Bernie Ecclestone Talks Bollocks. Again.

It shouldn't really come as a surprise, but once again the British Grand Prix is under threat and next year might not exist at all.

Money has a lot to do with this, obviously, as Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd, the company who run Donington Park and who are supposed to be promoting next year's race, have apparently forgotten to pay their landlords some rent.

Wheatcroft & Sons Ltd, who actually own Donington Park and recently agreed to a 150 year lease of the property with Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd (it gets r e a l l y confusing, doesn't it?), say they haven't been paid since September last year.

And that the rent owed is £2.47 million quid.

Understandably, then, they're a little huffy about it and have asked for all the rent to be paid. They've even started proceedings to forfeit the lease.

Which sort of leaves Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd up the creek, paddleless.

It's always been a bit of a tall order to move Formula One to its new home of Donington. A lot of redesign work needs to be undertaken, planning permission obtained, and the very small problem of getting an international airport to shut down for the race weekend has also been a bit of a headache.

At every turn, there's been a hurdle. But there needn't have been.

Because despite money having a bit of a hand in this all going wrong, spite has had an even bigger hand. Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One's TV Supremo, has always had a bit of a problem with the British Racing Driver's Club, who own Silverstone. At their every attempt to improve their annual showing of an F1 race, he's criticised them. At their every attempt to achieve his ever moving goal posts, he's moved the posts further away and belittled them.

For some reason, he's got a bit of a bee in his bonnet about Silverstone and, despite it being simply the best venue to host the British Grand Prix at, he's done everything in his power to move it away from them. Including signing a contract with a circuit that clearly has no hope of putting on half the show the BRDC could.

After today's announcement that the 2010 British Grand Prix could be in doubt, Ecclestone has expressed no surprise at all. But he's also said that if Donington can't host it, there won't be a Grand Prix next year because there isn't a circuit in the UK capable of hosting one.

I have to say, and please forgive me here, Bernie's talking Bollocks.

The BRDC have always said that, should there be a problem with Donington, they would be happy to host the race. Bernie says that they don't have the commitment, but he's wrong. I've been to a couple of British Grand Prix and they have been utterly spectacular.

Bernie says that Silverstone doesn't match the facilities of a modern F1 circuit, such as Sepang in Malaysia, but he's wrong. The modern circuits might have high-tech facilities, smooth flowing tracks, and all the trappings of the twenty-first century but what Silverstone lacks in spaceage paddock design, this wartime airfield-cum-racing-track makes up for in nostalgia and history.

If Bernie Ecclestone thinks this counts for nothing these days, then he should stamp on the Monaco Grand Prix pretty quickly. The only reason it's kept on the calendar is because of its history - in today's Health & Safety conscious world of dangerous motorsport, Monaco is a tragedy waiting to occur.

Silverstone has as much history and character behind it as Monaco and just because it's set in a blustery airfield in the middle of Northamptonshire rather than on the sunny Mediterranean coast does not mean that it has no place on the F1 calendar. And Britain, as a country, plays home to the vast majority of the teams that race in the sport, not to mention it's the epicenter of global motorsport in general.

So wind your neck in, Bernie, and put Formula One right back where it needs to be - at the home of British Motorsport: Silverstone.

Japanese Skirts for the Barstaff Uniforms?

I was thinking recently that it was about time to review the staff uniforms. The burgundy polo shirts for boys and pink shirts for girls are starting to look a tad dated, so I started looking around for some new ideas - and my mum sent me an e-mail with something I think is perfect!

Now, the images you see below are real, and these skirts are apparently the latest in fashion crazes in Japan at the moment. Who knows, it could be the next craze in the UK, too? Before you look at the pictures, it's important to note that the material in these skirts is not see-through, but instead this is actually the pattern on the skirts to make you think that they are see-through...

At the end of the day, the Japanese probably haven't been known for having the best sense of style ... but then, neither am I...!

Walking The Dog...

I liked this joke too much to ignore posting it on here...

--

A little girl asks her mum, 'Mum, can I take the dog for a walk around the
block?'

Her mum replies 'No, because she is on heat.'

'What does that mean?' asked the child.

