Just as, in the States, American football is simply football, so, in France, Le Lour de France is simply Le Tour. It shows on screens in bars, it dominates conversation, it is the subject each day of the front page headlines in L’Equipe, the national sports daily. And it also features on my iPad between 2.30 and 5.30 each afternoon. You’re right, Le Tour has become yet another obsession. When I saw at first hand the riders taking a 90 degree left turn at around 50 kilometres an hour in Uzès a few years back, I was fascinated and full of admiration. And when, on the 14th of July three years ago, Le Tour came through our village, with Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome at the front of the pelaton, I became a real fan. (See, if you are minded, Lettres d’Uzès #26.)

Le Tour fits neatly into my self-appointed schedule. La canicule, the heatwave, has been dominant for several weeks now, keeping the temperatures up in the high 30s, or close to 100 in old money. Which sounds idyllic, but can be too much of a good thing. Domestic chores must be completed early in the morning before it becomes too hot to attempt them or even contemplate doing so. And my determination to write the final 100,000 words of this damn thriller can wane as quickly as the temperature rises.

But I am persevering. Two of the three planned murders have been committed. The protagonist has assembled his team of co-conspirators. And the location of the action has been successfully moved across the Atlantic. It’s going well.

I try to work at it from first thing until TV coverage of Le Tour begins, when I stop pondering the fate of ‘60s radicals and instead marvel at the power of Froome and Quintana, Contador and – our new hero – Geraint Evans.

Are they doping? I think not and I hope not. In my capacity as a member of IBWAA, I have refused to vote into the Hall of Fame the likes of Bonds and Clements, Sosa and McGuire. I am totally opposed to PEDs in sport. But I am also conscious that, because most of us have no access to hard evidence either way, our reaction tends to be based on whether or not we like the individual concerned.

I like Big Papi. I don’t like A-Rod. I like Froome (although not as much as I like Bradley Wiggins) but I didn’t like Armstrong.

I am aware of the parallels between Team Sky and US Postal. I find the ranks of Team Sky, riding en masse in their black uniforms, unfortunately reminiscent of a Panzer brigade powering through Belgium. I am also, of course, instinctively antagonistic to anything funded by Murdoch.

But I do believe that extraordinary burst of power on the first day in the Pyrenees was the result of innate talent and very hard work. It was unexpected. It was exhilarating. It was sporting in every sense.

Vive le tour!

Today from the everysmith vaults: There is something of a Nashville fest going on at the moment, inspired perhaps by the anniversary of Blonde on Blonde. I have been listening to The Dead in Nashville in ‘78, now the latest official release, although I listened to the excellent Charlie Miller AUD recording. But right now, I have playing Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats. The Dylan and Cash tracks are less interesting(because more familiar) than the work of Nashville cats themselves. I commend it to you.

There are very few compensations for being parted from Jill for a couple of weeks, but on my recent sojourn in the UK for family reasons (Leamington Letters #96), I benefitted from at least two.

The first was the final three Grateful Dead shows at Soldier Field, Chicago. Jill not only missed the bus, but when she saw it, she jumped in a cab and disappeared in the opposite direction. 

So the fact that all three shows were available as a modestly-priced stream allowed me to indulge myself in the early hours of the mornings of Saturday, Sunday and Monday before watching the Sunday show for a second time at the Showcase Cinema on Monday night in the company of 300 or so local Deadheads. The sight of a motley crew of ageing groovers, some (though not me) in tie-dye, attempting to relive and celebrate their past must have been quite a revelation to the youngsters heading for Jurassic World, Minions and Magic Mike XXL, especially as I – a month short of 66 years of age – was one of the youngest in attendance. But hey, love-is-love-and-not-fade-away.

The Stalinist Deadheads have given these gigs some serious stick, but I enjoyed Friday and Sunday a lot. (Saturday less so, but then I was never a fan of Saturday shows – too many songs!) Lesh, Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart can still do it. Trey is not note-for-note Jerry but closer in spirit than the likes of John Kadlecik and, although I never embraced any of the Dead keyboard players after Keith, if I had to choose one, it would be Bruce Hornsby. And if you had to choose just one song from the entire run, it would be Cassidy on Sunday. Quite beautiful. Every component playing as one. Will never tire of it thanks to Bill Walker and NYCTaper.

So, a fitting celebration of 50 years of the Grateful Dead and of course, for me, a celebration of 47 years of my own life – and somehow appropriate that it took place in the early hours of the morning: much of my listening to Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa, for example, took place in seedy undergraduate rooms during those hours in the company of other nighthawks.

These days, of course, if I am still around at that time, it is because of the Red Sox. I am getting too old to live entire summers on Eastern Standard Time, so I welcome lunchtime games at Fenway. And I certainly welcomed the games played during my Jill-less fortnight. The Sox actually won four successive games and started playing the kind of baseball we expect.

We are still in the basement of a pretty poor ALE, of course. And there are many causes for concern. But it is a positive pleasure to see Mookie and Bogey proving that they are no longer prospects but accomplished ballplayers. Eddie Rodriguez has been sensational and really looks the part. Clay is, as Rick Hough pointed out to me, “more Mississippi John Hurt than John Lee Hooker” but he has pitched superbly before this latest trip to the DL. Ramirez is a great DH in waiting if we can sort out how to play Papi (maybe at 1st a couple of times a week?) and it is no accident that our W total has improved since the return of Ryan Hanigan. He’s not ‘Tek, but he’s very, very good.

As things stand, the morning after beating the Yankees last night (and as England beat Australia), I am not optimistic of a Red October. I think the season is over from that point of view. But these guys are good enough to give us a lot of fun times between now and then. And I have been spectacularly wrong before. I hope I am this year.

One thing I know, though: Dead shows and Sox wins don't compensate for being parted from Ms Every! 

Today from the everysmith vaults: Not, at this moment, one of the Chicago Fare Thee Well shows, but the first Santa Clara gig and What’s become of the baby? – an extraordinary piece which I had never heard live before and, to be honest, never thought such a thing was possible.

 

At midday on the 1st of July, a dozen or so of us walked down the Stairway to Heaven – the final furlong of the Cheltenham race course – until we reached the location of the last hurdle where my brother Nick and I scattered the ashes of our beloved brother Ian.

Ian lived most of his adult life either at sea or in Florida, so we didn’t see a great deal of him. But we knew he was always back in the UK for the Cheltenham Festival, where he contributed in no small measure to the continuing profitability of assorted bookmakers and licensees in the locality. He also, as I discovered when talking to his friends, contributed immeasurably to the happiness and joy of his fellow race-goers and dinner companions.

He was a good man. I loved him. It was profoundly sad to watch the pancreatic cancer take hold and diminish him physically but never mentally. He fought hard and uncomplainingly but even Ian couldn't resist the inexorable destructive power of the cancer.

To accompany the scattering, we had a simple service. A priest of the Anglican persuasion held it together with the familiar incantations – dust to dust, ashes to ashes – before Nick, a friend also called Ian and I each said a few words.

My words were not mine. They were those of Constantine Cavafy, a poem called Ithaka, the cadences and content of which seemed to me appropriate for a seafaring man who reached his destination too soon. Here it is:

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbours you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind--
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.


Today from the everysmith vaults: I was in front of my computer at 1am for the live stream of the first of the Chicago Fare Thee Well shows by those members of the Dead who aren't dead. Well worth the sleep deficit, especially the second set and especially Help on the Way > Slipknot! > Franklin's. And the encore was Ripple:

You who choose to lead must follow,
But if you fall you fall alone.
If you should stand then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home.