“Have you ever done a triathlon Dan?” In life’s top trumps I have a few cards to play and in answering that enquiry, yes I once did the London to Paris relay. Four of us ran from London to Dover in 1 hour rotations, took turns swimming to France followed by a cycle ride to Paris. One team member had to return after the swim leaving us remaining three to pedal from Calais to Paris. I did more of the swimming, less of the cycling. On my 64km ride I sang a lot. It was sunny, I was feeling superhuman and pedalled my old steel frame bicycle in top gear up the hills to prove a point that I could. The Champ was not impressed with my machine. “Did you find that in a museum or a skip?” he asked earnestly on seeing my DRGGG bike: rusting blue frame, orange handlebars, purple forks, various peeling stickers and tied on reflectors. He rode one of his ultra lightweight dream machines decked out in lycra and cycling shoes. I, of course, wore steel toe cap work boots to both run and cycle in. He was not impressed by that either.
The song I enjoyed singing most was That’s Life, by Frank Sinatra. It happened that as I passed the Champ and the other chap (name redacted) in a layby at the top of a hill I happened to be singing “Each time I find myself lying flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race.” It seemed appropriate, though the guy that was with the Champ and I didn’t find it funny at all. It might be from the panic attack he’d had in the sea the day before which ended up with us swimming one of his turns between us.
We had joined in the event to help him out as he’d planned to do it solo, paid his money and then found that he couldn’t really swim. I don’t think he got our humour, maybe it was the masks we wore that I’d made with his face on, or the lurid stories that we told on the bus that didn’t suit his kind of lifestyle. Getting him to pose as Quasimodo before our trip to Notre Dame perhaps was the final straw. I wasn’t that bothered about the cathedral and as the Champ mentioned a few times after “they burnt the place down after Dan Earthquake visited.” Afterwards, the other chap never spoke to us again. He may still be recovering from the experience.
“I was the keyboard man in a rock and ska band,” (as Donald Fagen told us in the Steely Dan song Cousin Dupree) but I also sang – and still do on road trips with or without passengers. They can always get out and hitchhike. I was on road again to the South West last week heading to a judo course for helping elderly and injured people minimise the effects of falling over. I found myself singing my usual anthem by Roger Alan Wade. It sums up a lot of my philosophy and life: “If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough. If you get knocked down you better get back up.”
See you down the road.
