Forza!

Well, I just got back from Monza and I can wholeheartedly say that it was absolutely perfect. As a first experience of a live Grand Prix it was every fan's dream. Here are some assorted highlights.

Having a beer in the Red Bull Energy Station - Thank you Red Bull Racing!

Shaking JPM's hand - On the Friday I found JPM standing outside Mclaren's hospitality area. I shook his hand and told him he was my favourite driver and he said "hey thanks".

The Start - Dear god its loud! I was standing level with Trulli's car on the grid for the start and I swear the earth shook when all the engines were revving and as they pulled away.

Meeting the ITV-F1 crew - Louise Goodman in particular was very friendly and I kept running into her at the track or in the hotel. James Allen and Ted Kravitz were pretty cool too. At one point Ted said "Why are you bothering reporting on GP2, you don't want to bother with that!" and I said "Oi, don't say that I've spent my entire weekend covering it. Don't tell me I'm wasting my time!" and Louise said "Well you're cottoning on fast, this is only your first grand prix and you're already telling Ted Kravitz to fuck off!"

Thanking Mark Webber - After the race I was able to grab Mark Webber and say "Thanks for passing Sato right in front of me." his response was "Oh yeah?!"

Chatting to Dave - "How was your race David?" "Crap". This was how my little natter with the Scottish driver began. We were interrupted by some random women who wanted a photo with David. As I took the photo I asked him how it felt to be a bitch-magnet
which illicited a grin. I continued to chat to him on the way back across to the energy station and told him it was my first GP. As we were talking I thought I spied Martin Brundle nip past. David was clearly the person to ask and he said "Yeah, do you want me to call him over?". This led me to my next highlight...

Meeting the Brundle - The Brundle-hunt bears fruit! Finally, having met the entire ITV-F1 team, I found Brundle and had time to thank him for his Regent Street burnout outside Liberty ("Oh that silly thing in London, how long did you wait for?") and mentioned my favourite of his sarky comments ("Yeah, its funny how people remember certain things"). I managed to get a great photo with me and the Brundle!

Thats all I can really remember right now. The entire weekend was a massive blur and I'm sure I'll think of others and produce some photos soonish. For now, click the E-Reporter link to the right and read my reports and diary!

Currently impressed by: The race. The people. The amount of both that I was able to see thanks to Bridgestone!
Currently non-plussed by: Anything that I could be non-plussed about pales into insignificance.
Current urge: Go to another race!

A-lalalala la Lambo

Wow... just saw a bright orange Lamborghini Murcielago driving the opposite way down the road from Walton, not something you see every day. I pointed at the guy behind the wheel and he gunned it as he passed me. Rockin. It looked a lil sumptin like this:



Had a brilliant race on F105 the other night. I was leading PhilJT (a guy markedly faster than I am) around Spa. He was having looks here and there but wasn't managing to find an overtaking opportunity. On the penultimate lap I took a line that I knew was likely to cause a spin and fed the power in marginally more cautiously than I usually do. Phil clearly stuck his foot down at the usual time and, having followed me, spun out in a cloud of tyre smoke. With 7 seconds to make up, and one and a half laps to do it in, the race was mine. There were about seven other people racing as well but they were all way back. Probably the sweetest victory I've had on F105 (and lets be honest, usually they are complete flukes).

Something I've been meaning to stick in the blog for a while, but never got around to it, was a rather interesting text the Mothership sent me a few weeks ago. Usually Mom has a fairly interesting grasp of the whole predictive text phenomenon, but this was something else entirely:

"Great. am doing jobs now so i can watch it. can hear the thunder. it should rain soon. did you know people in mad waiting for the pains india? on need to reply."

What do you mean 'on need to reply'?! Of course there's bloody need to reply you nutcase! ENGRISH PREASE!

