The Pontrieux Report

I am not a Lewis Hamilton fan. I support Felipe Massa and Ferrari. This means I want them to win and to do so they have to beat someone else. As with football or any other sport there are some teams you oppose with as much vigour as you support your own team. If your side is not doing so well you can still delight in the downs of your favourite bête noir team. As a Pompey fan, I get as much enjoyment from their FA Cup win as seeing the Scummers languishing in the Championship. In F1 this role is fulfilled by Lewis Hamilton and McLaren, I am shamelessly partisan.

Up to a point. Like many F1 fans my loyalty is not blinkered, I enjoy the totality of the sport. I know that Lewis Hamilton is a fantastic racing driver and brings a lot to the sport. I cheered for Lewis at his final GP2 race at Silverstone. When I attended my first British Grand Prix I went to see Schumacher win. Yet when it was DC that took the chequered flag, I along with everyone else stood and applauded him on his victory lap. All the players contribute to my enjoyment of the sport.

So when ‘Truligate’ or ‘Liegate’ or whatever it becomes known as, was brewing I was having a whale of a time, poring over every poisonous newspaper article and blog comment. It was almost as much fun as race day.

Up to a point. Until I saw a solitary Lewis facing the media and giving them the apology they demanded. Despite all the hype, he is still a relatively young man trying to cope with the enormous pressure that his extraordinary talent has brought him. I can’t imagine how awful it must have felt to be in that press conference facing those who built you up as the ‘Second Coming’, some of whom are now gleefully trashing your reputation in their fickle tabloids.

He did wrong, he was found out and has apologised. What more can or do we want Lewis Hamilton to do? So can we now move on and enjoy the racing before we all lose any further sense of perspective?

You have been involved in Motorsport for many years, known only to a few hardcore race motorsport aficionados and then you get your big break, promoted to the pinnacle of motorsport. Under the glare of the British media you are now a household name to millions of F1 fans. Your team mate is already well established and has legions of loyal fans.

Almost from day one the sniping starts. Your ability is questioned and any error magnified. The abuse becomes highly personal with hurtful comments on your appearance.

Despite this, you approach every race with the same enthusiasm and despite the difficulties, manage to maintain a positive outlook. The abuse continues. A cursory glance at some of the blogs and F1 forums will see your name and your reputation trashed.

With glee, there is talk of potential successors and sympathy expressed for your team mate being saddled with such an inept performer. This turns to near ecstasy when it is announced that your employer is turning its back on F1. Normally job losses are mourned, but it is perfectly fine to celebrate the loss of your prized F1 role.

This is nasty unpleasant bullying of the highest order. The narrative is set and few are brave enough to offer a contrary opinion.

And then Melbourne arrives. After the qualifying session your performance is starting to be reappraised. Perhaps the judgement has been too harsh in the past? The race is won and many of your erstwhile critics are eating humble pie. Your talent is recognised and more people are coming out to say that you really are rather good (even surprising themselves to admit it).

I write not of Jenson nor of Rubens, but the much maligned former ITV lead commentator James Allen.

We were barely into qualifying when it became clear that Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle was not a match made in heaven. At times Martin Brundle struggled to get a word in and when he did, found himself being talked over. Jonathan Legard may be the BBC old hand, but Martin Brundle is the draw. Their working relationship may be new, but surely they had rehearsals to iron out roles?

A criticism levelled at James Allen is that he is a bit too enthusiastic, a bit hyper. However paired with a laid back Martin Brundle the opposing styles complemented each other. With Jonathan Legard having a similar speaking style to Brundle, the pair sounded very soporific.

Even after just the qualifying session I was wondering whether I wanted to listen to these two for the whole race.

Perhaps they don’t get on. This impression was enhanced when we saw them both in the commentary box just before the race, where Jonathan was trying to engage Martin in a guess the number of broken front wings game - already done to death on 5 Live. To quote Murray Walker “You could have cut the atmosphere with a cricket stump”

On some of the forums it has been suggested that Jonathan Legard sounds as if he is commentating on a horse race. Perhaps in preparing for the role he studied the F1 segment of Alan Partridge’s year of sport in the Radio 4 1991 Christmas edition of ‘On the Hour’?

James Allen’s absence from the commentary box denied the viewer a passionate voice for what was a remarkable race. Thankfully the BBC’s interactive service allowed you to change the audio and listen to the perfectly matched David Croft and Anthony Davidson, who gave every impression of enjoying the race and working with each other.

Hopefully the TV commentary team will get their act together in time for Malaysia. If not, they may need to give “The Cock” a call.

My Formula One season began as usual in the early hours of Friday morning. Like many F1 fanatics I used to turn to Germany to get my fix of comprehensive free to air coverage. With a cheap dish and old analogue Sky box I have not had to rely of ITV’s lamentable output.

