grumpyf1

If you work in a team, you’ll no doubt have at least one person that everyone is slightly uncomfortable with. In a meeting, they’ll sit there quietly, whilst everyone else is enthusing about the latest super-whizzo idea that’s going to reduce costs/save the world/make a million (delete as applicable). Just as you’re all about to reach a frenzied crescendo of exhilarated back-slapping at the sheer, shared, greatness of it all, they’ll calmly point out the things that could go wrong and scupper your revolutionary plans. No-one wants to hear that – it’s nice and sunny in your happy little world, and that natural doom-merchant has just caused the clouds of failure to roll ominously in. It’s about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. But, deep down, you know they’re right… damn them. Meet your natural cynic. They’re the glass-half-empty (and possibly cracked) ones. You could tell them they’ve won the lotto and their first reaction would be concern about whether they are capable of letting j...

  Just posted another great “buy our stuff” thing to Twitter/Facebook?  Did it have a lovely, well-designed (and correctly-sized) graphic with it? Attention grabbing text? Incentive? Website link? Fantastic! NOBODY CARES. I spend a lot of my time boring my colleagues to death by reminding them that they need to think like their customers. I’m taking the sighs and eye-rolls as a positive sign that they’re listening. Think about it, though. When you’re on your favourite social media platform on your phone, you might occasionally read (or even click-through) a promotional post that really matches your needs. But I bet you scroll past the vast majority of them. Even if you work in a marketing department. You know how much time and effort has gone into getting just the right image, messing around with font sizes, agonising over getting your message across in the shortest and most effective way… but you still scroll past. You monster. OK, fair enough. We accept that, don’t we? Most ...

You've got the idea now, right? By June, I was doing a few days of work here and there, but mostly still furloughed. As the lockdown started to unlock a bit, there was more opportunity to get out and about so... I mostly didn't. Sure, it was nice to be able to do so when I wanted to, but on my own? Yawwwwwwn. I'm not great company for myself. I did get a few long, solo, walks but being in a valley everything is up and I'm broadly exertion-averse, even though I really enjoy it when I'm out there. It's that initial motivation that's tricky. But you didn't come here to read about my intrinsic inability to go and do exercise did you? (Even if the prospect of getting a glimpse into the strange inner workings of my mind and understanding how I can enjoy something but not want to do it can simultaneously exist without my mind exploding is tantalizing.) So sit back, relax, and prepare to be mildly puzzle by what I read, watched and listened to in the month they...

  Ah, May. I "celebrated" my birthday during the merry month - bags of fun, considering nowhere was open and we still weren't allowed to go anywhere, other than for one daily bit of exercise. Hence, my birthday meal was enjoyed at Pizza Shut, also know as our kitchen, where I consumed a £2.99 pizza* from Tesco, received as part of our success at managing to actually bag a slot. Strange times. Anyhoo, as promised, here's the books, box sets and progression made through my music collection during the (unusually toasty) month. (* Pepperoni - king of budget pizzas) Books Keith A Pearson - Tuned Out (2019): Well, look at me being right-on with using technology! This was the first book I've ever read digitally. As opposed to being a positive step towards keeping up to date tech-wise, this was down to two factors; 1) It was free, as part of Amazon Prime membership. 2) Reading it on a tablet meant I could see it in the dark, as I'm usually awake waaaaay earlier than ...

Who doesn't like a list? Only weirdos, right? Right..? Oh, come on. I was furloughed at the end of March. Suddenly faced with an unprecedented (*over-used word klaxon*) amount of free time (my partner was still working) and only being allowed to go out once a day, I had an amazing opportunity to fin out what it might be like to be retired. Bit rubbish, it turns out. I'm hoping that when I eventually retire I'll have more opportunities to go to places/drink coffee/mooch about in shops, but the no-plan-for-today thing is still going to be there. It takes some getting used to. I'd normally get up at six to get ready for a day in the office. Strangely, my own internal alarm clock means I'm generally staring at the ceiling and and considering a variety of randomness somewhere between 0630 and 0700: Do I need to pee, or can I carry on lying here for a while? Why does my back hurt? I. Need. Cappuccino. I wonder if I've won the lotto? Is Lotus biscuit spread the single ...

Ever been really unlucky with a car? Yup - me too. Twice..? One of the best cars I have ever owned was, remarkably, a Fiat Punto. A nondescript, plain, basic, boring (and under-powered) Punto. In all the time I had it, it never broke down, and the worst problem it managed was a light that stopped working. It turned out the tip of the connector on the bulb was a bit rusty, so after a quick rub with some sandpaper (I did the bulb too) it was fine. Ooo, drama. Then I crashed it, as the unwitting fifth person in a queue all carrying out an emergency stop as some bell-end ahead had slammed their brakes on unnecessarily. After much delay, the insurance company wrote it off. Scroll forward a few years and I was looking to replace my Ford Fiesta. The local garage had a nice second-hand Punto - a newer model, but hey, it's a Punto. Cool. And it was, for a while. Then, one day, I went to go out and the battery was flat. Not usual flat, as in it sluggishly turns over a bit, or at least make a...

I was furloughed from my job at the start of April. Since then, I’ve worked a grand total of about 15 days in over three months. For the first time in 30+ years, I wasn’t working... but I wasn’t on holiday either. My partner was still working and, for the first couple of months, guidelines said you shouldn’t go out more than once a day to exercise, other trips should be for essential shopping only – well, you know how it goes, right? I don’t doubt for a second that millions of people have had/are having a very similar experience to me. A Covid-19 emotional roller-coaster: Initial response: WOW! Look at all this free time! I’m going to get all the odd jobs done, decorate, read, watch TV, write, better myself... the possibilities are endless. My God – what an opportunity! About a week later: Huh. This isn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it was going to be. Since then: F*** me, this is boring. I like a routine, so I’ve wound up with new ones, which just a few months ago woul...

I wish I could go back there again...  ELO lyrics aside, One thing that has become increasingly clear as I've got older is that, broadly speaking, a lot of the music since the 80s sucks. Big time. Prior to the 80s it was pretty good, but the peak was definitely during that golden decade. Annoyingly, that neat "best decade" argument isn't quite right for me. By the late 80s, with more hip-hop, rap, rave culture and shoegazing tunes coming in, the later 80s become patchier. A steady downhill slump was in progress, that continues to this day. There's still good stuff out there - just less of it. Here's where it gets interesting, and I'd like to test a theory out with you. I was a teenager between 1980 and 1986, and that's pretty much the exact years my favourite music comes from. Ponder that for a second, and have a think about your own musical Golden Years - does that work for you too? If pushed to make a call - and it is a tricky one - I'd go with 1...

Blink and you would have missed it. It was so brief, you probably didn’t even notice. But yes, I’ve had a bit of a break. Back when I started this blog (8 th of December 2009, detail freaks!) I had no idea where I was heading with it. I liked writing. I was running a Fantasy Formula 1 competition for friends. I’d moved away from the area I grew up in just a few years before. So there it suddenly was – the gumpyf1 blog. Over time it developed into more than an outlet for F1-related ramblings, and (after coming 2 nd in a newspaper blogging competition) I wound up writing a weekly column in a Cumbrian newspaper. Over the course of seven years it increased in size from 500 words to a full page, contracted to 400 words and eventually became a 250-300 ‘podium’ thing, with the paper dictating the often-controversial topic. From writing about just about anything I liked, in April 2019 I was suddenly being asked to provide a view on topics like “Would you welcome Donald Trump to the UK?...