James Allen steals my puns!

Here. Though he also rather helpfully clarifies that the points system will remain alongside the proposed medal system, at least for fourth downwards. His point about the “going for broke” incentive conflicting with current stewarding standards’ apparent discouragement to overtaking is also worthwhile. And while he reminds me: does anyone expect to see a British Grand Prix at Donington? I certainly don’t – Bernie’s ruse of ditching the British race by selling it to a hopeless prospect is utterly transparent, and I can’t think why I haven’t commented on it before. Probably because it hardly seemed worth spelling out.

Medal meddling

I observed at the end of the F1 season that, although I did warm to James Allen somewhat over his years in the commentary box, I have more time for him as a columnist than as a race commentator. Happily, therefore, he has started a rather excellent blog on F1, which shows every sign of flourishing – certainly I am getting into the habit of checking it.

At the moment there are two consecutive posts on there between which, rather surprisingly, nobody has drawn a connection. The first concerns Bernie Ecclestone’s somewhat crazy plans for medals rather than points in F1; the second concerns the farce of the Austrian grand prix in 2002, when Rubens Barrichello infamously moved over for Micheal Schumacher’s benefit in the very final corner.

On the medals issue first, I understand that this scheme would do away with points altogether, at least for the drivers – I am unsure whether this would extend to the constructors’ title as well. This seems to me to run totally against the nature of F1: while F1 can at times be deeply exciting, it is more often interesting – not the same thing. To the regular or semi-regular viewer, much of the attraction lies in tracking the fortunes of drivers and teams all down the grid, including for the lesser points-scoring positions. By removing any significance from the finishing order from fourth downwards, much of the interest will be removed from F1. This is a particularly bad idea at a time of new regulations, when the field is likely to be spread out and only two – at most three – teams are likely to be challenging for wins: the medals positions will always be filled by three of the four same drivers. Removing the strategic, long-game element of F1 can surely only be a mistake.

Secondly, awarding the title to the driver with he most wins will put grand prix victories at a premium. Ecclestone’s argument that this will encourage overtaking is bizarre: if racing drivers can overtake, they usually do – the rarity of decisive passes for the lead of a grand prix is down to the cars being closely matched and their fundamental aerodynamic characteristics. The new regulations should address the latter point – whether it will produce a lot of overtaking for the top positions remains to be seen. But how many times have we actually seen – as Ecclestone implies happens all the time – a driver in second place who would be capable of passing the leader, but decides against it to collect a safe eight points? I’m struggling to think of any examples at all, other than where the two cars belong to the same team.

But putting wins at such a premium will not only fail to bring the predicted benefit: it will also add new dangers. It will create a massive incentive for team orders, to repeat the Barrichello situation (I wonder if that term – “a Barrichello situation” – could be coined to cover similar dilemmas in the future?). Now, the FIA would not stand for this… but there could be a glut of bungled pit-stops, unforced driver errors or inexplicable technical faults afflicting leading drivers. It would also make teams think twice about their line-ups: having two race-winners already creates a risk of drivers taking points off each other, which cost Ferrari the title this year and has cost McLaren in the past; but if they start taking wins off each other the problem will be even more obvious. Teams with race-winning cars will be handed a clear incentive to hire one top driver, and one not-so-good one – this will leave some of the sport’s top talent shut out from competitive seats (as effectively the number of competitive seats available to them will be halved), and deny us a lot of excitement in racing, and variety in race winners.

It’s madness. At least the last time they changed the scoring system it was in response to a real problem, namely the deathly dull 2002 season and Schumacher’s easy canter to the title. But we’ve just come off the back of the best F1 season in years, and probably as good a show as the category is capable of producing. Why tinker with it? OK, admittedly the rule changes already constitute tinkering – but there are at least good answers to the question “why?” there, to do with overtaking and costs. The scoring system has, however, proved its worth. Constant changes undermine the sport’s credibility over the long term: even with awarding points down to eighth, it’s awkward – under the current system, Eddie Irvine would have been world champion in 1999, so previous results are questioned. Perhaps the answer is to go back to 10-6-4-3-2-1 if there must be change. But then, the last couple of years have shown that arguing for or against something in F1 on the grounds that it could undermine its credibility doesn’t get you very far.

