On Sunday, motorsport fans around the world will be tuning in to watch one of the sport’s most prestigious events, the Indianapolis 500. The following day will be the 100th anniversary of the 1911 Indianapolis 500, the first running of this famous race. Marking the centenery, Ralph Kramer’s book Indianapolis 500: A Century of Excitement […]
Exploring the Domesday data
I was pretty excited to learn this week about Domesday Reloaded. The Domesday project aimed to take a snapshot of British life in 1986. 25 years on, the BBC are looking to update it to document the changes that have taken place since then. I have been interested in the Domesday project for a while. […]
What do Williams need to change?
Over the past week or so, rumours that big changes are afoot at Williams have been ramping up. Last week when I saw that a German website had written about this, I prepared a simple but telling graph looking at the form of Williams over the years. But I refrained from publishing it in case […]
Daphne Oram and the Oramics machine
This is the truly unique Oramics machine, designed by electronic music pioneer Daphne Oram. It will go on display at the Science Museum later this year. There was a great report on Friday’s PM programme about it. Daphne Oram was a founding member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1958. There are many people that […]
The grim realities of early motor racing
I saw this extraordinary video of accidents from the early days of motor racing over at Axis of Oversteer. Note: This video is probably not for you if you are squeamish about seeing people being flung out of cars at high speed. It is a shocking but fascinating video from a truly different era of […]
Blue flags debate reveals F1′s problem
Two influential figures in Formula 1 have begun to argue in favour of getting rid of blue flags in F1. The problem is that neither appears to understand motorsport. Both are businessmen who are in F1 to make more cash. They both also happen to be involved in F1 teams that are stuck at the […]
Bahrain boring? Blame Bernie, not the refuelling ban
It has to be said that the writing was on the wall for the Bahrain Grand Prix before the teams even arrived there. And it’s not due to the refuelling ban. There are arguments for and against refuelling, but on balance I think banning refuelling is a good idea. The legacy of refuelling Some people […]
Warp20 (Box Set)
Warp Records celebrated its twentieth anniversary this year with an extravagant box set, Warp20 (Box Set). Measuring in at 10 inches × 10 inches × 3 inches, it truly is a thing of beauty. Packed in there are five CDs and five 10 inch records, full of Warp goodness old and new. It was not […]
Au revoir Renault?
On top of the exits of Bridgestone and Toyota came news that Renault had held an emergency board meeting to discuss their future in Formula 1. According to Andrew Benson at the BBC: The French car company was considering whether to remain in the sport with its own team, switch to simply being an engine […]
Where is our referendum on face-slapping?
Last week the SNP set out its legislative plan. The headline grabber was the long-promised independence referendum bill. Today I saw Caron’s post asking, “why bother with a referendum?” She has a good point. It is widely recognised that the result of any referendum would almost certainly reject the SNP’s favoured proposals. “Ah, but!”, say […]