'Go and ask your father. I think he's in the garage.'

The little girl goes out to the garage and says, 'Dad, can I take Lulu for a
walk around the block? I asked Mum, but she said the dog was on the heat,
and to come ask you.'

He took a rag, soaked it in petrol, and scrubbed the dog's backside with it
to disguise the scent, and said 'Ok, you can go now, but keep Lulu on the
leash and only go one time around the block.'

The little girl left and returned a few minutes later with no dog on the
leash..

Surprised, Dad asked, 'Where's Lulu?'


You'll love this!!!!!!!!!)...............




The little girl said, 'She ran out of petrol about halfway round the block,
so another dog is pushing her home.'

Button injured in horrific F1 accident

It's true, I got this in an e-mail from an associate this morning...

Button has been injured in horrific F1 accident...

Terrorists watch Sky News

I’ve often wondered why we bother spending such vast sums of money protecting our politicians and visiting dignitaries.

This week, we’ve apparently spent £20m on the protection of world leader’s heading in to London for the G20 Summit Meeting but, to be honest, it’s a great waste of money.  Not because we’re going broke or because, in this time of global financial doom, we would be better off spending the money on bailing out more failing businesses, but simply because all anybody’s got to do to get around the security forces is watch one of the myriad twenty-four hour news channels we festoon our satellite services with these days.

Seriously, has nobody figured out that the reason we haven’t managed to capture Osama bin Laden yet is perhaps because, whilst our troops are marching on the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, bin Laden and his boys are watching Sky News?  News broadcasters have been seen in the past to give them up-to-the-minute broadcasts of exactly where the troops are firing upon.

“Ah,” bin Laden’s advisers only have to say.  “They’re firing on that mountain over there.  They’ll be here tomorrow.  Let’s move to the caves in that mountain behind us.”

It’s the same with protecting the world leaders in this week’s gathering.  We knew that President Obama was landing at Stansted Airport on Tuesday evening, not because the world’s press told us so, but because Ryanair have been advertising it in the newspapers.  “Obama chooses Stansted,” their strapline screams above a caricature of the American President and his personal Boeing 747, “and so do we!”

So all the terrorists had to do was follow Michael O’Leary’s advertising campaign and they’d figure out pretty much where the top dog was going to land – and it wasn’t at one of the UK’s bigger airports or, indeed, one of the nearby well-protected US Military Airbases.

And as soon as Airforce One touched down most of the UK’s, not to mention the world’s, leading journalists were there to report on the fact that the aircraft’s door had opened.  Along with a vast entourage of almost 500 personnel and a bomb-proof car called Cadillac One, Obama stepped out in to the glare of the world’s flashbulbs, to be met by perhaps the biggest financial problem of them all, Alistair Darling.

I was half expecting a Ryanair aircraft to taxi in to view, just for the free advertising opportunity.

The cameras remained on Barrack Obama as he made his way to a nearby helicopter, codenamed Marine One, which was to fly him on his next stage of the journey.

Amazingly, however, the TV anchorwoman, pointing out that the President’s helicopter was departing, also happened to mention that those helicopters following Marine One were the decoy aircraft, designed to confuse any passing scalliwag.

“Holy Helicopters!”  the terrorists could be heard exclaiming, “they’re using decoys!”  It would be a wonderful ploy, if our television cameras weren’t already broadcasting the aircraft the President had got on to.  But thanks for sharing – just in case there was any confusion, all they’ve got to do now is blow up those following as well, just to make sure.

And, if that were to fail, we’d been told a minute or two earlier that President Obama and his wife were on their way to the American Embassy.  So the bad guys knew where he was going next, just in case they missed the choppers.

If that wasn’t the worst of it, however, anybody with a bit of a nefarious plan might just as well wait until today, when the jackpot of world leaders were gathered together in one location – which was widely publicised in advance as being the London ExCel.

The £20m spend on protecting this top dogs from around the globe might, therefore, seem a little excessive, but last week we learned why the security was really there, after a faux story appeared in one of the tabloid presses that, for their safety, the attending dignitaries were going to be allowed to smoke indoors.

Be warned, a smoker scorned…