grumpyf1

Formula 1 drivers take a huge risk every time they climb into their 200mph missiles. It had been 21 years since a driver died as a result of injuries sustained in a race, until last Friday. Watching the Japanese Grand Prix last year, it rapidly became clear that something was terribly wrong as the drivers returned to the pits, the race having been stopped, due to heavy rain and fading light, following several accidents. The captions on screen had briefly shown details for Frenchman Jules Bianchi and his Marussia car, but the pictures underneath weren’t of either. Drivers pictured getting out of their cars had solemn-faced team members rushing to speak to them, and it was obvious they were being advised of something terrible that the viewers at home weren’t yet party to. Interviewed, Bianchi’s competitors reported only that they knew of the incident. F1 learnt many lessons from the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna in 1994, and included in that list was avoidin...

A day trip to a town can provide you with a lot of things – some new clothes maybe, a nice spot of lunch, a visit to somewhere interesting, the realisation of how easy it is to help another human being... Ooh. I wasn’t expecting that last one when we boarded a train to Edinburgh last weekend, at an hour so early even coffee only moved my functioning state from ‘comatose’ to ‘barely conscious’. It was a lovely day, once I woke up. I managed to buy some clothes that hopefully don’t scream “mid-life crisis” too loudly (unlike the dusky pink trousers I purchased a couple of years ago in the mistaken belief I would look hipster-ish, but actually made me look like a retired Colonel), for starters. I even came perilously close to purchasing a cool pair of trainers, but my innate fear of looking like a berk cut in, and I concluded that footwear costing nearly as much as my first car was probably a unnecessary expense. (Bright orange, with fur-lined panels. The £100 car, not the trainer...

Hold on to your RAM packs, the ZX Spectrum is back! (Or, if you’re under about 40: Warning! Old people reminiscing about prehistoric computing kit!) When I was but a naive, annoying, layabout of a youth with a fine head of hair (as opposed to a cynical, annoying, layabout of a middle-aged balding bloke), I spent many a happy hour round at a friend’s house. He was lucky – his parents brought him the latest stuff, so he was listening to ELO albums on cassette whilst I waited to catch a song on the radio, he could use their VCR to record a TV show, whilst I was banned from watching The Young Ones as it was all a bit anarchic, and his parents brought him the latest computing technology, whilst I... Well, there wasn’t any comparison really. True, I had a digital watch that played Fur Elise, and we did have a calculator in the house, but these were like a toothpick next to a mighty Oak when it came to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Descendent of the ZX81, the Spectrum was an altogeth...

A weekend of frantic sporting activity beckons, as I try to decide if I’ve got enough time to nip off and make another cuppa without missing any coverage of the British Grand Prix. For someone whose sporting knowledge outside of Formula 1 means knowing “there’s some tennis thing on”, it’s a very special weekend, as many of the UK’s F1 teams face their most arduous travelling experience of the year. In some cases, this logistical nightmare entails as much as half a mile’s journey, all the way to the Silverstone Circuit in Nottinghamshire. Having made the journey once myself, I can confirm that you do have to get up before you went to bed to ensure a good viewing point, and it is possible to get a sun-tan on one side of your body only - which is a useful conversation point if you run out of things to talk to colleagues about on Monday after they’ve got over the shock of how much you willingly paid for a T-shirt covered in sponsor logos. Whilst the season so far has largely featu...