Formula 1 is gearing up for a new season. I confess it is one of the very few sports I do not enjoy watching. It seems in so many ways to epitomise the worst excesses of consumption and be associated with the most tasteless displays of wealth and empty-headed celebrity culture. It is just sleazy.
I suppose it is not therefore surprising that possession of a Formula 1 Grand Prix has become de rigeur for every dictator who wants to be socially accepted among the other superyachts. Formula 1 started a new Grand Prix in Bahrain a couple of years ago, where the majority population suffers dreadful suppression, torture and population. This includes the torture of sportsmen, so that even a body as corrupt as FIFA drew the line at the possibility of a Bahraini Prince as President.
In a desperate attempt to find a way to reach still lower, Formula 1 is this year adding the harsh dictatorship of Azerbaijan to its schedule. Azerbaijan has an appalling human rights record and beyond doubt it is getting worse every year. Furthermore, like many economies based almost entirely on oil wealth, it is feeling the pinch at the moment and the consequences of budget cutbacks are falling entirely on the ordinary people, while the lifestyles of their super-rich rulers are immune.
President Aliev has wasted billions on “prestige” projects. Hosting the Eurovision song contest, the European Games and now a Formula 1 Grand Prix. But ordinary people are struggling to get by on incomes which were already at third world standards and whose value has fallen still further with the collapse of the manat. None of which matters to the empty-headed bling merchants of Formula 1.
We should not seek to prevent Formula 1 going to the dictators. We should rather ban it from the democracies.
I agree Formula 1 racing is tedious. If it weren’t for the spectacular and often lethal crashes it would have very little appeal to the general public. Any sport where they have to have scantily clad women to raise the level of interest is automatically suspect IMO. This encompasses most American sports so may be applicable as some kind of general rule or litmus test.
I have nothing against scantily clad women BTW. But I think sport should not need to resort to such efforts to gain attention.
Any marginal technical improvements to normal cars that Formula 1 encourages are negligible and would be introduced anyway if there were any point. It’s rather like all the space race spin off technology. I don’t use aluminium foil or non-stick pans anymore.
Talking of tedious sports, this is dedicated to all the Golf players;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1-axqBZdNk
It’s one of those things I’ve been screaming at the tele for years. Follow the money. The highly regulated, often public, funders of all this madness are the TV channels. Why in god’s name is it so impossible to stop them buying “product” saturated in the blood of pakistani construction workers etc. etc…
Yeah F1 is really shit. The fans I know appear very casual. Seemingly they have a car and so chat F1 as the pinnacle of motoring much like they have friends and chat about the monarchy.
Having been dragged to numerous motor (car) races in my early youth by my petrolhead father, I can only agree. And that was before purely commercial forces homogenised everything and completed the process of taking the sport out of the hands of private enthusiasts and putting it into the mass-entertainment mix. As television, it closely rivals darts for excitement, the drivers are personality-free robots and the cars are effectively clones.
Motorcycle racing is far more fun, and the machines are far closer to what you will see (briefly) when I overtake you on mine: there’s been a constant interaction between road and track bikes since the Japs moved in, and this has been overwhelmingly to the advantage of the street rider. (Owners of classic BMW bikes feel free to disagree).
There’s a nasty little lobby in this country devoted to keeping Azerbaijan sweet. It’s down to oil of course, but I think it’s also to do with keeping this former Soviet fiefdom onside. “The Russians are coming!” The present government is complicit.
And Aliyev’s view of Azerbaijan is somewhat different to that of anyone else:
http://en.trend.az/azerbaijan/politics/2506320.htm
Not sure whether the author of this glowing account, Seymur Aliyev, is any relation to Heydar: it’s a fairly common name. But it seems likely.
And what Macky said. You don’t play golf. You commit golf.
Thanks Macky, another heart attack on the Golf course, should have carried a defibrillator…
So, we all have our bête noire, mine is cricket, also called paint drying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ3mdrQeTHE
Taste is a funny thing, isn’t it. I can’t stand motor racing but I could watch darts for hours.
No interest in cricket or golf but Wimbledon and the Crucible are highlights of my year. Completely indifferent to football – I’ll watch it if it’s on, but would not take the trouble to switch it on.
