Reality

I love a good ominous sounding title, however todays post is not greatly ominous at all!

We had a great weekend, it was everything I wanted for Ben and more. I was worried that he might succumb to the blues, he would have been well within his rights to. However, I knew that my mission was complete, and completed very well too, when he turned to me yesterday after having gotten back from our second excursion from the cinema and told me it was the best birthday he'd had in a long time, despite the obvious reasons for it being a less than palatable occasion for him.

However, one part of his birthday celebrations has left me feeling terribly guilty.


As regular readers will know, Ben and I are fans of Formula 1 racing. Ben, unlike me, is one of those people who, when he is a fan of something, likes to know all about it; the history, the people, the politics. Many people are like this with music and their favourite bands, but Ben is like this with sport, and I am not really like that at all (Hey, I like this music, I shall listen to it. Hey, watching those people race cars is exciting, I shall watch it some more.)


So when he found out months and months ago that a documentary about Ayrton Senna was coming out on general release in the cinema, Ben jumped for joy and I died a little inside....I knew he'd want to go and see it, that he would be hard pushed to find anyone else to go with him, and he wouldn't go on his own.


He nagged and nagged me to agree to seeing it with him. And for a while I point blank refused. He pushed more, saying that with other movies he'd nagged me to see I'd ended up enjoying them. I replied "remember Transformers?" which he had nagged and nagged me to see with that same logic, only to have me fall asleep halfway through and start snorring.


Eventually, I came up with the ultimate in cunning plans. So cunning that it couldn't possibly fail. Yes, I would agree to go and see Senna at the cinema, if only he would come with me to see the next installment of Twilight.


He hates Twilight. I mean, he loathes it with a passion. It's not that it's particularly offensive to him as such. The books are bad, the movies are (somehow!) worse. It's the hype that surrounds it all which has him so put against it, and the general mutilation of Vampires and Werewolves which Meyer has managed to bring about. He hates it, and is very vocal about it. There was no way he was going to agree to seeing Twilight with me.


Oh how I underestimated how much he wanted to go and see Senna.


So we went yesterday. On Monday, his actual birthday, we went to see Xmen First Class, because we both wanted to see it and it was the only other chance we had of seeing it. This made me feel a little better towards Senna...it was like a good news sandwich...prequel it with Xmen, then watch Senna and fall asleep, but it's the cinema so ice cream and pop corn, fantastic. We ended up having the screen all to ourselves, and since this was the case I was fully intent on being rather immature and shouting "LET ME SEE YOUR BOOBS" every time a lady was on screen, cause, you know, he's already promised to be rather vocal at Twilight, when we know it won't be deserted.

Except, I made the joke once at the beginning and then shut up and watched the damn thing cause it was actually really really good. I even shed a single tear at the end when he (censored for spoilers lol). I mean, it was nothing like Harry Potter where I blubbed like a baby when Dobby (more spoilers lol) but only because of my immense self control.

So now I kind of feel really guilty about making Ben go to see Twilight when I know he's most definitely not going to like it.

However, I have the feeling that had Twilight been out before Senna and by some miracle of God, Ben had decided he was now Robert Patterson's biggest fan boy, he would still have expected me to go to see Senna, so I'm not letting him out that easily.

Perhaps I can trade it in for another favour. He'll have to make some proposals, let's see what he comes up with anyway.

By the way Ben, since I know you'll be reading this, you'll have to do this off of your own back. This is me offering it up to you, it's now up to you to come up with the goods.

Anyway, yes, Senna was very good, Xmen was also rather good (and I especially liked when Wolverine -spoilers-)

I'm just going to stop you right there and say that this leek and potato soup I'm eating right now tastes suspiciously of a cheese and onion pasty.

Anways, all good things must come to an end and now we're back to reality. Still, life is pretty good. Still no good news on the job front but I'm keeping on top of my search so that's something at least. I've a coffee afternoon coming up on Friday which I'm very much looking forward to, I have two tickets to the opening night of Harry Potter in a couple of weeks (yaaay!) and then over the first week of August the family will be paying a visit. So yes, still lots to look forward to over the next month and a bit ^_^

Till later folks!

The pleasant clickity click of knitting needles

That sound always reminds me of my Granny's. She hasn't knit for years now, as she has a repetitive strain injury and finds in arduous to hold up the needles for so long, as well as her difficulty in counting stitches and reading patterns with her eyes getting older. Still, once upon a time I had a whole wardrobe full of Granny's creations.

