Garbage Greatest Hits

How can the new album from Garbage be "remastered" when it has only just come out? Admittedly it is a Greatest Hits collection but with new stuff one there as well. Have they really recorded the new stuff, then immediately remastered it as the first cut was not up to scratch?

F1 Nepotism

After one of the best F1 races of recent history at the Nurburgring (in the ridiculously named "European Grand Prix", but that's another story), credit must go to Markus Winkelhock. In his first ever Grand Prix, in the Spyker car that is slower than any others, circumstances and and excellent strategy meant that he was leading the race before it was red flagged. More than that, he was at one stage leading by 30 odd seconds!

It is good to see that the back markers are actually getting competitive - the Super Aguris are making their way up the grid, while the Spkyers are better than they have been in the past.

Anyway, neppotism. The number of sons of former drivers increases by the weekend, seemingly. How about this for a list of famous F1 families:

• Hill - Damon was the son of Graham, both world champions.
  
• Winkelhock - Markus (see above) is the son of Manfred and nephew of Joachim (Le Mans winner in 1999) and Thomas
  
• Schumacher – brothers Michael and Ralf
  
• Fittipaldi – Christian raced in F1 and in the US after his father (Wilson) and uncle (Emerson) had large success
  
• Villeneuve - Jacques was World Champion after his father Gilles had been a successful driver in the 1970s.
  
• Rosberg – current F1 driver Nico is the son of former champion Keke, despite Nico being Germana nd his father Finnish
  
• Scheckter – Tomas drove for A1GP Team South Africa and in this years’ Indy 500. He is the son of Jody.
  
• Senna – Bruno (Ayrton’s nephew) is now racing in GP2
  
• Lauda – Matthias raced in A1GP and GP2: his father Nikki was World Champion
  
• Jones – Christian raced in A1GP after his father Alan won races in F1 for Williams
  
• Andretti – Michael (F1 and Indycars) and Marco (Indycars) are son and grandson of Mario.
  
• Rahal – Graham raced in the US and for Lebanon in A1GP, and is the son of Bobby
  
• Brabham – David raced in Formula 1. His father, Jack, was World Champion in 1959, 1960 and 1966. His brothers, Geoff and Gary are also racing drivers.
  
• Ickx – Vanina, raced in the 2007 DTM series. She is the daughter or former F1 racer Jacky.
  
• Stewart – Paul was a team boss, after his father had been World Champion several times.
  
• Unser – Al, jr is the son of Al.
  
• Piquet – Nelson Piquet, jr raced in the first season of A1GP for Brazil, as well as GP2 in 2006. His father was a previous World Champion in F1.
  
• Bleekemoelen – Michael raced in 5 FI races (only qualifying for 1). His son Jeroen is a current A1GP racer.
  
• Mansell – Nigels’s two sons have been seen at the lower levels of motorsport, but they are only just into their teens.
  

Floods

There were a lot of people up at the Wittenham Clumps last night taking pictures of the flooding over Wittenham, Days' Lock and Dorchester. There are now so many more outlets for people to publish their photographs - on-line versions of newspapers, blogs, MySpace and Facebook, and the BBC crying out for original footage so they don't have to send their own camera-people out to do the same job.

On another point, a letter in the Telegraph from someone flooded in Clifton Hampden said that the only person who managed to fight their way through the floods and knocked on their door... had come to read the water meter!

The oldest piece of English law still extant is the 1267 Statute of Marlborough. The current version of the Magna Carta dates from the 1297 revision not the 1215 original.

Taken from Wikipedia (see link):

The chapters currently valid are c.1, c.4, & c.15 (often referred to as the Distress Act 1267), which seek to govern the recovery of damages ("distresses") and make it illegal to obtain recompense for damages other than through the courts, and c.23 (the Waste Act 1267), which seeks to prevent tenant farmers from "making waste" to land they are in tenancy of.

Colours of cars

The colours of modern cars are becoming more and more nondescript. Grey, silver, beige, gunmetal, etc., are the most popular car colours (especially for Mercs but others as well). Where is the individuality and the unusual?

Rafferty

How is it that a 20 month old boy doesn't go to sleep until 11 o'clock and then is wide awake again at 7 am...

Cricket

In case anyone cares, in the last two weeks, I've scored 20 and 16. Two of the highest scores since I was at primary school, I think.

CSI (again)

its molecular formula is C12 H22 O11. Oh, it must be sucrose....

How many thousands of chemicals have the above formula? And have they purified it to such an extent that they can get a single cound from a load of ashes?

Sam says I take it too seriously and it is meant to be entertainment. I take her point, but it still annoys me...

Brian Moore

Great quote from Brian Moore against his detractors (and I have been one of them):

If you don't understand the long words, get a dictionary. And if you're going to give me abuse, at least spell some of the words correctly. My favourite this year has been the comment, "Moore, you are a compleat wunker".

The New World Sport

The 2007 world Rock Paper Scissors Championships are being staged in Toronto on 13 October.

