TV VIEW:TRUE, THERE were probably some who didn't see the point in the wheel when it was invented, insisting it would never catch on, but there are still many who remain mystified by the attraction of Twitter and at a loss to understand why all sorts of seemingly regular folk use it as their primary method of communication.

If you fall in to that camp you would have been hopelessly unaware that there was an opportunity last week to go cycling with Lance Armstrong in the Phoenix Park.

No, it’s not quite the Alpe d’Huez, but challenging enough for those of us who still need stabilisers on the rare occasion we dust down our penny-farthing.

Sky News must be an old-fogey-free zone because they had read Armstrong’s invitation to fellow Twitterers: “Good morning Dublin. Who wants to ride this afternoon? I do. 5:30pm @ the roundabout of Fountain Rd and Chesterfield Ave. See you there.” He could have phoned.

“It all started with a simple tweet on Lance Armstrong’s Twitter page, asking if anyone fancied a ride in Dublin this evening,” said reporter Orla Chennaoui, which, we’re sad to report, resulted in a dirty chuckle from a Twitterer positioned behind her in the Park. As that crisps ad put it, “there’s always one”.

Orla, seemingly unaware of this smut, proceeded to chat with some of the crowd, many of whom were armed with bicycles and dressed in very professional looking cycling clothing. And the thing about cycling clothing on chaps is that unless they have the body of Adonis there really, really, really should be a law against it.

That’s by the by, Orla ploughed on, asking some of the throng why they were there. Most were rapturous at the prospect of going for a ride with Lance.

“And what does it mean to you to be cycling with the great Lance Armstrong?” she asked another fella and his pal.

“We’re actually unemployed so we didn’t have much else to do – with the recession, like,” he explained. Orla, ever so briefly, didn’t know quite what to say, until: “I’m glad we can bring some sunshine in to your life”.

And with that they pedalled away, Lance making them happy when skies were grey.

Pat Spillane has, of course, often been accused of being a twitterer in his time, not least during the week when the Tyrone legend that is Frank McGuigan shared his feelings about our Kerry friend. Having expressed the wish that Cork “hammer” Kerry in the final (this was, mark you, before yesterday’s semi-final – in Meath we don’t trust?), Frank recalled the time Pat suggested Tyrone “send a busload of women down to Kerry and it would sort them out”. “I can tell Pat, this decade they should have been sending their women up to Tyrone – and there’s a few guys on the loose,” he said.

China, you probably know, is having mixed success with its breeding programme for the giant panda, but we’ll wait to see how the Kerry and Tyrone exchange fares. If it flourishes, Kerrone could well win the next 35 All-Irelands, but if it fails Kerronians could be an endangered species. It’s a gamble, but, surely, one worth taking?

Eats, shoots and leaves was, we’re guessing, Kerry’s intent when they arrived in Croke Park yesterday for their semi-final, but while they might have prevailed they failed to gobble up Meath, and their shooting was often wide of the mark.

They did, though, leave with an All-Munster-Ireland final place booked.

Joe Brolly declared the match to be unforgettable, in the sense that it will haunt him forever.

“The worst game of football we’ve seen all year,” he said at half-time, declaring the Meath attack to be “atrocious” – “Jesus, not one of them can win their own ball”.

Pat, whose hair was spikier than Frank McGuigan’s mood last week, seemingly having had a violent run-in with a jar of gel, couldn’t disagree, even if he desperately wanted to.

“They’ve all the signs of a Kerry team that believe their own hype, ‘it’s only a matter of turning up’,” he said.

Back in the commentary box Kevin McStay reckoned Kerry weren’t “in a good place”, which, in light of the performance, was probably true. But six All-Ireland finals in a row? The panel didn’t think that was a bad place to be at all, although Pat’s Mohican had visibly shrunk during the game, suggesting that frustration had prompted him to remove the bulk of it strand by strand.

But, Cork v Kerry it is, @ Croke Park on Sept 20th. See you there. It should be a hell of a ride.