Like Father, Like Daughter

I'm a Daddy's girl, at heart. I love my Mumma dearly and she's ace, but Dad is, after all, the first man in my life and therefore, the most special.

Tomorrow, I'm going to have a day all to myself with him, because he's taking me to see my very first Opera! We are going to the Royal Opera House to see Boris Godunov performed by the Bolshoi Opera. Ooooh, how exciting.

Also, because he's a verbose man with a lot of opinions and he can't help sending them to those he feels may benefit, my Dad has just made his first leap into being published on the internet - please go here to read his report on Mr Landis on the British Cycling homepage. If that doesn't load - which it didn't at first, on my pc - here's what he wrote:

"I will be mortified if the B sample provided by Floyd Landis turns out to be positive. I have watched this epic sport for years, loved every minute and admired every rider. Spectating competitive cycling has given me some of the best moments of my life and I take my hat off to all these competitors but still the disgrace of drugs haunts this sport with all the recent events you know about."

"I'm in my 62nd year now and after being involved in an RTA in December last year I spent 9 months recovering from broken pelvis and other injuries. I rode my son's turbo standing up to aid recovery because I couldn't sit for months and got so fit I decided to begin racing this year. It's been Surrey League events so far: 3 races entered with 3 more to come before end of the season. I've finished every one so far - epic, gut-wrenching, punishing but inspiritational stuff, all of it."

"This sport belongs to all the riders, watchers, supporters, members and we are all utterly devastated when the drug allegations appear. So, I am calling for an un-equivocal lifetime ban for any rider caught using drugs, abusing our trust, demeaning and trivialising all the other decent sports people who claw their way out of the bunch. No ambiguity, an un-equivocal lifetime ban - in other words never to be allowed to race professionally again, to end this cheating once and for all."

He'd make an excellent blogger, I'll warrant.

Right, I'm now off to forage for foodstuffs as there's nowt to eat in my house except EGGS and then I'm going to settle down and watch as much Dr Who on DVD as I can until I fall asleep.

BLISS