Occulomency

Brawn again.

Lets begin with the Peanut placating.

There.

Right, now lets get on with last weekends Australian Grand Prix then shall we?

First, the way the cars look. The big front wing and the tiny rear wing remind me just a little of the old 1991 style cars, in fact they remind me more than just a little of the truly beautiful Jordan 191. The rear wing does look a little out of proportion though, but I like the cleanliness of the designs this year.

Right, next.

So, is it fair to use the ‘Phoenix from the flames’  in relation to Brawn GP? Well, yes. This team has arisen from the ashes of several teams if you think about it. Brawn bought the team from Honda (dismal failures), who bought the team from BAR (dismal failures), who in turn bought the remnants of the once mighty Tyrrell team. Still, a Brawn one-two in Australia – who’d have predicted that only a month ago? Still think it's a shit name though, but I presume it'll be Virgin GP before too long.

Branson is a jammy bastard isn't he?

You have to admit Jenson drove a flawless race from start to finish, if you don't count the enormous flaw of stuffing up his second pitstop. he actually looked as good as he should have looked for the last 6 years.

Rubens  is a jammy bastard isn't he? Running chronologically backwards he was bloody fortunate to inherit second after the  BMW of  Kubica and the Red Bull of Vettel managed to take each other out quite unnecessarily  in the last 4 laps. Rubens had a awful start, bending his front wing, hitting several other cars and  generally driving his car like a man in the Paris rush hour. That must be a bloody strong car that Brawn.

Hamilton was very impressive hauling the woefully awful McLaren up to third.

Truly was unlucky, but at least the stewards seem to be applying the rules in a slightly more consistent manner this year.

The Ferraris  failed to finish. Awful car and half asleep drivers. You really can tell that the era of Schumacher - Brawn - Byrne - Todt has past, I expect a slow decline over the next few years unless they are very fortunate. They will return to the top, but not this year.

I don’t remember anything quite so amazing as the Brawn GP story happening in F1 since I started watching the sport properly in about 1979. The Brawn is going to be comparatively quicker than most, if not all of the opposition until at least the start of the European season in May. By then it may be too late for the rest.

Felipe Massa said that Brawn could have both the championships stitched  up by the middle of the season – and I think that it is possible.

A good year of F1 is in the offing.

41

Occulomency grants all of his loyal subjects a day off in order to honour another year of his illustrious reign.

Ply me with genuflection!

Well. Duh.

Occulomency want to prepare you for a shock.

The Arch-Bishop of Canterbury has said:

God gave humans free will to do "immeasurable damage" to themselves as individuals it seemed "clear" they had the same "terrible freedom" as a human race.

Right, thanks for that, humans are bad m'kay.

"I think that to suggest that God might intervene to protect us from the corporate folly of our practices is as unchristian and unbiblical as to suggest that he protects us from the results of our individual folly or sin," he said.

"God's faithfulness stands, assuring us that even in the most appalling disaster love will not let us go - but it will not be a safety net that guarantees a happy ending in this world."

Now, correct me if I'm missing the point here, but it appears that Dr Rowan Williams is stating that his imaginary friend won't lift a finger to help..

I think old Rowan is talking himself out of a job there.

Toyota.

This Friday, the Formula One season opens with the practice session for the first Grand Prix in Melbourne. I am naturally irritated not to be there.

This year is a bit of an interesting year in F1 terms, the teams have finally realised that showing a unified front is the only way to defeat that arse-spanked son-of-a-Nazi, prostitute using twat, Mosley and his Master, the poisonous little dwarf Ecclestone.

So what can Mosley and Ecclestone do? Try to drive a wedge between the teams of course!

Toyota is where I reckon the problems will lie, forget the spat about scoring and all that rubbish. Keep your eyes on Toyota.

Why? Well, this year Mosley has imposed a load of new technical regulations designed to slow the cars, improve the ability of passing other cars and that sort of thing. Happens every couple of years, and it never, ever works.

Not ever.

One of this years changes places restrictions on what can be done with the diffuser, the rear of the floor of the car between the rear wheels and under the rear wing. This diffuser controls the turbulent area behind the car which any overtaking car must drive through.

