The King Is Dead

Here's another old one, slightly less relevant now than when it was written... enjoy!

It doesn't take a car enthusiast to enjoy motorsport, even as a spectator. But if you are one, then you will probably devote a lot of your TV time to watching people going really fast using all sorts of machinery. Despite not being olympic, car racing is a significant force in sports entertainment. When last renegotiating the terms of his contract, the person generally assumed to be the best driver in the world got his team to shell out for a salary that dwarfed David Beckham's. Of course, Michael Schumacher's 80 million Euro deal was struck when Formula 1 was still one of the most popular shows anywhere on TV. McLaren's Mika Hakkinen had won two consecutive championships - one through technical superiority, the other through skill and luck - and Schumi was fighting back with a vengeance, to the extatic approval of tiffozi the world over. F1 was racing's royalty.

But now it's 2004, and Formula 1 is neither proper racing nor proper entertainment. For many years now Ferrari has had the best car and the best driver, which doesn't really make the series very competitive. Oh sure, we applauded Peter Sauber's kindergarten (effectively a Ferrari client team), then Renault buying out what's left of Benetton and resurrecting the triumphant smoke-sponsored blue and yellow livery, and now BAR finally getting their act together and Jenson Button getting the success he deserved years ago. We enjoyed so much having fun at the expense of Toyota, who started out with great fanfare and a budget exceeding Ferrari's, yet after a year's developing and testing were barely able to compete with Minardi, the team run on the money owner Paul Stoddard extracts from a donations box situated in downtown Sydney. But the bottom line is, if nobody can challenge Schumacher for the lead, the audience doesn't care. Last year McLaren Mercedes finally had a half decent engine to power their excellent, but outdated chassis; Kimi Raikkonen started strong with David Coulthard using up whatever he had left in him and the season looked like it was going to be watcheable. Good luck. Kimi's lead deteriorated with each race, and despite the fact that Michael won his sixth title by a couple of points only, it was a game of strategy rather than tactics - most drivers finished in roughly the order they started, any changes being attributed to differently timed pitstops. 2004 isn't looking much better. Williams BMW have some dubious aerodynamics, particularly the walrus nose cone, that will not work in the first year of development, and Juan Pablo Montoya is leaving for the Silver Arrows next year so he cannot be bothered too much; and the top gun's baby brother Ralf Schumacher is basically a loser. McLaren was to be a major force this season, with Raikkonen's boosted confidence, but the AMG-designed Mercedes engine still has to run more than a few laps in race conditions without defaulting to Batmobile mode in a truly magnificent fashion. Severe rule changes have been implemented to reduce teams' budgets, but instead of levelling off the complexity level in race car construction, this had the completely opposite effect of emphasizing the superiority of stables with great engineering talent (which naturally means Ferrari). Where before McLaren could fabricate a spare engine out of cash money after a qualifying mishap and have the car ready by Sunday afternoon, they are now reduced to playing a game of minor improvements with others. In short, from a spectator's point of view Formula 1 is effectively dead.

So what now? Who do you turn to when the on-track mediocrity of F1 is no longer outweighed by personalities like Flavio Briatore, the Renault team principal, millionaire playboy and father of Naomi Campbell's child (often seen in the paddock with a smoking black cigar in his mouth, a cup of smoking black coffee in one hand and a smoking black supermodel on the other)? The obvious answer is the World Rally Championship. For one, it is that much more relevant. You will never own anything even slightly resembling a Ferrari F2004, but if you're a fan of Markko Martin, you can put a great amount of pride into owning a Ford Focus. It is exciting in terms of TV coverage, highlights of each event made up of helicopter shots of gorgeous scenery from around the world mixed with in-car shots that leave you with the distinct impression that nobody could possibly drive that fast on real roads. But they do, and often pay the price, with even the best drivers spinning out or crashing on a regular basis. What makes following a World Rally event online genuinely captivating is not knowing whether your favourite will drop from first to fifteenth place next time the numbers refresh. And you can do that straight through the weekend, Friday to Sunday, catching the footage at day's end. Plus if your local TV station is committed, you will get highlights of Junior and Production WRC classes on alternate weekends when the big boys are taking a hard-earned rest. If you enjoyed Ford's double victory in the Rally of Mexico, you might want to know if Martin's neighbor, Urmo Aava, is still beating factory Suzuki cars in his privateer JWRC Ignis.

