Minimal

Actually, that’s the confession done. I admit it, I’m addicted. I’m forever wasting evenings on the iTunes Music Store in search of the next great soundtrack to my life. I’m an iMix whore. A few recent purchases:

• Crayon, by Caribou
• Through the Backyards, by Au Revoir Simone
• Breathe Me, by Sia
• Wishbone, by Architecture in Helsinki
• and next...?

It’s times like this that I pine for the dearly departed Plink, the music review site started by Matt Jones of helium-3. That was a great source of new material, but I was still an iTunes virgin back then. If you’re reading this, Matt, any chance of a revival? :)

Not content with visiting Silverstone for the F1, I was back the next weekend for D1. There’s a fair chance that “D1” doesn’t mean a lot to the people who read this blog, so here’s the low-down...

D1GP is the World Drifting championship. What’s drifting, you say? Have you seen the trailers for The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift lately? That’s what we’re talking about. Nutters driving powerful rear-wheel-drive cars very fast and very sideways. They achieve the sideways bit by various means, but mainly via a tweak on the handbrake followed by flooring the gas to force power oversteer. Actually, trying to explain one term by introducing loads of other ones probably isn’t helping, so here’s a video from the event:

This was the first drift event I’d been to, so I wasn’t sure of the rules. Thankfully, the programme soon filled me in. Overall, it feels most closely comparable to figure skating. The course on which the drivers drift is just a few corners of the track as a whole and a judge tells them beforehand exactly what lines they’re expected to take. It’s then up to the drivers to follow that line while also:

• keeping the rear end out as long as possible
• keeping the rear end out at as great an angle as possible
• creating as much tyre smoke as possible (from wheelspin)
• taking as smooth a line as possible through the corners
• maintaining as much speed as possible
• generally entertaining the crowd (judges can be swayed by crowd approval)

At least, that’s how it works for qualifying. The judge scores each driver over 3 runs and the 16 with the highest scores go into a one-on-one knock-out competition. Each one-on-one drifting battle then consists of two runs: one car leading on the first; then the other leading the second.

The job of the leader is just as in qualifying, but with the addition of having to leave a single car’s width on the inside of the corners. The guy behind must simply match everything the leader does, keeping the distance between the two cars as short as possible. He must also try to tuck his car’s nose inside the leader on the corners. It’s all a bit of a high-speed, tyre-shredding ballet.

On each run, 10 points are distributed between the two drivers, say 7-3 or 5-5. A spin for either driver results in an instant 0-10. The winner of the battle is the driver with more points after both runs are completed. If it’s a draw, they take another couple of runs till it’s decided.

Ok, so they’re the rules, but what was it like? Answer: absolutely bloomin’ spectacular! It was serious entertainment. The cars didn’t actually get as close to each other as I’d hoped they might (with one expensive exception), but it just demonstrated how damned difficult it was and how talented the guys were. Bearing in mind they were doing over 100mph as they threw it sideways for the first corner, it’s a miracle there wasn’t a smash on every run.

As the title of this post suggests, this was a friendly match, with loads of Japanese drivers from the D1GP world championship competing against their lesser European counterparts. Eventual winner was the world champ himself, Yasuyuki Kazama, with Masato Kawabata the runner-up. Both were awesome. Top-placed European driver was Holland’s Paul Vlasblom in his seriously loud BMW 3-series estate. In fact, he was the only guy to beat any of the Japanese drivers, such is their dominance of the sport.

Really, I’m a bit lost for what to say about it other than “Get yourself to a drift event, dammit!” It’s really all about entertainment, showing off and having a great time. You even get to chat with the drivers over lunch and generally have a good mooch about the paddock. Add to that the Barry Boy’s paradise of burger vans, merchandise and car club stands and you’ve got a great day out. Hell, they even played some decent hip-hop over the tannoy during practice. If you’ve got even 5% boy racer in your blood, you’ll love it. Fingers crossed they come to Croft sometime. :)

...wasn’t as good as I’d hoped it might be. At least, the experience just doesn’t compare to being part of the death-van burger brigade. Despite this, I’m still a royally jammy bar-steward for getting the chance to find out — thanks, John! :)

Ignoring the race itself (which was pretty bloody boring), I can only conclude that motorsport events really need to be sampled in their entirety. You really need to soak up every bit of atmosphere from the gathering. This means watching every race and visiting all parts of the circuit.