Hibbett writes like a GURL

Hm, long time no blog! What have I been up to? Well, a bit of non-blog writing (but not much), trips to Brussels and Manchester for work, the odd gig, quite a lot of stress (also work) and reading The Writer’s Tale by Russell T Davies, which I recommend to you.

There’s a specific thing that has prompted me to write this post – nothing significant, but I can’t resist writing about it. Before I explain, a quick story… When I was a student, I was at a college “feast” – quite a lush and elite affair – and in the company of a fellow Scholar (sic), who we’ll call Chris. At drinks after the meal, we encountered our erstwhile supervisor and all-round super bloke Adam Smith. Adam was on the outside of a few drinks by this stage – he wasn’t alone in this, in fairness – and introduced us to his girlfriend, to whom he had been explaining a theory expounded to him earlier that day by another history fellow.

The theory was this: that there is a characteristically “masculine” approach to writing essays, and a clearly distinct “feminine” approach. The masculine approach is to fix on a line of argument, and then make the case firmly for that position throughout the essay. The feminine approach is to look at the pros and cons of each facet of the argument and each piece of evidence, giving a more reflective but less forceful essay. I recall Adam’s girlfriend being rather sceptical about this, and Adam having to back-pedal slightly, emphasising that these were a colleague’s views, not his.

Nonetheless, he couldn’t help himself from relating the theory to his own students. “Chris here, y’see,” he… well, to say slurred would be going a bit far, I suppose… “Chris has a very masculine essay technique, while John here, on the other hand, John has a bisexual writing style!” It remains perhaps my favourite thing that anyone has ever said about me.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered, courtesy of Lianne Light & Shade, a website that claims to be able to divine the sex of the author of an item of text by analysing the contents! OK, it’s not quite the same thing, but still interesting. I was in equal parts relieved and disappointed to find my own blog posts come out as resolutely male (though in fairness it doesn’t have a “bisexual” output option). Paton too was correctly identified. But when I entered not one but two posts (this one and this one) from the superficially manly MJ Hibbett, both were identified as being written by a female author! I didn’t dare try it with a third post in case it got it right and stopped being funny.

What time is it? It’s Glock o’clock!

If nothing else, Timo Glock is guaranteed a place as a small footnote in F1 history as the driver that Lewis Hamilton passed on the final corner of the last race of the season to win his first world championship. I hope regular readers of this blog will agree I’m not prone to hyperbole, so take my word for it that I literally was on the edge of my seat for those last few laps – it was an amazing climax to the season.

In fact, I scarcely know where to begin. It was heartbreaking for Massa: not only could he be seen crying in his helmet on his slowing-down lap, but his father and pit crew could be seen celebrating in the Ferrari garage, not knowing that Hamilton had regained fifth place at the last moment; the whole world saw Mass Snr’s face fall as he was told the news. I’ve no idea how Massa managed to hold it together during the anthems on the podium – he was astonishingly dignified in defeat, and for all that I don’t quite agree that F1 is a sport so much as a contest, it was extremely sportsmanlike behaviour on Massa’s part.

I also feel sorry for him because I think you could argue he was slightly more deserving than Hamilton: he won more races, and when he lost points from promising positions it was often due to unreliability or team error. Hamilton’s lost points were largely down to his own mistakes, albeit with some dubious stewards’ decisions thrown into the mix.

That said, Hamilton’s achievement is remarkable: it is not simply a matter of having good equipment. Heikki Kovaleinen – undoubtedly a very good driver – has shown that not every driver can arrive at McLaren and start outpacing a highly-rated team-mate within a few races, but that’s what Hamilton did last year. He has performed at a consistently high standard in F1, and is undoubtedly deserving of a championship (even if Massa was slightly more deserving of this particular one).