But if that doesn't satisfy your need for speed, if you want to see wheel-to-wheel racing, then you are looking at touring cars. There are one-make series ranging from the Mini Cooper and VW New Beetle to the Porsche Carrera Cup and Maserati Trofeo. The best of the best are the endurance racers, FIA GT in the Old World and ALMS in the New culminating in the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans - though there are day-long events held at the Nurburgring and Spa circuits as well. If you want fender-rubbing though, you might want to check out the British Touring Car Championship. The BTCC is on the rise this year, cross-specced with the European touring series to bring in more cars and more great drivers, none of whom are afraid to push the car in front out of their goddamn way. On a tight hairpin.

But that's not all. If you think Australia is a treasure trove of excellent cars, then you have not seen motor racing down under. From V8 Supercars, which pits large, RWD family four-doors like the Holden Commodore and the Ford Falcon against each other, to the Nations Cup, where Oz's finest race HSV Monaros, Lamborghini Diablos, Porsche GT2s and Dodge Vipers (not to mention all sorts of Japanese machinery, SR20DET-powered Nissans and track-spec Imprezas and Evos) and points are awarded not only to driver and team, but to manufacturing country. Yet the real gem, the racing series that you absolutely have to see if you're a car enthusiast is the V8 Brutes. Imagine a modern-day El Camino, a two-seat car-based utility vehicle with no weight over the rear (driven) wheels. Now imagine it with a 400bhp V8. Now imagine thirty of these cars on a circuit in the hands of semi-amateur drivers. Sound like fun? It is. With names like "Shmacko" Griffin, "Mad Dog" Denyer or Charlie "Handlebars" Kovacs (given for the man's prominent facial hair), you can be sure that these guys have some major self-control issues. Which is what you want in a racing driver, isn't it? Oh sure, the Brutes are close to stock, with much of the interior still intact, and they aren't as fast as some of the more exotic machinery. But if you can find more exciting racing anywhere on the planet, I would sure like to know about it.

So there's a brief rundown of your options for internally combustive entertainment. And yes, I do realize that much of this is unfortunately not available in the United States. Write to your congressman.

The Golden Rule of Freedom

Over 500 hits in less than a month. Maybe this blog thing actually has some merit...

The first seven years of my life were spent in the Soviet Union. It then proceeded to fall apart around me (almost literally - my mom had the lucky idea of taking me and my sister to St. Petersburg for the last week of August). After that came the wilderness years, less obvious in Small Country than they were in Russia certainly, but still a strange period where nobody was exactly sure what they were doing.

All through that time - what I agree to call my childhood - the beacon of perfection has been America. The City Upon the Hill, although I didn't learn of the term until much later, was an important factor. People in America seemed to lead perfect lives - I was raised on Saved By The Bell (and had a huge crush on Tiffany Amber Thiessen, but then who didn't?). More importantly, America was in my mind the land of equality, of opportunity and of freedom. I was taught a principle to live by, a principle that was supposed to be the foundation of all that is great about America:

Your freedom stops at the tip of my nose.

As time went on, I learned better; I found out that America is not the greatest place on Earth. When I was 19, I spent a month in Southern California and decided that America was not even particularly good. But I still remembered that principle, and I still consider it to be one of the cornerstones of a perfect state.

It is every bit as applicable as the Golden Rule of ethics, but much more objective; while every person has a unique opinion on what they wouldn't want done to them, the restriction of freedom to a space unoccupied by the freedoms of others is not subject to interpretation.

I can appreciate the argument that it doesn't work; and despite Small Country being fiercely individual and never destined for Scandinavian-type socialism, I still believe that there is a use for a strong government, that it can do some things - like infrastructure, education, and yes, healthcare, much better than if it was privately run. But the only reason that the Golden Rule of Freedom cannot replace civil restrictions is because you can't get everybody to stick to it.

I was young, and foolish, and I thought that's what they did in America. I'm less young now, and a slight bit less foolish, but it remains an ideal of mine.

Alas, ideals are not meant to come true.

What am I, Donald bloody Trump?

