Stop at the Top

Jean-Jacques Rousseau pedals furiously up the slopes of the mighty Mont Ventoux, his caftan flapping, Sultan yapping in his little basket, the crowds leaning forward dangerously close to cheer on the oblivious rider. Suddenly....

Stop! cries Pliny the Elder. Stop writing at once!

Why? I ask him, innocently.

This is nothing but nonsense. There is no Team Philosophe in the Tour de France. Rousseau, Voltaire and Hume would never qualify as riders. You have made every bit of this up.

You started it, I reply. You said you were following Rousseau's Twitterfeed and that he was doing pretty well.

Alright, I may have been misled, admits Pliny. Perhaps it was Nicolas Rousseau, from team Ag2R, that I was following.

It couldn't have been, I say, because he isn't in it this year either. Maybe you were following a fake Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

A fake Jean-Jacques Rousseau! How can that be?

Easily. I'm following several fake people on Twitter. They're often better than the real person. Fake Penny Wong, she's much funnier than the real Penny Wong. Although I sometimes wonder whether she's the real Penny Wong pretending to be fake Penny Wong so that she can say what she really thinks without getting into trouble with her parliamentary colleagues, or the press.

You've lost me now, says Pliny.

Good, I say. Now do you want to know who wins, or not?