Formula One is Much Better on TV
Last year the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa fell on the day that would have been on our fortieth wedding anniversary. As I’d never been to a Grand Prix and usually watch as many races as possible on the TV, I decided to go.
David Croft on Radio 5 Live this morning was urging people to go and enjoy one of the best races of the year. Here’s my e-mail into the programme.
Sorry to disagree with the great David Croft, but I went to Spa last year and it was very expensive, boring and very badly organised. I hadn’t really a clue what was going on. Formula 1 is so much better on the television or the radio.
After watching the start of this year’s race, I have not changed my mind. Fancy going all that way to see Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button out before the end of the first lap.
At least at home, I can get on with other things if it gets too boring!
Naseem Hamed and Muhammad Ali
Naseem Hamed has just appeared on Radio 5’s Sunday morning sports program.
He talked lucidly about his career, other boxers and his life in general. He felt that he had been lucky compared to most other fathers in that he had been able to see his three sons grow up. I know a bit about the last bit, as I was working from home during their formative years, but I probably wasn’t the best father.
He also criticised the circus that the great Muhammad Alihas become. He has been paraded in the last week or so around the UK and it is a tragedy to see the state he is in. As Nasem said, he should be at home being properly cared for.
I hover between two opposite views on boxing; either it is barbaric and should be banned or it is a noble and exciting sport that has given many a chance to avoid a life of crime and destitution. I think too, that in America there is a lot more sleaze and shady hangers-on in the sport, than in the UK, where we tend to treat our boxers as heroes, even if we don’t like boxing.
Try to find anyone who doesn’t like Henry Cooper for a start!
But the most interesting thing about Nasem’s interview was that for someone who has had his troubles in the past few years, he seems to have turned that side of his life around. Good luck to him!
The Ashes!!
Yippee!!
The only problem was all of the dodgy decisions by the umpires.
Technology! Technology! Technology!
But in cricket’s case it’s all there. And look at how exciting the replays are in tennis and how they have made the game much less aggressive and bad-tempered.
Jesse Owens and Lutz Long
Most people know the story of how Jesse Owens annoyed Hitler, by winning four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. But what is less well known is the story of how his German rival, Lutz Long, helped him to qualify for the long jump final.
According to Owens, Long went to him and told him to try and jump from a spot several inches behind the take-off board. Since Owens routinely made distances far greater than the minimum of 7.15m required to advance, Long surmised that Owens would be able to safely advance to the next round without risking a foul trying to push for a greater distance.
Owens then beat Long in the final. They corresponded by letter until war broke out. Owens lived in a lot of poverty and Long was killed in the war.
The authorities at the World Championships have also remembered the rivalry and marked it in an appropriate way. This was from Tom Fordyce’s blog on the BBC.
Owens too is long gone, killed by lung cancer 29 years ago, but the two men’s families have kept the transatlantic bond strong. When Owen’s grand-daughter presents the medals on Saturday, she will be joined by Long’s grandson Kai. The symbolism of the moment will be lost on nobody.
Let’s hope that 2012 takes place in a similar atmosphere to the successful games in Berlin.
Happy Memories
I’m just watching the Grand Prix in Valencia on the television.
It brings back happy memories of a weekend in Valencia, that my late wife and I spent just a few months before she died. It was our last holiday together.
It rained and rained and rained. But we did have some fabulous food and all of it was gluten-free.
We actually stayed in the Las Arenas Hotel close by where the Grand Prix is taking place. It was good and excellent value.
Germans Drop the Baton
I did put this topic on my list of things to do, when they dropped it in the heats of the 4 x 100 metres relay. But I decided that I wouldn’t complete it until the event was over. I didn’t want to put the fluence on the British team, who in the end got a bronze medal, less than a second behind the Jamaicans.
The Americans had helped the British cause by being disqualified too.
It always puzzles me, why when you perform at these high levels, you do stupid things like that. Just as the British quartet showed here, if you get the baton round well, you’re in with a chance.
But then, we’ve had our failures in the past!
Kenny MacAskill
Kenny MacAskill is the Scottish Justice Minister at the centre of the Megrahi case.
I didn’t know much about him until I read this profile of him on the BBC web site.
He is an interesting character and judging by his anti-English views, he is not the sort of person, I would get on with. It may have been to a appreciative audience, but his views on the England football team as “The Great Satan”, was a bit much.
Fox at the Oval
I was just watching the preview from the Oval of the Fifth Test, when a fox-like dog trotted across the screen behind the presenter.
It has since been confirmed it was a fox. My foxes must all be in London, as I never see many these days.
Colin Jackson’s Jacket
Jonathan Edwards had to present the Gold Medal to Phillips Idowu today. He didn’t have a jacket, so he had to borrow one from Colin Jackson.
Even the most professional make mistakes!
Ipswich 1 – Crystal Palace 3
Not a lot to say about this, but they really are in a pickle this year.
It seems to have got worse since David Norris was injured at Coventry.
The Anonymous Widower 