I remember being told once that motor racing was a hell of a lot more expensive to attend than horse racing, which I have attended occasionally (dragged along, really, I don’t approve of it).
Sport generally seems to have turned into a showcase for corporate jollies, and much worse, as Craig illustrates. I recall my old firm handing out rugby tickets like Smarties to the directors of favourite suppliers – I had to write out the cheques.
Kind regards,
John
Craig, as an antidote to the vulgar ostentation and moral corruption of Formula 1 I commend to you a different sport. One in which the contestants are the living embodiment of the true Christian spirit and do not take performance enhancing drugs. Campanology. Apparently it’s a sport now, up there with bodybuilding and chess. There’s probably a team down the road from you, give them a ring.
John Spencer-Davis
It’s amazing isn’t it? Motor racing is unutterably tedious. Darts, and snooker on TV are mesmerising. Why is that?
There’s probably a team down the road from you, give them a ring.
Aaargh.
Baal – totally agree about the difference between superbike racing and F1. Its like the difference between riding a bike down country roads and being stuck in a city traffic jam in your car.
Bikers are also real characters. Do feel some guilt about supporting a petrol-based sport though.
As a lifelong F1 fan, I feel compelled to counter some of the author’s and previous respondents’ comments. First of all, agreed about where F1 goes and why, though consider briefly human rights issues with other F1 hosts — such as China, Russia, Malaysia, to name but three — and you’d have to agree that most sports are guilty of similar undesirable associations.
The spectacle of F1, especially over other motorsports, isn’t always of the wheel-to-wheel, on-track kind, and even the most ardent fan can be bored by uneventful races. But the technology, the politics, the business and the stop-at-nothing, rule-bending desire to win is utterly compelling. This isn’t obvious to the lay viewer, tuning into free-to-air TV coverage for a Sunday afternoon snooze, but the more one scratches at the surface of F1, the more intriguing it becomes.
As such, labelling F1 a ‘sport’ alongside some of the others mentioned here doesn’t sit well with me. It is more akin to jousting, like Americas Cup sailing, which is all about cunning and tactics, where the race result is the culmination of months of investment, R&D, teamwork and meticulous preparation. It’s fascinating stuff, honest!
KOWN
18/03/16 9:52am
I dunno: and probably half the country would think we were nuts, including James V B (welcome!)
But it’s just what you like, isn’t it? Doesn’t seem much rhyme or reason to it.
Desmond Morris regards football as stylized hunting, and his arguments are very persuasive. He also sees sport as a satisfaction of both competitiveness and the human urge to aim at something. He rightly says that competitiveness alone could be satisfied by cake-baking competitions. Aiming is what the vast majority of sports are actually about.
Kind regards,
John
This is the only pleasure I ever got out of Formula 1.
“I agree Formula 1 racing is tedious. If it weren’t for the spectacular and often lethal crashes it would have very little appeal to the general public”
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I think it’s the noise of the engines and the sheer speed which appeals to the little boy in Formula 1 watchers.
I also have a their about what it is that attracts the female followers but as this is a family website I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.
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Would say that horse-racing must be the second most boring spectator “sport”. Were it not for the betting attached to it it would disappear in no time.
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And boxing is the most horrible spectator sport .
Aliev is a great president!!!!!
His police force just do not walk up to people and ask for gratuity, post none payment of which the said clean, upstanding, efficient, outstanding police force then proceeds to beat the crap seven colours out of the offender, and may even go so far as framing the swine for some misdemeanour’s and jail him/her for a few days.
Contemporaneous anecdote;
One of the locals had been promoted and an expat working in the same organisation, during the morning break in the canteen had quipped; “who did you pay for that then?” in a jocular banter.
The very same afternoon the expat was found guilty of spreading unsavoury rumours and was kicked out of the country with one half of one hour’s notice to get his belongings or get to the airport? Needless to point out the chap arrived in UK in his coveralls!!!
Azerbaijan ought to be getting the noble prize for the most democratically ran country with an absolute transparent government, and lots of personal freedoms and fact that they are the best friends of zionisatn.
Bahrain is another paragon of personal freedoms and cradle of democracy that does not torture pregnant women and, has never had any pregnant women tortured to the extent of miscarriage and never left the said “harridan” to die next to her miscarried foetus!!!!
