Breaking up is hard to do

We all know it. It's true. Breaking up IS hard to do.

Don't be fooled, KKB and I are fine. What I'm referring to is the grieving cycle I'm going through faced with little choice but to dump none other than S.K Warne.

I've forgiven him many an indiscretion, but this time I'm not sure I can.

Cricket is my favourite "other" sport. I love it. I can watch a whole test match without getting bored (and quite frankly, have been a bit disappointed that the matches in this current series V India hasn't gone the distance).

I've always seen Warnie as not only the "king of spin" but also one of the sport's best cricket minds. He can read any match like a book. He's been an excellent addition to the Wide World of Sport commentary team in my opinion, not only for his insights from having played alongside some of the current Australian team, but also the way he understands how cricket unfolds.

I know it's not the first time he's been a human headline for all the wrong reasons. Sure, he was caught smoking while a spokesperson for Nicorette. Not very bright. He served a two year drug suspension for taking a masking agent. Not his fault, apparently, his mother was helping him lose weight. Although he came out and said he didn't consider himself to be stupid, it seems to me that Warnie's not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Yes, I have read about his indiscretions, most notably via text, with a handful of young English beauties whilst on an Ashes tour. He's even come out more recently and admitted that he drank until 3am in the morning on this tour. This one was easy to overlook - he outperformed the rest of the Australian cricket team. He took the most wickets across both teams, and if my memory serves me well, he performed reasonably well with the bat as well.

I even posted on this very blog that I was pretty happy to be wearing his number in the Australia Day Beer Mile last year.

His recent rants via Twitter about cyclists though, are pretty hard to stomach.

Yes, I'm a cyclist and perhaps I'm taking it a bit too personally. But I think this time there's really more than that for me. Warnie's tweets just went too far for mine.

If you're not up with the scandal, a week or two back, @warnie888 had a twitter rant about cyclists. It was inspired by an incident with a cyclist, and as a result he publicly aired his pleas for cyclists to "act responsible" and "stay in file".

He retweeted everyone that agreed with him (and noone that didn't) then tweeted that 90% of people agree with him. I guess we'll have to trust you on that Warnie.

It's since been reported in the media that Warnie's version of events is very different to the reality after the cyclist involved told their story.

We may never know the facts. It seems to me that those who want to believe the cyclist will and those that want to believe Warnie will believe Warnie. Interestingly, the truth isn't actually all that important in my break-up with Warnie. What I can't forgive is his intolerance and the use of his public profile to stoke the coals of the motorist v cyclist debate. It's a lively enough debate already, thank you very much, and one that incites all kinds of feelings and misconceptions about a group that is a minority on our roads.

You only need to take a look back through Warnie's twitter feed to see the kind of attitudes he's encouraging by retweeting them. The intolerance it embodies puts lives at risk and yet he's seemingly been allowed to get away with it.

If his tweets had denigrated drivers of any particular ethnicity for their behaviour when sharing the road, I dare say the publicity machine would not be so forgiving. If he were tweeting away about religious minorities' choice of clothing the way he had a go at cyclists wearing lycra in cafes, he would be shunned by the media.

Then again, maybe we would have just accepted it all as more proof that Warnie just isn't all that bright.

I can't do that this time Warnie. I don't care what your excuse is this time. You're dumped.