Rallies

'Tis supposed to be the season of good will to all men. Jean-Francois Helias report of the 1980 Stella Alpina rally doesn't seem to chime with that Christmas bell.

Charitably described as "the rally that went wrong", luckily it was an exception for this legendary rally. We put photos on-line at the start of December and posted the full report today.

If you went to that event it will have stuck in your memory. It will be therapeutic to finally get it off your chest by writing it down and sharing your trauma.

We had an L of a time adding 23 more badges for rallies beginning with L from Francois. They now range from La Burle to Lyon-Charbonniere Rallye through 421 badges for 214 rallies.

Just a couple of weeks left of this year and very few 2025 rallies to come. Hans Veenendaal is now producing an exclusively 2026 PDF list that you can download or view on-line. The 2025 version will remain available for a few weeks into the new year in case you want to save it for posterity.

In the meantime, Hans' list for 2026 is growing at a rate that we haven't seen since before COVID, with over 560 rallies already posted on the Rally Listing for the New Year.

Race Badges

Jean-Francois Helias provided another 38 Race Badges.

Race and circuit badges now total 1727 from 8 contributors, and we are only scratching the circuit surface.

Club Night

As the present members of the Leicester Phoenix MCC recover from their Christmas party, they are hoping they will still be allowed back in the Red Lion on Tuesday, 16 December.

It is supposed to be their winter quarters until they resume their nomadic existence. Therefore members took care to arrive in cunning disguises.

Virtual Club Night

Apologies if you tried to join our virtual club night and found the link I posted still took you to Teams. Just as we get the technical problems sorted, I go and mess things up by failing to change all the links. It should work on Wednesday, 17 December by opening our clubroom on Jitsi.

Jitsi behaves better than I do, giving us a much-needed trouble-free entry to our evening chat without all the random problems that other VoIP systems throw up.

Fingers crossed on Wednesday - just poke the button and hey presto - you can join the chat.

Embers

Typically for this time of year, we have a strong attendance for our cycle rides, mainly because fewer of us are off on holidays. I suspect Embers are also using our rides as a refuge from shopping, decorating and being downright jolly.

We only have one more ride this year. It is scheduled for Thursday but the forecast makes Friday more likely. Our preferred lunch venue is not available so we need to find an alternative early during this busy period. If you are joining us, let me know quickly so we can make firm plans.

A little old lady sees her doctor for a yearly check, and after thirty minutes with her GP he finally says, “We’ve talked about a lot; your blood pressure, cholesterol, sugar - any other medical issues we haven’t covered?”

She says, “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you asked, I am having terrible trouble with flatulence. It often happens at church and on bridge nights. Fortunately they are silent and odorless. In fact, I’ve been ripping them off every few minutes while I’ve been here.”

He nods knowingly and writes a prescription. “Take these twice a day as directed and come back next week.”

When he sees her the next week she is furious. “I don’t know what was in those pills you gave me but I’m not farting any less, and after three days my farts started to stink to high heaven! At least they are still silent so no one knows it was me, thank goodness!”

The doctor smiled and said, “Excellent. Now that your sinuses are cleared up, let’s work on your hearing loss.”