Hugh Dennis, Stephen Fry and others in “Unfinished Business”

It's a shame it doesn't make any difference, because I've been using the fact that I don't shave my legs as an excuse for going five hours slower than the guy who won.

Stephen Fry

Which stage did you do?

There's an open stage every year. An amateur stage. You do it two weeks before they do it. Eight thousand of us, and by the end, there were four thousand of us left at the end of it. I started in 2400th place, and I finished in 3400th place.

Stephen Fry

Oh no.

Alan Davies

You mean a thousand people overtook you?

I was passed by a thousand people. And it took me... it took eleven hours to do this stage. The winner of the actual proper stage when they did it the next week was a guy called Vinokourov, I think his name was. He did it in five hours, but he was using someone else’s blood. And he was thrown out of the stage that night for blood doping.

Phill Jupitus

[Laughing.] Someone else’s blood!

But it took me nine hours to catch up to the bloke with the one leg.