Defenseload

My goodness would you look at the time!

Well, the Tour de France is over, so please join me in congratulating the winner, Chris Froome:


By the way, I should point out that wearing cycling shorts with your sumo loincloth is the equivalent of wearing underwear with your cycling shorts, which makes Froome a total Sumo Fred.

Anyway, if you didnt follow the race this year youre not alone (hi!), and Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay (who is the only remaining mainstream journalist who continues to take the sport seriously) suggests this could be due to the sports financial inequality:


Chris Froome won the Tour de France on Sunday, his third in four years. This was not a big shocker. Froome seized first place on the first day of the Tour’s second week, and, outside of a Three Stooges-style fiasco in which he lost his bike in a crash and briefly ran up Mont Ventoux in his yellow cycling shoes, that was pretty much that. Presumed competition never materialized. Once more, Froome and his team, Sky, were too deep and dominant, suffocating all challengers and turning the final ride to Paris into another ceremonial, soft-pedaling coronation.

Hmm, a dominant rider with an illness backstory and a strong team powering to yet another unsurprising Tour de France win?  Where have we seen this sort of thing before?  I seem to recall similar scenarios playing out back in the early aughts (right down to the thrilling "fiascos"), but when I went to check out the results from those years the winners name had been stricken from the record books:


Im sure theres a pretty juicy story there, maybe somebody can fill me in.

In any case, Froome knows those "marginal gains" dont come cheap:

Still, Froome acknowledged something significant the other day. He admitted that if he rode not for the well-funded Sky, which can afford to surround him with well-paid lieutenants, but for a smaller, lower-budgeted outfit, he probably would not be in the running for the yellow jersey. “If I was riding for a small team, it would be different,” Froome said.

No shit.

Indeed, Sky somehow manage to spend €35 million on racing their bicycles, while other teams like Cannondale-Drapac are forced to scrounge the contents of Skys half-eaten gel packets and hoard Nashbar coupon codes:

During the Tour, the French sports newspaper L’Equipe estimated Sky’s budget at €35 million, or $38.4 million. There are a couple of teams in that financial orbit, but many others with less than half or even a third of that budget (L’Equipe estimated the budget for the well-liked American Cannondale-Drapac team at €10 million, or about $11 million.) There is worry that this disparity is draining excitement out of the Tour—at least in the overall yellow jersey competition—because the have-nots do not have the personnel. Froome possesses a phalanx of teammates who would be leaders on other squads, giving Sky staggering ability to control the race. If you include Bradley Wiggins’s yellow jersey in 2012 (for which Froome was Wiggins’s top domestique), Sky has won four out of the last five Tours. ( 21st Century Fox Inc. owns 39% of Sky PLC, the major sponsor of Team Sky. Until 2013, 21st Century Fox and The Wall Street Journal owner News Corp. were part of the same company.)

See, heres how it works: In this sport, you gotta make the money first.  Then when you get the money, you get the power.  Then when you get the power, then you get the jersey.  Thats why Sky is the Tony Montana of cycling teams:




And what could be simpler than that?  Indeed, what could be more American than that?  Rapidly-growing income inequality and real power concentrated in the hands of the very few is what this countrys all about.  If anything, between that and the fact the riders keep getting hit by motor vehicles Im surprised pro cycling isnt Americas national sport.  Alas, this has not happened, and ironically the handful of Americans who have weathered the scandals and remain in the sport want socialism:

The push for financial leveling has been kicking around the sport for a while. Advocates include Cannondale-Drapac boss Jonathan Vaughters, who thinks some version of a budget cap will not only improve competition, but also bring badly-needed stability to the sport. Cycling’s every-team-for-itself approach is undoubtedly chaotic—teams open and shut every year on the whims of sponsors, donors and even governments.

"...said Vaughters as he combed the road shoulder for discarded bidons."

But is the financial gap really whats taking the excitement out of the Tour?  Or is it the fact that the race is fucking long?

Meanwhile, a budget cap is not the only suggestion out there to spice up the Tour. There are also appeals to reduce the number teams, or the number of riders on teams (from the current nine to maybe six or seven) or tinkering with stage formats and distances. Stapleton thinks a lot of Tour stages go on way too long and favors “shorter, more intense” races. Velon is using technology like on-board cameras to change the way the sport is seen.

This makes good sense--until you realize that nobody gives a shit about the shorter races either.

And yes, Im looking at you, ironically-sponsored bike race:


Meanwhile, in parenting news, a former pro skateboarder wants your kid to wear a helmet:


In skateboarding, as in life, no kid wants to be seen as uncool — even if being “cool” means a broken arm and 3 hours in the emergency room. And in a sport where wearing safety gear is shunned, few pieces of equipment are considered as uncool as the helmet.

Okay, sure, but what the hell do helmets and broken arms have to do with each other?

I dont know, but heres his reasoning, and if youre anything like me when a pro skater gives you life advice you listen and you listen good:

“In the end I had 3 good reasons: My wife and my 2 daughters,” says Vallely, “I wanted to be around [for them]. When I step on my skateboard today, I wear a helmet.” And while he calls his decision a “personal” one (and doesn’t want to be seen as hoping on — and probably grinding off — a soapbox), that hasn’t stopped him from joining forces with safety gear company Triple Eight to launch the Get Used to It campaign, aimed at raising awareness for helmet use and head safety. In the end, he hopes helmets are treated like seat belts (“It should be intuitive. Just click it and go.”) and has strong feelings about getting kids to wear one, as well as why not having brain damage is better than being cool.

Wait a minute.  30 years of pro skating and now suddenly hes worried about not wearing a helmet?  I mean, I dont begrudge him at all for "joining forces" with a safety gear company (I certainly hope theyre paying him to do this), but it seems to me that if he got this far without a helmet hes in the clear.

But its not just about him, its also about the children, wont somebody think of the children:

Get Them While They’re Young
Convincing teen skaters – especially serious ones – today about the virtues of wearing a helmet is pretty much a lost cause, says Vallely. “They’re just entrenched against it.” That’s why it’s critical to slap a lid on your youngest before he or she even knows what cool means. Inevitably, they’re going to face pressure to ditch the helmet, be it from friends (or corporate sponsors). You want the idea of not getting brain damage to be so deeply ingrained in their undamaged brain that they don’t give it a second thought. “Families need to be steadfast in their commitment to protecting their heads,” says Vallely. “Kids need to be encouraged to keep the helmets on [as they get older].”

Sadly, this entire paragraph is completely undermined by the photo that follows it:


Thats not a helmet, thats a choking hazard.

I wondered if this same publication had any cycling-specific advice for neurotic parents, and indeed they did:

Heres what they had to say:

Remember when you were young, and nobody wore helmets? What wonderful, idiotic days those were. Since massive brain injuries are less cool than wearing a helmet, you should probably find the right one for the whole family.

Wow, talk about idiotic!  Its true bike fatalities are down for kids, but the reason for this is that kids dont ride anymore:


Idiots.

The article then immediately goes on to explain why kids falling off their bikes is no big deal:

The Smaller the Kid, The Shorter the Fall
Because your child isn’t named Johnny Knoxville, you understandably get upset when they take a nosedive into the pavement. But you also should realize that falling hurts less for young kids. “When they’re young, they don’t have a long way to fall, they don’t carry a lot of speed, and they don’t have a lot of mass, so they bounce right back up,” says Wells. “When they’re young, they bend.”

But somehow if theyre not wearing a helmet theyre an idiot and theyre going to die.

Still, I do agree that you should always wear one when robbing a bank:


His parents obviously raised him right.

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My Night time Skincare Routine

Growing up with acne from the age of 11 has definitely made me more conscious of having a good skincare routine. Unfortunately, having cystic acne meant that no amount of topical cream, lotions and potions would make those pesky spots disappear. My video on how I got rid of my acne is here if youre interested . As ive gotten older and my acne has dramatically improved, I feel its really important to keep on top of my skincare to insure that the regular spots many of us get caused by hormones, diet and pollution are kept at bay.

Ive tried and tested many skin care products over the years, but I feel ive finally got the right balance of products to keep my skin clear, clean and hydrated so I thought it would share them with you in my latest video! Id love it if you went and gave the video a little like if you found it helpful and be sure to leave me a comment  too!

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More Arguing About Women In Video Games But This Time the Women Can Beat You Up

Frankly, I want my avatar to look more like this ...

The argument about how women should be portrayed in video games rages inexplicably on. Speaking as someone who writes these things for money, not systematically alienating half the human population and almost half of actual gamers is just good business.

Happily, progress is being made. There have been quite a few games out this year, indie and AAA, that prominently feature interesting women as main characters and supporting cast. (e.g. Gone Home. Last of Us. Tomb Raider. Bioshock: Infinite, sorta.)

Were getting there. Fossilized designs like Grand Theft Auto V are increasingly out of place. But angry young men on forums make it seem like theres an actual controversy, so on we go.

Its all kind of a waste, because, as far as Im concerned, the interview that should settle the argument decisively came out in September, and it didnt get nearly as much attention as it should have.

Its an interview with two female soldiers, one who served in Afghanistan and one who served in Iraq, about how women are portrayed in gunshooters.

Its full of great quotes, but heres a nice one, talking about Call of Duty (which only finally put in playable female soldiers in the newest title) ...

Its because you have men who are designing these games in the first place. Put me, or any of the women who have served in charge of a shooter that includes women as the main protagonists. You can bet that youll get a character who is far more concerned about her kill streak than she is her makeup or how she looks. And you can believe she wouldnt be running around in a bikini either. Save that for Dead or Alive where the women dont do any real combat, and flounce around with their tits bouncing like they are in a rodeo.

I think that this should be the beginning of the end of the conversation. Heres why.

... than this.

Soldiers and Video Games, The Basics

Bear in mind here that video games are insanely popular among soldiers overseas, as they provide a reliable distraction during the inevitable seemingly infinite hours of boredom and inactivity.

I have received so many e-mails from soldiers who wanted to get my games up and running before they leave on a long deployment. Of course, I find it impossible to reject requests like that.

The Last Stand of Principle

Of course, in our society, pretty much any moral principle can instantly be abandoned if the money is right. In the video game industry, its gotten to the point where anyone’s appeal to basic ethics is generally treated with open mockery. (How many huge games in the last year or two shipped in a basically non-functional state?)

There is one principle, however, that is almost never questioned by the sane: The people who chose to sacrifice years of their lives (and perhaps their entire life) to defend their countries deserve respect.

The people willing to die for us should be honored for that. Must it be said that this is still true when they are women?

From the upcoming game, Warface. This is a PR image. Everything about it was carefully planned. What does it want to say, and what does it want to teach? (Answer below.)

So Here Is The Absolute Minimum That Is Required

One. If its a game about soldiers, female avatars should be available whenever possible. With a AAA budget, there is NO excuse to not have this in the multiplayer. You can afford it.

Two. Women soldiers should look like soldiers. When someone goes overseas and gives up years of her life in public service, she should not see that her culture regards woman warriors as a bunch of mindless sex dolls.

I mean, right?

And lets be clear. I know game devs. Ive been around them for decades. They are mostly doughy, deskbound guys who never came within a thousand miles of serving in the military. That these guys are insulting the women doing the tough job so few of them signed up for is truly galling.

Answer: Thank you for your service.

And It Matters

Culture matters. I mean theres not a question, right? The images we surround ourselves with affect us. Why are such massive fortunes spent on advertising? You think they dont affect people? Corporations like wasting money?

(And dont kid yourself. There is a wealth of research that says that ads do affect you, even when you dont realize it.)

We absorb the media around us, and it shapes us. Nobody plays these games more than kids, and kids learn.

So ask yourself the question. What do you want young people to learn? Not what it is easiest or most profitable to teach them. Ask what we want. What is best for the country. What is just. What is right.

Im no white knight. The women in the interview dont need my help or my pity. They do, however, deserve respect. Depicting soldiers as soldiers, man or woman, seems like a tiny, reasonable way to start.

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As always, were still on Facebook and Twitter.

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Monsters and snacks Pyjama Pants PLUS that myfabrics co uk discount code one last time!

So if you fancy splashing out on some of their stock, remember you have until the end of this month (September 2016) to use the following code: SoZo16 to receive £10 off your myfabrics.co.uk order (minimum order £60). The fine print is that the code can only be once per order, and once per customer, and not in combination with other vouchers.

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