Tag Archives: Formula 1

Here We Go-

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Catch up time – again!

What I’ve Been Doing
What’s been happening? In late October I finally attending my first Mass since March-April. A few days later, a deteriorating coronavirus situation put England back into a national lockdown. I saw ‘England’ as the Welsh and Scottish governments have been dealing with their countries separately.

At the end of October, I celebrated my 49th birthday. I did so quietly with a glass of wine.

At the start of November I joined the NaNoWriMo scheme. It’s been an up and down month in terms of writing. As of today, I have managed just over 30,000 words. Unfortunately, I have not written anything this week. I just ran out of steam.

At the start of this week, I had a chat with a dear friend and admitted that I had read hardly any books this year. I’ve been thinking about that since and realised that I have read a few more than I remembered, but it has still been a poor year.

Books On the Go
As a result of this conversation, on Wednesday, I picked up the four that I had started or tried to start since September and read a little bit of each as a prelude to beginning a programme of reading one or two every day thereafter. The four books are:

i. Hilaire Belloc The Servile State. For more on this one, check out my Belloc blog here
ii. Amanda McCrina Traitor. This is a YA book set on the eastern front during the Second World War. McCrina writes with very a very light touch, which is a great blessing given the book’s setting and some of the events in it; her prose reminds me of Hemingway’s in its matter-of-factness.
iii. Adrian Goldsworthy Philip & Alexander. A doorstopper of a biography about Philip II of Macedon and his famous son. I’ve only read a couple of chapters so its too early to give an opinion of it. Goldsworthy is a good historian, though, so I have high hopes for it.
iv. A.B. Bosworth Conquest and Empire. Another biography of Alexander. I wouldn’t normally read two at once but it is the current book for the Alexander the Great Reading Group, which I am a member of on Twitter.

Formula 1
Lewis Hamilton won the Formula One World Championship for the seventh time! A truly magnificent achievement. When Michael Schumacher won his seventh world title I didn’t think anyone would ever get close to it let alone equal it. Hamilton has every good chance of winning an eighth title next year as well.

A few weeks before Hamilton wrapped up his title, Mercedes won the Constructors’ World Championship for the seventh time in a row. What makes their victories so special is that they have achieved them across different regulations. Formula One changes its car rules every few years. This usually allows a new team to break ahead of whoever dominated the sport before (it’s how Mercedes superseded Red Bull who won the Constructors’ title four years in a row between 2010-2013 with Sebastian Vettel). Mercedes, however, have remained dominant since 2014 despite any rule change that the FIA has thrown at them. 2021 was due to be the next big rule change but it has been put back a year due to the pandemic. Next year’s cars, therefore, will be very similar to this year’s. That gives Hamilton the perfect chance to get ahead of Schumacher.

The Presidential Election
Joe Biden won the American Presidential election at the start of November. Since then, Donald Trump has been doing his best to get the result overturned through the courts but without any success at all. He hasn’t conceded to Biden yet but there can surely be no doubt that he will. On Twitter, I did my level best to avoid the election. No one asked for my opinion and I very much doubt it would be of any value at all to anyone. I still nearly managed to make an ass of myself, though, when I wrote an e-mail to an American friend and typed ‘H’ instead of ‘J’ for Joe on my keyboard. Fortunately, I saw the error in time!

NFL
The Cleveland Browns are roading through the regular season in the NFL. Well, kind of. As of today, they have a 7-3 record and are second in the AFC North. First is Pittsburgh who have a perfect 10-0 record. I will just be happy if Cleveland get to the playoffs.

Romance
Since September (and before) I have been listening to the Lesbians Who Write podcast. Earlier this month, I finished reading T. B. Markinson’s A Woman Lost romance and decided to write a ‘thank you’ e-mail to her. They mentioned the e-mail in the 91st episode of the podcast and I’m not going to lie, I’ve been feeling pretty chuffed about it ever since! I enjoy LWW very much – the humour and insight into the writing business especially. Sometimes I think ‘maybe I will write a romance’ but the stories I really want to write are fairy tales. Maybe I will write a fairy tale romance. Mine would be a bi fairy tale romance, though, as this market seems very ill catered for.

UPDATE: 29.11.20 I have written a catch-up post for my Alexander blog, The Second Achilles. You can read it here

It’s Lights Out…

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On-Line Gaming
As I have probably mentioned before, I love watching people play video games online. My current favourite is Codemasters’ F1 2019 – soon to be replaced by this year’s iteration of the game. The lock down period has been a blessing for discovering Formula 1 Twitch live streamers.

