I'm not really known for my sporty attitude. I don't like football; I consider any game you can play in a pub not really a sport; I don't spend a fortune on a season ticket to see something I, quite frankly, could get a damn-sight lot easier from the TV. I did watch various events throughout the year, when they're on, because they're on. But there is one sport that I watch religiously whenever I can, start to end, and that's Formula One. F1 is pretty good, I have to admit. I've kept my eye on it since it moved from ITV to the BBC a few years ago and it can be quite gripping at times. Yes, there are the occasions where one driver gets ahead and the rest just follow but motor racing is 9 times out of 10, fairly unpredictable. Anything can happen at any time from the simple to the insane. With the 2010 season finished, I thought this would be a nice tribute to the best sport in the world. In the words of Murray Walker, "And they're go, go, GO!"
There's been a colourful History
Ever since the internal combustion engine went into the first horseless carriage, man has always wanted to race it. If it moves, the next best thing to do is make it go faster than any other competitor. They did it with horses, steam trains and boats so the car was always going to be raced. It all started to become a lot more popularised by the French Grand Prix way back in the late 1800s up until Formula One was created after the Second World War in the 1950s. This created names such as Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio and Alberto Ascari and showing car manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Bugatti and Maserati to name but a few. It's a genuine sport and everyone involved wouldn't be doing what they're doing without the past. It has come such a long way since then....
It shows who has the toughest metal on the track
Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz are still on the track to this day, along with Renault and Cosworth all of which supplying engines. These then branch off into the teams; Scuderia Ferrari, Scuderia Torro Rosso Ferrari, BMW Sauber Ferrari, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, Mercedes GP, Force India, Renault F1, Red Bull Racing Renault, AT&T Williams, Lotus Racing, Hispania Racing and Virgin Racing respectively. There's a few names there but they're all fighting it out. They can all produce as well as each other. For the 2010 season just gone, the latter Cosworth engined machine were further down the field but last year Force India were at the very back, yet they managed to drag it back this year. So, next year, we could be in the same sort of area with the slower, lower classed cars racing with the big guys. Now that would be fun!
You don't have to remember many names
The season just gone had the most teams in a while - 12. That's only 24-odd drivers you have to remember! Not an entire team of 11 and another team of 11. And they could be any 11 out of a million-gazillion teams on this earth. F1 is just a lot easier.
Cars Crash
Slightly morbid, but it happens. It add excitement and drama. A driver could be winning right up until the last lap and he bins his car into a barrier or another car and he loses his lead. Which shows that a driver has to have his concentration and wits about him all the time. Anything can happen in a race. Sebastian Vettel lost two front wheels during a qualifying lap. Mark Webber's Red Bull famously gave him wings when he hit (driver) and took off in one of the seasons biggest incidents. Luckily for Webber, he walked away like he'd only bumped into a bollard rather than heading skyward. It goes to show how well these cars are built and that they cocoon the driver in collision. Anything can happen. Racers have met their fate behind the wheel of an F1 car in the past, but in the past 16 years, it hasn't happened since.
The track locations are spectacular
If you watch the Formula One, chances are it's being broadcast from a very nice place. Races are held all over the world. Places like Monte Carlo, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Valencia. Drivers and their team travel all over the world in one season with a mix of tracks that take place in short narrow streets or purpose built tracks in the sticks. And with F1, locations give different climates which means it could be totally different to the last place the drivers were. It could be hot and sunny, or it could be cloudy and wet, and these factors make each race different adding more to that 'anything could happen' side to the battle.
It doesn't take away your precious time
F1 is only held on a Sunday. And even then it could be every other Sunday. Not a lot is on the television on a Sunday so it's the perfect time to sit down, chill and watch the race. There is the qualifier on on the Saturday, which gives an insight to how the leaders are doing but this isn't vital to the race as...And since ITV don't show it anymore, there's no breaks meaning you don't miss anything. Fantastic.
Anyone can do well
With racing, if you can stay ahead, that's good but if you get ahead, that's better. This past season just gone, Sebastian Vettel won the championship at the age of 23 making him the youngest driver to win ever. The previous year Jenson Button won the championship after years of battling with Honda. The year before that Lewis Hamilton won. Michael Schumacher became the oldest F1 driver to race. You don't have to be super good to do well and get recognised. You don't even have to win to get praise either. Niko Hulkenburg gained pole in the Brazillian GP, which was bloody good!
