An afternoon excursion.

Written By: - Date published: 4:18 pm, August 21st, 2011 - 31 comments
Categories: humour - Tags: , , , ,

About now or very shortly, Trevor Mallard and Cameron Slater should be dismounting from the cycling race that has obsessively awaited by the right on the blogosphere. I’ve been aware of that this ‘political’ event was going to happen because of the frequent waffling that shows up on posts from the right.

I still don’t have a clear picture of how or why this event came about (oh found it).

Whaleoil has been less than complimentary on my rate of recovery.
In fact he now refers to me as a cripple.
Well let’s get the challenge out there.

To be perfectly frank it sounds as mindlessly idiotic as any of Whales obsessions. I remember that – Whale was droning on and on about Trevor’s slow rate of recovery from his horrific cycling accident earlier this year.

But it was a nice day earlier (clouding over now) and I’m mildly stir crazy after a few months pushing a project towards beta release. There also have been some lousy weekends recently keeping me indoors. So I went along to the start with the roof down on the seldom used vehicle. I try to run it at least once a month to justify the taxes on it.

As I rather anticipated, Whale had quite a large cortege of the politically trivial in support. Apart from Trevor’s support team, I think that Lyn and I were the only ones from the left. This was hardly surprising based on the relative interest from the left and right of the blogosphere. Trevor wrote about a few times mostly in relation to his recovery and no-one else on the left did. On the right, I think that most of the blogs wrote about it. Many seemed to view this as some kind of political conflict that equaled the election in its intensity.

Anyway, I was a bit worried about Trevor’s limp and what that would mean for his performance. But I guess he knows his capabilities better then I. Fortunately the upright car fraternity who were cluttering the road with their honking horns and flathead petrol vapour departed. So I saw the riders off..

Here are a few photos from the cellphone. And I’ll check later to see if they both completed the course – the only real ‘victory’ of political interest bearing in mind Trevors post accident condition and Whales stomach. It’d be a pain to lose either Labour’s campaign manager or the political clown of the political blogosphere.

Oh, just as I posted it, r0b sent through that Trevor won – easily… Now can we get back to the election? And some matters of actual importance.

31 comments on “An afternoon excursion. ”

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  1. r0b 1
    21 August 2011 at 4:25 pm

    Congratulations to Trev on what appears to have been a pretty easy win. Final time not yet known, because Slater hasn’t finished yet, but Trev was ahead by over 11 minutes at 40 km / 60).

    http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23WhalevsDuck

    But congratulations to Cameron Slater too.  He put the work in, and gave it a go.  Apparently it’s been very good for his health both physically and mentally, so that’s a big win too. 

  2. Anne 2
    21 August 2011 at 4:51 pm

    But congratulations to Cameron Slater too. He put the work in, and gave it a go.

    Well he had to didn’t he. Wasn’t he the one who made the challenge? He was still describing Trevor as a cripple right up to the start of the race, so I hate to think what other adjectives would have been forthcoming if he had won. Nonetheless, if it’s given him a boost to his physical and mental health then it was certainly worthwhile. I hope he keeps it up.

    • lprent 2.1
      21 August 2011 at 5:01 pm

      Nope. Trevor issued the challenge – because Whale kept referring to him as a cripple. I guess that Whale now knows that he can be defeated even by a cripple.

      The problem is that Cameron has kind of locked himself into his rather flakey personality these days. He doesn’t have any real chance at working as far as I can see. So I suspect that he rather defines himself by the blogging.

      The problem is that he really isn’t that good at it as far as I can see in either his writing or his page views. Of course he don’t publish his page views at Open Parachute, so you can only really look at the comments (minimal) and what shows at alexa. The latter goes up and down like a yo-yo which tends to indicate that he has a small audience with a lot of them having alexa running (anyone with any sense would not – so of course most RWNJ’s do).

      • Anne 2.1.1
        21 August 2011 at 5:08 pm

        Thanks for the correction. I probably thought it was the other way round because ‘Whale’ was making so much noise about it.

    • SHG 2.2
      22 August 2011 at 1:16 am

      One of the two participants took time off from being Campaign Manager for the Labour Party three months out from the election in order to participate in this little event, at a time when Labour is polling under 30% and its Leader in single figures.

      • r0b 2.2.1
        22 August 2011 at 6:26 am

        Yup.  Healthy body, healthy mind.  Well done Trev.

      • lprent 2.2.2
        22 August 2011 at 8:53 am

        I don’t think that anyone in Labour (including Trevor) was going to stop Trevor from getting back into condition again. Looking at his limp, I think that he was a bit optimistic about timing myself. I doubt that coming up to Auckland for a funeral and also winning a race against a blowhard affects the election outcome in any way. In my long campaigning experience most of a campaign managers jobs is in strategy and direction. It isn’t particularly time sensitive this far out from the campaign. It might be rather distracting though (although Trevor seems to get his best ideas on a bike).

