Another day, another fortnightly post. We're now in the first week of the summer break as far as the F1 season is concerned but the Sidepodcast community continues unabated. We all watched the Hungarian Grand Prix last Sunday, a track that doesn't normally produce exciting racing and is probably my least favourite track of them all, but was spiced up by the weather and produced some great overtakes and yet another wet-race win by Jenson Button. It seems that once again this year he can produce the goods in the rain where Vettel can't.
You may remember my last post two weeks ago about the World Matchplay Championship darts in Blackpool, which was played to its conclusion the Sunday before last. In the end, Phil Taylor showed he's back to his best after defeating James Wade 18 legs to 8. We didn't wait long for the next televised PDC event, the European Championships in Dusseldorf, Germany held just four days later. Once again, Taylor was the victor in the final but in a much tighter match, eventually beating Adrian Lewis 11-8. The other major highlight of the tournament was a nine-darter made by the eventual runner-up in his semi-final match against Raymond Van Barneveld. So it seems that Phil Taylor is not on the way down as some people had speculated. He'll turn 51 next Saturday, yet there's no sign of his dominance in the sport weaning.
And now to the future. By the time this daily is published, the first night of the 2011 Edinburgh Festival will have been and gone. In the last couple of years I've started seeing some stand-up comedians strut their stuff on the stage and Wednesday night was no exception. I've lived in Edinburgh my whole life so it's about time I started taking advantage of the wealth of arts available to be enjoyed. The first two days are mostly previews before the Festival proper kicks off on Friday but that hasn't deterred me - it's where the cheapest tickets are available. So if you're interested in attending an arts and crafts event, a stand-up comedian, a theatre play, a contemporary dance routine, a classical/modern music gig or if you just want to browse the many free acts performing around the city centre, you have until the 29th of August to come to Edinburgh and get yourself cultured.
And now to continue the theme of memorable moments I've been establishing over the last couple of months, this week is, again, a little different. There's no Grand Prix for the next three weekends so this time I've decided to focus on the professional career of Britain's original motor racing playboy - James Hunt.
- Englishman James Hunt made his British Grand Prix debut in 1973 at Silverstone, where he qualified on the 5th row of the grid in a Hesketh-owned March Ford. Commentator Raymond Baxter described his qualifying lap later on in the clip as, 'a very creditable effort indeed by this young driver, who's really making a mark for himself.' He went on to finish 4th in the race.
- No-one could accuse James of being a dispassionate man, as this clip from the Monaco GP from 1975 shows. Clearly frustrated at being punted into the barrier by a Tyrrell, he resorted to take his anger out first on a marshall and then the car that booted him out of the race.
- No doubt his proudest moment was in 1976, the year he won the World Championship. The Japanese Grand Prix was a wet and misty race - so much so there was a chance the event would be cancelled - but it went ahead and Hunt, despite a puncture and a delayed pit stop, went on to finish 3rd, which was enough to seal the title. God knows whose idea it was to hire the commentator, 'Is Hunt still in the Championship hunt?'. I mean. come on!
- As reigning World Champion, James was high in demand for advertising campaigns and the like, such as this ad from 1977 co-starring comedy double-act Morecambe & Wise.
- Success doesn't last forever, unfortunately. James continued in F1 for three more years, leaving McLaren and joining the Wolf team in 1979, but he was never competitive. His last Grand Prix was at Monaco where he crashed out. He announced his official retirement from racing shortly afterwards.
- After he retired from competitive racing he got a job as co-commentator for the BBC with Murray Walker in 1980, a partnership that would last for thirteen years. The opening race in Argentina gave us a taster of the collaboration and attitudes that was to follow between them.
- James, amongst other things, was not one to be sympathetic with drivers whom he thought didn't try hard enough on-track. Such as the '89 Monaco GP where he made a very pointed comment about Rene Arnoux. Murray Walker in the meantime tries to carry on with gravitas. Be warned, there's a bit of strong language in this clip.