These two girls I know from Posh Uni. We started out in the same year, but they took a sabbatical and went away for a year (one of them was an Au Pair in London, don't know where the other one went). They were hitch-hiking from Campustown to Capital City one time and I gave them a lift. Turned out that we lived in the same dorm building and on the same floor. I helped one of them with her new computer - something I enjoy doing one way or the other - and sort of hung out with them the final year.

What bugged me though is that they only appeared when they needed help with something. Now, I don't mind giving a mate a lift or showing how to split a cable connection, but it did get somewhat annoying after a while.

Today - I mean, like ten minutes ago - one of them calls me up on MSN and says if I could do her a huge favor. I proceed cautiously. It seems that she needs to pay her dorm bill right now, or she'll be kicked out Monday. She's asking for money.

I didn't even bother asking how much she needed. First, the dorm costs at least a hundred Euro a month, if you've got a roommate, and if you live alone it's more like E150 - I should know, I paid that for two years straight. And if she's getting kicked out, she's obviously more than one month overdue. I don't have that sort of money to spare - my policy on loaning people money is to only give as much as you can afford losing; if you don't really expect it back, you don't get mad at a person, and if they do repay you, it's a pleasant surprise.

Second, it's not like this is an unforeseen expense, and by asking, she isn't exactly instilling in me the confidence that she will pay it back promptly.

Third, and related - a true friend wouldn't ask; I'll help out a friend if they are in serious trouble, but this is the sort of mess you make yourself and should clean up yourself. I have friends who make way less money than me and have expenditures that they can do nothing about, and still make ends meet somehow. I never borrow any sort of serious money myself (well, except from the bank) - the last time I borrowed any from a friend was less than a Euro, and only because there was nine of us in a cafe and it was easier than everybody dumping cash on me so I could pay the bill with a card. I still intend to pay her back tomorrow night, when the gang gets together again.

Fourth - that girl isn't really a friend, is she?

I told her that I'd been on vacation so cash is tight, and I'm only getting half a month's salary. Which is, by the way, perfectly true and another reason for not giving her the money.

A year ago exactly this same girl asked me to cosign her student loan (a thousand Euro-ish), completely out of the blue. She had the gall to call it a "business proposition". There is a practice among students with discernible official incomes to cosign each other's loans, or to cosign for somebody else for a fee - but it's not very smart to get a grand now and have to pay off seventeen thousand later...

The essence of funny

Many topics, when discussed by an American and a European, have the potential to lead not only to misunderstanding, but to all-out conflicts. These include George W. Bush (perhaps less than others, because most Americans who dare venture out of their land are of the sort that hang their head and apologize), that version of Rugby where you can pass forward and people wear half their weight in kevlar, and the handling characteristics of the Dodge Viper.

But even in this fine company one topic stands apart. And that is American comedy.

America's undying efforts to export its mass culture have led to the current state of anything popular in the States being taken over by Old World networks. I do not need to prove to anyone that the trend has reached epidemic proportions, with things released on an unsuspecting public which should not be. Survivor was actually invented by the Swedes, and while we're going to have a long, hard talk with them about it, we can't really grumble too much. But now one of Small Country's two major networks has produced a local version of The Simple Life, and thus a new low has been reached in television history.

Some American exports have enjoyed their well-deserved success in the Old World (mainly The Simpsons), but this is a rare occurence. Unscrupulous promoters attempt to run anything that was popular in America; unfortunately for them, we have been spoiled rotten by British comedy. From this stems the theme of many an altercation between folks from both sides of the pond:

I'm sorry, but Family Guy is desperately unfunny.

It is a show beloved by the absolute majority of US residents. I can recognize why that is - it's based on mixed metaphors, subtle references and distinctive characters; and in American TV, anything not obscene is considered intellectual. The trouble is, it isn't properly good. The techniques involved have been proved to produce results, but they are used without much talent; it's like a 10-year-old's first effort to make British comedy. While Family Guy does exceed comparable US cartoons by a comfortable margin, it cannot escape the national tradition. The authors attempt to produce comedy by a brute-force assault on social conventions; the show is not exactly obscene, but it centers on flaunting its disregard for propriety, and this in itself is not enough to make it funny. Family Guy is unable to reach escape velocity, and is thus still closer to South Park than My Family.