As it was, we saw only the part of the circuit that lay between the hospitality tent and our seats at Club Corner. We missed out entirely on the area around the pits, which is usually the heart of the event. No doubt there was all sorts of non-race entertainment and merchandising going on down there, but we weren’t party to it. We also saw only two of the day’s four races: GP2 (pretty good); and F1 (pretty crap).

Actually, it’s a bit gutting we missed the Porsche and GT races. If the F1 pace car was anything to go by, the more road-going cars would’ve given a much better impression of their speeds. The F1 cars, on the other hand barely looked like they were accelerating. You never heard tyre squeal from the F1 cars (engines were too damn noisy) and their suspension was such that they looked utterly untroubled by the turns. All in all, it’s a bit of a mystery why there’s such an aura around F1. Sure, it must be thrilling to drive an F1 car, but it’s not much of a spectator sport.

So, would I go again? Possibly, but I’d make damn sure I was the master of my own itinerary. I’d also choose seats at a better corner and, quite possibly, a better circuit. And, without a doubt, I’d be taking ear plugs. :)

Last night, at work, my boredom dedicated, hard work was interrupted by the sound of a gentle thud against the window. I looked up, but saw nothing. Then there was another. And another. And another. And...

Turns out a small flock of long-tailed tits had gathered in the trees outside and they were rapidly getting to grips with the concept of glass. In fact, two of the younger specimens had already succumbed to its transparent trickery and were lying dead on the pavement a couple of storeys down.

While I did feel a little sorry for these dumb creatures, I was fascinated to see Darwin’s theory of natural selection in action. If they can’t learn from seeing their buddies snap their feathery little necks, do they even deserve to survive? I’d wager not. Tits indeed!

P.S. Apologies to all readers expecting to see, or at least read about, a nice pair of breasts. Better luck next time.

P.P.S. Apologies to all readers offended by the previous apology.

Last weekend, I splashed out £169 for just half an hour’s driving around Rockingham International Motorspeedway. Am I nuts, or what? The difference this time was that I was in a car with only 115bhp. No wait, the difference this time was that I was in a single seater race car. Well, a sanitised equivalent, at least.

True, it did have only 115 horses, but it was light enough to make this ample. Overall, though, as an experience, it’s one I won’t be seeking to repeat. After the usual safety briefing, my group of 4 was split up between a pair of pace cars (also single seaters). We then trundled out of the pits onto the National circuit in the oval’s infield and ever-so-slowly increased the speed as we got used to the controls. To be honest, the only thing that felt slightly unusual was the 4-speed, extremely short-throw gearbox, situated next to your right hand.

Ten minutes in and we trundled back into the pits, only to head back out in about 20 seconds’ time. The rest of the session was spent gradually increasing the speed, but we never got to the point where we were pushing it. At least, not as I would describe it. If you think backing off the gas on the straights and hardly having to brake is pushing it, then maybe this is the experience for you. For me, it was just plain frustrating.

When our half hour was up, I had to ask a fellow driver whether we now got to drive the cars without the pace car, as I’d been expecting, but no, that was the experience over. What a let-down. I was so cheesed off, I didn’t even bother buying a photo of myself driving round. What would be the point? To show it to friends, saying “Here’s one of me driving a fast car like someone’s grandmother”? Bah and double bah.

Bitterness aside, I probably still would’ve been happy to have paid only 30 or 40 quid for such an experience. Funnily enough, that’s exactly how much they were going for on the day, as the circuit hadn’t filled all available places. Alas, I’d booked in advance via their website. So, if you’re in the area and fancy a quick run out in a car you wouldn’t normally get to drive, pop along and see if you can pick up a last minute ‘experience’. Otherwise, you may as well give it a miss.