- Not only that, but he was also highly critical of back-markers, especially those who he felt were impeding drivers who were trying to lap them. A prime example is when he calls Andrea De Cesaris an 'idiot' for blocking and almost taking out Nigel Mansell at Imola in 1990. Although, looking at the footage, he kind of deserved the jibe.
James had been a hard drinker and drug-taker throughout his life, such was the playboy lifestyle that he enjoyed throughout his heyday. Perhaps this was the main precipitant for his sudden death in 1993 at the age of just 45. But with such a young loss of life, the impact he's made to the world of professional motor racing is apparent, even drawing parallels with the F1 career of Kimi Raikkonen, of all people. Is this meant to be a good thing? Depends on who you speak to, I suppose. See you in two weeks.
cmcb
eh-oh mr colin's daily.
I'm proper jealous that you live in Edinburgh and can see all these stand-up acts.
Every time I see the Scheckter crash it looks worse. I have only ever seen it up to the accident before but the aftermath is terrifying with all sorts of people on the track who should not be there.
Have you seen these recent posts on sidepodcast.com?
- Daily: 4th August 2011
- Daily: 3rd August 2011
- Longevity is celebrated with points on this week's Team Rankings
- An all positive week on Christine's Rankings this week
- Daily: 2nd August 2011
I'm working on it. :)
Will have to carry on tomorrow/Friday.. tired now.
hehe.
Nice daily, F1 history is great :)
I love some the James Hunt commentary clips, we need that these days, DC & Martin are much too subtle.
Also, does this path i found on my walk yesterday look familiar? (esp. in the lead up to Spa ;)
http://twitpic.com/60km32
Have you seen these recent posts on sidepodcast.com?
- Daily: 4th August 2011
- Daily: 3rd August 2011
- Longevity is celebrated with points on this week's Team Rankings
- An all positive week on Christine's Rankings this week
- Daily: 2nd August 2011
Can you take it easy flat or do you bottom out and spin off?
Awesome that today is officially James Hunt day. The more I learn about him, the more I like him :)
I tried Garageband on the iPad last night - I can't play any kind of instrument to save my life, but the smart instruments in the app make it very easy to play. Think I'm gonna have to have a proper crack at this!
Heikki is my new favourite driver... http://yfrog.com/h72q2nyj
Great man.
Morning :)
morning all
I love it :)
A hex on BT, for making me come in to work for an hour or so on my day off. At least I won't waste it sleeping and can get stuff done after. :)
Are you doing a post for the VivaF1 blog swap this time Pat?
How's it going with your sister coming to visit? Are you having a good time?
Oooh are they having a blog swap?
Aye - found out yesterday
I'm hosting but I don't know if I have time to write anything
Yes very good thanks. We spent the weekend and Monday going to Dad's place (his birthday), then Mum's and our grandparents before the theme park.. I worked the last two days as she was off shopping and sightseeing with others but had some nice relaxing evenings afterwards at Mum's with food and talking, makes a really nice change from sitting on your own reading the internet or watching DVDs. :)
I'm heading over to Dad's later where apparently we're having a barbeque because it has been hot and sunny all week - although it started raining hard last night. She goes back tomorrow via Gatwick so I'm working again then.
Aye - same here. I think I''m hosting two, but may not find any time to write until next week
http://www.vivaf1.com/blog/?p=7869
Looks like posts aren't due until the weekend of 13-14 so that's not as urgent as I'd though
thought
Thanks for the link - I have offered to write and host. I think we should do one onetime with our non-motorsport blogs too ;)
Well, I'll be doing a new entry on Something for the Weekend later on, so if anyone fancies a music-type post on that at some stage, you're all more than welcome
:)
ooh interesting idea
Jackie was OK with it when I asked her a few months ago, just have to think about timing...
Hehee... we should all just get one big giant blog for bouts of Guest Posts
:D
Have you seen these recent posts on sidepodcast.com?
- Daily: 4th August 2011
- Daily: 3rd August 2011
- Longevity is celebrated with points on this week's Team Rankings
- An all positive week on Christine's Rankings this week
- Daily: 2nd August 2011
Looking at today's autosport, the 3 picks each system I suggested might happen between the BBC and sky.