        Btw: realize you have reading and comprehension issues, but please read my posts to the end before you repeat something that was already said. Otherwise my moderator instincts will look at you and start thinking that you are a fire and forget troll.

        • Carol 2.2.2.1
          22 August 2011 at 8:58 am

          although Trevor seems to get his best ideas on a bike

          I find that exercising is good for stimulating ideas. I think that this is true for a lot of people.

  3. jackal 3
    21 August 2011 at 4:54 pm

    Hopefully the cripple insults will stop now. Personally I found it pretty sad that Cameron Slater was so full of it about beating Trevor Mallard. Confidence is OK but arrogant posturing is not. Cameron Slater’s diatribe was clearly in the latter category, and now that he’s lost he looks even more the fool!

  4. Irene Natalie Sylvander 4
    21 August 2011 at 4:55 pm

    I am delighted that Trevor won (I never had any doubt that he would not win) and I congratulate
    Cameron Slater on his effort- good wishes to both of them- (now perhaps Cameron will realise who has the winning team)- Irene S.

  5. Hilary 5
    21 August 2011 at 5:02 pm

    The disablist language and assumptions are unnecessary and demeaning.

    • lprent 5.1
      21 August 2011 at 5:14 pm

      By whom?

      Cameron was the one using it, and I beleive everyone else was quoting him in response. Somehow I suspect that trying to get Cameron to change his language would be as hard as trying to get him to think things through before writing posts.

      • Anne 5.1.1
        21 August 2011 at 5:59 pm

        Cameron was the one using it, and I beleive everyone else was quoting him in response.

        Correct.

  6. Rich 6
    21 August 2011 at 5:18 pm

    Can we have some cage fighting now?

    How about Bomber vs Don Brash?

  7. Craig Glen Eden 7
    21 August 2011 at 5:53 pm

    So Mallard beats big mouth Slater( no surprises Mallard is a good recreational cyclist even if injured).
    Key runs from Goff questions in Parliament.
    English and Ryall refuse to debate with Cunliffe on asset sales on Q and A so Brash decides he will and gets his arse kicked.

  8. mickysavage 8
    21 August 2011 at 7:32 pm

    Cameron’s estimate of his cycling ability relative to Trevor’s is as accurate as his utterances on the inner workings of the Labour Party …

  9. Carol 9
    21 August 2011 at 7:59 pm

    So did they do something useful with this event? use it as a focus for fund-raising for a good cause? Or was it mostly about 2 egos? Although, I do think any recreational cycling is a good & healthy thing & enjoyable.

    • Anne 9.1
      21 August 2011 at 8:07 pm

      I think Mallard was fed up with Slater’s attempts to demean him by repeatedly calling him ‘a cripple’. Decided to teach Slater a lesson methinks. Fair enough in the circumstances.

  10. Dave 10
    21 August 2011 at 9:09 pm

    All Trevor’s done with this race is lend credibility to Natonal’s chief smear artist. Slater was the real winner today.

    • bbfloyd 10.1
      21 August 2011 at 10:09 pm

      i’m sure you’re right davey… meanwhile, i have a brand new rolex that would look good on your wrist for $50.00… shop soiled…

  11. ak 11
    21 August 2011 at 9:43 pm

    Ah well, at least all the tories can stop abstaining for the Slater now – boy, that invisible hand’s gonna get a work-out tonight…..

    • bbfloyd 11.1
      21 August 2011 at 10:10 pm

      you always do get to the meat of an issue quickly ak…

    • Axle 11.2
      22 August 2011 at 12:25 am

      That is fabulous actually ak. I have NEVER thought about the invisible hand in that way. Write a book mate. Title: ‘Fat White Men with Bad Hygiene and Daddy Complexes’.

  12. robertguyton 12
    21 August 2011 at 11:19 pm

    What is it about slater-racing that’s so appealing?
    Flea-circuses too, and cockroach fighting.
    The tooth and claw word of insects.

  13. randal 13
    22 August 2011 at 9:22 am

    ole blubberguts cant win anything if its fair.

  14. randal 14
    22 August 2011 at 9:22 am

    I mean old nose oil.

  15. weizguy 15
    22 August 2011 at 7:55 pm

    Suddenly, all of the paragons of enterprise on Whale’s blog start extolling the virtues of kiwi-sport – like this one from jabba:
    “I thought you did really well and the great thing is the fit­ness improve­ment.”
    I thought the “everyone’s a winner” attitude was the thing that was bringing this country down?