Truth

For Carmen’s birthday I bought her the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and this is what it had to say about The Truth: something real or exact, especially when this is different from how it seems (well, actually it says quite a bit more but this is more or less what I mean too).

The demise of Truth, or the breaking of it’s perception for me all started – of course – with Hansie Cronje (click on the link, it makes interesting reading). The South African cricket captain was the benchmark of Sportsmanship in a sport which itself was the yardstick of fair play…and Truth for that matter. I remember the day when the news broke. I think The Times headed “Oh no, Hansie, oh no” referring to the disbelief that he had ‘sold’ cricket matches for years. The subsequent inquiries learned that the former hero had over seventy bank accounts scattered around the world, his winnings from a decade of deceit. The message to cricket fans was clear: many of the matches we had seen over the years had in fact been decided before the game started to earn as much as possible in the illegal Indian betting circus.

It took me quite some time to get over this. Actually I have never enjoyed watching a cricket match as much as I used to. When I was a kid I also like watching a children’s TV show called Blue Peter, a legendary BBC program educating children throughout the English speaking world. It now turns out that they have been cheating children (follow link for more info) into believing they can win prizes by entering contests! I am stunned. More than once has a ‘fake winner’ picked up a prize on Blue Peter. I honestly thought things couldn’t get any worse from here when it comes to public deceit.

I was wrong. After the Hansie Cronje affair I turned to the Tour de France as summer entertainment. For the past five years I have been following the Tour with a rather large amount of passion. Big mistake. Last year – obviously – was horrible, but I am a positive (albeit naïve) person so I believed this would be a drug-free edition. My team – the Rabobank team – has throughout the years remained spotless and allegation-free. So you can imagine my joy whilst Micheal Rasmussen was steaming towards Paris in the yellow jersey. I was riding some classic races and I loudly was supporting him on my couch. Rasmussen held the same immunity as Hansie Cronje for me. Danish people don’t cheat (well…), they just get on with things. Of course, Rasmussen lied about pretty much everything and another Thomas Reeve bubble burst. I had once again been fooled, two weeks of watching the TV down the drain accompanied by a life time of innocence.

I will never ever believe anything I see on the television again. I an era where entire wars are based on public manipulation and spin I have given up. Really, what is next? Will apples turn out to be just very well disguised bananas? Will dolphins indeed take over the world after pretending to be very cute? Will it be discovered that Belgium in reality is not a country? Is Chuck Norris – in fact – a woman?

I have decided to turn things around and begin trusting the biggest lies of them all: children’s books. Everybody – except children – knows that it is impossible for Charlie to fly into space in an elevator. Neither can it be true that someone sleeps 100 years without being pronounced dead. Therefore I am reading the great book ‘El pequeño vampire se cambia de casa’ (The little vampire is moving house). It is impossible to be cheated in a world where a little boy named Anton becomes great friends with Rudiger – a nine year old vampire who died over 150 years ago. This is my new Truth, I will start from here.