Anyone who disagrees with these is a poopy pants and just plain hates the very nice Bahrainy royal family and is a shia’ trouble maker obviously!!
Formulae one is a nice and enjoyable preoccupation to watch, although watching it whilst indulging in trepanning doubles the joys of life, and clears the mind pretty much as in a mental enema, although care must be taken that too much indulgence could end up in losing the will to live!
“I also have a their about” = I also have a theory about.
KOWN
“There’s probably a team down the road from you, give them a ring.”
_________________
Or even more colloquially, give them a bell.
Oops! A bad blog for me.
This youth I’ve known since he was ten dreaming in a go-cart of becoming a racing-car champion has recently got onto the first rung of the formula one ladder but he may get no further. He begged his parents to buy him a roadster motorbike to scare the shit out of the neighbours and make sure those working nights went in to work absolutely knackered. Then it was a quadbike he begged for. The tight-fisted pillars of authority who pretended to love him were more concerned about the hothead’s safety than his dream. They starved that part of the brain of this madly-ambitious future champion of the oxygen it sought. But you cannot kill dreams and kids rebel against their parents.
Last year he was one of two drivers in the team which won the Formula Student endurance test at Silverstone and he helped design and build the car they drove. My feelings about Formula One have changed partly because of the human stories behind the sport (and there must be thousands). It is not my sport. I much prefer cycling and golf (yes, thanks for that golf-clip Macky 😀 ) but there are a lot of people enthusiastic about cars and mad about racing them who are not Saudi crowned princes, Bilderbergers or the Hollywood glitterati. Many are just enthusiastic kids (their families and friends) who may not even be athletes but with some encouragement or a burning desire, may shine or simply participate, in areas of personal interest which may not interest others.
“Motorcycle racing is far more fun, and the machines are far closer to what you will see (briefly) when I overtake you on mine: there’s been a constant interaction between road and track bikes since the Japs moved in, and this has been overwhelmingly to the advantage of the street rider.” If you have ever been to the Isle of Man on TT week you will know that almost everyone is sucked into the atmosphere. Outside the boarding houses bike after bike is stood alongside the next all gleaming and glistening to the last polished spoke. It is good for the business of the island.
When I was Bridgeport-milling at Manx Engineers I worked with Colin Hardman who was a passenger to Dave Molyneux in their TT sidecar victory in 1979. Sadly he died in 2006 at Scarborough doing what he loved best. He was just an ordinary bloke with a wife and family with a passion for racing. Buddy Yeardsley I did not know but knew his brother. Years back we sponsored him and he subsequently won a couple of Manx Grand Prix victories. The whole island gets involved. In the mid-seventies on competition week, when the foreman was in the UK, I skimmed up a cylinder-head for one of the racing-bikes taking no more than five thou off with a single-point tool (a very delicate operation). That is how it is for most of the competitors – just ordinary people doing daily jobs.
The benefits are like those stemming from military developments which gave the world power-steering. Electric cars and solar-powered cars are likely to be the speed-cars of the future and are already finding their way onto the race circuits of the world. I would much rather better braking systems come from racing-car developers than military developers. Which brings me to UAV Engines Limited, Shenstone. Their factory was a former site of BSA Norton motorcycles. But they have gone the wrong way because they now produce the more lucrative drone engines that have less than a 5% success rate in killing intended targets – the 95% being innocents. UAV Engines Limited are targeting innocents to line their pockets. The Big Ride, a cycle-ride in which I will be participating will be targeting this factory on August 8th on behalf of Palestine. If you cannot pedal one of the trips at least think about sponsoring one of the cyclists. Thanks.
http://www.redspokes.co.uk/thebigride/index.php
I realise that this is a long comment and I agree that there are obnoxious dictators and their chums sponsoring Formula One but I am just trying to show that not everyone involved is tarred with that brush! Not often I dissent!
If you have ever been to the Isle of Man on TT week you will know that almost everyone is sucked into the atmosphere. Outside the boarding houses bike after bike is stood alongside the next all gleaming and glistening to the last polished spoke. It is good for the business of the island.
O yes. F1 is about one-uppery. The TT (and even the GP) is about cameraderie. Which begins on the ferry over.
I like Formula 1 and motor-sport in general, its refreshing to watch a sport that doesn’t involve rampant nationalism. Fans support a driver, a team or manufacturer, rather than a country.