And without being sexist...
Women have been known to race in F1 and do well. It's not common now but we could bet that it may well happen again. Vicky Butler-Henderson and Jodie Kidd are well known for being petrol heads. So even though it may not have happened in while, it can happen again: The ladies driving with the guys. Oh and, just saying but F1 drivers wives and girlfriends are better than Footballers wives and girlfriends. Not counting Mark Webber in this though. Google search and you'll see how correct I am.
Sunday 21 November 2010
Wednesday 10 November 2010
WARNING: Don't read this if you spent hours queuing!
Are you sure your want me to carry on? Fare-thee-well, I shall
Today, a video game has just beat all records on this planet. People spent up to and above 30 hours queuing outside game stores all over Britain, in the freezing cold November weather, battling the elements the Gods threw at them. They fought through wind, rain and in some parts, even snow. Like on hills and mountains and stuff. I've written a few sentences and I can hear you screaming "What is this game? Please tell us for we are dying to know" even if you aren't. This game is of course, Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Now simply: why? Why is Call of Duty the best selling game ever?
As far as I can see the game is literally the same format time and time and time again. But so is Grand Theft Auto. And Need For Speed. And Burnout, and so on. But that isn't my jibe. The people, that's where my beef is. Whoooo would spend 30 hours waiting for A GAME? It's almost as bad as the people who queued for Harry Potter to come out (in the book sense not the closet sense. We'll be in for an even longer wait for that, now that there are no more books).
In my favouritest ever publication The Sun (simple things, simple minds) they highlighted Blops, as it known, because of its success. Actually, they didn't. They told how a video game can ruin a relationship. Oh my word! How can that be? What are video games becoming? It told the true tale of a man who is that obsessed with Call of Duty, he spends every waking minute shooting some teenager on the other side of the globe and his wife hates this "hobby" of his. She even said that it was becoming a second woman. The guy even snook his PS3 to a wedding and was found, rather embarrassingly, caught in the act of playing Call of Duty in a hotel room after saying he was going to the pub with a friend. Luckily, it wasn't his own wedding. Back in the days of Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario, everything was happy. Space Invaders is still stupidly addictive. But as far as splitting up a loving couple? Now, Euston, we do have a problem. Imagine the confrontation with the entire family and the explanation of the divorce. It would only be more awkward if one of them was actually a zombie drooling over the aspect of eating the families brains.
I stand by video games though. I have said it before that video games have become highly initiative in the past 10 years, which is a very short time. We've gone from 2D graphics to 3D, HD, interactivity that put you in the game and endless hours of joy and entertainment. Video games are the movies that you depict. But there's only one way that a war game can go. If you know your history, you should be able to predict who is going to win. Especially with it being set during the Vietnam War, a country that still has echoes of it's grisly past. I've never really seen eye to eye with a shoot-em up. Mainly because I see games like this as boring. I don't really see the appeal bouncing around a barren wasteland looking through my weapons to figure out which gun would be best to pick him off the top of the building. My head says "sniper rifle" in a very quiet voice but really both my head and my heart are shouting at me to use the rocket launcher - just to see this one bad guy go in a thousand directions at once. Out of the first person shooters I've played they've normally followed the same pattern each time: Start playing, run around, shoot the walls and doors and anything that isn't an enemy, run out of ammunition, see an enemy who ultimately starts shooting at me for no reason I can see (probably just had a really bad day), die, start again, blow up that baddy with my only rocket propelled grenade, run out of ammunition again, get shot again, turn it off and go fetch my guitar.
£50 for a game and another 250 quid on top of that for the console, if you're starting from the bottom. I've spent more than a thousand pounds on instruments. People may say I've wasted my money but honestly, that's not bothering me. I must say, it's rather a feat of accomplishment. So in conclusion, I will never wait for more than a day to get a video game. I am excited at the fact that in the near future, I will possibly own a PlayStation 3 and hopefully get with it Test Drive: Unlimited 2. Mainly because it has Ferrari on the car list and the only time I've ever "driven" a Ferrari in a video game was in OutRun at a Skegness arcade, in which I drifted a 288 GTO. Call of Duty on the other hand - I'd rather spend my 50 squids on guitar strings.
