Myths About Formula One Savagely Torn to Shreds

Benedict Francis_Kentigern, or BFK as he's know in these parts, is the PMC's occasional motoring correspondent. Here he sets fire to a few myths surrounding the interesting world of Formula One, raking over the charred ashes afterwards, if he remembers...


Myth No.1: "Formula One is dangerous".
BFK writes: This is one of the longest running myths of all. It was dangerous in the past as my previous post explained, but modern day F1 is as safe as a Swedish wendy house. You've more chance of dying than of being in an accident in an F1 race, even if you're a driver.

Myth No.2 "Children are not permitted in the Formula One Clubhouse"
BFK: another misconception. Children and dogs are always welcome in the clubhouse. They just aren't allowed to sit at the bar, that's all.

Myth No. 3 "Formula One is dull".
BFK: this is one of the commonest preconceptions about F1. Nothing could be nearer an abject lie. There have been several exciting races down the years. The last one, in 1982, saw one driver finishing ahead of another, and then only just, and that after a tense moment since for a while there it looked like the other guy was going to win.

Myth No.4  "Formula One works year round, 24/7"
BFK: Would that it were, but even those supermen need a holiday sometimes. In fact, half closing day for F1 is Tuesday afternoons. In Formula 2 the half closing day is a Wednesday, something that arose during the East-West schism and the council of Nicene.

Myth No. 5 "The F1 supremo has always been Bernie Ecclestone"
BFK: Whilst Bernie has been 'the guvnor' for a good long while now, and nothing happens without his say so, there was a time when Bernie wasn't head of F1. The post was previously occupied by a bloke called Dave.

Myth No. 6 "Formula One cars automatically run anti-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern".
BFK: Not so; this is a commonly-held falsehood based on water flowing down a plughole. In fact the designers of courses have slightly more initiative the flowing water and on some course cars run clockwise, others anti-clockwise, and 80s driver Andrea de Cesaris wherever he god dammed pleased.

Myth No. 7 "Formula One cars are fast"
BFK: An optial illusion I'm afraid. Although they appear to be going very fast indeed, since the footage is speeded up, average speed is about an adult male's walking pace at a slightly hurried gait.

Myth No 8 "Your Granny could drive an F1 car these days".
BFK: Not so. Your Granny could NOT drive a formula one car, because she doesn't have a superlicence. She also doesn't know how to work the gears, and would probably reverse into some armco whilst parking.

Myth No 9 "All the formulae are numbered sequentially, 1, 2 etc all the way up to 5000"
BFK: It seems logical, but in fact the various formulae are based on prime numbers (remember, that's a number which cannot be multiplied, ever, and doesn't contain a zero or a 7 in it). Thus, it runs Formula 1, Formula 2, Formula 3, 5, 7, 11 .... and so on.

Myth No 10: "The chequered flag waved to show the finish of a race is sometimes utilised by bored officials and mechanics to play chess or, more plausibly, draughts"
BFK: Stop this, it's silly...

Keep the Crap Ideas Coming - Seth's Blog

This is a great post from my big brother, even if he doesn't say so himself.
It's essentially the "way to have a great idea is to have loads of bad ones" formula (sometimes using the Babe Ruth analogy - the year he hit the most home runs, he also held the record for most strikeouts, whatever that means). And now there's a new real-life example who you can relate to and who hasn't been dead for about 90 years - Tim  Burton!
So I'll keep posting then!...

When is Owen's Next Song Out?

Upon glancing though the PMC's vast collection of vinyl, I noticed that Owen Paul hasn't been in the charts for a wee while. Surely the follow up to 'my favourite waste of time' is due soon, just to avoid any possible stalling in his monumentously successful contribution to humanity?
He's at risk of failing to capitalise on the success of 'mfwot', given this brief lull in proceedings, since the song hit the airwaves in June 1986; perhaps a change of record company might be the solution? It'd be terrible if he were to let his career slip to the extent that Tight Fit have more recently.

Thought for the Day No. 4, With the Rabbi Anders Weiss

Latest addition to the growing roster of occasional contributors to the Puumaja crew: the Rabbi Anders Weiss, resident psychologist, spiritual guide and arbiter of good taste. This is an affectionate nod towards BBC radio 4's "thought for the day" which was broadcast every weekday morning, oftentimes with the delightfully named Rabbi Lionel Blue at the helm. Don't know if it still is, although I never got to hear it really anyway as it was the signal that I had to go and catch the bus to school...

"Noone is more likely to be arrogant than a lately freed slave"
CS Lewis

Friday's Word

This was a first on me but I managed to learn a new word in English from some Estonian text (or rather Estonian text which had been translated into English) : "Flavescent".
This doesn't have anything to do with flavour (as in Flavor Flav) but rather "turning yellow; yellowish", presumably as in "he's been drinking so much he's gone flavescent".

Seth's Blog - Try This if you Can

My big brother posted something on the wisdom of, upon having a complaint, a product which doesn't work, working conditions you're not happy with etc, instead of prefacing everything rudely and aggressively as most people do (he doesn't actually use these words) we start off with a compliment, eg "this is a great product and maybe we could make it even better by..."
Now, this could well work. Not being customer facing as such I can only hazard a guess the effect it would have on the browbeaten customer services 'agent' who receives nothing but attitude all day long due to something which isn't one's fault.
It's really difficult to do though - try it - and you might sometimes feel like a complete clown doing so (and maybe look like one too).
Furthermore, whilst irrascible and intimidating people might benefit from using this strategy, I doubt the wisdom of self-deprecating or mousy people in effect exacerbating this fault.
It's also not new advice, Dale Carnegie wrote an entire book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, espousing just such an approach, way back in 1936.
I've heard tell that he in fact committed suicide, though this isn't referenced in his wikipedia entry, for what that's worth...
Still, it was a great post and he's a great blogger, I don't know if we could improve on it in any way..

Stop Showing Poofy Pics From Nature - I'd Like to Shoot the Little Bastard

Wikipedia's featured article today was of a beautiful little bird which can't help but act as a counterpoint to the monochrome of Tallinn in the winter (well, it does if I hold up the picture to the window anyway).
It's called a 'Splendid Fairywren' and, like a good chunk of the world's amazing natural sights, lives in Australia.
I can't imagine getting such a brilliant bluish colour out of a tin of paint..
It's ok, you can appreciate it without being emasculated!

Thought for the Day No. 4, With the Rabbi Anders Weiss

Latest addition to the growing roster of occasional contributors to the Puumaja crew: the Rabbi Anders Weiss. This is an affectionate nod towards BBC radio 4's "thought for the day" which was broadcast every weekday morning, oftentimes with the delightfully named Rabbi Lionel Blue at the helm. Don't know if it still is, although I never got to hear it really anyway as it was the signal that I had to go and catch the bus to school...

"It is only the riff-raff of each sex that wants to be incessantly hanging on the other. Live and let live. They laugh at us a good deal. That is just as it should be. Where the sexes, having no real shared activities, can meet only in Affection and Eros - cannot be friends - it is healthy that each should have a lively sense of the other's absurdity. Indeed it is always healthy. No one ever really appreciated the other sex - just as no on really appreciates children or animals - without at times feeling them to be funny. For both sexes are. Humanity is tragi-comical; but the division into sexes enables each to see in the other the joke that often escapes it in itself - and the pathos too".

From "the Four Loves", pp 92-93, by C.S. Lewis, 1960.