Well, I can't go without mentioning the formula one world championship and the winning there of by young Lewis Hamilton.
It's been a great season this last year. I mean, there was some dodgyness and not a little controversy, but then those things always make the season more interesting, if not actually being good in and of themselves, but Lewis triumphing is a perfect end to it all.
It was a well deserved victory, and I truly think he is one of the best drivers that this country, if not the world, has produced in ages.
What makes things even more exciting is he seems to be one of a crop of new drivers coming up just recently. As much as I personally like Michael Schumacher, I can't deny that things became a little stayed while he was dominant. The sport kinda lacked for any real rising stars of his calibre.
I mean, there were a few good drivers, as there are every year, but not in the volume we seem to have good newbies this year.
I did actually manage to spoiler the race for myself by catching the end of the broadcast (I normally TiVo it so I can skip the adds) but what I didn't realise was that he only won it right at the very end by passing Timo Glock on the last or second-to-last corner. It was still quite exciting, even though I knew the outcome.
Anyway, what I also wanted to mention was that next year there are a whole raft of changes coming. Firstly, they're getting slick tyres back, thank god. Also, they're banning all these "down force aids" which a) make the cars look fucking awful and b) are also part of the reason over-taking had become difficult.
All these down force things make the air coming out the back really turbulent, making it difficult to really get close enough to get a good tow. Also, if the air is messy it hampers the effectiveness of these down force aids, meaning it was difficult to follow another car closely.
I don't know the details on that one, but I've been saying for a while they needed to sort out the down force, as it's made it far more difficult to overtake, reducing the spectacle of the sport.
Anyway, the other thing that's intrigued me has been this new energy recovery system. I hadn't got a clue what that was all about, but on the commentary for the last race they implied it was almost like an electrical version of a turbo. It sounded like, once it's built up a bit, you can push a button and it gives you a "boost to overtake". If that's really the case, it should make things very interesting indeed.
Oh, and I've been checking my contract, as a blogger, and apparently I'm contractually obliged to comment on the whole Brand/Ross thing.
I can't honestly say I give fuck.
I've not much exposure to Brand - I've heard his radio show a couple of times and it was funny, but I've seen him on telly and found him unfunny. As for Ross, I used to like him a while back on the radio, but then went off him as he (and this is an opinion I'd formed a while back, it's just a co-incidence that people have been saying the same thing) really seemed to bully his guests, especially on the chat show. I dunno - he just seemed to keep stepping over the line.
Anyway, I haven't heard the offending show, didn't use listen again and don't read the papers, so I have no idea what was actually said and therefore don't have any real opinion.
What did interest me was that, apparently, only 2 people actually complained during the show (and those were about swearing), but within 2 weeks, 30-odd thousand had complained. That just says so much, it's scary.
Clearly the intended target audience for Brand's show "got" the joke, but those who aren't listeners were not amused. Seems to me there's nothing else that really needs saying.
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