Less remarked-on were other championship results: Kubica lost out on third place in the championship to Raikkonen, and Ferrari took the constructors’ title despite losing out on the drivers’ crown, much as in 1999. What this seems to confirm is that having equal status among team-mates is a good way to lose world championships: Raikkonen and Massa took points off each other this year, just as Hakkinen and Coulthard did in 2000, Alonso and Hamilton did in 2007 and Irvine and Schumacher sort-of did in 1999. Either a formal pecking-order or a clearly second-string driver always assists a championship challenge: Coulthard could seldom out-pace Hakkinen, and likewise for Fisichella and Alonso, and Kovaleinen and Hamilton. Ferrari were fortunate that Massa’s good form did not cost them the title last season too.

Indeed, that list covers (if one adds in the clear team structure at Ferrari in the Schumacher years) all of ITV’s years in F1 coverage. We’ll have to see what the BBC’s coverage is like – word is they are chasing Martin Brundle alone among the ITV crew – but it will clearly have ITV’s run to compare itself to in a way that ITV never had to worry about with te Beeb’s previous efforts. ITV certainly gave F1 full-value coverage: if anything, at times they can be accused of stretching their material too thin at times. But overall it has been extremely good coverage, often providing comprehensive and fascinating insight into the sport.

They have dropped the ball on only a handful of counts: the ad break when Alonso was chasing down Schumacher at Imola in 2004 was probably the only time adverts really intruded badly – in fact, I always enjoyed the experience of coming back from an ad break to find something really exciting had happened. The continued use of Mark Blundell is also questionable – occasionally he came out with something worthwhile, but he mostly offered an inarticulate repetition of, at best, bland truisms and, at worst, the question he’d just been asked.

The most contentious aspect of ITV’s coverage has been James Allen’s promotion to lead commentator. There are many valid criticisms: he can’t express excitement other than by shouting; he is prone to saying stupid things like “rock’n'roll in Monte Carlo!!” (though cut down on these excesses commendably in recent years); and he has a knack of missing significant developments that the viewer can see on-screen. But it’s a difficult job, and he offers a fair defence of himself in a retrospective feature on ITV-F1: making F1 seem exciting in the years of Schumacher domination was indeed a duff job to be promoted into in many respects. And on reflection, his undoubted enthusiasm for F1 and the overall geniality of his presence mean that he won’t go entirely un-missed as far as I’m concerned.

Next year is unlikely to be as good as this: for one thing, regulation changes tend to spread the field out and make the racing less tight; but for another, very few seasons have ever been as good as this. It has produced an admirably low proportion of dull races, with many exciting – or at least interesting – events, a broad range of winners, and no end of fascinating developments, right up to the final corner. It probably is the best of the twelve seasons I’ve followed closely (it’s no coincidence I started following F1 when ITV’s coverage made it more visible in 1997), with only 1999 or 2003 as rivals. Let’s hope 2009 can give us equal excitement against the odds… and that Honda can get Jenson Button back up to the front of the grid!

In the Concrete Doughnut

I hadn’t previous envisaged that my first ever visit to Television Centre would involve me having to re-clothe myself, but I found myself having to reinstate my belt round my waist just inside the main gate. Last night I went to see a recording for the next series of That Mitchell and Webb Look: now, if you’ve been to a TV recording like this before this will all be old hat, but as it’s the first time I’ve done it, I’m going to write a blog post.

In fact, this isn’t the first time I’ve tried to attend a studio recording: twice before I have been too far back in the queue and turned away, despite having tickets. Now, this is fair enough: it’s made explicitly clear that they give out more tickets than they have spaces for, and for good reason – the idea is, after all, to be sure of getting a sufficient audience, and the entertainment experience of the evening is a secondary consideration…

…And boy, does it show! Audiences are treated as little more than laughter cattle: the whole thing is so shambolically organised that the only experience I can call on to liken it to is flying out of Heathrow Airport. It’s that bad.

