monaco pics 3

So here it is - day 3, race day.

Let's crack straight in shall we with the establishing shots. These are where we sat on day 3:











For these next ones I'm actually hanging out over the side of the stand, which I can assure you I didn't really enjoy as I have a serious fear of heights:







Monaco is so small that there's not much room for, well, anything, really. So instead of the paddocks (where the teams 'live' being in the pits, they're a ways off to the side. These shots are aimed at the paddocks, but you can't really see them, as such:



This is actually the 'RED Bull experience'. Whether that means 'overly sweet with and with an unpleasant after-taste', I can't confirm.



Hubba-hubba:



The next lot of shots are all of the pits:





















We were actually facing 'the rock' from this stand:







Here's one of the support races with Porsches:



Note how the red and white thing is there to keep them in the race-track and not skip the corner. The curbs are not much of a deterrent at all for an ordinary road car:



And some GP2 action:



Note the red and white thing has gone now:



This is them wheeling the Red Bull into the garage. At most circuits they don't need to bother, because the paddocks are right there, but as mentioned, Monaco is so tiny they can't fit them in:





Before the race they have a pit walk about where people can wander around the pits. If you can see anyone famous, let me know:



And here's the driver's parade. See if you can spot anyone you recognise:



And here, finally, is some F1 race action:



Not that I took many photos during the actual race, because you're so focused on the racing, you forget to:



A Ferrari skipping the corner. They got told off for skipping this corner:



A pit stop. On telly, pit stops look quite smooth and well-oiled, but in real life they're barely controlled chaos:



And here was one of the more exciting events: Kovalainan crashed his car right next to us:











And that's pretty much it, really. Here's a shot of Button holding his trophy aloft as shown on the big screen:

monaco pics 2

So here's the photos for day 2 of our little excursion to the Monaco GP this last May.

Again, clicking the pics should take you to the full album to have a look through.

On day 2 we were in casino square. If you look at the photos yesterday there's one where I refer to the hill being really steep. Well, that hill leads up to casino square, which is where we were on day2.

There's only one stand up there and it has to be the most comfortable stand I've ever been in. The seats are moulded to a bucket/back-side shape and while that may sound uncomfortable, it's actually exactly the opposite. Unlike all the other days where I got a numb-bum and a slightly sore back, on day 2 I was fine.

The first shots are the establishers, then. Building on the right of Casino square:



Big crane, big screen, expensive casino:



Man with natty t-shirt distracts me from the point of the photo:



Over to the left of the stand. Quite empty at the mo, but it soon filled up:



Some close up now. First off the restaurant:



Next the big screen, which was unfortunately covered by the arm of the camera crane thing:



And a shot of the crane. Crane's are very important at Monaco as there's little in the way of run-off:



And the casino:



A side street to the right of the stand:



And this is the track. So that must mean it's time for some car action:



I've actually mixed these together - they're from both the morning practice session as well as the actual qualifying. From your point of view, I figure a shot of an F1 car is a shot of an F1 car :/.











So, halfway through the day was luncheon and this gives me an opportunity to show you the gardens that were out the back of the stand. I have to say it was incredibly civilised being in this stand. And no, shots of statue cocks was not my intention, it just happened to be the closest statue to where we crashed out over lunch.



In the afternoon was qualifying, so here's some more cars.





Of course, for qualifying, the crowds filled up. Here's some people on the balcony and in the restaurant. This is one of the things that gives Monaco the atmosphere it has.





Some more car action and then guess what happened?



Lewis Hamilton binned it just up the road from us. And here he is, walking back to the pits, helmet still on because he knows it was entirely his own fault:





And here's two more cars failing to crash like Lewis:





Overall, I'd probably say that day 2 was my favourite day (the actual race not withstanding).

monaco pics

Well, here's the good stuff - pics of the Monaco trip. Really it was only about two months ago, but it already feels like ages.

You should be able to click these pics and it'll take you to the full photo album if you want to go through them there. The versions in the photo album are 1024*768 res.

So, first off, here are some establishing shots of where we were sat on the Thursday morning. We were at a place called Tabac, which is called that because there's a tabac (a tobacconists) under the road in a subway walkway.









From where we were we could see the top of 'the rock' as it's called. I understand there's a palace up there:



And we could see the harbour pretty well:



Monaco's pretty damn compact, and I guess they always need to save about as much space as they can. This is a little golf buggy that's done up as a fire truck!



So anyway: the important stuff!

Here's a Brawn coming around the corner:



And a Renault doing the same:



Not sure who this is, but then I was more focused on trying to get the "whizzing past" effect. This also demonstrates just how close you are to the track and the cars at Monaco. You don't get anywhere near as close as this at any other circuit.



And here's a shot of the rear-end of a car as it blasts down past piscine. I think this was a Renault:



But Formula 1 is not all that happens on race weekends. Here's the rear-end of the GP2 cars as they go around on their parade lap:



And here's a front-shot of a GP2 car. Notice just how similar they are to F1 cars - it's meant as one of the feeder formulas for F1.



And off they go away from us:



But wait, who's this:



Why, it's Martin Brundle and David Coulthard of the BBC's commentary and formally of driving about in F1 cars fame:



And here's Coulthard staring 'right down the barrel' as it were. There's a good chance he was looking right at us, rather than this being a coincidence, because my Dad was almost totally unable to see them.

I don't mean that he couldn't see them because his view was obstructed, I mean he was looking, but despite both me and my sister pointing them out, he couldn't spot them. Since me and my sister were pointing at them, he may have noticed and wondered what was going on :/.



So anyway, that was morning practice. After lunch we moved to the next door stand, which was one of the good things about the whole harbour area - the seating wasn't assigned, so you could sit basically where you want, and there were about 6 or so stands.

These are some establishing shots. As you can see, we're much closer to the piscine area here than tabac.







And here's more of those yachts. Millions and millions of pounds worth of yachts. And these are the small ones :/.



This is a long shot of the tabac corner now, because of how far we've moved down:



And the cars whizzed past in the afternoon session:



And that's your lot for today. Hopefully I'll be able to bring you day 2 either tomorrow or the day after. Day 2 is actually the Saturday - Friday there's no F1 action, so that was when we went to Cannes. Although I took my camera, I was sufficiently unimpressed that I didn't take any photos.

the joyous return to work

So I'm back at work.

Hurrah, obviously.

The weekend was pretty productive. I'd say I got most everything ticked off. Partly that's because some of them didn't take as long as I was dreading.

I also got a bonus thing done - I put a load of stuff on for e-bay auction when I hadn't planned to do that at all. I didn't put everything on that I identified for my to sell this, although that was kinda deliberate.

Experience has taught me that having too much stuff ending at the same time is a little counter-productive. I get very confused as to what's paid and what's owed, and it ends up with huge a amount of, often heavy parcels and numerous trips to the post office. Chopping it up into more manageable chunks makes life so much easier.

But it's not all good news. I utterly failed to do any scanning whatsoever. That also meant I failed to make any headway on the growing list of new anime shows I need to sample. I also failed to watch any new anime and read a paltry amount of manga, where I'd hoped to really crack into a series.

I don't really even have the excuse that there wasn't enough time. If I'd been a bit more ruthless with all my Anno playing, I'd have had the time to at least do something.

But then the counter to that, of course, is that it was a holiday - I should be allowed to have some fun, right?

Hopefully, over the next couple of days I might be bringing you some photos from my Monaco adventure, but don't hold your breath, as I'm feeling a bit lazy, if I'm honest.