recovering

The pain in my back eased a bit through the weekend.

The weirdest thing was that on Saturday I had a load of cleaning to do and it seemed that the more activity I did, the better my back felt. So having done loads on Saturday, on Sunday I woke up and it was almost gone. But then, during the day I spent quite a few hours playing Anno (naughty me!) and my back started aching again.

I mean it might be the chair I've got at home I guess. It's quite a good one, but it may not be set up properly or something. Not that I really know how to set it up properly :/.

Sunday saw Valantino Rossi win the 2009 MotoGP championship (that's the bike equivalent of F1 for the uninitiated) so congrats are due to him. It was actually his 7th world championship in that class, which is quite the record. While it's not necessarily appropriate to compare across vehicle types, it puts him up there in the topmost ranks of the best drivers and riders ever, if not at the very top, so well done that man. Not sure what the whole chicken/egg thing was about, though.

And speaking of motor racing, the British F1 GP looks to be going through more turmoil.

In theory, Donnington was going to be hosting the event this year, but unfortunately they seem to have had a bit of bad timing in that just as they were planning to take it on, the whole financial crisis broke. And given that they needed a heck of a lot of cash to update the facilities, this was a big problem. They've had quite a few extensions but it looks like they've just not been able to raise the required cash.

Silverstone has put itself forward as the only other potential venue, but the problem there is that they've not been willing to stump up the cash to pay Bernie to host the event. Indeed, that's almost where the whole Donnington thing came from - Silverstone were after a discount and Bernie said no.

The discount isn't without precedent - both Monaco and Monza get discounts as the 'traditional homes' of F1. And given that most of the teams are located in Britain and Silverstone was the first circuit ever to hold a formula 1 championship race in 1950, it's not an unreasonable claim.

Bernie's stance? Sign it and pay up, because we don't need a British F1 GP.

I do hope they get it sorted - it would be a shame if it didn't happen and if it is going to happen then they need to get it sorted quick so whoever hosts it can start selling tickets!