They were brightly coloured by nature, post box red and a bright colour which sat somewhere between yellow, gold and orange in particular come to mind when I think back. They always had that stereotypical cable design, and when I got to a certain age my wardrobe was coupled with a smaller wardrobe full of duplicate, smaller designs for my sister.

My mum was never much of a knitter, though she did dabble in it from time to time. She was more a tapestry and cross stitch kind of person though, and so there came a point where the pleasant clickity click of knitting needles wasn't heard in my house or Granny's anymore.

It seems that knitting has seen a bit of an upsurgance in popularity lately. I don't know whether this is just because I've become more aware of it as I extend my feelers out into the world at large or whether it really has become more popular in general recently. A few years ago I spied a new friend clicking away with her needles who proudly announced "I'm knitting Cthulu". It's certainly more amongst my, for lack of a better term, nerdier or geekier friends, and perhaps the rise of knitting is paired with the rise of geek chic. Now it seems there are more people than ever picking up needles and yarn to create everything from the practical wears my Granny used to make or hand made woolen gifts of every kind imaginable.

Anyhow, yesterday was, I am reliably told, "National Knit in Public day" and my good friend Becky who you never see without a pair of knitting needles or a crochet hook in hand invited myself and Dee to go to the knitting session that the museum where she works was holding. First of all, she said, go to John Lewis and pick up a free kit to knit a hat for soldiers on behalf of the British Legion charity. So I picked up the yarn and needles required, grabbed the pattern, left my name and number (a promise to bring the finished article back) and headed up to the museum to knit in public.

Of course, I haven't knitted since I was about four years old when I had a little kiddy kit and made a tiny tiny orange scarf for my barbie.

It's fun. I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to cast on (it wasn't the concept, it was the excecution...my needles kept slipping everywhere without doing their job and pulling the yarn through where it needed to be) and then a while longer casting on each and every one of the 110 stitches required in the pattern. Then Becky (bless her, I'm probably the worst student ever but she displayed never ending patience!) had to show me how to rib stitch. This "forces beanie" pattern may be short and sweet but it possibly wasn't the best choice for a complete noob!

I got home and continued on the row of two knit two purl and thanks to the fact that my poor attempt at casting on had frayed the yarn which made it difficult to avoid sticking my needle point through the yarn as opposed to through the loops...anyhow, I unravelled it all and started again and it's looking neater...fingers crossed it will continue to go well!

Well, it's time to go and watch the Canadian GP. I shall have knitting needles in hand throughout. It's a mildly damp track, which should make things interesting. But you know what really likes damp weather?

Thousands of blue rubber ducks I spied in the museum yesterday that shall partake in a great race for a local charity :)

Ducks!

Bahrain from an English F1 fan's point of view

As we deliberated over which instant coffee we fancied a couple of weeks ago (it must be fairtrade, but do we stick with tried and tested Percol Columbian or take a chance on Asda's Extra Special Tanzanian blend?) Ben turned to me and out of the blue said,

"I'm in two minds over whether or not to watch the Bahrain Grand Prix if it goes ahead."

What our choice of coffee had to do with a motorsport event taking place on a small desert island in the Persian Gulf which is not generally known for its trade in the brew, I will never know, but he made the statement and I felt it only fair to give my view on the subject.

"Well I'm not. If they decide to go ahead with it then I'm boycotting it. I'm not having it broadcast into my home."

"But what if they send in Human Right's experts and show that the situation is improved there?"

What he was referring to is, of course, the news reports that Bahrain, like much of the Arabic world, has been suffering from a touch of civil unrest. What shocked us both the most was that doctors and nurses who treat pro democracy protestors had been arrested and held for what essentially ammounts to treason. It seemed brutal to us that such people had been arrested for trying to care for humans to whome the powers that be decided shouldn't be treat.

We continued our little debate, about the ethics of holding a a major international event in a country which seemed to be actively persecuting a good proportion of its population. We're terrible arm chair do gooders like that. Ben pointed out that Bernie Ecclestone didn't want to turn F1 political. I argued that by going to a country in which such things are happening, and host an event at which the Bahrain monarchy would inevitably be strutting around on camera and generally spilling their money all over it, then it couldn't help but be political and so they should stay away until the unrest was over. And such has been my opinion, and is my opinion still.

Of course, this weekend the government of Bahrain dropped the state of emergency rule, and the FIA, after a "fact finding mission", decided to reinstate the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Well the fans of course have all gone wild and there are already petitions and facebook pages (ah yes, facebook, the best thing that ever happened to the arm chair do gooder) zooming up against it. And since before the FIA even made a decision, everywhere that F1 is present on the internet there are an alarming number of Bahraini's popping up saying "but everything is fine, don't believe the liers, come back to Bahrain life is good and wondeful here!". Paid propoganda? Many of the other fans certainly seem to think so.

