grumpyf1

Being a Formula 1 fan has been tough the last few years. Same team winning all the time. Tyre management. Vettel swearing at everything. Yes, saying you’re a fan of Formula 1 often feels like you’re admitting to stealing underwear off washing lines (that wasn’t me though, honestly). People look at with a mixture of amazement, horror and sympathy. Why would you do that? Surely not for fun? You need some kind of help. The Mercedes team have dominated for the last few years, and whilst 2016 gave us a decent battle between their two drivers, no-one else was really in with a shout. Everyone complained endlessly about having to drive cautiously to stop their tyres wearing out too soon. Former champions were reduced to pedalling cars that were either slow and fragile (Alonso and Button’s McLarens) or dogged by poor strategy calls and a propensity to get into any accident going (Vettel & Raikkonen’s Ferraris). 2017’s season kicks off this weekend in Australia, and there are reaso

It has been a great week for top-flight entertainment value supplied by small children. Including the one who was B-B-C-een but not heard. Despite clearly not needing their services, I sat in a hairdressers in Kendal for a while last weekend. Before you start calling the local constabulary, I was legitimately there – Mrs. G was getting her barnet coiffed. Whilst carrying out the thoroughly modern practice of staring at my phone and avoiding eye contact with anyone, I found myself simultaneously trying not to get distracted by an extremely smiley toddler and his adorable slightly bigger sister, who was having her hair cut. Every time I glanced up, the little chap was grinning at me, or making an attempt to grab my sleeve, whilst his sister chatted happily away. After the trim was sorted, she decided I clearly needed to pay more attention, and launched into a hysterical explanation, for my benefit, about the deficiencies of her baby bro. She does love him, apparently, but he do

That’s it. I’m declaring war on companies not bothering to show up during the agreed timeslot. I got up early on Saturday. I was in the shower by 0715 on my day off, to make sure I was done, dressed and had consumed my cereals and toast in time for the start of the 0800 timeslot. Following a letter in the post, an appointment had been booked weeks previously for a representative to come round and check that our gas meter was safe. Nothing to worry about, routine check, it is very important that you book it in NOW, we have the right to forcibly enter your house etc. Despite previous experience suggesting that from the point my doorbell rang to me saying “Thanks, bye” would be well under five minutes, a 4 hour slot was allocated. So, on about the nicest day of the year so far, I was trapped in my own home, waiting for a visitor whose stay would be so brief, you’d still be on the “Galileo!” bit of Bohemian Rhapsody (if you had the strange habit of timing engineers using the ‘Que

I think I might have solved why McLaren's new F1 car has been so slow in testing for the 2017 season...

In case you're enormously stupid, this is not a real blackbird. If there’s an Oscar for “best soundtrack by something with feathers”, we have a blackbird near our house that should be up for a small gold bloke – presuming they have the right envelope. Ah, Spring. Whilst it may have been a windy, sleety, rainy few weeks, the signs are definitely there. Snowdrops are giving way to Daffodils. Lambs are starting to appear, shivering bemusedly in the fields. Storms are called Doris. Blossom is, ah, blossoming on trees, triggering the same level of amazement reserved for people who wear shorts in the first week of March. Brave? Or foolish? You have to admire the pluckiness, though. We have a new champion of the springiest season too. A blackbird has taken up residence close by to our house, with a remarkable level of stamina rarely seen in the birdyverse. This plucky little chap starts singing at the top of his voice at the first hint of daylight. If I wake up before the alar