I think Sharon Stone may have been treated a little unfairly over the whole chinese earthquake ‘bad karma’ story. If you missed it, this was her quote:
“I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else,” she said. “… and then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?”
I agree that it’s a stupid and somewhat thoughtless comment, but it’s guaranteed to attract international attention and that’s exactly what Sharon Stone needs if she’s ever going to be associated with something other than flashing her fanny in a movie made 16 years ago. I’m sure she’d far rather be known as bad karma woman than have the words ‘infamous leg-crossing scene’ permanently attached to her name, no matter what else she does. Especially now that crotch shots have become two-a-penny (for a Spears/Hilton combo).
But the rights and wrongs of wafting your vag around isn’t really my point. In my recent blog about my warped sense of sexism I mentioned my dislike of all-women’s training groups, paticularly the Austin Iron Chicks. It fits with my general pattern of hypocrisy that I went mountain biking with the group Ride Like A Girl last night. I don’t like the name, I think the cleverness of it only really applies to women who have the balls to ride like a man. For the rest of us it just means what it says. I had a horrible drive up there, karma was getting warmed up. There were about 50 or so women and as I was on my own I stood back and tried to size them up and decide who I could take out in a race. We were divided into self-selected groups based on our riding ability, I decided to go with the Fast Beginners because I was unsure about riding in my new clipless pedals and also because I thought I’d totally outshine everyone else with my natural ability, which may not have been so apparent in the next group up, the Slow Intermediates.
Pride comes before a fall. So I did. And it hurt a lot. As with my last fall, it was less than spectacular and pretty standard for someone new to clipless pedals. We crossed a stream and then went straight into a climb. I’m a bit rubbish at hills, despite my giant thighs and so I ground to a halt, couldn’t get my feet out of my pedals in time and fell onto my hip and elbow. Onto sharp rocks. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the chinese laughing.
If we’d been riding with men I think I would have acted all tough and got back on my bike and thought nothing of it, despite the blood that was trickling down my arm. But even though there was very little fussing around me, I had to do the bottom lip biting thing to stop myself crying. I then made lots of ouchy noises for the rest of the ride and if anyone asked me how I was I had to look away and pretend I had dirt in my eye. Once I was home I had a good lady cry, but only after I threw one of my mountain biking shoes at the wall of the garage in a temper. Just to show it. It would have been brilliant if the shoe had bounced back and hit me on the head. I’m hoping to find they’re made in China, just to really tie up this blog entry.