It’s been a long, long time since my last outing at Warden Law, but on Thursday night, I got right back in the groove. On a trip with some new colleagues — and thus total unknowns — I managed to bag pole position, race win and fastest lap. I even lapped all but one of my rivals in the half-hour race, which isn’t bad going seeing as we were on the longer circuit (a lap time of around 1min 10secs).

So, having finally got rid of my collection of karting trophies (by giving them back to the circuit), I’m now starting over again. It’s a hard life... ;-)

Last week, I was off work doing conservation volunteering with the BTCV. Perhaps 4 days of hard graft in the summer heat isn’t everyone’s idea of a holiday, but for me, it was just what I needed. What I didn’t need was all of the mosquito and midge bites, the little buggers.

Although I’d been meaning to do it for years, this was my first ever conservation holiday and I wasn’t sure what to expect. And perhaps I didn’t make the best claim to green credentials by turning up in a 27MPG go kart. Everyone else either got the train or rode there on their bike. Ooops. Still, I’m not changing. I figure I was doing my bit by driving 45 minutes to a holiday in the UK instead of flying overseas.

As for the work itself, I was in a group of 11 or so, building steps on a walking trail in Hamsterley Forest. Part of the path was getting fairly eroded, so we were just shoring it up a bit. In the end, we made only about 10 steps over the course of 3½ days’ work. I was a bit frustrated at how little we got done, but in fairness, the rock-strewn ground wasn’t helping us. Also, we couldn’t just rip it all up, as we needed the hillside to remain as stable as possible. Anyway, we got the job done, so all was well.

Of course, the other aspect of this type of holiday is the being-in-a-group thing. It appealed to me because I hate going on holiday alone and never seem able to coordinate time off work with friends. By joining a group holiday, I didn’t have to worry about that. The group I found myself in turned out to be quite a mix. Young and old, boys and girls, quiet and... well, no-one was loud, but some were more social than others. As an added bonus, our project leader was superb – full of beans and really positive. All in all, we were a pretty good bunch to be part of.

It wasn’t all work either. Evenings were spent:

• Getting drunk by a campfire, playing the drink-while-you-think name game
• Having a BBQ and throwing mountain bikes
• Going out on a bat-walk, getting up close and personal with a pair of Daubentons
• Watching the England game and getting drunk around the camp fire again
• Chucking a frisbee about (have you forgotten how much fun it is to just throw things at each other?)

In summary, I really enjoyed the break. If you’ve ever thought about taking this kind of holiday, go for it. I can highly recommend it. Fresh air, nice people, hearty exercise and the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve done something good instead of warming the planet with burnt kerosene. What are you waiting for? :)

This is all a bit Dear Diary, but I had a fairly packed week last week:

• Sat, Sun: Visited friends and attended the British GP at Silverstone
• Mon to Fri: Built steps to prevent footpath erosion in Hamsterley Forest
• Sat: Driven a single-seater round the National circuit at Rockingham
• Sun: Attended the D1GP Exhibition Match at Silverstone

It’s a dangerous thing to make promises of weblog posts, but I think I’ll write each event up separately. In the meantime, at least this explains my recent dearth of posts (along with my secondment to afterbang). :)

There can’t be many better ways to wake up on a Friday morning than to receive a text offering a free ticket to the British Grand Prix, champagne reception included. Yes, I really am that jammy. Wahey! :)

Forget Embrace and their stultifyingly bland ‘official’ World Cup song – how about a re-release of Goldie Lookin’ Chain’s Half Man, Half Machine (video, Windows Media) in honour of Peter Crouch’s robot antics? Surely... surely someone in the GLC’s marketing machine must’ve considered it? Okay, so they’re Welsh, but it’s not like they’ve got their own team to support at the finals...