Let’s Hear It For The Kid

The hype around Lewis Hamilton is astonishingly annoying, but it’s almost even more frustrating that it is justified, as it makes me feel curmudgeonly for being irritated by it. Still, my 4:25 start this morning was rewarded by a thrilling grand prix and an extraordinary drive from Hamilton, who was thoroughly composed and generally very quick on a day when so many other more experienced drivers made errors. OK, he had the advantage of pole position and therefore an initial lead and some clear visibility – but also the disadvantage of being the first to go over the track at racing speeds following each safety car. But it was a remarkable performance.

Chill your bones

I hadn’t intended to post anything else, but I’ve just eaten and something has to be said.

I ate in the aforementioned kiddie-friendly bar, which had all manner of soft rock playing in the background… smooth. I had hoped to try a Greene King product other than their ubiquitous – but very nice – IPA. As it happened, they have two ales: IPA, and one other, which was off. So, IPA it was – and you won’t hear me complain about that.

But as I sat down, I noticed that the rack of hand-pumps selling the trendy drinks – the
Guinness, Carling and the like, was a blue label: “IPA Cold”. Now, maybe I’m just late in noticing this, but – IPA COLD?!??!!?!? The whole point of ale is that it’s meant to be served at room temperature, so that you get the full flavour – IPA doubly so, as it’s got lots of hops in it (indeed, I think that’s why it’s one of the few ales that survives being put in cans tolerably well). Served chilled, while I’m sure it will be perfectly pleasant, it will have next to no flavour.

That said, if it lets a decent brewer stay afloat by latching on to a bandwagon, I don’t mind… too much.

Crimes of Paris revisited

OK, some of my previous post about the F1 spying business was (happily) wrong. The FIA’s evidence shows a clear pattern of activity in which Alonso, De La Rosa and Coughlan used information from Ferrari not to put new tweaks on the McLaren, but to figure out how to set it up. In particular, it helped them get the best from the Bridgestone tyres, which at least partly explains why McLaren did not fall away from the front in the same way that Renault, whose inability to get the tyres working this season is well-known, did.

The possible implications for Alonso remain the same, however: he is not going to look good at the end of all this. And I still think the drivers’ points should probably not have been allowed to stand: the information did give the McLaren drivers an unfair advantage, even if the cars were not technically illegal – you can’t have it both ways and remove entrants from one championship but not the other. The handling of the whole thing still looks unsatisfactory, and Mosley’s comments about Dennis seem even more baffling in light of the fact that the only clearly implicated individuals were the two drivers plus Coughlan – not Ron Dennis.

September

Bizarrely, since I started this blog I’ve written almost nothing about music, even though it was the mainstay of the old website and, of course, of my music fanzines before that.

I have a few album reviews to do, but overall this year has been very dry as far as I’m concerned: unlike last year, I’ve yet to encounter any utterly stunning records, though there are some very good ones knocking around. I can’t decide why this is: I listen to more radio now than 12 months ago, so I should be hearing more new music that interests me… but it just doesn’t seem to be out there. Not even compilation CDs from Dan Paton have piqued my interest in any more than a couple of records.

Even worse, this will almost certainly be the first September for several years in which I haven’t been to a single gig. This is partly down to utter ineptitude: I should have gone to see The Gossip the other day, but never had the gumption to arrange it. But last year I remember ducking out of the Labour conference for an evening to go and see The Pipettes in Manchester, and two years ago I saw Sleater-Kinney in Manchester and London on successive nights (and also, it turned out, for the last time).

What’s gone wrong, eh? Very odd.

Crimes of Paris

I’ve been trying to think of some intelligent or incisive explanation for the FIA’s treatment of the McLaren F1 team ever since the decision was announced, but I can’t. The decision only makes sense if one accepts a simple but ugly premise: it’s a complete stitch-up.

The message that this sends to current and potential sponsors and teams is that if you look like you’re about to beat Ferrari to a title, you can expect to get screwed over by the governing body. It happened in 2003 when Michelin’s tyres – that had been in use for months – were suddenly declared illegal; it happened last year when Alonso was penalised for supposedly blocking Massa; and it has happened this year. All three instances happened at or around the Italian grand prix. There were no such happenings in 2004, when Ferrari won the titles easily, or 2005, when they were simply not in the hunt. It is all far too smelly to be a simple coincidence.