The news channel n-tv used to broadcast the practice sessions, with qualifying and race day covered by RTL. RTL’s coverage is very impressive with a comprehensive warm up show that includes the driver’s parade and extensive post race analysis,  showing the responses of all the drivers in the press conference and not just the German driver.

So to the BBC’s red button coverage of the first two practice sessions.
The station’s first practice session broadcast was covered by David Croft and former Super Aguri driver Antony Davidson.

I am sure that Anthony Davidson would rather be in a car than the commentary booth, but his personal loss is to the gain of those wanting to get a sense of what it is like to drive a car and what the team is trying to achieve in the session. His experience enabled him to accurately interpret the track action, almost demonstrating a psychic ability to predict what was likely to unfold later in the session.

A good start which unravelled a bit for the second session which was covered by Maurice Hamilton and Ian “Arthur Mullard” Phillips. When I last wrote about this pair it was about how they spent a lot of time trashing the skill and ability of Felipe Massa. I haven’t seen their brief but it surely can’t be to waffle on about anything that comes to mind? They were so busy responding viewers’ questions it was like listening to Test Match Special when play has been suspended. Someone should have told them that they were broadcasting to a TV audience and not just the 5 or 6 listeners to Radio Five Sports Extra.

“Formula England’s” finest had a novel approach to their golden boy’s lack of form – largely ignore talking about him. It was quite refreshing not to hear breathless references to Lewis Hamilton every few seconds and actually devote some airtime to other drivers.

I am not going to complain - except to remark on the elephant in the room with regards to McLaren’s poor form this season; this is the first season in a few years where we can be reasonably certain that McLaren have not been able to incorporate stolen proprietary information from Ferrari in the design and set up of their cars. Why won’t the British media even contemplate that there may be a link?

In the early hours of the morning searching the internet to try and find former colleagues who are poorer and less successful than me (an unlikely outcome), I ended up creating a Facebook profile. This has caused lots of work not least due to this blog.

It has been a while since my last posting. One of the handful of readers has asked why I haven’t been updating. Here’s why

1. As I don’t suckle at the teat of the public sector, nor no longer work for a multinational, I am no longer able to spend large parts of the day sat in front of a screen blogging, booking holidays, looking at stuff on eBay checking football scores and filling out quizzes about old children’s TV programmes
2. I am not deluded enough to believe that perspectives from Pontrieux is of enormous interest.
3. It’s very easy to be negative and cynical about everything. A friend’s father is a relatively famous academic and children’s author. He has been the subject of and presented numerous Radio 4 programmes. When you hear him on the radio or meet him is extremely charming and good humoured. You know that you are in the company of someone who has enhanced your day. If however, you should read his blog or his column in the local paper, he comes across as a bitter angry man.
4. It’s quite difficult to talk about your daily life without mentioning people. The interesting things that happen involve my neighbours and customers, particularly when they demonstrate ‘interesting’ behaviour. My logs show that a number of people have come to my blog from the Google France translate service, particularly the post about names – the locals are watching.

The solution

1. From now on I going to try and post at least twice a week. This will help give the impression to my thousands of new readers that I am leading a successful charmed and fulfilled existence out of the rat race.
2. I am going to post more about what actually happens when people enter my premises and this may involve naming names.
3. To make 1. easier I am going to post more about what actually happens in France. Much of what is reported in the UK media is very Paris centric and bears no relevance us here in the sticks. I have the regional paper “Le Telegramme” delivered daily so will pass some of the daily news about stabbings, serious car accidents, teen alcoholism, domestic violence, child abuse and strikes that fills the paper.

Watching David Davis making his statement I was instantly transported back to the eighties and Wogan. I was open mouthed then watching another David begin a very public nervous breakdown. Thankfully unlike with David Icke, David Davis hasn’t started accusing senior government figures of being lizards – not yet.

David Davis’ statement also had a whiff of Jonathan Aitken about it, when he resigned his government post to carry wield his trusty sword of truth.

It is not clear if David Davis is a nutter or that it is his vanity that contributed to today’s impulsive behaviour. Neither of these traits is appropriate for someone who could have been Home Secretary one day.

Today David Cameron had won a get out of jail free card. The Tories used to pride themselves on being the party of law and order. Yesterday on the Today programme David Davis was going solo with party policy committing a future Conservative government to rescinding 42 days.

On David Davis’ watch the Conservatives have gone soft on terrorism. In seeking to gain short term political capital by opposing the government they have also taken a stand against the British people who are largely in favour of the government’s anti-terror proposals.

Little should be made of the appointment of Dominic Grieve. David Cameron had to make a quick replacement without getting bogged down by a full shadow cabinet reshuffle. By the time of the election David Cameron will have appointed someone more in tune with the public mood.

David Cameron will go to sleep a contented man tonight, that troublesome “What are we going to do about David Davis?” problem is no more.

My lunchtime nap today coincided with listening to the second practice session of the Bahrain Grand Prix on 5 Live Sports Extra.

