Thoughts On The Doping Scandal

One news story that I have been following with fascination recently is the Lance Armstrong doping scandal. Having read both his autobiographies, I was inspired by his passion for cycling and focus on his sport through adversity. 

With family I watched the Tour de France religiously every summer, and as I was growing up and getting into the sport myself, Lance was consistently the hero for my brother and I. Cycling is a brilliant sport and one which has sadly suffered so much. 

Obviously, following the recent revelations, I was incredibly disappointed in the true accounts of events. I believe that once he got himself into the cycle of lying that it became habit. Inexcusable, but it became for him part of his sport, something he HAD to do to further his chances.

I believe that he took the mentality that doping had to be a part of cycling to win, that cycling professionally was like playing a chess game – you had to take care of all the pieces, both opponents and doping regulations. Winning was a personal achievement for overcoming all obstacles, legal regulations and physical barriers.

Doping increases the inequality of sport, and for this reason many people are incredibly angry. Added to this that there was a great deal of manipulation and blackmailing going on with regard to the doping.

The essence of sport is that those with focus and drive win, and that you have to be an incredibly dedicated individual to be top of your field, no matter what sport you’re in. You have to practise for hours daily. In addition to that, you need natural aptitude, you need motivation, you need physical potential. For the last reason, sport will never be fair. 

I watched the Olympics to see people who have seized their potential and gone the whole way to make something of it. I watched the Paralympics to see people who had seized their potential despite living each day facing physical barriers.

Neither of these events are “fair” or “equal”, but only as equal it is possible to regulate. The Olympics are about a celebration of human spirit, team work and perseverance. This is the case for sport in general. For most people, chemical enhancements are a complete contradiction to the “perseverance” aspect of sport, and are widely seen as taking the easy route to success. But was success easy for cyclists whilst taking these drugs? I would still say, no it wasn’t. 

People will argue that there is doping in every sport as it is easy to evade drugs tests. We can’t get too paranoid or the regulations will be so strict that people will be deterred from taking part. But no one wants a cheat to win. Personally, I would never want doping to become a part of winning at high level sport, as I believe it takes the achievement out of it.  

Winning is about glory, winning is about money, winning is about fame, winning is about being top of your game.  The cliché, but taking part must be the real personal achievement.

Should the fact that Lance used chemical enhancement to improve his body immediately disqualify him from all future events? 

Yes

He lied and cheated for years, took the easy way out, acted selfishly towards family and team mates, manipulated people to achieve personal ends. The doping in sport has stopped hundreds of “clean” sportsmen and women from having a better shot at coming top.

But no…

He dedicated years of his life to his sport, inspired millions as well as using winnings to support Livestrong. He is passionate about sport, he has not stopped with his sport since all of this made headline news.

Livestrong has been condemned by some cynics as a vanity statement, one which simply highlights Lance as an undeserved hero. 

But if we’re looking at this from a moral standpoint, surely the fact is Livestrong has done so much good for so many people. It’s an organisation which offers support to cancer patients. This is a fantastic cause.

A controversial question which has been at the back of my mind is “Do performance enhancing drugs cause cancer?” There, I’ve asked it. There’s various articles out on the web with contradicting views on this, though one I recently read suggests there is no evidence to support this.

Lance was my childhood sporting hero. I had little interest in football, but when the Tour de France was on, I would watch for hours. His autobiographies, however much fact and however much fiction still gave me a lot of reading enjoyment and inspiration to encourage my cycling hobby. 

I don’t believe in never forgiving people, and the same applies to my “heros” turned sour. I respect Lance for those words to Luke, “Don’t try to stick up for me anymore, tell people that your dad says he’s sorry.” Heart-breaking, and I can’t imagine how this whole situation must affect the kids.

There is no easy answer to these questions. I believe that being a liar and cheat in the eyes of the public is quite possibly the worst kind of punishment, and Lance just can’t have believed that he would get away with it forever. I think back to times when I have “cheated” on a small scale at board games when I was a kid. On one hand it takes all the pleasure out of achieving something under your own steam, but you still get to enjoy winning. I didn’t truly believe Lance took part in doping until the final confessions from team mates. 

Food for thought indeed!

A Brief Introduction to Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico is an Italian painter, often thought to be the founder of the Metaphysical art school and Surrealist.

His work has always appealed to me, with it's deceptively simple scenes evoking intense feelings of apprehension.

This is the first work by Giorgio de Chirico that I encountered in the book 30,000 years of art.

This work is entitled Mystery and Melancholy of a Street. The main features of the painting to look at are the little girl playing and the shadowy figure with the spear. The shadow appears to suggest that perhaps all is not well here. To me, it suggests the contrast of contentment and fear, with the metaphor of potential shadows just around the corner.