Currently impressed by: That Lambo made a nice change from plague of Boxters infesting the middle-management population.
Currently non-plussed by: The fact that I'm convinced that the Columbia spaceship will burn up on reentry. I'll be genuinely worrying until they are all safely on the ground and that beehive-haircutted female astronut has had a mow-and-blow.
Current urge: Sort out my Minidisc recorder and hook it up to my PC.

And classic it was...

Long time without an update but here it is! The ladyfriend stayed up here last week and I think we had a pretty good time. The week began with my graduation; I can officially say that on Friday the 22nd of July... I touched Dick. We had a great meal at Quod (the pretentious looking place on North St in Brighton), I had a massive burger. It was pretty much a Dick and burger kind of day. After the meal we met up with Simon Knight and drank the night away in the Hilton metropole bar. It was great to graduate but I still don't think it's sunk in that, come October, I won't be returning to Sussex.

Saturday saw the party at the Thicketts, much boozing, talking and eating was done and as far as I know a good time was had by all. Luckily Sam and I picked the right time to retreat to bed; Sally ended up getting locked outside by a drunken Pete and had to sleep in the summerhouse alongside the consistently bemused looking Al. Sally claimed she wasn't cold, but it can't have been the most comfortable night's sleep ever.

On the way back, everyone disapproved of my Senna like wet weather driving skills. At one point, the mothership actually banned me from overtaking (in the dry no less) causing me to stick at around 55 in a 70 limit. I saw everyones point, but equally I never drove faster than I was comfortable with in the varying conditions. We made it back in pretty good time.

The rest of the week was nice, but not much really happened; just a nice relaxing week at home with the girlfriend. I made cocktails at one point that were clearly rubbish but everyone was nice enough and drank them without grimacing. I'll practice a bit before I start installing a home bar in my shed. We also made a visit to Leeds where I got all excited over a very pretty Noble M30-GTO parked in the car park.

During last week, I finally started the transfer of 'THE BABY VIDEO' to my computer for DVD burnage. Sam laughed her head off at (but not limited to): my nudity, my pissing, my puking, my rolling around, my head, my nudity and my offensive language towards my, at the time, baby sister ("Sit down you fat hairy or I'll blast you"). All the mystique in our relationship is lost forever.

Anyway, so Sunday was the Silverstone Classic and we were guests of Mitech in their lovely Brooklands box. Suffice to say this was a fantastically entertaining day with some truly classic cars driven in anger, including my personal favourite: a LeMans contesting Ford GT40 driven by its original driver Jackie Oliver. In this video, the last car that passes is that GT40.



We got some fantastic photos and videos from the event and I am pretty keen to go again next year if the lineup is as great as it was this time. The agreed favourite event was the fantastic GT racers; whipping down the pit straight at Spaceballs-style 'Ludicrous Speed' with a glorious, thundering roar, they surpassed even the classic F1 racers. An honourable mention must go to the utterly ridiculous yet utterly fantastic 6 wheeled Tyrrell F1 car.

Sam appeared to enjoy the day even more than I did (which is saying something), it was great to be there when she experienced her first real-life motorsport event, especially one with such an eclectic mix of racing disciplines.

Currently impressed by: The Silverstone Classic (http://www.silverstoneclassic.com).
Currently non-plussed by: The amount of online filling in a First Choice job application requires.
Current urge: Oh god it's the amateur racing urge again...

Bitchercise

Been having a fantastic bitching session with Nick.

Prompted by the news that some digital rights content may require an entirely new monitor to view in full detail (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000143050582/), I launched into a tirade about interfering companies/groups introducing measures that give them small scale benefits at the cost of the masses.

The fact of the matter is this sort of stuff is happening across the board, people's wishes are being entirely disregarded for the benefit of the controlling minority. The biggie recently was the ID card thing, which sparked a similar torrent of vitriol that the lovely Samantha was party to. The concept of paying £300 for the privilige of giving the government an excuse to collate the data it already has, plus pictures of my motherfucking retina, does not exactly power my fucking pylon. Give me a little card with my picture on it and I'll carry it around; sort the data yourself you cocking fuckmunchers.