Today, a video game has just beat all records on this planet. People spent up to and above 30 hours queuing outside game stores all over Britain, in the freezing cold November weather, battling the elements the Gods threw at them. They fought through wind, rain and in some parts, even snow. Like on hills and mountains and stuff. I've written a few sentences and I can hear you screaming "What is this game? Please tell us for we are dying to know" even if you aren't. This game is of course, Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Now simply: why? Why is Call of Duty the best selling game ever?
As far as I can see the game is literally the same format time and time and time again. But so is Grand Theft Auto. And Need For Speed. And Burnout, and so on. But that isn't my jibe. The people, that's where my beef is. Whoooo would spend 30 hours waiting for A GAME? It's almost as bad as the people who queued for Harry Potter to come out (in the book sense not the closet sense. We'll be in for an even longer wait for that, now that there are no more books).
In my favouritest ever publication The Sun (simple things, simple minds) they highlighted Blops, as it known, because of its success. Actually, they didn't. They told how a video game can ruin a relationship. Oh my word! How can that be? What are video games becoming? It told the true tale of a man who is that obsessed with Call of Duty, he spends every waking minute shooting some teenager on the other side of the globe and his wife hates this "hobby" of his. She even said that it was becoming a second woman. The guy even snook his PS3 to a wedding and was found, rather embarrassingly, caught in the act of playing Call of Duty in a hotel room after saying he was going to the pub with a friend. Luckily, it wasn't his own wedding. Back in the days of Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario, everything was happy. Space Invaders is still stupidly addictive. But as far as splitting up a loving couple? Now, Euston, we do have a problem. Imagine the confrontation with the entire family and the explanation of the divorce. It would only be more awkward if one of them was actually a zombie drooling over the aspect of eating the families brains.
I stand by video games though. I have said it before that video games have become highly initiative in the past 10 years, which is a very short time. We've gone from 2D graphics to 3D, HD, interactivity that put you in the game and endless hours of joy and entertainment. Video games are the movies that you depict. But there's only one way that a war game can go. If you know your history, you should be able to predict who is going to win. Especially with it being set during the Vietnam War, a country that still has echoes of it's grisly past. I've never really seen eye to eye with a shoot-em up. Mainly because I see games like this as boring. I don't really see the appeal bouncing around a barren wasteland looking through my weapons to figure out which gun would be best to pick him off the top of the building. My head says "sniper rifle" in a very quiet voice but really both my head and my heart are shouting at me to use the rocket launcher - just to see this one bad guy go in a thousand directions at once. Out of the first person shooters I've played they've normally followed the same pattern each time: Start playing, run around, shoot the walls and doors and anything that isn't an enemy, run out of ammunition, see an enemy who ultimately starts shooting at me for no reason I can see (probably just had a really bad day), die, start again, blow up that baddy with my only rocket propelled grenade, run out of ammunition again, get shot again, turn it off and go fetch my guitar.
£50 for a game and another 250 quid on top of that for the console, if you're starting from the bottom. I've spent more than a thousand pounds on instruments. People may say I've wasted my money but honestly, that's not bothering me. I must say, it's rather a feat of accomplishment. So in conclusion, I will never wait for more than a day to get a video game. I am excited at the fact that in the near future, I will possibly own a PlayStation 3 and hopefully get with it Test Drive: Unlimited 2. Mainly because it has Ferrari on the car list and the only time I've ever "driven" a Ferrari in a video game was in OutRun at a Skegness arcade, in which I drifted a 288 GTO. Call of Duty on the other hand - I'd rather spend my 50 squids on guitar strings.
Monday 8 November 2010
People write the strangest things...
...And no, I'm not just on about myself. Hahaha!
In fact I was reading The Sun newspaper, as you do, last Thursday. I then came to the letters page very near the back of the paper and couldn't help but laugh at why somebody had spent their own time to send the following message [in regards to Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay's outburst during his stint on the X Factor-y towards Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole]:
Jay Kay is a fool to break the golden rule of showbiz which is to never criticise other performers. His ignorant rant was not based on fact but rather his own perception. Dannii Minogue has more broad-based talent than JK. She is by turns a singer, dancer, actor, model, author, mother, fashion designer, TV presenter and judge and mentor on two prime-time TV shows on two continents, not to mention her chart success.