Felipe Massa had run over a kerb, which led to a display of ‘Formula England’ at its worst, with much trashing of Felipe’s driving ability, about how undisciplined he is, how he hasn’t a long term career as a Ferrari etc. I can’t envisage them taking a similar approach to talking about an English driver, Anthony Davidson for example.

The bitching about Felipe only came to an end when a car smashed into the tyre barrier. “It’s not Nelson Piquet Junior”. No it wasn’t that foreigner or any other, it was Formula England’s Golden Boy who had made a mess of his car and probably his pants.

As the second practice session came to an end Felipe topped the timesheets for the second time today - without trashing his car.

PS. Note to the Arthur Mullard sound alike who was commenting with Maurice Hamilton. As there were only about 10 of us listening to 5 Live Sports Extra, is doesn’t really matter if you use the term “Pissed off”, but if you want to get a gig on 5 Live proper during the day, you’ll need to watch the mouth.

In the idle moments of a Saturday afternoon in France I notice that a Mr Daniel Homo is putting himself forward as a candidate for March elections in the town of Trélivan. Meanwhile in Guingamp you can vote for Mona Bras. On Monday’s literally seconds of fun can be had at Pontrieux’s market if you visit the fruit and veg stall run by Mme. Bastard.

Indeed you may be so overawed with the hilarity of funny foreign names you may want to pop into my tearoom for a lemonade. I should warn you that I only serve Pschitt! lemonade. “Would you like your Pschitt! in a glass or with a straw?”
Before tutting commences I would like to point out that the French manufacturer is fully aware of the word play – why else would their website have sections labelled “Pschitt! Attitude” and “Pschitt! Yourself”?

It has taken a while, but it looks that Gordon Brown has finally got the measure of PMQs. In what was his most impressive performance to date he has conquered his stuttering and dispensed with all those irritating trite phrases.

The details of the Northern Rock are perhaps not of great interest to the wider public; however I would hope that people recognise that the government is trying to do something to safeguard the future of the bank. Gordon Brown was quite right to point out the lack of any alternative plan from the Tories.

David Cameron’s jokes were rather lame. The fact that he persisted in trotting them out rather than suggest any alternative for the bank only underlines his reputation for vacuousness. Jolly japes are fine from the stand-in leader of a minor party; one expects a bit more substance from someone who aspires to lead our country. The more personal and spiteful Cameron becomes, the more he resembles a public schoolboy bully. Hardly a vote winner in the long term.

I fear I may have committed yet another faux pas, this time with the local artist community, some of whom used to use my tearoom as a meeting place to plan their exhibitions and events.

Although not a particularly artistic type I embraced my new found friends, happily publicising and attending their events. They didn’t seem to mind getting trapped in my toilet  - I didn’t mind their impromptu pagan dancing and singing in my courtyard.

All was well until I noticed that they had stopped dropping off flyers for their events, the invites to the ‘gala’ openings dried up and the realisation that they hadn’t popped in for a coffee since June.

Perhaps toes have been trodden on. After seeing a price list for one of their pieces of work, I commented that it was a lot of money. The piece in question was 5000€. To put this in perspective I would need to let a room in my B&B for over 100 nights to get that sort of money. I didn’t say it was too dear or not worth the money, just factually that it was a lot of money. This did not go down well.

Failing that, it is all my mother’s fault. While on a visit I persuaded her to come along to one of the exhibitions. This was perhaps not a good idea as my mother is even less of an arty type than me.

The exhibition consisted of a number of rough drafts of poems with assorted paperbacks tied up with string and pinned to the wall. Another exhibit consisted of various wine glasses glued to a French window. This work is by Pontrieux vitrailliste Julian Lannou and looks stunning.

What was not expected was someone breaking the silence by playing this exhibit with drumsticks and wailing. This was followed by three people walking round in a circle hitting cowbells and chanting, finishing off with a bagpipes and a rendition of The Wild Rover

I knew the effect this would have on my mother. She was attempting to hide behind me, tears rolling down her cheeks and her fist in her mouth in a vain attempt to suppress the laughter. My mother’s critical response to the spectacle unfolding may have been the most honest, but I fear may have harmed Pepworth-Artist relations.

A mixed performance from Gordon Brown at PMQs today. He has clearly listened to my advice to lay off “I think people will…” and “I’m not going to take any lessons”. Sadly he hasn’t got to grips with the stutter. I hope the Hansard stenographers d-d-d-d-d-don’t leave them in.

Less impressive was his parting shot at Cameron, “As for competence I remind him, I remind him, that in 1992 he sat there when interest rates went to 15%…….”

What was David Cameron, who at the time was not even an MP, doing sat on what were then, the Labour benches?

On the first and 3 subsequent hearings of Vince Cables “Stalin to Mr Bean” joke, I am convinced that he got the gag wrong and actually said Mr Beam. Not to worry, he won’t have been the first Lib Dem leader to appear at PMQs with lunch on his mind.