Hello again :)
ping: http://www.f1minute.com/news/renault-evaluate-the-fire-damage-on-nick-heidfelds-car
*Hungarian Grand Prix, not the German?
At least the audio was right. If it wasn't, that would've been painful. :D
ooh, good spot people.
f1minute fixed now, cheers all: http://www.f1minute.com/
also updated on the app. have i mention the f1minute app today? you can buy it from itunes and it's quite lovely.
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/f1minute/id441832606
#everymistakeisasalesoppertunity
I love it on the iPad!
yay. i saw your itunes review, but have no idea what it said :)
and the mclaren eshop, weirdly :)
It said "It's very easy to use and this app gives good and fast news about Formula 1. Her homepage (f1minute.com) is also good"
Already sent the link to Mrs. Goat (who also enjoyed the film). It's my 30th at the end of October...
*hugs*
Happy early birthday or a belated happy birthday young sir.
;)
Yeeeees!!!
2 days before my birthday! wonderful!
Then we all know what present will you ask for! :)
hehe!
We totally just got buzzed by a Navy helicopter!
Ping: http://www.f1bigpicture.com/news/make-a-break
Hmm.. I just thought:
"Wouldn't it be good if we had bernie medals this season, might make it more of an interesting end to the season!"
F1Minute is 900 episodes old. Planning a little anniversary blog post, with some behind the scenes stuff. If there's anything you've ever been curious about, now's the time to ask :)
Ohhhh congratulations
:D
good news, since I booked my Singapore hotel way back when they've made their wi fi free! :D
ohhhh thats amazing!!
in lesser good news Pamela is having trouble with getting leave for Korea :(
Congrats. :)
and by lesser good i mean not at all good
I managed to escape from work some hours ago, so I had a little bit of lunch at mum's and have come home long enough to catch up with golf blogging:
http://thoughtsofpat.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/a-round-of-golf-17-july-2011/
http://thoughtsofpat.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/a-round-of-golf-23-july-2011/
ohhh congrats Christine!
Could you please tell us how things were when you started, compared to how they are now? In terms of production time etc. Interested to know how/if practice and experience makes a big difference.
noooo :( aw i miss Pamela, say hi to her for me when you see her/ speak to her. I'd say give her a hug for me but you don't like hugs so ;)
I really hope Pamela manages to get leave sorted..
Will do :)
I saw her on Tuesday for dinner, and yes, there were no hugs.
she says its 50-50, I have my fingers crossed!
Thats one good thing about my work, they never really ever say no to leave. I worked out in total this year I'll be taking 30 days leave which is more than I realised :) My boss also gave me a $50 prepaid Visa today for no reason so I am job-happy at the moment :) I'm clearly easily bought.
boo
I'm making a mental note to watch all these videos in the Daily tomorrow night, I have to go again now, in search of spray paint for the big scratch on my car, then off to Dad's for food and board games. :)
Afternoon
Ouch, not good. Has she changed jobs or something, you guys are normally on top of stuff like this
the premiere league is struggling to cope with twitter (and they don't even have lewis' swearing to deal with):
"Maybe if it wasn't for Twitter and this instant media it may have got resolved on Monday morning with me and Joey in my office. The problem with Twitter – we need to get a hold of this. We have got nothing from the Premier League on how to deal with this."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/aug/04/newcastle-alan-pardew-joey-barton
Is it spelling they are having difficulty in or just not being idiots and thinking before they write?
Enjoy a little something from the sidepodcast.com back catalogue.
- Live: Singapore - Free Practice 2
Originally published 25/09/2009
criticism. mainly. don't like players having a voice.
Isn't it common sense to not to criticise your employer publicly, especially if you want to renew your contract?
can I criticise 2 airlines if I still need them to bring me back ?
Sure, why not?
why that old Shanghai thing keeps appearing next to my name I have no idea :-)
You're in Europe now? Busy bee that you are
I am, but my luggage is not :-( or is, but somewhere else in Europe thanks to two airlines messing up
Bugger!
yea, bugger, especially when I am to be in different place almost every day in next week or so ... will be interesting
Have you seen these recent posts on sidepodcast.com?
