It appeared a man on a unicycle was set to win the women's 800m final at those European Athletics championships in Birmingham this week; but it's a cameraman tasked with close-ups that are beyond drones or else our old friend the spider-cam.
Watching it, I wonder if you like me found your mind straying toward the Gulf War?
Dean Kamen pioneered the self-balancing electric unicycle which he went on to call the Segway. As I recall it was developed as 'Project Ginger' and demo'ed to tech bros like Bezos and Gates in secret. They all agreed it would change means of transport on a revolutionary scale, which just shows that brilliant people can be as stupid as the rest of us.
But move on, and Segway would be sold to an ex-coal-miner from Leeds, who made his money developing those cages ~ or baskets ~ filled with rocks and used to build defences in places like Iraq. Sadly he died reversing his Segway off a cliff whilst making way for a dog-walker. History doesn't recall the dog-walker in question, but he has to be up there with the 'man from Porlock' in the English annals.
The Segway would be evolved into a more compact version altogether by someone based in the UK who co-founded Y Combinator in the US ~ and this (unless it is the Australian equivalent) is what allows us to enjoy the efforts of local athlete Keely Hodgkinson at Birmingham.
I can't leave off the reflection however without recalling my own efforts in the 1980s to build a unicycle; lost to posterity because digital photography was yet to escape Kodak's clutches. It was not electronically stabilised, however, and proved a dismal failure.
I like to think there was a life lesson there, but if there is one at all it is not to be so stupid.