The truth of the matter is, whilst I consider myself to be relatively decently read and I like to keep touch with what's going on in the world, I wouldn't have the foggiest with where to begin on the situation in Bahrain. At first you see the pictures on the television and it screams "police brutality and hostile dictatorship beating down on innocent protestors!" and that is bad. It is always bad. In no world, in no context, is police brutality and hostile dictatorship baring down on innocent bystanders a good thing. As such, this is most people's reason to avoid the Bahrain GP. F1 should not go to a country where these things are actively taking place.

And yes perhaps I'm a hypocrite because I still watch the GP in Turkey and China who are also topping the list of "human rights being squashed here" but the difference is there isn't active civil unrest and disobediance. The fresh taste of blood in Bahrain does not sit comfortably with international fans.

If you go to the F1 company page on facebook you will find little recent activity about F1 in and of itself. It has been completely taken over by what one can only assume is the Bahraini propoganda machine such as I mentioned earlier. If you chose to listen to what people are saying here without stepping aside to think for a moment, without any other source of information, you wouldn't know who or what to believe. Some say that hey, nothing untoward is happening here, everything is fine. Others say pretty much what the news tells us. More say that the protestors are in fact the evil ones, torturing innocents and brutalising students for not taking up arms with them in protest. Then people seem to get even more down and dirty...hey, you, you've sold us out to the Saudi's says one, well you've sold your very soul to the Iranian's is the reply.

And every time someone who is obviously not from Bahrain goes onto the page? They would be instantly jumped upon...you don't know, you're not here, do you even know where Bahrain is? Stupid Americans...believing all those lies. Welcome back, F1!

Desperation? Is there ever smoke without fire?

Clearly, at this point in time, people there are being hurt, oppressed, tortured. Who is the guilty culprit? Does it really matter? Doctors and nurses are being tried in what Amnesty International describes as a "secret military court" behind closed doors, even though the state of emergency has been lowered. Is this an environment into which F1 should be going?

Bahrain is already scheduled to open the 2012 season. Will things have changed by then...I don't know. But this is not a question for now. There are more issues than just the mucky issues of human rights abuses; for one, should the Bahrain GP go ahead then the season will be pushed right back into December. Being that teams begin work in January and usually have a few months off, this would really be stretching things. Then there is the fact that some in Bahrain have said that should the GP go ahead, a day of "rage" will be held in protest on the day of the GP. Whatever the situation may be now, however quiet or "peaceful", that certainly leaves massive potential for security threats for all involved in the race, from drivers to spectators.

All in all, I don't pretend to know all about what's going on in Bahrain, but I do know that for a variety of reasons the race should not go ahead this year. There are reasons why it should, of course, but they are spurious and stink of money hungry business men and monarchs rubbing their hands together.

The government has said it hopes the race will go ahead and will help to unite the people, however the issues there are obviously much deeper than they would appear at first glance. F1 is not the answer to Bahrain's problems, but the problem of Bahrain is certainly one that F1 cannot afford to saddle itself with.

A little musical fantasy

"I think I'm going to do a blog entry about the perfect F1 compilation album"

It's coming up to the beginning of the motorsport season, and my husband is frothing at the mouth for it. He's only really been following it properly for a couple of years, but Ben is like a star; when he finds something to fuel his interests, it burns hot and bright. There's no escaping it. You know all about it.

This isn't a bad thing at all, infact I often envy this quality of his. I'm a pretty apathetic person on the whole. There are certain things that catch my interests and ignite my passions, but if Ben is a star, I'm an oven set to medium heat. Nothing is gonna get burned in there, but it'll get cooked. And tasty. However, from the minute the BBC starts plugging the Bahrain GP (though of course this year it's had to be scrapped, and our thoughts are with those caught up in the violence and protests currently sweeping not only Bahrain, but all throughout the middle east and north Africa) Ben is there, chomping at the bit. His blog suddenly sparks to life again and it's full of videoes of spectacular crashes, overtakes and wins. I swear, if he as emotional at the birth of our children as he gets when watching the videos of Jenson Button taking the F1 world championship in 2009, I will begin to worry for his mental health. He is very much emotionally invested in this.

And I think I take this well enough. I've learned to block out most of his ranting about obscure racing series that I neither know anything nor care anything about (don't worry, he does know that I do this, he just gets over excited and, try as I might, I cannot get as excited as he does about these things. He does it with me too, so we're pretty equal) and hone in on all the juicy F1 jewels he comes out with (which I am interested in and do get excited about).