- Daily: 4th August 2011
- Daily: 3rd August 2011
- Longevity is celebrated with points on this week's Team Rankings
- An all positive week on Christine's Rankings this week
- Daily: 2nd August 2011
More down to the way Barton works and the Newcastle board which doesn't even need anything to annoy the fans. Though I can't stand following any bar the spurs (and forssell)players because they aren't worth it.
evening all :)
It's quite wierd the gulf between how F1 treats twitter and how football does. Plus drivers on twitter seem to be a lot more likeable than footballers do to me at least.
I agree. Can imagine easier to hold a convo on twitter with f1 folk than football.
Interesting to look at rohan ricketts, because some of his comments on there and the blog will affect his chances of decent employment.
I know this is a generalisation but I think F1 drivers are better media trained. The F1 drivers (of whom there are far fewer than Premier League football players) understand the brand better.
I'm joining the funding for this brilliant little Kickstarter project :)
Only 2% away from their funding target
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/721230440/c-dock
Very true
Evening folks
Good news for me - series catch-up of Season 6 (or 32....) of Doctor Who starts tomorrow, meaning I can finally catch episodes 5-7
:)
New trailer for Season 6 part 2 here http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/bulletin_110804_01
Without wishing to come across poorly, I wonder if this has a difference in terms of education. Let's be brutally honest here, top level racing drivers rarely come from the same social conditions as footballers and often that can extend to expression, especially in various forms of media.
Or maybe that's nonsense?
I think it's more of a difference between the cultures of football and F1, personally.
Sounds good. Good luck to him!
There is that as well I suppose.
Ping: http://sidepodcast.com/post/celebrating-fifteen-hours-of-f1-news
Hehee
*facepalm*
The 2012 coverage will be awesome
;D
Hopefully, we'll never need to find out
#Streams
Hehee
that's not going to make anyone angry, oh no.
ask pat about indycar streams this year.
Yup, tis going to be extremely frustrating
I hope I don't crack and fork out to Murdoch
actually, my biggest fear for next year is 100 comments a session "anyone got a stream?" and so on.
Best not. It took months to repair the town afterward
;)
:) :)
Hellooooo :)
What a fab daily. I must have about 15 times as much James Hunt knowledge as I had before.... :D
I agree. Coming from someone who played for probably the most upper class team in the league structure.
"Off the top of my head" trivia question if anyone is about
The more I read/hear about James Hunt, the more I wish he still existed and raced today :)
Q: For two points, how many Grand Prix did Helmut Marko compete in?
Evening all
I know so I am not going to answer.
For 5 points, how many did he interfere with? :)
Hi Steven
Too long. Thanks for the points.
Did you see it on Twitter?
#sidepodspace
NASA think they have found water flowing on the surface of Mars. This could be huge news.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro20110804.html
For anyone who hasn't seen this answered on Twitter, any guesses?
No. I heard it a while ago
It's very easy to find the answer
No, it's not.
I saw some of the press conference earlier. Haven't we had this story before or was that just evidence of previous water?
So it's not 10 then?
He only competed 9 F1 races - the question was how many "Grand Prix" did he compete in?
Before they had evidence of water under the surface and suggestions that the ice at the poles is not dry ice but water. This is the first time they have found evidence of what may be flowing water. They have found white salts under the surface as the result of one of the wheels on one of the rovers seizing and dragging along the surface and digging in.
Fair enough, someone ought to change the Wikipedia entry then :)
Nope - the Wikipedia entry is also correct
Depends whether a grand prix is a grand prix meeting or a race
Grand Prix races
Whatever, too much time spent discussing an interfering git in my eyes :)
NASA are clearly taking the Martian water seriously. Normally their front page loops through 7 or 8 stories - 1 every few seconds. Today they only have one. Never seen that before
http://www.nasa.gov/
So participants aren't competing then, on track?
It's the difference between a non-Championship event and a World Championship event, but not including Trophy events which did attain GP status.
