Up yours, you son of a gun! (geddit?)

[I’m rather proud of my headline today – for the slow off the mark, it’s a clever (I think) oblique reference to the rapid-firing Gatling gun – a forerunner of the machine gun – patented by US inventor Richard Gatling on 4th November 1862.]

In the world ‘as we’d like it and as it ought to be’ the good guys would win out and the baddies would be caught and exposed for what they are.

It was easier in the good old days of our youth, of course.

That was when TV western series like Hopalong Cassidy (played by white-haired William Boyd) Bronco (featuring cowpoke Bronco Layne played by Ty Hardin) and The Lone Ranger (played by Clayton Moore) made things easy for the viewers by the former wearing white hats and the baddies wearing black – although, of course, my original favourite as a small boy –  Hopalong Cassidy – was the classic exception that proved the rule because he habitually wore a black hat!

Part of the enduring appeal of now-retired iconic athlete – and ‘fastest man on Earth’ – Usain Bolt was that he never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs during his entire career. This was a source of both pride and not a little satisfaction during an era when it felt like at least 50% of all elite international sprinters had either drugs offence ‘convictions’ or suspicions hanging over them.

Who can forget, at the conclusion of the 2015 World Championships men’s 100 metres final in Beijing, British commentator Steve Cram’s exclamation (uttered as much in relief as excitement) as the Jamaican superstar ‘dipped’ just in time to edge out (the then 28-race unbeaten) Justin Gatlin at the finishing line?

“… Bolt has saved his title, he’s saved his reputation, he may have even saved his sport …!”

See it here, courtesy of – YOUTUBE

I’m not normally minded to kick a man when he’s down, but such has been Gatlin’s chequered history of drugs offences and bans – no doubt all of which he denied in advance of the relevant hearings and then, after being sentenced, has continued to deny – that the overnight news of Gatlin’s own management entourage being caught red-handed in a ‘sting’ (by journalists in a report originally exclusive to The Daily Telegraph) not only offering someone performance-enhancing drugs, but also advising that getting around the testing regimes was a piece of cake, has given at least 20% extra to my anticipated enjoyment of the festive season.

(Before I provide my usual service of directing Rust readers to a report of the story in question I must add my repetitive gripe against The Daily Telegraph – viz. that although my preference would have been to have given due credit to that newspaper by ‘linking’ to their own report, I am unable to do so.

This is because of my objection in principle to being forced to pay a subscription to access ‘premium’ Daily Telegraph articles online: the Telegraph specifically prevents its website visitors from doing this. Since I am a habitual regular Telegraph reader – and pay the standard price for a copy of the newspaper every weekday of my life – I fundamentally object to having to pay a second time to ‘read’ – or commend by linking – any Telegraph story online when I have  already paid (or will do) to read it in newsprint).

Accordingly, I now take some small satisfaction from linking my Rust readers to the piece by Alex Raskin and Scott Campbell – on said Daily Telegraph story – that appears today upon the website of the – DAILY MAIL