I looked at it and thought that this was metaphorical heaven and blog-post gold. Let's break up this silly mans (it is a man) letter to The Sun and enjoy it for it's comedy value and why he's wrong. Starting with point one;
Jay Kay is not a fool to break the rule in showbiz about criticising other performers. It happens all the time. A critisism can be a positive or negative view. Not being able to have your own humble opinion on anything if you're in the public eye is impossible; anything you will say, it will probably end up in Heat magazine or some bullcrap like that. Yes, Jay's opinion was negative but there is no one there stopping him from saying it
I'd say, in Jay's defense that he was correct when he said that both Cheryl and Dannii were useless. They are...but lo...Mr. Newspaper-posty-man gives a detailed list on what Dannii Minogue has done in her career. Singing, dancing, actor, etc. But she hasn't sung in donkey's years; she acted in Aussie soaps so we don't know how bad she was (I'm guessing very); anyone can write a book but she didn't even do that by herself; she may be a model but with a face full of creosote and collagen or whatever it's called, it just makes natural models look better; and to make matters worse, she is a judge on car crash telly that is fighting a losing battle to the Grim Reaper. And what chart success? Apart from the UK Dance Charts because Australia didn't want it. Even album sales... 7 million worldwide album sales for Miss Minogue. No, not like her better sister, Kylie ("I want to be famous like my sister nowwwww!"). Mr Kay on the other hand has 25 million worldwide...
Jay's new album even charted at number 7 in the album charts on Sunday. Agreed, 7th isn't the best place to enter the charts but at least it's in the top 10. Dannii? Where's yours this decade? Oh and the guy who posted his letter didn't even mention poor Cheryl which just goes to show that someone out there thinks less of Cheryl than the "British Nation."
With figures like that impressive 25 mil', Jay is in the right place to criticise! I take my massively oversized, silly hat off to you Mr James Kay. Seems that Dannii really is a jack of all trades sort of person. And master of absolutely sod all!
In fact I was reading The Sun newspaper, as you do, last Thursday. I then came to the letters page very near the back of the paper and couldn't help but laugh at why somebody had spent their own time to send the following message [in regards to Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay's outburst during his stint on the X Factor-y towards Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole]:
Jay Kay is a fool to break the golden rule of showbiz which is to never criticise other performers. His ignorant rant was not based on fact but rather his own perception. Dannii Minogue has more broad-based talent than JK. She is by turns a singer, dancer, actor, model, author, mother, fashion designer, TV presenter and judge and mentor on two prime-time TV shows on two continents, not to mention her chart success.
I looked at it and thought that this was metaphorical heaven and blog-post gold. Let's break up this silly mans (it is a man) letter to The Sun and enjoy it for it's comedy value and why he's wrong. Starting with point one;
Jay Kay is not a fool to break the rule in showbiz about criticising other performers. It happens all the time. A critisism can be a positive or negative view. Not being able to have your own humble opinion on anything if you're in the public eye is impossible; anything you will say, it will probably end up in Heat magazine or some bullcrap like that. Yes, Jay's opinion was negative but there is no one there stopping him from saying it
I'd say, in Jay's defense that he was correct when he said that both Cheryl and Dannii were useless. They are...but lo...Mr. Newspaper-posty-man gives a detailed list on what Dannii Minogue has done in her career. Singing, dancing, actor, etc. But she hasn't sung in donkey's years; she acted in Aussie soaps so we don't know how bad she was (I'm guessing very); anyone can write a book but she didn't even do that by herself; she may be a model but with a face full of creosote and collagen or whatever it's called, it just makes natural models look better; and to make matters worse, she is a judge on car crash telly that is fighting a losing battle to the Grim Reaper. And what chart success? Apart from the UK Dance Charts because Australia didn't want it. Even album sales... 7 million worldwide album sales for Miss Minogue. No, not like her better sister, Kylie ("I want to be famous like my sister nowwwww!"). Mr Kay on the other hand has 25 million worldwide...
Jay's new album even charted at number 7 in the album charts on Sunday. Agreed, 7th isn't the best place to enter the charts but at least it's in the top 10. Dannii? Where's yours this decade? Oh and the guy who posted his letter didn't even mention poor Cheryl which just goes to show that someone out there thinks less of Cheryl than the "British Nation."
With figures like that impressive 25 mil', Jay is in the right place to criticise! I take my massively oversized, silly hat off to you Mr James Kay. Seems that Dannii really is a jack of all trades sort of person. And master of absolutely sod all!
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