No matter how much Americans try, they keep tripping over themselves. Team America was the best effort in recent memory, and they still couldn't help themselves, making the lead character throw up for minutes, The Fast and the Furious style. Considering the radical Dicks and Pussies monologue, and the gem that is Derka Derka Mohammed Jihad, the disappointment can hardly be measured.

The overwhelming majority of American comedy is sitcoms. This may well be the fundamental flaw: relying on the situation to make comedy. When Americans do a show about nothing, they put the characters in contrived circumstances and expect Jerry Seinfeld to pull the show out by the bootstraps, inflicting mental pain on the audience until they concede. When Brits do a show about nothing, they get Spaced.

Not that Britain doesn't have a lot to answer for, comedically. It may seem to be the land of great comedy, with even the figure-obsessed field of automotive journalism enriched by stars like Anthony ffrench-Constant, former CAR Magazine contributor Alexei Sayle, and the inimitable Jeremy Clarkson; but it can, and does, produce thorough crap. But while we can still trace the roots of (fairly) modern efforts like Black Books to the all-time masterpiece that was Yes, Minister, it is in an entirely different league.

Sacred Cow: Hydrogen fuel cells, Part III

Now that I've shown you why hydrogen cars won't work, I'm going to tell you what will. I'm not going to tell you to drive less, for two reasons: one, I'm sure it's not something you have much say over, and two, I enjoy driving even in my crappy Honda, and I can't really fault others for it. I'm also not going to tell you to use public transportation, because if you're an American, you won't understand what I'm talking about, and if you're European, it's probably more expensive than driving - and over long distances, not very environmentally friendly: you'd do better to drive across Europe in a Ferrari than to fly EasyJet. Plus, public transportation sucks.

So, here is some rational, reasonable advice on what you can do to make baby pandas feel better:

1. Don't buy an SUV. (If you've bought one, don't drive it.) This really ought to be obvious. SUVs are heavy, and not very aerodynamic, which means that they need a big engine making big power and burning a lot of fuel to get you and your frappucino to work no better than a Citroen C1 can, running on pure enthusiasm. This isn't just a dig at Americans. SUV sales are booming in Europe, and while I can appreciate the desirability of a supercharged Range Rover Sport - God knows I want one - it's really quite silly. If you absolutely must, buy a Volvo XC90. It still uses a lot of petrol, but at least it's safe for you and the person you're going to crash into.

2. Don't buy a hybrid. They're not actually that fuel-efficient, but they cost insane money. In Small Country, a Prius will set you back double what a Corolla would, and you're only perpetuating the myth. Because a hybrid's electricity still comes from the petrol engine, your improvement is a result of it working slightly more efficiently - it charges up the battery while idle, which normally would be wasted power. It would be a lot more energy-efficient to just kill the engine when you're not moving. There are engines out there designed to do this well. Let's hope the technology improves.

A lot of Americans are apparently buying a hybrid SUV. It gets the same MPG as the European sedan counterpart with the same engine minus electric motor, but is a worse car by all accounts - a lot more expensive, too. Silly people.

3. Buy a diesel car. If you're American, your current choice is outdated Volkswagen tech, but I keep hearing that they're going to start selling low-sulphur diesel fuel over there Any Day Now. Mercedes is bringing over its diesel range next year, and theirs are some of the best. If you're European, stop being a snob and go some magazine reviews of the Skoda Fabia vRS and BMW 535d (though the latter is still ugly as sin).

4. Think about how much car you really need. If you're usually the only person in the car, with an occasional passenger, buy something small. If you can afford a Focus, buy a Citroen C1 and upgrade your home theater. If you can afford a base 3-series, buy a Mini Cooper S for the same money. If you can afford a Mercedes S600, buy an Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Then, with the money you save, buy a Mini Cooper S and keep the Aston for the weekend.

5. If they sell biofuel in your country - use it. Biodiesel is getting more and more popular in Europe, and so is E85 (85% ethanol, 15% petrol, useable in most petrol engines). Biofuel is the closest thing we have to a perfect solution: you can always get more of it, you don't need to change very much in a car to run on it, and the external energy source that makes up the difference in getting the power out is the Sun. You can grow biofuel crops just about anywhere, and since they're not for people to eat, you can genetically modify them, fertilize them to hell and use any pesticide you want. Plus all the EU farmers will have something to do.

6. At the end of the day, you could always try to drive less and use public transportation more. Sorry.