The justification that ID cards will help fight terrorism is the usual scaremongering that has been going on since September 11th. I think that in terms of his political agenda, 9/11 was the best thing Bushy could have hoped for. Everytime anything happens that most presidents would be blamed for, he uses as ammunition for his fucking industrial funded war machine and over-inflated ego. Same thing applies here with Tony and his fucking stupid ID card plans; use terrorism as an excuse, force whatever the fuck you like through Parliament.

And breathe...

In other news, there is no other news.

Currently impressed by: The weather.
Currently non-plussed by: If you don't know by now, you're reading this entry backwards.
Current urge: Live somewhere other than the UK.

The Magic Formula...

This is my first post in a while and I'll be completely honest about what I've mainly been doing instead. Playing Formula One 2005 online. It really is awesome and the voice comms mean that I now have a regular bunch of people to race against and we have some great battles. One refreshing thing is that this is an F1 game where I can sometimes win, and if not that then I'm usually somewhere in the top 5. I would urge you to go to http://www.playstation.co.uk to find out more.

Today we saw what I will cautiously call the first terrorist attacks on London since the Iraq war. I could probably say lots of things on the subject but I'd imagine they have all been said before. Yes, it is clearly Tony and Bushy's faults and yes it is also ammunition for Bush to advance into wherever else he decides the 'terr-rists' are hiding now. It does amuse me (in a dark sort of way) that Bush talks about the "contrast" between those who have a love for liberty in their hearts (or words to that effect) and those who want to kill - my opinion being that, in the context, someone needs to buy George a new dictionary so he can look up 'contrast' (and perhaps 'wanker' if he has the time).

I'm back home now, searching for a job. I'll be doing some running at Party in the Park in about a weeks time. Sounds relatively straightforward. It's the Living TV coverage, which is being hosted by the improbably camp Big Brother 2 winner Brian Dowling and some chick called Nikki Sanderson. It'll be good to get a bit of moolah to keep me ticking over. It is looking increasingly like I'll need to go to Network and do some more temping; I don't like the work, but it offers a degree of freedom in terms of going on holiday and weekend events like the GP etc.

This weekend I have my old friend Tim's 21st in Manc and then my aunt's 50th in Sheffield, plus it's the British GP, so it's busy, busy, busy.

Currently impressed by: Formula One 2005 for PS2.
Currently non-plussed by: Getting a job.
Current urge: To suddenly come into an awful lot of money.

FIN

Degree Complete! High Score!

Yes, I've finished English Language at Sussex with a 2:1 score, which is pretty good considering I, in the words of Simon Knight, "never bought a textbook" during my Uni career (not strictly true but makes me sound pretty awesome).

Apparently my dissertation was one of the two on which my tutors, Barbara and Richard, differed most in terms of marks. Most were within 3 marks, but mine and one other went out for external moderation. I was pretty pleased then, when I found out that I got 70% for the damn thing and I felt like I did the apostrophe proud. Getting 69 on the Modern English Pronunciation takeaway paper (a.k.a. the bastard paper) was also pretty satisfying, not least because I was convinced I was screwed when I picked it up (of course still found time to listen to the Indy 500 live). The rest of the breakdown is fairly irrelevant, the basic theme is that I'm pleased that it didn't all go horribly wrong.

One of the seminal moments of that particular Friday was when the hot weather, which had served those celebrating their degree scores so well, finally broke; standing in the refreshing downpour, feeling a sense of relief and achievement, and listening to trippy guitar music wafting from Sam's neighbour Alex's window was one of those great moments of cheap euphoria and it really underlined the end of the University dream.

Real life is about to hit me like a bucket of cold water. I can already feel my nuts retracting towards my body in preperation.

Currently impressed by: Pretty good results!
Currently non-plussed by: The end.
Current urge: Do it all again! (not going to happen though)

Lost Weekend

Wow, what a crazy weekend. So crazy in fact its taken me until Wednesday to actually commit it to the blog.

