What do Paddington Bear and twice Hour Record Holder and World Champion at 4000m have in common? Their successes are both, in part down to marmelade sandwiches. I learnt this when I spent a very enjoyable Friday evening watching the film about Graeme Obree's life up to the mid '90's. The film, "The Flying Scotsman" has been available on DVD for some time, but there's no substitute for seeing a good film at the cinema. Cycling films are thin on the ground and good ones even more so.
I arrived 20 minutes late and persuaded the person on the door to let me in. The showing was in a local arts theatre at their "Friday Film Club"- most of the audience were there because it was Friday, not because it was a film about a cyclist. It seemed to me a well-balanced film (if a film about someone with a bi-polar condition leading to manic depression can be) blending the man's life with enough cycling. I remember being frustrated by "This Sporting Life" as I felt it didn't contain enough rugby playing.
Whilst the film failed to capture the bleakness and poinency present in his autobiography, it did manage to convey the highs and lows of Obree's career. More recently, his own communications strike me as heart felt (see his website) and I was encouraged by his bouyant mood when interviewed about the film.
There was also something elegantly home-spun: Obree's two-fingered attitude to the UCI, his lack of scientific preparation in stark contrast to Boardman and the fact that like me he regularly oversleeps.
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