And the winn(g)er is...

A picture paints a thousand words....

Still, won't stop me, will it? Well, what a cracking afternoon's entertainment. The BBC's coverage of the British Grand Prix was spot on (thanks guys) and I especially enjoyed the pub quiz. To quote Al Murray's pub landlord when offering darts to Button "You any good at Arrows? Nah, neither was Damon Hill".

An interesting story had bubbled up overnight about the Red Bull wing issue. In short, they had two new front wings, Vettel's broke, so they took the one off Webber's car and gave it to Seb. For a guy feeling the pressure about wether his team are favouring the other side of the garage, this must have brought down the red mist for Mark. Luckily, he's better at controlling his temper than Alonso, and he took it on that big Aussie chin of his and decided the best way to answer that was to go out there and win it.

Straight away at the start he made it abundantly clear that he wasn't going to take any crap from his team-mate and avoided a swerve by Seb before muscling him out of the way at the first corner. Vettel then brushed Hamilton's from wing and copped a puncture. Pole to the back on the first lap. They weren't the only team-mates scrapping though, as Alonso and Massa came together and Felipe joined Seb at the back after his own flat sent him limping to the pits. Hamilton and Webber traded fastest laps at the front with Mark ahead, and a hot-headed Alonso tried to get past Bob Kubica, only to find he was out of track when Mr K firmly closed the door on him. Rather than do the sensible thing and let Kubica back through, he ploughed on, risking a penalty. It came, but by this time Kubica was out of the race so the FIA went for a drive-through penalty instead. Unfortunately for the grumpy one in red, the Safety Car came out to allow for debris from De La Rosa's collapsing rear wing to be cleared, thus he had to take the penaly afterwards... by which time a Sunday drive down the pitlane involved the entire field passing him. I'm guessing he wasn't happy, as not long afterwards he curtly told the team "no more radio".

Towards the end some good scraps built up: Liuzzi & Alonso, who was attempting to get back through the field - didn't work out very well though, and Fernando wound up with a puncture. I wouldn't want to be on his flight back home. Rosberg and Button (in a brilliant recovery from 14th on the grid) slugged it out for 3rd, with Nico the winner in this fight, whilst Sutil and a fast-moving Vettel had a ding-dong for 7th, with Seb finally getting the place.

Webber's comments on the radio after taking the flag spoke volumes: "Not bad for a Number Two driver", whilst Christian Horner asked him "Can you manage a smile now?".

Barrichello showed Williams' improving form for 5th (and then became the fastest F1 driver in a reasonably priced car on Top Gear later), with another good drive from Kobayashi netting him 6th. What was he doing the first half of the season then?! Sutil, Schumacher & Hulkenberg rounded out the points finishers, meaning both Williams and Mercedes drivers finished in the points. Ferrari? 14th and 15th...

If Mark Webber needed to answer his critics and show that he can rise to the occasion in difficult circumstances, he did a fair dinkum job at Silverstone.

(NP tonight. Er... Bon Jovi. Sorry.)

Going Underground

The US presidential election and Brexit must have made me more nervous than I’d realised. It seems I’ve created an underground bunker without realising I was doing it. Still – we’ve all done that at some point, right? No? Ah... In that case, the fact that I have inadvertently turned my cellar into a rudimentary survival shelter, just in case it all kicks off, demonstrates a severe case of bunker mentality. Fretting about Donald and his wall, and Hillary and her emails, clearly made me more paranoid that I thought about the possibility of WW3 kicking off. Whilst attempting to find a specific size of imperial washer the other day (turns out I’d mis-filed it in the nut cabinet – Tsk!) I was struck by what a lot of jam and chutney we have in the cellar. And I do mean a LOT. There are boxes of boiled-up sugar and fruit and more boxes of boiled up vinegar and fruit. We’re still only part way through 2015’s output too. Then there’s the plastic containers holding pasta in various for...

Faking it for real

As Donald “I’m really great, everybody says so” Trump is so fond of pointing out, there is a lot of fake news around nowadays. Honest. Your friends at Facebook think so too, and have recently been publishing their top tips for spotting false news – by placing them as ads in newspapers. Considering they came in for considerable criticism themselves, that’s like shouting “Squirrel!” and pointing at a tree whilst you hastily kick away the prize begonias you just trampled. To help you make sense of this (and because I’m a caring person), I thought I’d run you through their suggestions and help to explain them for you. I know. I’m lovely. 1. Be sceptical of headlines READING THIS ARTICLE WILL IMPROVE YOUR SEX LIFE!!! And explain that catchy headlines, or stuff all in capitals might be a bit iffy. 2. Look closely at the URL You can find out more about this at www.wowyouregullible.com if you want to understand how phony web addresses are a sure sign of dodgyness. 3. Investigate...

Is it cold? Snow way...

Lunch out? Not unless you want snow balls... I’ve got a confession to make. Lean in a bit, because I’m going to whisper it. Bit more. Did you have curry for tea? OK, good. I’m a weather nerd. There, I said it. When I was growing up, I didn’t want to be an astronaut or a fireman – I wanted to present the weather on the TV. I was lining myself up for a career at the Met Office when, at about 18 years of age, I discovered I was allergic to studying. Anyway, despite a jam-packed and varied career over the subsequent years, I still have a fascination for the world of meteorology. I even have one of those clocks that projects the time and the external temperature onto the ceiling at night, so I can see how cold it is outside whilst lying awake worrying that I might have wasted my life and been more successful with girls if I’d been more into cars than clouds. So far this year, I’ve gazed at a chilly reading of -5C a couple of times, and been grateful for previous sensible ch...

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