Following this, I became interested in finding out more about de Chirico, and led him to become one of my favourite contemporary artists.

 

The first painting in this “Metaphysical” style painted by Giorgio de Chirico was “The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon”. Giorgio de Chirico marks this painting as a turning point in his perceptions of objects around him. He was sitting in a square in Florence and noted how everything around him seemed somewhat alien and surreal. 

This inspired this new style of painting.

Brilliant Banana Bakes

The great thing about the banana is that it is versatile as well as affordable. Bananas are the ideal fruit for economic baking so without further ado, here are two of my favourite banana recipes I’d love to share with you!

Banoffee Pie

This is a big indulgent dessert for a special treat. I was really pleased with how mine turned out in the end. The whipped cream made for a pretty finished product! Each slice is deceptively filling but this makes a great treat to share with friends!

Ingredients:

·         300g Hob Nobs

·         60g butter

·         397g tin Nestle Carnation Caramel

·         3 large bananas

·         350ml double cream

·         100g milk chocolate (or dark if you prefer!)

·         1 tbsp icing sugar

Steps:

1.       Set the oven to 180C.

2.       Crush the Hob Nobs (This is fun by hand though if you have a food processor it’s less effort.) I suggest using a largish bowl so bits don’t go flying everywhere and the end of a wooden rolling pin for your controlled crushing! Take time to make sure the pieces are nice and crumbled.

3.       Add melted butter to “stick” the mixture together and transfer the butter and biscuit mix to a 24cm baking tin.

4.       Cook for 10-12 minutes until lightly toasted.

5.       Leave it to cool then transfer the base to a serving plate.

6.       Spread caramel over the cooled base and chill it for an hour at least.

7.       Slice your bananas and arrange them over the caramel base.

8.       Whip cream and sugar to form soft peaks and add the cream to your biscuit, caramel and banana. You can be artistic with this bit!

9.       Melt your chocolate and drizzle it over the top.

10.   Refrigerate until serving.

Tips:

·         The whipped cream will hold until serving for a few days, however it’s best to add it just a few hours before serving if it is for a special occasion as it will gradually sink!

·         The 60g butter is just a guideline – use as much as required to fully stick the base together.

Banana Bread

There’s a few things about banana bread that you need to know. Firstly, riper bananas are the best, even over ripe bananas if you have a few going spare.

I have a few little secrets for my banana bread recipe. To give it an extra layer of flavour, add some quality darker milk chocolate. My favourite bar for this is Green & Black’s Butterscotch milk chocolate. Being a bit of a chocolate connoisseur, this is THE bar to go for, or something similar to give your banana loaf a delightful crunch.

Ingredients:

·         285g self raising flour

·         1 tsp baking powder

·         ½ tsp salt

·         110g butter

·         225g caster sugar

·         2 free range eggs

·         4 ripe/over ripe bananas

·         85ml buttermilk (or normal milk mixed with 1 ½ tsp lemon juice)

·         1 tsp vanilla extract

·         (optional 100g Green & Blacks butterscotch milk chocolate)

Steps:

1.       Preheat the oven to 180C.

2.       Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl.

3.       Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy in a large mixing bowl.

4.       Put to one side and mash your bananas in a separate bowl.

5.       Add your eggs, mashed bananas, buttermilk and vanilla extract to the butter and sugar mixture and mix well.

6.       Fold in the flour mixture.

7.       If you’re using the chocolate, at this point, break it into little chocolate chunks and add to your mix, as little or as much as you like.

8.       Grease your loaf tin and add baking paper.

9.       Pour the cake mixture into the tin and bake for approximately an hour until well risen and golden brown.

10.   Inserting a knife or skewer into the centre of the cake can help you check whether its done, if it’s still a bit gooey in the middle, the knife or skewer won’t come out clean.

11.   Remove from the oven and leave to  cool until serving.

Tips:

·       *  This cake goes perfectly with a dollop of crème fraiche!

·        *    Don’t over mash the bananas.

Brilliant Bananas

Following an attack of the mosquitoes, I used banana skin on my bites to sooth the itches. This worked to an extent but I would recommend anti histamine cream over the dubious banana skin remedy any day for stubborn bites. However, bananas are used in many remedies including treatment of the skin condition psoriasis, wart removal and even for a soothing facial! The power of the banana is great! 

Finally, here’s ten interesting facts about bananas… Did you know bananas contain radioactive potassium? That the banana tree is considered a herb? 

·          Credits for my recipes go to the BBC Good Food site – thank you!

My current favourite artist

Edward Hopper.

Who Is Dean Moriarty?

"There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars."