This year the FIA have required the carmakers to ensure  the diffuser has an upper edge that runs in a horizontal straight line.

Toyota have found a way to circumvent this rule, they made the lower part of their rear crash structure an ingenious shape that just happens to bolt nicely on top of the upper edge of their diffuser, and produce a structure which is much more efficient at evacuating the airflow from the back of the car, by effectively doubling the size of the diffuser.

The other teams have cottoned on to this and are either building their own version, if possible, or just kicking themselves.

Charlie Whiting, the FIA's Race director has said he thinks the Toyota is legal, but as you may remember from last year, the racetracks own stewards are responsible for interpreting the regulations on a race by race basis, and they have been known to take a differing view from the FIA. All of the other teams have a right to file a protest and see what happens.

Toyota has reportedly taken a few different diffusers to Melbourne in case they need a plan B.

Mosley says: "One possibility is that all the teams agree that it is illegal, and therefore all the teams shouldn't have it from Barcelona, but then those teams who say it is legal will say 'Why should we do that?' And those that say it's illegal will say 'Why should we lose an advantage for four races?'"

Stirring the pot again Mr Mosley?

The youth of today

Occulomency went into the city of Nottingham.

I saw a young man wearing a hooded top, an adidas sweatshirt, quite a lot of very nice gold coloured jewellery (in the form of chains, crucifixes, watch and rings), tracksuit bottoms and rather spiffy training shoes.

Not uncommon in a city with the demographics of Nottingham, admittedly, but what draw my attention to this gentleman was the undeniable fact that he had his left hand firmly ensconced down the front of his trousers.

I walked alongside this gentleman for some distance (not too closely, you understand) and yet his hand remained in situ.

I was quite, well stunned by this strange behaviour, to say the least.

After far too long, he removed his hand.  In it, and this is where the tale gets a bit strange, he had a baseball cap.

He swept back his hood revealing a partially shaved head with some tribal hieroglyphs etched into the stubble.

He then carefully placed this pre-warmed baseball cap upon his head.

Backwards.

People accuse me of snobbery.

Can you blame me?

Faith.

Wikipeadia let me down.

It would appear that Mother of Mine is entirely correct in her assertion that Roy Dwight is Elton John's Uncle, not Cousin as I had stated in various posts and comments of late.

Cornwall, however, remains in the south-west of England, no matter what direction you approach it from.

Bye Bye Baby

The Bay City Rollers are an English professional football club based at the City Ground in West Bridgford, a suburb of Nottingham. The club was founded in 1865 and has an illustrious history which encompasses winning two consecutive European Cups, along with the domestic title, two FA Cups and four League Cups. The Bay City Rollers were founding members of the Football Alliance in 1889 and the Premier League in 1992.

Contrary to popular belief the name The Rollers does not come from the roller-disco craze started at Barry Noble’s Astoria on Greyfriars Gate, but from the Lady Bay area of West Bridgford just south of the river Trent which is where the team first played and is now the site an unimaginable swamp. The club is often referred to simply as The Rollers.

Many of today's footballing rules and features, including tartan floodlighting, tartan shin pads, tartan scarves and really awful tartan flared trousers have been pioneered by The Rollers.

The Bay City Rollers were founded in 1865 by a group of ice-dancers shortly after their neighbours, The Osmonds.

The Bay City Rollers claimed their first major honour when they won the 1898 FA Cup, beating Slade 3-1 at Crystal Palace. The Bay City Rollers won the FA Cup for a second time in 1959, despite losing Roy Dwight, cousin of Elton John, through a broken leg. By this time The Rollers had become the biggest team in Nottingham, overtaking Paper Lace. 

The Bay City Rollers were considered a small club by English league standards until the mid 1970s, when Brian Clough and his assistant Peter Taylor took the helm at the club. Clough was the most successful manager in the history of The Bay City Rollers. 

The Bay City Rollers won promotion to the top division at the end of the 1976-77 season after finishing third in the Second Division, but no-one could have predicted how successful Clough's team would be over the next three seasons. The Bay City Rollers became one of the few teams (and the most recent team to date) to win the English First Division Championship a year after winning promotion from the English Second Division (1977-78 season). In 1978-79,The Rollers went on to win the European Cup by beating Malmö FF [1-0] in Munich's Olympic Stadium and retained the trophy in 1979-80, beating Hamburger SV [1-0] in Madrid thanks to an outstanding performance by goalkeeper Peter Shilton. They also won the European Super Cup and two League Cups.

