(SOME) PEOPLE IN POWER

There seems to be a type of person who'll always make it in high positions, be it in politics, business, religion, who have the tendency of not knowing much, being prone to gaffes and being generally clueless and obnoxious.

To name a few: Silvio Berlusconi; George W Bush; David Cameron; Pat McQuaid; Max Mosley; Nicolas Sarkozy; Sepp Blatter; Vladimir Putin; Sarah Palin

They get elected and climb up the ladder of power, and more to the point they stay there for years. They behave like buffoons, constantly make gaffes and continuously display a lack of general knowledge.

And they're still coming, look at the American election campaign, where the Republican candidates where having a debate and one of them (allegedly the top candidate) was unable to answer the most basic questions. Has he withdrawn? No. Why? Because people don't take notice of gaffes as a negative but find it amusing as they circle the various social networks and media circus.

Image, they say, is everything. I disagree. If that was the case most of the above mentioned would never have made it. Charisma? As if! Corruption, Fraud, Violence? Well some of that for some of them. No, I think it's more a case of exposure. Exposure is everything. Look at Big Brother contestants and semi celebrities who end up in every day culture. Open any magazine, any internet site and there they are. The seemingly thicker the more famous they'll become and the longer they'll stay in power. Why? Because we don't feel threatened by them, we recognise some of our faults and weaknesses.

Should we worry? Yes, because we condemn harsh economic times, lack of respect and we want the best for our children, yet we vote them in, we buy their records, watch their films, follow them on twitter. We feed them but we complain.

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REACH OUT, TALK TO PEOPLE

I wanted to share what we did at the weekend in the hope to inspire other people to try what my partner and I ended up doing. A few days ago we were walking the dogs late in the afternoon and on the way back, in this big field, we noticed an elderly woman walking slowly leaning on her stick. We asked if she was ok as she seemed tentative and a little confused. The very first thing she said, almost without realising that's what she was going to say was: "You are the first people I've spoken to all day". Neither of us expected that so we stayed with her, chatting away for about 40 minutes. We ended up walking her back to her house, exchange numbers and invite her for a Sunday roast. She was going to be 89 a few days later and it seemed a nice thing to do. She was really touched as she didn't have it in her to cook a roast for herself (and she admitted she hated cooking).

A (VERY) SHORT GUIDE TO WOMEN'S CYCLING

Women cycling has grown in popularity exponentially in the last few years. There is still a long long way to go to reach equality in terms of wages, recognition and exposure in comparison to the men's: wages are way too low, with some riders getting pittance, others paying for equipment, only the very top getting a reasonable (but risible in comparison to the men's) pay packet; most organisers set a huge disparity in terms of podium money between men and women; all the races are kept shorter than the men's for absolutely no reason; even ASO (Tour de France) supremo Prudhomme has stated that a Women Tour is "impossible" to organise; misogyny is still rife and too few men's top teams sponsor a women's team counterpart. The more we follow and the more we support, especially in social media and by tuning in when the rare race is televised, the quicker we can close the gap. My favourite races last year were La Course by Le Tour de France and the World Ch

AN OLYMPIC EFFORT

When the Olympic cycling road race and TT race routes were announced I was extremely excited. I live bang in the middle of both. One of the most important races in cycling was going to be ridden near my house. Television screens would be filled with images of roads I'm familiar with, the pros will be riding my commute to work AND some of my cycling club runs' routes (Kingston Wheelers).

The Clouds Factory

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