In reply to Presley Whippet:
> Head firmly in hands and feeling old.
Your choice, I guess.
> Climbing well in the road to becoming a sport where supporters wear replica shirts.
It really isn't.
> We got into it because we couldn't bear football and rugby.
Seems like an oddly negative motivation, but OK. Not everyone is the same. I got into it because it seemed like the next logical step from hill walking and scrambling, because it seemed to take you to places most people couldn't get to, because it seemed exciting and challenging, because it took place in (mostly) beautiful environments - to name a few reasons off the top of my head. Certainly didn't get into it because it lacked a "uniform" - which ( as you allude to) it had anyways. My Ron Hills were blue with a white strip. My wife's were plain black. I'm sure some people got into climbing for similar reasons, some for totally different ones. I don't personally feel the need to dismiss those with motivations other to mine.
> Fashion articles in our media, who is wearing what, who is sponsored by whom.
I'm pretty sure OTE (or, if not, the other one around at the time - "Climber and Rambler"?) had the occasional fashion piece in them. I'm also sure sponsorship was occasionally mentioned.
> Thankfully the real world for me is far detached from this nonsense.
Why is the world beyond what you personally experience and approve of "nonsense" . I (like you) don't much care for football, but I don't feel the need to dismiss other's attachment to it by posting negative stuff in the Euro thread.
> Please, in memoriam put team GB in Ron Hills, it is only right.
Actually, if team GB (all one of her), was to make this sort of a stand, then I'd quite like to see tweed britches and red woolly socks. Preferably combined with a scruffy white jumper, a cloth cap and a half-smoked woodbine. That, I definitely would like to see
[Edit] Actually, having cogitated upon it, the main initial reason I got into climbing was because I'd just seen Stone Monkey on Ch4. I managed to delude myself that I too could be like Johnny Dawes. In that, like in so many things, I was wrong.
Post edited at 02:45