Tuesday 24 June 2008

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's 2BarRiff!

And I am cute, too

I wasn't going to use this place, or any other, to eulogize my brother. After all the emotion and hassle of the last couple of months, I just wanted it over and done with and then get on with my own life.

One of my most enduring memories of 1BarRiff was him as a child, spending hours upon hours on the backyard trampoline. He would create vast worlds that he would inhabit as a superhero such as Super-1BarRiff, Bat-1BarRiff, Spider-1BarRiff or Wonder-1BarRiff (which was kinda creepy).

All this wasn't so bad, gender experimentation aside, until the day he started turning up at school proclaiming his super identities to all and sundry. To the other kids in the family this was mortifying as we were subjected to humiliation by association, while 1BarRiff, oblivious to our pain and his tormentors, tore around the school grounds it the classic Superman pose. Or tried to stick to walls in the classic, but doomed to fail, Spiderman pose. I'm glad he was never seen to do the old Wonder Woman, arms outstretched, twirly costume change thingy as I would have had to kill him to avoid the abuse from my classmates.

Now, far be it for me to let this website be about anything else, so I now need to segue into how this is all relevant to, and about, me.

I could never be a superhero, for two reasons:

1. I use my powers for evil at worst and self interest at best; and
2. I'm not good with lycra.

As the mornings have gotten colder, I did a major re-assessment of my running clothes and so ended up wearing bikeshorts and a long sleeve SKINS top while running. The SKINS gear, btw, gets a 2BarRiff 2ThumbsUp - they simply do a great job of, well, everything they claim it to do.

The main problem is that it takes so long to put this stuff on. Stuggling to get the gear over and under all the bits, and then getting the arms and, ahem, package, just so - all while not tearing the bathroom up as I waltz about, is a major endeavour.

And so Super2BarRiff would be a less than super hero as banks would be robbed and buildings burned down in the time it would take to put my underwear on over my pants.

I look good in lycra, though.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I look good in lycra, though."

I will take your word for it. [Note to self - Think of a pink elephant, think of a pink elephant ...]

As a point of historical interest, lycra was invented by Morris dancers: that's what all the hopping was about. Flamenco dancers claim to have been the first to wear it - that's why they do all the tapping; trying to get the pants on - but it's more likely that the dance is telling the story in song of a mediaeval Mediterranean cockroach plague.

Madame2Bar said...

I'm quite impressed with the lycra!