It is awful that, less than a week after the death of Dan Wheldon, another major motorsport star has been killed during a race. Unlike IndyCar, I follow MotoGP quite closely and I have watched all of the races this year. I was a big fan of Marco Simoncelli. For me, Marco Simoncelli was the […]
Archive:
October 2011
Bobby Fischer Against the World
This year everyone has been talking about the Senna documentary, including me. But while praise for Senna has come from F1 fans and non-fans alike, I have been more impressed by another sport documentary from this year — Bobby Fischer Against the World. Chess may seem like an unlikely game to take to the big […]
Is Korea another Turkey?
Are hopes for a Korean Grand Prix in 2012 disappearing down the plughole? Last weekend saw the second Korean Grand Prix. Already there are murmurs that it may be the last. Autosport are today reporting that the Korean Grand Prix organisers are seeking to renegotiate their contract with Bernie Ecclestone in order to stem their […]
Dan Wheldon
I was very shocked and upset to learn about the death of Dan Wheldon. I don’t watch IndyCar for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is the fact that I don’t have Sky. If I did have Sky, I probably would watch, and I certainly keep up-to-date with the news from IndyCar in general. […]
Dundee’s Cinematic Abundance
I recently learned about a Twitter account that campaigns against Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee’s excellent culture hub in the centre of the city. Typical tweets include: [blackbirdpie id=”124581248428548096″] [blackbirdpie id=”124933453421617152″] I went to see Friends with Benefits a few weeks ago, and it was pretty awful. The highlight is one funny joke about iPads in […]
Rally of Scotland
Last weekend my brother and I headed along to Scone Palace to witness the finish of this year’s Rally of Scotland, the penultimate round of this year’s Intercontinental Rally Challenge. Scone Palace is only about half an hour from where I live, and five minutes from where my brother lives. So it seemed silly not […]
A new website
Several years ago I bought the domain name duncanstephen.co.uk. I have never really been sure what to do with it, but I have kept it up because, well, it’s my name. I have had holding pages up, but never anything of real note. I have had a bit of time off work this month, but […]
Is there a market for B-class open-wheel series?
Today it was announced that the Asian rounds of Superleague Formula have been cancelled. This is on top of the earlier cancellation of the South American rounds. The original 2011 calendar also contained races in Russia, the middle east, Australia and New Zealand. None of these took place. In the end, the only two races […]
Why do railway companies talk like this?
There are lots of great things about the railway, but the industry’s use of language is not one of them. I have often been amazed by the linguistic tangles conductors often find themselves in when they try to “talk posh” during announcements. Clearly they are not trained about the importance of plain English. This problem […]
The time Scuderia Ferrari told me off
Early on during this morning’s Japanese Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso overtook Felipe Massa. Massa didn’t make it difficult for Alonso — not that you would expect him to. Scuderia Ferrari immediately tweeted on their official Twitter account: [blackbirdpie id=”122917348792479744″] Just for fun, I cheekily replied: [blackbirdpie id=”122917459014590464″] They responded! [blackbirdpie id=”122917576102780928″] I have to admit […]