The Tour de France is a good thing to have on in the background; sort of the same thing with the World Cup, or The (British) Open tomorrow. Baseball, hockey, basketball, sports generally have a soothing background noise that makes for a nice environment to write in (or whatever I'm working on). Music does it for me, as well, but I'm on a bit of a different schedule at the moment, so I'm camping on the living room couch while I get my daily computer work done.

And they've hit the Alps over the past couple days at the Tour. The ultimate struggle. I'm sure there's a metaphor there, for any writers in the need of it. No matter how much work you do on any given day, there's another climb waiting for you tomorrow. Even rest days, you need to get out and put your miles in...

Having the pleasant noise in the background reminds me of having the transistor radio on while working in the garage. You know, when grandpa or whoever was tinkering around in the garage, building, sharpening, cleaning up, with the game on in the background to keep them company. All this way we've come, and that's sort of what phones have turned into, haven't they?

My daughter walks around all the time with headphones on, and give her just a few seconds to herself and she'll be reading on the phone as well. And there's nothing it reminds me of so much as the white cord hanging down from one ear with the game on...