As I write these words, however, I am listening to an LMP 1 car race around LeMans in a virtual 24 Hours of LeMans live stream. Each team has four drivers, each of whom drives for a certain number of hours before handing over the to the next person. I don’t know who organised this race but it must have taken a lot of work. I imagine the stamina required to race is also pretty high!

The Last of Us Part 2
I discovered Twitch in 2014 when I started watching The JHN Files play the original Last of Us game. I was captivated by both game and the live broadcast. The Last of Us Part 2 finally came out on Friday, and I can’t wait to play it.

The game was originally meant to be released at the end of May but earlier that month was suddenly and indefinitely delayed. A specific reason wasn’t given for this, which led me to wonder if it was because the game – in which your character has to survive in a world that has been ravaged by a pandemic – might not sell so well in a world currently being ravaged by, well, a pandemic.

Fast forward a few weeks and all of a sudden, Naughty Dog, the company behind the game, announced that it would come out on 19th June. Why? Probably because an irate developer who had left the company/been sacked published spoilers about the game online. Thankfully, I managed to avoid those so can still look forward to diving into the game as soon as I have a chance.

The Path to Rome
Today is 21st June. In 1901, Hilaire Belloc is eight days away from Rome. I have written my tweets (@PathtoRome1901) covering his journey up to the 25th. Today, I hope to write the last four days worth. Then, I will be able to relax and think about ‘what next’? I want to read more Belloc. Do I have the time? If I do, what should I read?

Protests
The protests that started out as a reaction to the death of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis (USA) are now in some places morphing into a wider campaign against statues of people from various periods and backgrounds.

Predictably, statues of slave owners have been pulled down – here in the U.K. a statue of Edward Colston was dropped into Bristol Harbour by protesters.

Less predictably, I have seen photos/footage of a statue of Union General and U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant being pulled down; the same treatment has been meted out to a statue of George Washington and St. Junipero Serra. A bust of the novelist Cervantes has also been defaced. All these have happened in America.

What’s going on? I have read that Grant only ever owned one slave, who he inherited, and who he set free as soon as he was able. Cervantes was not a slave owner but rather, held as a slave for several years. Maybe these details are incorrect. But if they are right, they provide proof that for some people, what started out as a Black Lives Matter protest is dissipating into a campaign against anyone they happen to dislike. If that is the case, their campaign, lacking any solid foundation will surely collapse in due course.

But maybe they know perfectly well what they are doing and these acts of destruction are part of a deliberate campaign to destroy public remembrances of the past. Is this a good thing? No. Individuals or unauthorised groups who destroy statues are declaring that they have the authority to shape how society remembers the past. But this authority belongs only to the people as a whole (through the government) or the private organisation that owns the statue. Individuals who destroy statues or any public remembrance make themselves petty tyrants.

If the government or private organisation takes down the statue without considering first the pros and cons of doing so also acts in a tyrannical fashion. Once a statue goes up, it should only come down after the matter has been given full consideration. Nothing else will do.

When we ask ‘what is going on’, there is, of course, another option that we should be alert to: that agent provocateurs are acting in order to discredit their rivals.

Football Returns
The Premier League returned last Wednesday. Sky Television is broadcasting its games on two channels – one with fake crowd noise and one without. Neither are satisfactory. Hearing the fake crowd noise and seeing the empty stands is too distracting to be acceptable. Watching a game without any crowd sound at all takes away any sense of urgency and almost all the excitement. With that said, I prefer watching the games with no sound as at least its more honest.

I am not fond of the fact that all the players take the knee/have the Black Lives Matter wording on their shirts. I dislike particular causes getting so much publicity when there are so many others out there that are extremely important and necessary yet get little or no publicity at all.

Sainsbury’s
Up till last Friday, the queue for Sainsbury’s was getting shorter and shorter every week. On Friday, though, it was a rather longer. A sign of things to come? Probably not. I think I just arrived at the wrong moment. For example, a week or two ago, I arrived at the store when there was virtually no queue and left when it was as long as this week’s.