The full justification for the decision to fine and exclude McLaren has yet to be published, but a fair bit about the evidence is already known. Unless the full document reveals something totally unexpected, we are stuck with a problem: not only is there no smoking gun, there is not even a body. Nobody, as far as I can tell, is suggesting that McLaren used any of Ferrari’s intellectual property as detailed in the 780 page dossier when developing their car. Alonso and De La Rosa discussed some aspects of Ferrari’s package such as the weight distribution – but as Martin Brundle observed in commentary for today’s qualifying session, that kind of information regularly floats around the F1 paddock, indeed it is often shared with TV viewers by commentators. What exactly did the two drivers discuss that the FIA have managed to prove was not available to them through any channel other than deliberately leaked information? And what demonstrable difference did it make to the performance of the cars? If the FIA has not been able to prove that the information can only have been acquired by illicit means, or if they have been unable to demonstrate that it led to an enhanced performance on the car, then McLaren will have been blatantly banned for no reason. It seems far from clear at the moment that any such proof has been made.

Another thing that would make no sense if we were simply dealing with a breach of the regulations is that the drivers have been allowed to continue in the championship, even though they are supposedly using illegal cars. The FIA cannot have it both ways: either the points amassed by Hamilton and Alonso have been gained by illegal means and should therefore be docked, or the cars have been perfectly legal and the team should be allowed to continue in the championship. This peculiar fudge suggests that the FIA have run with a Ferrari agenda to screw McLaren, but have not had the balls to wreck the driver’s title race: the result is a bodge of a punishment borne of pure conspiracy.

Max Mosley’s extraordinary outburst prior to qualifying, openly accusing Ron Dennis of lying, was difficult to fathom. Max did not even seem to consider the possibility that Dennis might have been unaware of the email exchanges: it seemed that he was interested in flinging mud at McLaren rather than exploring the issue rationally – why else would he not even attempt to be balanced? Max Mosley is a canny operator and says nothing without considering it carefully: his statement today was not a slip of the tongue, but a calculated smear against Ron Dennis.

His argument that the fine was actually quite fair – the sum was enough to reduce McLaren’s budget to the same level of some of their competitors, but no more, and anyway $100 million is about market value for the IPR in that dossier – seemed quite interesting and reasonable. Of course, that assumes that a punishment was deserved in the first place, which seems very much open to doubt, so let nobody been fooled by the justification for the level of the penalty. It is not the issue.

The final element in all of this is Alonso: my first instinct was that he must have believed that there was something in those emails which would land McLaren in schtuck – which seems to me to offer the only indication that McLaren might just have been at fault. And one has to admire Alonso’s brass neck in attempting to blackmail his boss, if the media accounts are accurate.

But thinking about it further, the fact that he levelled those accusations in an attempt to leverage some advantage for himself within the team must be kept in mind. Put simply, Alonso may have been bluffing, and the emails may have been more innocent than he suggests – but he has been forced to declare them to the FIA because Dennis called his bluff, and this played beautifully into the hands of the pro-Ferrari conspiracy. That scenario would fit with the rest of the evidence, but it is of course conjecture… for now.

Or, if we want to be even more cynical, Alonso may have a contractual clause which allows him to walk in the event that McLaren falls into disrepute. This would provide a perfect motive for Alonso to play up the significance of the emails to the FIA: if Dennis had caved in to his alleged blackmail, he would have had better treatment within the team; if Dennis called his bluff, he would be able to engineer a scenario in which he could leave without contractual penalty. Of course this is pure speculation and could be totally wrong… but it does fit the available facts as I understand them at present.

Stranger things have happened, but it seems incredible to think that Alonso will race with McLaren in 2008: even if Alonso makes no move to leave, Dennis may well be trying to secure the driver’s title, after which he will haul Alonso over the coals for his behaviour and throw him out of the squad.

So, what does this mean for the driver market? Alonso must surely go back to Renault if he is to move: OK, it’s possible Ferrari might clear the decks and take him on board, but I understand he has a long-running feud with Jean Todt, who would have to be ordered to sign him. Then again, if Ross Brawn takes over the running of the Ferrari race team, that obstacle would vanish. Or if he went back to Renault, which driver would Renault keep alongside him? They know Alonso can beat Fisichella, which is what the Spaniard seems to want from a team-mate, so it could play out to the disadvantage of the far superior Kovaleinen.