On Saturday I went over to wonderful Brum to celebrate Pete's 21st birthday. Arriving at about 1ish I was greeted by absolutely gorgeous weather. We headed to the Gosta for a bit of pub lunch and basically sat around for 3 hours drinking coke and enjoying the sun. It was nice to catch up with both Pete and Will, and the housemates that I'd met on my previous visit.

We then went across to millennium point Imax for the 5pm showing of Nascar 3D. Yannick managed to completely disregard the innocence of children by saying "suck my dick" within metres of a little girl. I had previously said 'fuck' but asserted it was "okay, because I just heard her say fuck too". Nascar, in 3D and on a screen the size of God, did not disappoint, the in car race shots were excellent, you really felt as if you were nestled in between the bars of the roll cage. Amusingly Yannick ducked when a tyre flew out towards the audience. There were a few moments where the 3D didn't quite work, but for the most part it was absolutely excellent.

After Nascar we hit the Co-op for some booze and headed back for some poker. There were a few tense moments, particularly when Yannick took Pete to the cleaners; somewhat unfair considering Pete, Matt and I had all never played poker before. I lasted a little longer, but not much, going out against will, we both had flushes but will held the ace, meaning he took the lot.
The night's partying was taken to the Walkabout where some northern monkey band were playing. When they'd finished we basically danced to cheesy music and laughed at how mental Helen was. Pete was playing tonsil tennis with some chick called Donna (as yet I have no update as to whether this has escalated since the visit). In some clumsy attempts to get Pete some rumpo, we ended up at Donna's house at about four in the morning before giving up and getting a taxi back. My toes were screaming after a night in shoes two sizes too small.

Sunday began as a lazy day, waking up at around 11:30 and heading to Burger King for an easy lunch. I arrived on time for my Virgin train, but unfortunately my Virgin train was not on time for me. I had to wait 35 minutes, baking on the New Street platform, for the train to arrive. All seat reservations were cancelled, and the train was packed, so I decided to find one of the seats by the toilets. It didn't smell too bad so I just stayed there for the whole journey. Several delays later and I arrived in Brighton. Had the train been on time, I would have had the time to queue for a ticket for a Falmer. Instead, the Falmer train left and I had to leg it through the midday-levels of heat to the bus stop. It was crucial that I caught the beginning of the Grand Prix...

I had suspected something mental might happen. All the way through the weekend I had been following the F1 news on my various regular news sites, and it wasnt looking good for Michelin. Nothing, however, could prepare me for Jim Rosenthal solemnly informing the British public that, with around 5 minutes to go, no one knew if the race would happen. Watching 14 F1 cars peeling off into the pits at the end of the parade lap, as the remaining six line up on the grid, is something I will never forget. There has been much said about the farce that was the 2005 US Grand Prix and there will be much more said. What was clear to me was that the FIA clearly had little or no desire to ensure that a proper race would occur. The scale of the damage to F1 in America, a country which already has a fairly choice selection of motorsports on offer, is massive. Not only has this damaged the chances of a return to Indianapolis, the fact that the hardcore of American fans who actually made the effort to attend the race has been offended, I can't see any sane promoter taking Formula One on in the next few years. This effectively puts paid to suggestions, such as the Las Vegas race, that were being bandied around the paddock before Michelin-gate reared its ugly head.

It seems we are referring to an awful lot of events in F1 these days as something-'gate'. I don't have a problem with the politics per-se, but the FIA should be wary of the off-track escapades becoming more interesting than the races themselves. I think in 2004 this was certainly the case, and I'm not sure how many seasons of that kind Formula One can weather. Perhaps Paul Stoddart should start selling "Make Politics History" wristbands to fund all the development Minardi will have to perform to make it through the next wave of Mosley's regulations.

Currently impressed by: The weather... wow!
Currently non-plussed by: The speed with which Uni is ending.
Current urge: Get my bloody PayPal account sorted.