Cycling fans, take note: two amazing, unsung heroes of the sporting arts have a job which seems to more or less sum up the modern condition. For it is their calling to tidy up the vulgar graffiti painted on the Tour de France route.
Yes, all 3,500km of it. And yes, it’s an official job. And no, you probably can’t apply for it even assuming you’re keen.
The leader of the project – “Patrick” – is an undertaker by trade but takes one month a year off to literally scoot along the route the cyclists will take with an offsider and a van full of painting equipment in order to tidy up the cock’n’balls paintings along the route.
And it’s an important job because the T de F is a worldwide television drawcard and different places have different standards of what is considered suitable for broadcast. So they’re taking the “dick” out of “broadcasting jurisdictions”.
This isn’t painting them out, or scrubbing them off. Oh no no no no no. They don’t have time for that.
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They draw over them to turn them into bunny rabbits, or rocket ships, or charming cartoon characters. They also daub out political slogans (like the anti same sex marriage slogan re-painted into a hand-holding family at the top of this article) and offensive messages, although surely such provocation would give riders a valuable burst of outrage-energy?
In any case, they take what’s there and then do something creative with it. They’re basically Mr Squiggle, if he wrote on a road instead of a blackboard, and if every single squiggle was an enormous, badly scrawled penis.
In any case, brave caricaturistes routiers de France, we salute you for your efforts in elevating the Tour de France graffiti. What you do takes balls.