And who would swoop for the McLaren drive? Button would probably have to buy himself out of yet another contract, but he might well be wise to do so (then again, could the fine adversely affect the development of the 2008 McLaren, stranding Button in mid-grid once again?). A driver displaced by Alonso from Ferrari or Renault would be a strong contender (unless Fisichella does get the chop, in which case one has to think it would end his career). Who else is there that is not currently under contract…?

It’s a fascinating, but black, hour for Formula 1.

Last day of glory for McLaren?

I’ve just finished watching the Italian grand prix, and the remarkable celebrations by McLaren, and the tone of the commentators and pundits, suggest to me that the general expectation is for McLaren to take a serious pasting at next week’s FIA hearing, and probably be thrown out of at least one championship. The applause for Ron Dennis – I dunno, maybe they always do that when he gets back from the podium, but I’ve never seen it before – seemed remarkable to me.

It’s funny how these things always happen in Italy: “new evidence” against McLaren and a criminal investigation this year; Alonso’s penalty last year for supposedly hindering Massa; Michelin’s tyre construction being deemed illegal ahead of the 2003 Italian grand prix…. Add to this the undertone to present events of something personal going on and one can easily form the impression of Ferrari twisting F1’s rules for their own purposes.

Of course, if McLaren did break the rules and use Ferrari intellectual property on their car, then they deserve sanction… but does anyone seriously think Ron Dennis would allow that? Never mind fair play: I suspect Ron Dennis simply would not take any pleasure from winning in that way, even if he never got caught. Plus the McLaren and Ferrari cars look to be built around fundamentally different principles, within the framework of the current aero rules: would information about solutions that work for one car really assist with the development of the other?

And what will it mean for the driver market if McLaren end up being condemned by evidence from Alonso…?

It’s been an odd season: the race for the drivers’ title was pretty open between four drivers until this afternoon (I’ll cheerfully bet you a tenner the Ferraris will now not catch the McLarens, assuming the latter are allowed to continue racing without hindrance), which has made for an interesting championship. The presence of a British rookie in the mix has been an added element, albeit that the hype around Hamilton gets tiresome from time to time. But aside from Canada and the Nurburgring, the races themselves have been pretty uninteresting – with two teams so dominant, there has never really been any excitement around finishing orders.

So I’m actually quite pleased there is a bit of politics going on: for the F1 anorak, it adds an extra dimension to a season whose racing has been rather dull. The trouble is that it looks like going too far: the competition risks being seriously twisted for no good reason. If McLaren are excluded from this year’s championship, or next year’s, it will create problems for Dave Richards’ Prodrive outfit, if they do indeed plan to use McLaren customer chassis next year. More seriously, it could prompt the manufacturers to abandon F1 altogether: if they perceive that the competition is liable to being fixed in favour of Ferrari, they may decide it’s not worth bothering with.

Or it could just all blow over. Now that really would be boring…

Just suppose…

So, Kate McCann is a formal suspect. In Portuguese law, this is a technical status, and doesn’t necessarily mean much. The police supposedly think they’ve found Madeleine’s blood in a hire car rented three weeks after she vanished but, y’know, details…

Just suppose – and I’m not suggesting this is necessarily the case – that the McCanns were in some way responsible for their daughter’s disappearance or death. Above all, this would represent a monumental failure on the part of the British media, who have been unabashedly partisan in giving the McCanns favourable coverage. The public is now closely engaged with the “hunt for Madeleine” and the McCanns are pretty much household names: there must be many people up and down the country going “but it can’t be them, I know them and- oh, no, hang on, I’ve never met them, have I?”

The media are now in a tricky position: just suppose the people in whom they have invested so much airtime, column inches and credibility, are in some way culpable in an unspeakably awful crime. How on Earth will they handle it? Whether or not the McCanns are in fact found guilty of anything other than leaving small children alone while they enjoyed themselves is immaterial: the point is that, if that does come to pass, the media have put themselves, totally unnecessarily, in an untenable position.

Never mind whether BBC journalists are wearing jeans or flashing a bit too much leg: the real question ought to be “why are they not even attempting to be objective any more?”