Firstly, the queue system is a farce. There are usually multiple programmes being recorded, and the queues are formed on the pavement outside TVC. Now, that’s fair enough: maybe there is no other space on which to do it. But are there signs to say which queue is which, or any staff around? Nope, or at least not for a long time. Eventually some staff appear and go along the queue checking people are in the right one, but not very efficiently: they do two passes, and still find people on the second pass who have not been caught by the first. Now, the BBC has been recording programmes with audiences in this location for years: why can’t they get simple things like organising queues right? It’s not as if there is a shortage of staff: once you get inside, there’s no end of people marshalling you about. Queues can be organised successfully – Wimbledon only runs for two weeks of the year, but it’s absolutely peasy, with plenty of people on-hand to direct you to the right place.

Then there is security. Now, it’s fair enough that there are scanners, but do they have to be so sensitive that you need to take your belt off? And why can’t there be signs warning people of this in advance? There are stewards milling around occasionally and haphazardly mentioning it, but many people miss the instruction and it slows the process down. After the scanner, there is also no real room for putting your stuff back in your pockets and re-robing yourself as necessary – hence I had the slightly odd experience with my belt. Again, there’s not really any excuse for this: I’ve been in four different national and supra-national Parliament buildings, the Royal Courts of Justice and to numerous party conferences, all requiring scanner-level security, and all managing it better than the BBC.

So, once inside (having resisted the temptation to take a photo of the TARDIS prop outside the entrance, mainly because my phone was still in my bag) we ended up in a lobby area with a food counter and a BBC shop. The food counter had two people serving, to cater for the audience of three different shows. It was a long time before we got food (and some amazingly expensive red wine), but as studio admission was due to start in twenty minutes, we reckoned we had time to polish it off. We reckoned wrong: audiences started to be called almost instantly, with instructions over the PA to form queues in a space that had no obvious location for queue-forming, among all the tables and chairs. So we had to join the queue, wolf our food and neck the wine.

I’m aware this has been a big whinge so far, and also that it’s fashionable to bash the BBC at the moment: rest assured all that stops here. For, while I was pretty seething by the time I got to my seat in Studio 8, from that point on it was all rather enjoyable.

The first and most pleasant surprise was the warm-up act: “Is that Lucy Porter??” I asked – the answer was yes, it was! Lucy Porter doesn’t have what you’d call gag-based comedy, but she’s an utterly lovely presence, and runs an extremely funny line in banter – she’s a stand-up I had hoped to see at some point, so that was a rather lovely bonus!

The sketches that the BBC milked our laughter for came as a mixture of live action in the three separate sets that were up in the studio (two directly in front of the audience, one behind those and visible via screens) and pre-recorded items on screens. The studio sketches were mostly at the whimsical end of Mitchell and Webb’s output, but some of the pre-recorded ones were among their most satirical and scathing: I was particularly delighted to see religion, homeopathy, The Apprentice and vegetarianism getting particularly well-judged kickings. The other great highlight among these was an excellent James Bond spoof.

The live sketches were much as I suppose I had expected: each was recorded twice with occasional pick-ups (though generally the first take seemed better to me!). The final set, after a second costume-change into the mis-matched office-sharing characters went quite badly, however: Robert Webb in particular became prone to fluffing his lines, and technical problems led to several lengthy breaks in recording (one extended further, from what I could hear, by David Mitchell needing to go to the toilet). With two sketches completed, Webb eventually exploded and went, “oh shit! I keep screwing this up!” Everyone laughed, but after a moment it looked like he was genuinely annoyed at how things were going. Following some conferring with the floor manager, they announced they were calling it a day, and presumably returning to the office sketches later.

Overall it was an enjoyable evening, and all the sketches were to a very high standard – remarkable considering how much material Mitchell and Webb have produced over the last couple of years – and maybe even a step up from the second series. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished episodes on screen. As for attending future recordings, I’ve not been totally put off but the BBC really have no excuse for their shabby organisation.