Cadel Evans humour

-- Buy the t-shirt, or I cut your head off

Despite a freshly minted road world champion gold medal hanging around his neck, Australian cyclist Cadel Evans is perhaps better known for his prickly outbursts and acts of violence.

In this regard, 2008 was a vintage year for Evans, when Tour de France performance expectations became too much to bear and offence became the best form of defence.

Head-butts and slapping aside, one of his more memorable outbursts was prompted by his dog Molly, whose safety was clearly threatened by marauding journalists, causing Cadel to hiss: “Don’t stand on my dog or I’ll cut your head off.”

However, it turns out that in making this statement Cadel intended no threat. The outburst was in fact a joke – Cadel humour. That’s right.

To promote his point Cadel has hired merchandisers to contextualise his outburst and exploit it, in the form of a 100% cotton limited edition t-shirt, designed and printed in Italy, to supplement his income.

His online shop assistant at cadelevans.com.au explains:

"Stage 15 in the 2008 Tour de France; Cadel had just lost the yellow jersey and was being interviewed by a journalist, Cadel jokingly quipped at someone who was getting too close to Molly..."Don`t stand on my dog or I`ll cut your head off". Thanks to some media editing the true comic nature of the comment was rarely shown."

Anyone who’s seen the clip will wonder just what sort of sneaky “media editing” might have caused them to misinterpret Cadel’s humour and miss its “true comic nature”. Just what editing trickery can contort, “Don`t stand on my dog or I’ll cut your head off".

Perhaps we’d give Cadel the benefit of the doubt if we better understood his cultural reference points. Australians are a quirky bunch.

The closest pointer to Cadel’s comedic reference points is compatriot and comedian Rodney Rude, who joked about a fella who walked into a bar and went up to another bloke and then put his hands around his own neck and made choking noises. After he did this a few times an onlooker asked him why he was doing it. He replied that the bloke’s sister had just hung herself and he was just “teasing him a bit.”

Journalists should remember this when Cadel starts waving a knife at their throats.

He’s just teasing them a bit.