Though it would be nice if they could speak in proper sentences as well.

Mercury

I stopped caring about the Mercury Music Prize a long time ago, and I have viewed it with contempt since it started going along with whatever the NME was hyping in order to flog more copies (Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys and now The Klaxons).

But it has prompted me to say a word about Amy Winehouse, or more specifically her album Back To Black. I believe it’s an utterly remarkable record, and fully deserving of its critical and commercial success – even if Winehouse herself seems to be a professional train wreck, on the evidence of the album’s lyrics, never mind subsequent tabloid shenanigans.

But it’s rare for an album to be both genuinely excellent and sell large quantities and garner critical acclaim: lots of records manage one or two of the three, but few manage the whole lot. Of these, not all will meet the challenges of time and still be discussed as classics years later. For my money, there are only a very few records that meet all these criteria from the last decade or so: OK Computer by Radiohead, The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips, Funeral by The Arcade Fire and Back To Black. Is there anything else that was massively lauded at the time of its release and still likely to be discussed as a genuine classic, having sold lots in the meantime? Let me know if you can think of any… Remember, a key criterion is that I have to think it’s great, not just everyone else…

The Ghost Squad

Well I’m feeling rather pleased with myself. You may recall – but probably more likely won’t – Channel 4’s police drama The Ghost Squad, broadcast in a late evening slot towards the end of 2005, around the same time as Space Cadets, in which fame-hungry morons were ruthlessly and amusingly hoaxed on national telly.

But The Ghost Squad was altogether less jolly. It falls firmly into the category of police drama that concentrates on character rather than procedure, although unusually for a cop show it consisted of stand-alone hour-long episodes. Unlike much of the Channel 4 drama that has attracted me in recent years, such as Shameless, No Angels and Sugar Rush (and their forebear Teachers), The Ghost Squad does not attempt to incorporate humour: we are dealing with a brutal and bleak portrayal of modern-day policing here.

The scenario is this: Amy Harris is drafted into a secret and unofficial squad of police officers who work undercover to unearth corrupt and incompetent officers. Each of the eight episodes generally involves a “target” and often also an actual crime too: the plots are dense and sophisticated, and it is seldom clear where everyone stands. Indeed, even the “corrupt” officers are presented plausibly and have a clear reason for acting as they do – some end up undeniably hard-done-by.

Elaine Cassidy is superb as Amy Harris: tough and sharp, but also vulnerable and prone to rash and intuitive judgment calls. With Amy in the vast majority of scenes, Cassidy carries the series with style. She is well-supported by the two other main characters: Emma Fielding as her manipulative boss, who sends her into the field, and Jonas Armstrong as her shadow and support officer, in his first and only major role before becoming Robin Hood. Armstrong in particular puts in a stylish and endearing turn as Pete. One of the series’ great strengths is its exploration of the characters, and in particular of how months of deceitful undercover work and exposure to the Machiavellian internal politics of the police service leave Amy totally unsure of who to trust by the final two-part story.

It’s not always the easiest thing to watch, but The Ghost Squad is an unsung example of high calibre British TV drama. It is a shame that it was not commissioned for a second season, and downright criminal that it has not been given a DVD release in the UK. The reason I’m feeling so pleased with myself, however, is that I got wind of an Australian DVD release, and picked it up for the equivalent of about 15 quid, including shipping. There are no extras, but the transfers are clear and the menus easy to use, which is really all you need. Top notch.

God urinates in my chardonnay

I spotted something interesting on the back of the Metro newspaper today: Battlestar Galactica, the complete series 3 DVD box set, for £13.95 – given that even the cheapest online price right now is the thick end of 40 quid, it’s an absolute steal.

But… I work next to Heathrow airport and can’t get to HMV on weekdays. Still, if it’s valid, it’s going to be valid all week, right?

Just to check if it was a mistake, I mentioned it on Roobarb’s. It turns out it was a mistake… so sod it, I bin my copy of the paper. Checking back a few hours later, it turns out they are honouring it! Now, they don’t have to – technically, advertising a product at the wrong price doesn’t oblige a shop to sell it to you. But they’re only honouring it today, and they’ve clocked the mistake. So no cheap DVDs for me! Although a few others on Roobarbs were lucky enough to pick it up cheap thanks to yours truly. Aren’t I marvellous?