Still, there are some things I cannot escape. When he told me last night he wanted to make a fantasy F1 compilation album for his blog I first though 'yeah, another pretty blog project, that'll be an interesting read'. And then he asked what I thought. I gave a couple of suggestions (which he has included, cause I'm awesome and he knows it) and we argued over a number of his suggestions (none of mine, though :D).

Then he turned around and said, "I think you should do this on your blog too, a competing version".

Now, it's not the kind of thing I'd normally do and I've been grumbling over it. However, he set a challenge, and he wrote it so right here and, as apathetic as I may be towards it, we have a bit of an unwritten rule between us. Of course, it is no longer unwritten as of now...once the challenge is set, unless it is physically ridiculous, it must be taken.

So anyway. The rules, as set by Ben (he asked me for my input and I rather apathetically told him that it's his challenge so he has to make them) is that we're allowed duplicate entries (he claims on his blog that this is because Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain' is none negotiable. Whilst he has a point, it's also because he wanted to steal my ideas, my ideas being 'Bulls on Parade' and 'Nobody does it better' just so you know) and that it has to be 13 songs long.

Now I'm struggling to figure what links a song to F1. Is it because the BBC happened to link it in on their F1 Forum pieces, is it what the teams play in their garages when they've won, is it just a song that is an awesome driving song? I've thought, not too long or hard mind you (sorry Ben!) and this is what I've come up with.

1 -Fleetwood Mac - The Chain



There is no compromise. This is THE definitive F1 track. There are facebook groups that spring up each year trying to get it to number one for either the beginning or end of the F1 season. If you are an F1 fan, you probably have this tucked away on your playlist somewhere.

2 - Rage Against The Machine - Bulls on Parade



What the hell does this have to do with F1 racing? Well, to me and Ben it's a bit of an unofficial Red Bull Racing theme tune ever since the beeb linked it in after Vettel won the 2010 world championship. And whilst I've never driven in my life, I can see myself cruising down the motorway with this on full blast. I dunno. Maybe that's just me.

3 - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang



Oh come on. Like I need to explain this! Gotta love Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

4 - The Allman Brothers Band - Jessica



Not perhaps the most original tune for a song relating to driving, nor is it perhaps immediately obvious as to why I've included it on an F1 playlist. Still, we've been watching Top Gear for years and it was the publicity that Top Gear gave to F1 that really got me personally thinking about it in the first place. If it weren't for Top Gear, Ben would have a hard time talking about anything remotely racing related at all, so he owes them a debt of thanks that he can at least talk to me about F1!

5 - DJ Visage - Formula '98



Otherwise known as "The Schumacher Song" this is an awesomely cheesy dance tune dedicated to he who is arguably, love or hate him, the king of F1. Schumacher, we saulte you!

6 - Cardigans - My Favourite Game



This was on one of the Grand Turismo games of years gone by. It's a general all round epic driving tune if you ask me, and a great racing song.

Ok, if I can be honest with you I'm starting to struggle.

7 - Carly Simon - Nobody Does It Better



So I'm putting this now. In a perfect world, it would be at the end. But anyway. This was used in a montage of all the british F1 champions when Button won the championship and I think it's a pretty sexy song. It's classy and sparkly and everything that F1 is.

From here on in things might get silly. Not that Chitty Bang Bang was silly. That was perfectly justified.

8 - Abba - Money Money Money



Lets face it. F1 is a rich man's sport. It's glamorous and epic. And done in Monaco. And they mention Monaco in this song.

And I love ABBA and needed an excuse to get them in somewhere.

9 - Boston - More than a Feeling



Another epic and favourite song of mine that is probably included on every "Driving Songs" album ever made, but also linked back to F1 thanks to the almighty influence of the beeb.

Seriously Ben, why 13? I know perfectly decent albums that are only ten tunes long?

Well, since Ben stole my idea's I'm going to resort to stealing his.

10 - Queen - We Are The Champions



Honestly, is there anything in particular that links this to F1 other than, once again, a Button era karaoke moment? It could arguably be linked to anything in which a champion is crowned, not just this particular one sport. Still, it's a cool song. And I is stealing Ben's shit. Haaah.

But I think I'm going to leave it there. I'm afraid I've not got the stamina for this and I have laundry that needs to be hung and a bathroom floor begging to be scrubbed (not to mention the fact that it's coming up to three o clock and I've not had lunch yet).

Ben, inevitably, you have won this one. But like I said. I'm more of a medium heat oven, baby. Yeah.