the glacier. Skiing is almost always under blue bird skis in my experience, sometimes after breaking through clouds on the top cable car, which arrives at a landing station bolted onto the Kleine Matterhorn and drops you off for a couple hundred metre trek in a tunnel bored through the mountain before you reach a most pleasant cafe to put your boots on.
Even on the glacier, the runs are much longer than anything on the escarpment, and the snow is astonishing. It's often fresh, and there never seem to be ruts in the course.
There's nobody skiing there except people in the Pratte camp and rock stars. The Swiss ski team, World Cup mogul skiers, the Swiss Interski demo team - all riding the same t-bars. Didier Cuche was there sometimes. He tended to have a minder on the t-bar and arrived by helicopter instead of cable car, but sometimes you would get a t-bar with a minor World Cup racer.
The coaching is excellent, and the group dinners at the Hotel Hemizeus are most convivial.
You will come away feeling certain this is the year you'll break through to your rightful spot at the top of the leaderboard. I leave this part of the news with pictorial proof that even a decidedly middle of the pack racer can look and feel relatively glamorous training at Zermatt.

*Your correspondent doing due diligence.*

Reruns

Top 10 Things to do at the Mall
10. At the bottom of an escalator, scream "MY SHOELACES! AAAGH!"
9. At the stylist, ask to have the hair on your back permed.
8. Ask a saleswoman whether a particular shade of panties matches the color of your beard.
7. Sneak up on saleswomen at the perfume counter and spray them with your own bottle of Eau de Swanke.
6. Collect stacks of paint brochures and hand them out as religious tracts.
5. At the pet store, ask if they have bulk discounts on gerbils, and whether there's much meat on them.
4. Hand a stack of pants back to the changing room attendant and scornfully announce that none of them are "leak proof".
3. Ask appliance personnel if they have any TVs that play only in Spanish.
2. Try pants on backwards at the Gap. Ask the salesperson if they make your butt look big.
1. Show people your driver's license and demand to know "whether they've seen this man."

Now Bode's classic ride on the fence at Kitzbuhel:

GROUP THERAPY.. - A psychiatrist was conducting a group therapy session with four young mothers and their small children. "You all have obsessions", he observed. To the first mother he said, "You are obsessed with eating, hence you named your daughter Candy". He turned to the second mother. "Your obsession is with money. Again, it manifests itself in your child's name, Penny". He turns to the third mum. "Your obsession is alcohol. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have named your child Brandy". At this point, the fourth mother gets up, grabs her little boy by the hand and whispers, "Come on Dick, we're leaving!"

HOW TO START A FIGHT - Someone else (not me) took his wife to a disco on the weekend. There was a guy on the dance floor giving it large; breakdancing, moonwalking, backflips, jiving, the works. His wife turned to him and said, " See that guy? 25 years ago he proposed to me and I turned him down." The husband said, "Looks like he's still celebrating!!" And then the fight started ...

And one of my favourite bits of Ted Ligety. Perhaps his line isn't quite as fashionable now, but good watching nonetheless.

HOW TO START A FIGHT – Having read that variety is the spice of life, so to speak, some other husband ventured to ask his wife “Shall we try swapping positions tonight?” She replied “That's a good idea - you stand by the stove and sink while I sit on the sofa and do nothing but fart.” And then the fight started …

A man was seated next to a boy in an airplane. The man turned to him and said "Let's talk." The boy replied "Okay, what do you want to talk about?" Thinking he would have a bit of fun, the man said "How about nuclear power?" The boy countered "That's a very interesting topic. But let me ask you a question. Horses, cows and deer all eat grass, but deer excrete pellets, cows produce flat pies and horses have big clumps of manure. Why is that?" Puzzled, the man said "I don't know, what does it matter?" To which the boy replied "Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear issues when you clearly don't know sh*t?"

A longish analysis from Reilly McGlashan of why Ted's line isn't so fashionable anymore:

A man doing market research for the Vaseline Company knocked at the door and was greeted by a young woman with three small children running around at her feet. “I’m doing some research for Vaseline. Have you ever used the product?”
She said, “Yes. My husband and I use it all the time.”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, “what do you use it for?” “We use it for sex,” she said.
The researcher was a little taken aback. “Usually people lie to me and say they use it on a child’s bicycle chain or to help with a gate hinge. But, in fact, I know that most people do use it for sex. I admire you for your honesty. Since you’ve been so frank so far, can you tell me exactly HOW you use it for sex?”
The woman said, “I don’t mind telling you at all. My husband and I put it on the doorknob and it keeps the kids out.”

HOW TO START A FIGHT – Someone’s wife (to be clear, not mine!) sat down next to him as he was flipping channels. She asked, "What's on TV?" He said, "Dust." And then the fight started...

A very amusing episode regarding the front falling off an oil tanker:

HOW TO START A FIGHT - Someone else’s wife was lamenting her difficulty in maintaining the recommended body mass index. Her husband said “I’ve noticed that married women are usually heavier than single women. Why is that?” She replied “Single women come home, see what's in the fridge and go to bed. Married women come home, see what's in bed and go to the fridge.” And then the fight started...

HOW TO START A FIGHT – Thinking that the budget was looking a little stretched, a man said to his wife “What have you been doing with all the grocery money I give you?” She replied, “That’s pretty easy to demonstrate. Turn sideways and look in the mirror!” And then the fight started…

HOW TO GET DISCIPLINED BY YOUR PROFESSIONAL SELF-GOVERNING ORGANIZATION - My psychiatrist told me I was crazy and I said I wanted a second opinion.
He said okay, you’re ugly too.

And a snippet from Conan O'Brien's show on racism (really not) in skiing:

Things that are difficult to say when you're drunk: cinnamon, indubitably, innovative, preliminary, proliferation
Things that are VERY difficult to say when you're drunk: British constitution, loquacious trans-substantiate, passive-aggressive disorder, speciality
Things that are downright IMPOSSIBLE say when you're drunk: "Thanks, but I don't want to have sex." "Nope, no more alcohol for me." "Oh, I just couldn't! No one wants to hear me sing." "You are quite right, I can't jump over that table."

And finally, not previously published in this space, not exactly new, but hopefully entertaining.

Enjoy the rest of the summer safely, and be ready to race before you know it!

James Mathers