The participants are involved in something very real: if you lack skill you stand a good chance of dying….as opposed to the “taking a dive” and general mincing about of footballers.
There’s a nice “put up or shut up” element in motor-sport. Of course there is corporate woefulness involved, but that seems unavoidable these days.
Ba’al, I guessed you must have been if you’re an enthusiast. 🙂
John Spencer-Davis
I don’t think football and sport are stylised hunting, I think they are symbolic warfare.
Tribal chanting on the terraces, war paint or similar…Goals are symbolic kills, players are surrogate warriors. The ref is the Geneva Convention. I genuinely believe it and think sport arose when the agricultural revolution caused us all to move to cities and live in close proximity to one another. There had to be a way to express the warlike tensions bloodlessly.
The tribalism at the heart of sports like football also explains another well-attested truth: you can leave your spouse for another woman, but no man ever left his club for another. At least not if he were a true supporter.
KOWN
18/03/16 12:11pm
I think war is stylized hunting, as well, or a mixture of our impulses to predation and to fear of predators.
I don’t know if you are familiar with Morris’s The Human Zoo, but if not, I suggest you would find it fascinating.
Classic “no true Scotsman” fallacy at the end of your post there.
Kind regards,
John
Is this a forum of flippertigibbets? I know there is a thread of human rights and political dissent running through this forum but the way it is set up means that people hop after Craig’s thoughts like bunnies.
I think of course there is a lot of reason to be ‘dissentful’ and questioning as i do think that we(i.e all humans) are sliding into some very questionable territory and polarities due to some quite decisive processes such as the the communications revolution and the development of robots. I wish i knew how this is distorting past assumptions and deeply ingrained values and belief but I suspect most people are not sure where this will al lead.
I am deeply pessimistic with the political processes throughout the ‘western’ world like a lot of others but i would like to see more positive and constructive reckoning.
For example some people polarise around a glorified gangster (Putin), who , apparently not entirely evil seems to have had a decisive effect in Syria,probably for the better, while at the same time his opponents, our leaders are unquestionably equally vile in manipulating and creating the enmity and conditions for the monstrous shemels that is now Syria. I use the old Scots word shemels advisedly. it means slaughterhouse and butchery .
I suppose the dissent I have is that we see the abuse of power and authority all around us and ast multiple levels. It is not unique or exclusive to any group.
There are many aspects to the oppressive tendencies we now see but i remain convinced that human activity (mainly failure) is determined no by misjudged action under pressure from hostile and polarised and narrow discourse. We really need to be more focussed here. it is one of the few forums that raises issues that are largely shamefully excluded from larger opportunities for exchange.
I doubt if condemning the sport of car driving is a worthwhile discussion. There is a a lot of a ‘petrolhead’ in many people.I actively choose not to have anything t do with it because of its negative effects and associations but there is still a bit of me would quite like to have a go at driving a supercar.
So condemnation of others for not sharing a particular view is never going to be a way forward, because it would be very rare to find an unequivocal response to matters of reference and taste, such as these.
Motor racing is bad? Well of course it is .Motor racing is good? Well of course it is. Some people love it and that is possibly an innocent enough liking.
Deepgreenpuddock
18/03/16 12:26pm
Shrug. We’re individuals with tastes and opinions, not politically driven robots. Was your comment: “There is a a lot of a ‘petrolhead’ in many people.I actively choose not to have anything t do with it because of its negative effects and associations but there is still a bit of me would quite like to have a go at driving a supercar” necessary to the point of your posting?
I wish you’d post more, by the way. You are always very thoughtful and worth reading.
Kind regards,
John
It’s far more foul than any bling.
More like the Royals.
“I don’t know if you are familiar with Morris’s The Human Zoo, but if not, I suggest you would find it fascinating.”
It is years since I read this. What sticks out most memorably for me was his observation that when chimpanzees and monkeys are imprisoned (in a zoo) they resort to sexual deviations not found in the wild (like excessive masturbation) which if I recall was likened to the city imprisonment of humans in the ‘concrete jungle’. This could be why the world is full of wankers. 🙂
John Goss
18/0/16 12:40pm
I doubt it. How many MPs are from rural constituencies? 😉
Kind regards,
John