The Paul Hogan Show was aired in the mid-1980s. This clip features a woman cyclist in tight shorts distracting blokes in a sub-Benny Hill-style. Trivia: the woman who gets earth in her bag is Jason Donovan's mum.

A TV debate on the latest Tour de France debacle. This debate was shown on the France24 English-language news channel, Thursday 26th July.

www.france24.com

Andrea Sanke, France24

Andreas Evagora, deputy head of news, Eurosport, Paris

Philip Turle, journalist, Radio France 1

Carlton Reid, editor, BikeBiz.com

Danny Nelisson, former Tour de France rider, Eurosport Benelux commentator

Every cyclist needs to eat. And lots, too. But, for some, this can sometimes come with a weight penalty...Watch this animated short from 13-year old Shadow Scythe, the son of The Fat Cyclist. www.fatcyclist.com

Is this the weirdest moment of the '07 Tour so far? A weighty Golden Labrador waddles in front of T-Mobile's Marcus Burghardt. Upon impact the rider's wheel folds, and the dog walks away, nonplussed. It happened on Stage Nine and is worth watching again and again.

From London to Rugby by train; Warwickshire by bicycle, May 1955. This British Transport Films 15-minute short is snapshot of a different England. CTC members go on group rides via a 'cyclists' special' train.

What a lovely bloke!

Just before the jersey ceremony after the London prologue, my kids caught up with the Tour director and asked him for his autograph.

He could have refused. He could have called security. He could have signed, but vacantly, robot-like. Instead, he took the time to get down to the kids' level, asked them their names, personalised the signatures, and chatted about his own young daughter. I was impressed.

It was the mutual admiration society as the English fashion designer met the Scottish pro cyclist before the London prologue of the 2007 Tour de France.

Paul Smith is hugely into cycling and his company recently partnered with Rapha to produce an ultra-expensive merino wool jersey to celebrate the Grand Depart from Londres.

Incidentally, following David Millar’s long breakaway during yesterday’s London-to-Canterbury stage it turns out the planet will be the richer. The Saunier Duval-Prodir team has pledged to plant trees in Mali: one tree per escape-kilometer. Millar therefore earned 150 trees for Africa yesterday.

‘The voice of cycling’ can be seen on this (shonky) video shot at County Hall, London, on Thursday 5th July.

Sorry about the sound quality and the lack of a light: the digital recorder and the spotlight died on me as I was about to do the interview.

Phil Liggett was one of the guests at the opening of photographer Graham Watson’s exhibition of Tour photographs. The great and the good of cycling were there. So was Pat McQuaid of the UCI.

I asked Phil about his tip for the ‘GC’ winner (GC = general classification, ie yellow jersey). I also asked for Phil’s thought’s on a lack of a No. 1 dossard. Floyd Landis has almost been written out of the Tour’s history books, and Phil’s not impressed…

There will be more Quickrelease.tv video podcasts of the Tour de France in London over the next few days, thanks to the support of Ultimatepursuits.co.uk.

As mentioned previously, Hovis has ponied up £1.5m to sponsor the London Freewheel ride. In the 1990s the bread brand supported the National Byway with £500,000. But the support goes back further... 

In 1900 Hovis produced a cycling map series at a scale of 5 miles to 1 inch. The maps were published by G Philip and Son, for the Hovis Bread Flour Co, Macclesfield, Cheshire, and the co-sponsor was the Cycling Components Mfring Co, Birmingham. This series continued for 25+ years.

In 1973, Hovis returned to its roots with what became one of the all-time classic TV adverts, a delivery boy freewheeling down a cobbled northern hill.

In fact, the ad was shot on Gold Hill of Shaftesbury, Dorset. The director was (Sir) Ridley Scott. He later went on to direct Bladerunner, Alien, Thelma & Louise, and Gladiator.

However, the Geordie director's first film was 'Boy and Bicycle' (1965), starring Scott's father and Tony Scott, his brother. This was shot on a budget of £65 using a 16mm cine-camera, borrowed from the Royal College of Art in London, where Scott was a student.

The film follows a boy as he decides to play truant and visits various locations around a northern seaside town on his bicycle. The film was on YoueTube last year but has been taken down for copyright reasons. It can be found on the DVD of Scott's first commercial movie, The Duellists.

Scott's bike advert was once voted the favourite advertisement of all time.

The original boy on the bike, Carl Barlow, then 13, is now a 48-year-old fireman.

He said: "It was pure fate that I got the part as the Hovis boy. I was down to the last three, and it turned out that one of the two boys couldn't ride a bike, and the other wouldn't cut his hair into the pudding bowl style - it was the Seventies after all. As the only boy who could ride a bike and would cut his hair, I got the part."

The ad is also famous for its soundtrack. In Britain at least, Dvorak's 'New World' symphony - rearranged for brass - says 'Hovis' and 'good, plain Northern values.'

Like many classic adverts of the 1970s, the Hovis 'Bike' advert was produced by iconic advertising agency Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners.