pegged out

Merckx was “the cannibal” who ate his rivals for breakfast, probably the best rider of all during the spell from 1969 to 1974, before he suddenly pegged out in 1975.

And then he grabbed his crutches and pegged out to the porch so fast that François scrambled from his nest and shot out into the night.

But it was still deeply modern, pegged out around possession football, fast counterattack, a converted centre-forward, marauding full-backs and all the rest.

“Words belong in contexts, not pegged out like biological specimens.”

It’s part of a long tradition of camping farce, which has been going strong since Carry on Camping pegged out its flysheet at a site called Paradise almost 50 years ago.