Also, per Government guidelines, I have started wearing a face mask when in store. Strangely, though, most people are now not doing so! The other week, one of the Sainsbury’s staff very kindly showed me how to wear it in a way that reduces the amount of fogging over on my glasses. Very useful! (I’m probably the last person in the world to realise this but in case you don’t know, you just bend the metal strip so that it follows the contour of your nose).

The Camino
I have heard that the Camino is opening again in July, which is great news. It won’t be like before, though: face masks must be worn in albergues, and I think there will be a reduced number of beds available. Next year is a Holy Year for Santiago. This should mean that pilgrim numbers go up, up, up. It will be interesting to see what happens if the coronavirus remains an issue (as will likely be the case bar the discovery of a vaccine). I would like to walk the Francés again next year. In the current climate, I really don’t know if that will happen.

An Unexpected Letter
This week, I received a letter from HMRC saying that I had paid too much tax over the last year. The reimbursement will be very gratefully received. This week, I found an old USB stick and on it was a document with my Government Gateway number on it. This means I can finally sort out my tax status for my current job, which is a great relief.

As You Write It

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I am writing this post at 6:58am. I usually try to do a little creative work early in the morning but thought I would turn to the blog today as I need to catch-up again.

Well, a few things have happened since my last post on 3rd May.

Last week, one of my aunts died. She had been suffering from dementia and latterly had moved to a care home. I don’t know the cause of her death although in the current context one might hazard a guess. I wasn’t close to her – I hadn’t met her since the 90s – but one of her sons is an occasional visitor to our house and I keep up with his and some of his family’s life on Facebook so I feel for them.

A few days ago, my brother’s mother-in-law died – I believe of natural causes; she had been very ill for sometime. I never met her at all but I am sad for my brother’s wife.

A couple of days ago, I was just about to start my daily exercise when an e-mail notification flashed up on my screen: my parish had started livestreaming a Mass. Very unusual as it was 2:22pm. Afternoon Masses are not usually until much later, and then at the top of the hour.

I read the text accompanying the notificaiton: RIP Derek Vitali. This cut me to the quick. Derek and his wife were regular attendees to the 8am Sunday Mass – the one at which I altar serve. Derek himself was a reader. He had an amazing voice – deep, clear, and authoritative. It was always a pleasure listening to him. We often spoke ‘back stage’ before or after the Mass as well. He was a very kind and happy person; full of good humour. As with my aunt, I don’t know the circumstances of his death but I will miss him very much.

Requiescant in Pace.

My parents and I remain well. I continue my social media work, exercise, reading and preparation for creative writing.

Howards End (9/10)
After watching The Martian, I turned to this Merchant Ivory classic. Leonard Bast’s death remains incredibly sad and frustrating. If only the Wilcox family had had an ounce of compassion it need never have happened. It’s worse because I can identify with Bast – I am not as poor as he is but without the help of others I probably would be. I appreciate his love of literature and nature, his day dreaminess as well. I try not to think about how it is not just the Wilcox’s but society itself that brings him down because then I might have to ask questions about my own society – not so much or only in connection with me but in regards all of us.

K-19: The Widowmaker (8/10)
My second Russian submarine disaster film. This one is set in the early 60s. The K-19 is the USSR’s latest super-sub. It has also been badly constructed. It should remain in port but the Soviet Navy chiefs want it at sea to conduct missile tests so off it goes. Predictably, disaster follows: Piping in the nuclear reactor breaks. Water coolant can no longer get through to the reactor itself. As a result, its temperature rises to catastrophic levels. The crew undertake a race against time to repair the piping before the high temperatures cause a nuclear explosion that could in turn lead to nuclear war – rather unhelpfully, the sub’ is close by an American spy station.

K-19 is a solid action-drama. Harrison Ford acts against type as Captain Alexei Vostrikov who seems to care more about the Party than his crew. Liam Neeson’s Mikhail Polenin is the noble submarine commander who does his best to defend his crew’s interests against the captain.

In the end, Vostrikov comes good: he puts the men first. If I have one criticism of the film it is that it didn’t develop Vostrikov’s character enough. We know that despite his party loyalty he has a suspect background but in the film he goes from being cruel to kind in fairly short order.

John Wick 3: Parabellum (8.5/10)
I finished watching this yesterday. John Wick 3 is very stylish, and violent. It has a very interesting internal mythology that raises the film above being just about the violence though I don’t know by how much. I think I need to watch the first two films in the series.

