grumpyf1

Valencia. It's so dull, isn't it? Nothing ever happens. *sigh* oh well. Might as well watch then, you never know, this year it might be different... Qualifying made a bit of a mockery of 2 weeks of press speculation about how fab some team's new blown rear diffuser was or how much extra time had been found with an F-duct etc. In the end, the only surprises were that Michael and Nico (the floppy haired one) both went out in Q2 in the clearly-less-than-brilliant Merc, whilst Williams drivers Rubens & Nico (the Hulk-y one) made it into the top ten. Vettel grabbed pole, Webber was 2nd, Hamilton 3rd and Alonso 4th. Button managed just 7th after a scruffy lap. His Sunday was set to improve, whilst Nando and Webbo's were about to get worse. In Mark's case, much worse... Webber made a scruffy start to the race and wound up somewhere down the arse-end of the top ten, so a decision was taken to cut his losses and change tyres early. This put him back out right near the ba

Found out yesterday that we've finally been allocated at allotment, and went to take a look at it tonight (crappy picture - sorry). It's 50 x 31 ft, overgrown and, frankly, terrifying. I know rugger ball about plants and stuff. It does seem to have an apple tree (I think) chives, rhubarb, currants of some sort and strawberries from whoever had it before. I think I know what we'll be doing every weekend for the foreseeable future. Just to repeat... Wah! Scary!! It's bloody huge!!! (Spot of Roger Taylor tonight, having a bit of a grumble about "Nazis 1994)

Firstly, some important and significants facts about my attempts to be healthier: 1) It's precisely one year since I quit smoking, having previously been on the cigs for over 20 years. 2) Since starting to try and eat a bit less crap (see "Beans" previously) I have managed to lose 6 pounds. 3) I actually do feel a bit better generally and my clothes are starting to fit again, rather than only doing so when I breathe in. So how come I still really want a cigarette and could happily clear a jumbo bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk right now? Why did I nearly walk in to a nice little old lady this morning whilst out for my yomp (I can answer that one actually - I was trying to tune in the FM radio on my MP3 player. Apologies to the little old lady)? Being healthy sucks. Found out last night that we have been allocated an allotment, so more excercise heading my way! (Wait for it.... NP is Enigma's The Eyes Of Truth (Gotterdammerung Mix). Wooo! Yeah!!)

I'm a bit behind on my TV programmes at the moment. You know how it is - you record something, then the following week you realise you haven't watched the previous episode and before you know it, you have half the series on tape (or hard disk). And so it was that I came to watch the last two episodes of Heroes Season 4, taped of the BBC about 6 weeks ago. Was Samuel set to destroy the world? Could Sylar really change and become a nice bloke instead of a mass-murdering super-baddie? Was Clare's holding-hands-and-smiling relationship with her female room-mate going to go anywhere? What about Mr Muggles?! So I hit play. Snooker. No problems, I set the recorder a couple of minutes early. Jump forward a bit. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. Still snooker. It's OK though - the recorder automatically adds 10 minutes to the end of all my recordings. A few jump-forwards later and the awful realisation hit. I'm not going to get the end of the last episode, am I? Damn. A fair bit of jum

We arrived in Canada with the scintilating prospect of some top-notch inter-team rivalries at Red Bull and McLaren. In the end though it all came down to tyres. If that sounds a bit deflating (kersnik!), don't worry your pretty little head unduly. It most certainly wasn't. Qualifying looked to be heading the usual direction (as in Red Bull's first and second) until Hamilton pulled a quick one out of his Mclaren and pipped them to pole, something he's rather good at round this circuit, this being his third pole here. A slight lack of juice meant he wound up pushing his car to try and get it back to the garage, but a £10,000 fine for running out of fuel probably wiped the grin off his face. Webber's 2nd place became 7th after a gearbox glitch, so Vettel and Alonso lined up behind Lewis. The Merc's were oddly off the pace, especially Schumi, who managecd only 13th. Never mind, he'd get his own back in the race... The Canadian GP usually involves rergular appear