Forest

Despite never having smoked in my life, I'm sorely tempted to join FOREST to campaign against the persecution of smokers. This quote puts it better than I could.

"Smokers are now the only minority who are not only abused but whose minority status is quoted as justification for abuse." Joe Jackson

In the Night Garden...

I love it. Rafferty loves it more than anyhing else on the TV. I suspect that the merchandise will be this year's "must-have" (as the iPhone is not available in the uK yet..). Sam is in love with Macca-pacca, and doesn't believe that there are blue Pontypines called Wottingers.

Doctor Who

The final episode of Series 3 was superb, especially on watching it for a second time. It was the first real Martha-centric episode with the rest of the series having pushed the Doctor back to the forefront (a change from the Rose-centric first couple of series). John Simm was excellent, as you would expect, and the final denouement was nicely gauged. It sets things up nicely for the Christmas special and then further for the fourth series. The rumour mills are already in full swing as to the next companions and the direction of the next series. Just too long to wait - see my previous post.

426 posts

In just over two years. With a few massive gaps,I have managed to keep this blog going reasonably well...

Smoking ban - Reading

On the first day of the smoking ban in England, a loose cigarette caused a fire at a pub in Reading. Irony of irony.

Prediction on credit cards

A little prediction for sometime in the future... There will be a surcharge made on small transactions on credit cards (for exampe under £5). I have noticed a change in the transactions I am making - with iTunes purchases and Paypal purchases through EBay, most of the transactions I make are between 50p and £5. I'm sure the banks will complain soon that their admin charges for these trasactions are too high.

Deal or No Deal

The adverts during the 500th edition of "Deal or No Deal" included:

• Tena incontinence pants
  
• walk-in showers
  
• Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil
  
• Dentifix

I think it is clear who they believe their target market is... Why don't they go the whole hog and advertise Saga holidays and funeral homes?

Lost and Doctor Who

Why do we have to wait so long for the next installments of these two excellent series. Lost has another 3 seasons to run, but (as I understand it), they are short (16 week) series rather than the full length ones. For Doctor Who we have to wait another 9 months, with the exception of the Christmas special. I want to know how the TARDIS wall can be breached, seeing as that is meant to be virtually impossible.

I guess there's a new series of Torchwood and the first proper series of the Sarah Jane Adventures to see us through, and I'm still catching up on the Big Finish audio adventures of the Past Doctors, but still.

Sam's waiting for the new series of Prison Break with bated breath as well.

Paul McCartney (sorry, Sir Paul) and Apple

There is something very ironic about Apple using Sir Paul McCartney's latest album on the adverts for iPod and iTunes. The Beatles' record company, Apple, have had a long history with Apple Computers, Inc., over many years of litigation over the name Apple. More specifically, Apple Records sued Apple Computers for promoting music using the Apple name. It all got sorted out until iTunes came along and Apple Computers turned into Apple (iPod), Inc.

So Macca advertising Apple Computer's main product is slightly strange. I guess he needs the cash to rebuild his dwindling fortune.

Citroen C4 - Alive with Technology

Am I alone in finding those adverts a little creepy? I don't particularly want any car than I am driving to split transformer-like into an ice-skating robot. I also don't really want everything to bbe computer controlled about a car: it just means that there is far more to go wrong expensively.

The iPhone

It is not very often that I want the latest gadget, and I hardly ever actually use a mobile phone anyway, but still. I want the new Apple iPhone. It'll be about 3 years before I get one - I have to wait until they are available in the UK (6 months), available realistically in the UK without a long waiting time (another 6 months), and once I've persuaded myself that I do actually want one havig spent ages drooling at the phone on the website and in any shop window or Apple Store that I come across.

Technology - who needs it?

CSI

There are just too many nitpicks and criticisms. Firstly, I enjoy CSI, all three versions. However...

You cannot get the printout from a a 10 min GC run a couple of seconds after you've submitted the sample. You cannot get an entire structure of a steriod including stereocentres just from its mass spec trace.

Cops do occasionally run down blind alleys which don't lead the plot forwards, or maybe they don't do that in Nevada. Maybe every wild guess and seemingly random conclusion based on the flimsiest of evidence doe come off.

Maybe just when the writers have an idea for using a new bit of gadgetry then the plot will demand it (for example oil on someone's shoe means that the roof he was on has only just been repaired so it can clearly be seen in orange from a thermal camera held on a helicopter).

The serial stuff is annoying as well. Either make the programme a proper serial with proper development of the stories over a period of time, or ignore it completely. At the moment, the serial stuff takes about 5 minutes out of the episode and is completely incidental the rest of the show.

I'm not sure whether US procedures is different from UK procedure, but there woudl be no way that someone under investigation for a serious crime woudl be able to continue working with the evidence (especially forensic) of that crime, if indeed they did any work at all.

Rafferty's dipthong

Rafferty is still not making an awful lot of sense, although he can miaow and quack quite nicely. He has produced his first dipthong though.