Strewth Mate - Australian GP

The Aussies go to work in shorts. That`s a good reason to hate them.

But to be honest, I have found a few more reasons over the course of this Australian GP weekend.

I used to live in Australia, and loved it. It was a laid back, warm, relaxed country with gorgeous, tanned, blue-eyed, blonde-haired people, using phrases such as cobber, ripper and fair dinkum. It was open and free and nobody gave a toss about anything!

Oh how things have changed... You can`t do or say anything now without being told how or where to do it by some jumped up whining Aussie in a yellow jacket.

This weekend I had a friend who was told he couldn`t walk down the street whilst listening to an i-pod in case he couldn` t hear the car that was about to run him over.


Also a colleague who was arrested for jogging around Albert Park - it's a bloody park! And there was a F1 driver who was charged by police for doing a wheel-spin at a Grand Prix!!!!

They are insane.

So Lewis Hamilton spun the wheels of his Mercedes on the road just outside the perimeter gates of the circuit.
So what?
He is a World Champion. He is one of the best blokes (to use your terminology) in the world at driving high powered cars.

The Aussies have for a long time had slogans directed at road safety. Who can forget "Drink and drive? You're a bloody idiot!" or the not so catchy "Slow down stupid" But their latest slogan sums the county up as a whole. Can you imagine any other countries' road safety officials using; "Don't be a Dickhead!" to reduce casualties on their roads.

Although Australia is safety obsessed, there are still some instances where they just don` t bat an eyelid.
Most of these involve man eating, poisonous animals.
You can happily fight with kangaroos, wrestle with crocodiles, sleep with snakes, surf with jellyfish or like I did, scuba dive with sharks. But hey if you want to cross a road, you need at least 6 people in high-vis jackets to help you. Crikey!

Walking The Amazon

Completely unrelated to Photography or Motorsport ' Walking The Amazon ' is a remarkable feat currently being undertaken by an old school mate of mine.

Ed Stafford is currently walking the length of the Amazon River, source to sea! Completely unaided and without support crew.

As I write this (18th March 2010) he has been walking for 715 days and still expects to have about another 6 months to go.

If Ed completes this mammoth walk he will be the first human being to do so. Whilst hopefully also generating huge amounts of money for charity.

Walking The Amazon has regular updates direct from Ed by satellite phone and has some incredible video fotage and photography from the trip so far.

If you can donate, sponsor, support or just spread the word it would be greatly appreciated.

Entertainment - Bahrain GP 2010

Its a funny thing entertainment. We need different amounts at different times in different circumstances, from different people, in different locations.

Let me give you an example; my flight out to the first F1 race in Bahrain was never going to be entertaining . How can a 7 hour plane journey from Gatwick, full of strange people, with a 2 hour stop over in Doha come anywhere near being considered as entertaining?

So as I walked onto the plane and was told I could sit anywhere I liked, as there are only 60 passengers flying on a plane capable of accommodating 295 people, this trip suddenly looked more entertaining.
I plonked myself into an emergency exit row, kicked off my shoes and pressed the Beer Button as the cabin crew call bell is becoming more commonly known.
My other colleagues decided that their idea of entertainment was slightly different to mine. One was entertained by watching a German film about terminal cancer whilst drinking 14 bottles of white wine. Another decided he would take the offer of free seating to position himself next to a pretty Canadian girl and spend the next 7 hours sticking his tongue down her throat.
The flight continued like this all the way to Doha and eventually Bahrain, where we all walked off the plane sideways and decided that yes Qatar Airways is indeed a 5 star airline.

This brings me on to what is now being slated as one of the most boring F1 races in history. For the record I do not agree. But as I am trying to explain, we all need entertaining in different ways. The Bahrain circuit do this fantastically. There is so much entertainment off track that actually watching some cars drive round in circles pails into insignificance with the entertainment activities including, watching a man stick his head inside a balloon, a Geordie escapologist wearing not much more than a yellow bow tie and a girl playing a violin whilst BMX bikers perform tricks above her head.

We have never had an entertaining race in Bahrain. New rules will not change that, new car and driver combinations will not either, nor will adding a few more corners to a circuit. Entertainment comes from being surprised when you do not expect to be, realising that something is fun when it is not supposed to be, or watching a man in lycra climb inside a big red plastic balloon.

Lets see what the Aussies can come up with in 2 weeks time.......