Happy Birthday Formula 1!
Formula 1 turned seventy years old, yesterday (13th May). The first ever F1 Grand Prix took place at Silverstone in the presence of King George VI. There was big news to go with the birthday, of course, with the announcement from Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel that he would be leaving the team at the end of the year. Let’s hope we can go racing and he can get a win (after Hamilton has won his seventh title, preferably) before the year’s end.

Inspired by a friend I’ve never met

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Corona Chronicles I

I follow Niall Gooch on Twitter. He is a clever and compassionate person and I always benefit from his tweets. A few days ago, he tweeted,

This seemed to me a good idea so on this blog, until such time as the coronavirus abates, I will try and record what’s going on in my little corner of the world – Islington, London, U.K.

First of all, home life.

Yesterday, our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, ‘urged everyone to avoid unnecessary social contacts, to work from home where possible, and to stay away from pubs and restaurants.’ This doesn’t affect me too much as I work from home, and don’t have the money to go out very much, anyway.

The above quotation comes from the BBC website, here. The same report states that ‘[p]eople in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks.’ My mother and father are 79 and 80 so are definitely ‘at risk’. I still live in the family house so am now part son, part shield. The latter fits my love of chivalry perfectly. Are there any medieval romances where the Knight washes his hands a lot?

A concern for my parents now informs all my actions when going out. For example, yesterday (16th March) I had intended to take a walk across town to Westminster Cathedral to go to confession. Because of the worry that I might pick something up, at the cathedral if not along the way, however, I decided to stay at home. Now that we are being told to avoid unnecessary social contact, I suspect I will not go to confession again until the summer. It’s not ideal but the thought of bringing an unwelcome guest home is even worse.

Now that I am avoiding going out, what about my daily walks? I am going to do more exercise at home, even if it is just walking on the spot while watching a film on Netflix or a You Tube video.

Speaking of exercise, you may recall me mentioning my dodgy leg in last year’s Camino posts. Well, back in January I finally – FINALLY – got round to submitting a request for a physiotherapist appointment with the NHS. I thought I might not get an answer until later in the year but within a week or two, I was offered an appointment. Three weeks ago, I met the physiotherapist and he gave me some exercises to do. I have been carrying them out religiously ever since and let me tell you, while my leg is not perfect, it is SO MUCH BETTER than before. The old pain is almost entirely gone. Not quite, but almost. I am amazed. And all it took was ‘some’ stretches. Unless the medical centre has been closed, I am meeting the physio again this week to let him know how I have been getting on. I can’t wait to tell him.

There is one fly in the ointment – part of the physiotherapy involved walking in a slightly different way and I haven’t managed to perfect that yet. In fact, I am a long way off it, so that’s something I need to work on whenever I do go out.

Away from home.

I mentioned above not going to confession. I will keep going to Mass unless one of us in the house falls ill or until/unless the churches are closed. How extraordinary it is that I have to write these words. Who could have foreseen it, even at the start of the year? It’s like we have gone back to the time of Shakespeare with the closing of the theatres. The other day, someone on Twitter said that when W.S. was quarantined he wrote King Lear. The implication was that you should do something similar. Nonsense, of course, but I hope I can be at least a little creative. I have one or two ideas in this regard and will mention them if I can realise them.

All sporting events in the country have been cancelled or postponed for the time being. The one that affects me most is the calling off of the first few Formula 1 races. I can do without football or even rugby but F1 I miss. Depending on how things go we won’t get any races until May or June.

As I said above, I don’t go out the often. I am the secretary of The Keys Catholic literary group, though, so attend its meetings every month. I had already decided not to go to this month’s meeting but yesterday the Master decided to postpone it. I immediately sent the e-mail to all the members confirming this. Thankfully, the ones who have responded have been very understanding. We haven’t decided what to do about April’s meeting, but as with the F1, I don’t expect there will be another one until the summer.

Further Afield

There is just one thing I would like to write here. Business Insider reports that the American President, Donald Trump, ‘tried to poach German scientists working on a coronavirus vaccine and offered cash so it would be exclusive to the US’. You can read the report here.

If the report is true – the German government says it is, the company for whom the scientists work say it is not – it really is the most diabolically selfish act on Donald Trump’s part. Of course, given his past behaviour, we should not be surprised by this, but I think we may be surprised by the depth of his selfishness in this regard.

Thank you to Niall for letting me quote his tweets in this post! (It’s true I’ve never met him so I hope he doesn’t mind me calling him a friend).