So this is wrong then
A friend of Jochen Rindt, he entered racing, and eventually participated in 10 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 15 August 1971
Helmut Marko competed in 10 Grand Prix (9 World Championship and 1 non-Championship). He attempted 11 GP's, but could not qualify for Germany 1971 (August 1st, 1971)
He entered, but did not qualify. Therefore, it's not a race start.
Sorry, he entered two weeks earlier, but did not start
I saw a couple of interesting stories earlier today.
First we used to have two moons but the little one crashed into the big one very slowly
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/earth-could-had-two-moons-171728476.html
Jumping out of a plane at 3500ft and having both parachutes fail could result in a broken ankle. Sounds dangerous
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skydiver-falls-3-500-ft-and-only-breaks-ankle.html
The idea of a splat impact is intriguing.
I'm sure there's an f1 metaphor here somewhere.
Two lotuses?
was the little one being driven by David Coulthard?
It also could result in bad reporting. The article actually says that she got her reserve tangled in the main chute because she failed to release it properly.
Space is a cosmic car crash
It was a slow crash. In astronomy it is called doing a Piquet
A bit harsh when she only jumped from 3500 ft. You don't have a lot of time between jumping and landing from that height
aren't they supposed to detach the main before releasing the reserve?
Anyone done a parachute jump? I can't believe no-one here has jumped out of a plane
I'm not saying I'd do any better. I'd end up like that second moon in the other link ;)
I can't believe why anyone would want to.
:D
I have planned to do it a few times but never made it yet
It doesn't appeal to me at all. I'd much rather pilot the plane personally.
I have always resisted that because if I did it once I would want to do it again and again and that is just too expensive.
The trick is not to have enough money to afford to do it again ;)
Anyway I'm off, I'm a bit knackered now because I went for a late run:
http://runkeeper.com/user/RubberGoat/activity/46281730
See ya later!
That does nothing for the addiction. One day I will get a pilot's licence but it is not top of the list yet
Not-A-Chance
:)
Dear sidepodpartypeople, please teach me to be more organised. I really should be asleep, instead, I haven't packed anything for my HOLIDAY. Oops.
Hi!
I'd like to, but it's too expensive...
I jump repeatedly from a wall while climbing, if that counts. The best one was a 10-meters near free-fall before being caught by the rope :)
Don't worry about it. It will get done in time. If you need sleep then sleep. You will feel better in the morning if you do what you can then rather than if you stay up half the night to try to do everything
I have to start work at 7.... :D
You need a longer piece of rope to simulate a parachute jump
You've come to the wrong place. I always pack in the middle of the night before a trip. Little sleep is good for the jet-lag
Give yourself an hour to do it when you wake up. Remember work expands to fill the time available so if you have all night the work will take all night. If you have in an hour in the morning everything you have to do will take an hour
Not so good when she is driving though
This is true. I want to come back after work and finish and have a shower but Nick disapproves. Might just do it anyways.
for a longer fall I seriously doubt a climbing rope will hold when braking. you have bungee jumping for that (another thing I'd like to try...)
True story.
nope...
It's fun!!
I never thought I would say this but Nick is right. That just gives you more procrastination time and more time to find things you HAVE to do.
I am prepared to do a bungee provided it is over deep water. I really don't fancy it over hard ground
You don't hit the ground!
yeah, but there aren't any places to do it near were I live :(
And if something goes wrong? Why wear a seatbelt in the car because you are not meant to hit the windscreen?
but that's part of the appeal ;-)
it will go as wrong as it can go if the parachute fails (a broken ankle, apparently :-) )
You're probably in a lot of trouble whatever you're over.
Except with a bungee you are falling head first
True. But less trouble overwater
better! no broken ankle...
No sense no feeling.
PING!!!!
Lukeh daily
:D
A cheery hello from me. Going through motorcar and technology withdrawl. Sneaking wi-fi from local shop. Had to feed the beast :)
Shops with free wifi are the best. Who cares if McDonald's are creating an obese generation. THey have free wifi and you don't even need to go inside to use it