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From Daniel as regards last Funny Friday's cartoons:
Otto
Best Friday funny to date I had to pick myself off the floor.
Daniel
Thanks Daniel.
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From David as regards the post on Tour de France Information and Trivia:
Your piece on le Tour de France was very interesting. However one interesting fact that you overlooked is how le Tour was spawned by the Dreyfus Affair of 1894
Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish army captain, was sentenced to life imprisonment for selling military secrets to the Germans. In fact he was innocent, but evidence of that was suppressed by the army. Inevitably it leaked and the Dreyfus Affair became a major controversy. Le Velo, a leading daily newspaper, was pro-Dreyfus but many of its major advertisers were anti-Dreyfus. Matters came to a head with a brawl at Aiteuil race track in 1899 involving Pierre Giffard - editor of Le Velo - and Comte Jules-Albert de Dion - a leading industrialist and advertiser in Le Velo.
Led by the Compte many of the industrialists pulled their advertisibg and forned their own newspaper, originally called L'Auto-Velo and changed to L'Auto in 1903. As sales were not good they decided to sponsor a new type of bicycle race, a multi day tour, and thus was born Le Tour de France. Both the Tour and L'Auto went from strength to strength, the paper now being called L'Equipe.
But it is rather depressing to think that the world's greatest sporting event is a result of early twentieth century anti Semitism
Thanks David.
Alfred Dreyfus
Maurice Garin enters Paris as the winner of the inaugural Tour de France
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The following item is by Luminita D Saviuc. A more detailed version with extra commentary appears on her blog at:
Makes sense to me.
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