grumpyf1

Vitamin D – I was pretty sure it was a Kraftwerk track from the early 80s, but the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition reckons we need more, so it’s just conceivable I’ve got that confused. Maybe it was an early Ultravox track, before Midge Ure showed up with pointy sideburns and someone suggested a moody black and white video for their song ‘Vienna’. Midge looked pretty pasty in that (and we are getting near the point now, honest) which coincidentally seems to be what the white coat folks at SACN are concerned about too. Their draft guidelines suggest that we should be taking a 10 microgram pill a day of Vitamin D as soon as we’ve managed 12 months on the planet. Or, to be more accurate, 12 months in the UK, because we don’t get enough of the lovely sunshine which our skin cunningly converts to the very vital vitamin. They aren’t alone either. Those other acronyminous funsters NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence... anyone else concerned that th...

Higher education – I think they call it that because, much like a mountain, the peak seems an unattainably long way off. Apart from having stood outside a door saying “Head Teacher’s Office” whilst waiting to give blood a few years ago, I’ve not had any brushes with education for something in the order of 30 years. It must have worked out reasonably well last time, as I was able to figure out that time span without taking either of my socks off and using my toes to count. According to my school reports, I was “a disruptive influence”. “Quite bright” and “lazy” regularly appeared in the same sentence too. Still, what does The System know, eh? My sports teacher gave me a report that was word-for-word identical to a lad who had been signed-off due to injury for two months, so who’s laughing now? In an alarming turn of events, whilst the nation’s young learners are embarking on their summer break, I’ve somehow managed to find myself heading back into a frightening universe that ...

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...

It’s amazing the interesting characters you can meet when you stop for a cuppa on a long walk. Last Friday’s was particularly unusual... Whilst you were pondering why anyone would choose to write a newspaper column about their new phone, last Friday I was up bright and early for a 7 mile walk, and already a comfortable distance from home by the time I would normally have been arriving at work to an aura of impending doom emanating from my email InBox. 3 miles in, I decided to reward myself with a cappuccino at the local garden centre, and was first through the door for a rejuvenating cup of caffeine and frothy cow juice. So rapidly had I completed the first part of my journey that I had the pick of the seats, and opted for one outside. Having overdressed for the conditions as usual, a bit of cool, fresh, morning air seemed like a good idea – that and my paranoia at several staff all staring at me if I stayed inside. I had only been sat down long enough to realise that the sta...