The Bat City Rollers reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in 1983-84 but were knocked out by Plastique Bertrand in dishonest circumstances in which a The Bay City Rollers goal was controversially disallowed as well as Plastique Bertrand being awarded a penalty kick which clearly should never have been. It later emerged that in the second leg, the Belgian club had bribed the referee.

The Bay City Rollers next significant trophy came in 1989 when they beat Luton Town in the League Cup final. For most of the season they had been hopeful of completing a unique domestic treble, but were beaten into third place in the League by Status Quo and Frankie Goes to Hollywood and lost to Sade in the replay of the FA Cup semi-final.

The Bay City Rollers retained the League Cup in 1990 when they beat Oldham Athletic. There was chance for more success in 1991 when The Rollers reached their only FA Cup final under Brian Clough and went ahead after scoring an early goal (Geraldine McKewan free kick) against The Charlatans at Wembley, but ended up losing 2-1 in extra time after an own goal by Kate Moss. This game is also notable for the fact that Amy Winehouse badly injured herself in fouling Pete Dougherty which is thought in some quarters to have been the start of their downward spiral.

The Bay City Rollers reached their third League Cup final in four seasons in 1992, but lost to Oasis, and in this successful period also won the Full Members Cup twice (1989 and 1992). Brian Clough's 18-year reign as manager ended in May 1993 when The Rollers were relegated from the Premier League after 16 illustrious years of top flight football which had seen a league title, two European Cups and four League Cups.

No flying suppers over the styx.

always somebody else's horizon

I brought the Jaguar home to Occulomency Towers on Wednesday.

There are a few things that strike you when you drive an XJS. Firstly there is the sheer size of the thing. The bonnet is larger than most people's gardens and it features more curves and landscaping than Capability Brown's finest efforts at Chatsworth.

From the driver's seat, the front wings extend out into the middle distance like the front paws of the Sphinx, only more substantial.

Mind you, the bonnet is that long for a reason. My XJS has a 6 litre V12 engine. It is so quiet at idle that you think it isn't working and you find yourself looking at the rev-counter to confirm that something is actually going on up front.

You can feel the very slightest vibration if you really concentrate, but that might have been my heart beating. It is smooth.

The best bit is when you are cruising along the motorway at 70 and you decide to accelerate to get past the diesel rep-mobile in front, the car goes "whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrh" and everything outside goes blurry.

It is wonderful.

F1

The BBC has announced what sort of coverage we are going to get for this year's F1 coverage. It looks good, well better than good. Great in fact.

There are going to be all sorts of multi-angle shenanigans available on the red button, so you’ll be able to watch the race with inset on-board camera footage, and you’ll be able to swap between them. McLaren and Ferrari have agreed to have their pit to car radio broadcast.

Brundle keeps his grid walk, which is amusing as none of the drivers seem willing to talk to him.

The BBC say the teams have agreed to open up more, in order to ‘de-mystify’ the sport, but they say that every year right before they slam the doors shut.

They are bringing back "The Chain" as the title music. Which brings me on to the opening titles. You know the bit that goes  ‘bumm bu-bu-bumm bu-bu-bububu-bummm…’, well that is fol lowed by the great bit where the guitar goes ‘nangnangnangnangnangnangah’, well please BBC, this guitary bit MUST be timed to coincide with a shot of Lewis Hamilton's car bottoming out at Eau Rouge and sparks coming off undertray.

No adverts is great, obviously.

I wonder how they will use David Coulthard. I know he has been hired for his race experience, but in fairness he hasn't got past the end of lap one since 2003, so he's going to be out of his depth well before the first pitstops. So long as no-one mentions that he has the most perfectly cuboid head seen since Kryton became a regular on Red Dwarf.

Best of all.....

James Allen is not involved. No more banal speculation, no more of his nasel whining voice. No more of his inane commentary.

Thank the Lords of Kobol.