"On The Road" is an American novel written by Jack Kerouac. I loved this book. I found the storyline fast paced and the language clever yet incredibly readable. The style of writing I really appreciated as it made it easy to dip in and out of the book, I don't have loads of spare time for reading at the moment and this is something which I require in a good read!

The theme of the story is essentially in the title, being "on the road". The protagonist Sal and his crazy friend Dean, travel all over America in search of something missing from their lives staying in one place.

I think the key quote of the book is "We know time." This simply refers to the sensation of realising mortality, realising how little time there is to do everything you want to, how Sal & Dean pack as many sensations into every day as they can, how they go about this by travelling. The book is set in post depression America. I've never been to America and it was fascinating to get a brief snapshot of each city.

Dean ends up having kids and several wives, whereas Sal looks on this with a rather detached viewpoint, and we as the reader have empathy for these women that he leaves scattered across the continent to bring up his children. He never has time for them, and pursues the endless horizon impatiently in search of new things, carelessly ignoring his dependents and instead using all his money on a car.

Jack Kerouac sums up the loneliness of life on the road succinctly in this novel, following the story firsthand from Sal's viewpoint of the ups and downs, the near misses with death, the desperate moments, the excitement, the variety of people, the unpredictability and the adventure. In one sense it makes you want to throw in everything and take off with your dreams, on the other it makes you incredibly apprehensive about all the bad parts!

Human relationships and hedonism are key themes, with "looking out for yourself in desperate situations" trumping friendship in certain cases throughout the book. It makes you think deeply about friendship and travels.

I haven't seen the film but I believe it is also a film now... However, I think the film would have to be brilliant to live up to expectation! A great read even if you have a hectic schedule, you can pick up this book in between things. Five stars.

Seasons Greetings

What are your favourite ways to prepare for the festive season?

Christmas decorations are out in force and I'm feeling incredibly festive now, which is nice as it's only two weeks away. What I did this year was leave my Christmas shopping until December, which really helps to get me in the mood. I absolutely love choosing gifts for special friends and family. Doing it on a budget forces me to be creative.

It's also my other half's birthday just after Christmas and I'm really excited about his present this year. It's his 21st birthday, and I'm happy with what I chose, I just have to wait to see if he does! Photos to follow...

Our tree went up last night, my housemate, a conservationist, got it from Cannock Chase where she works free of charge. We've chosen a gold and red colour scheme, just the present wrapping to get done now!

Christmas pantos I love, being a kid at heart. I don't think I'll be going this year but you never know. I also love a Christmas carol service in the week before Christmas Day.

It's going to be Festive Friday in our office, I really want to be a Christmas fairy, but we shall see!!


Passionfruit xo

Black Friday Apples

Friday 23rd November was Black Friday in the USA. Shopping online meant you could take advantage of “special deals” on selected products from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. One of the big news was that Apple shaved a few pounds off their classic iPad and iPod touch. The 16GB iPad boasted a £31 discount. Now perhaps this looks like a better saving in terms of American dollars but it didn’t seem like a great saving to me, in comparison to the hefty RRP of £368 with discount!

This is a smart move by Apple. The “one-time-only” deal causes customers to make rash decisions in the space of a day, over an item they have perhaps been looking at for a little while. Apple are well known to keep products at full price, so this really is a one off!

Apple have carefully manipulated the technology market in recent years, following the creation of their iPad. The fact that they are the original creators of the tablet has given them a head start where the technology is concerned. The tablet computer has of course exploded onto the market in various forms, with other brands leaping through the window of opportunity, but none have quite matched the standard and cleanness of the Apple design or indeed their desirability to consumers.

The psychological marketing of Black Friday in producing one time must buys correlates with Apple’s fast paced market for technological products. Black Friday aims to sell products at slashed prices, yet rely on the volume of consumers coming through the doors to make a profit.

Another item has been in the news recently, about supermarket promotional discounts. The article suggests that supermarkets are in fact manipulating the buy one get one free prices, so that no discount is actually to be had on the product. How do they do this? They simply raise the standard price to cover the unit cost of two and then slap a promotional label on it. Customers are drawn to any kind of discount, especially those watching their pennies.
The result of this manipulative pricing is that people end up buying more than one of something which they didn’t particularly need in the first place, and the supermarkets make a larger profit. The article also highlighted the interests of the supermarket in getting us to buy in bulk.

Apple are the greatest success story in terms of brand image. The clean, fresh look of each product helps us make that decision between the futuristic, minimalist gimmick and the clunky, two toned copy from HTC. Don’t forget to start saving for the next Apple gadget! Why? Because, of course, in a few months time, your shiny new iPod touch will be obsolete in anticipation of the next big thing.