Is Formula 1 boring?

As usual, when I watch an F1 race, I have the TV coverage on the big screen, the official live timing app on my tablet, and Twitter on my phone.

With the Mercedes pair always threatening to get into a scrap, Vettel tearing through the field, Raikkonnen spinning, Grosjean hitting Stephens, and Massa on a different tyre strategy to everyone else, I was enthralled. There was the usual chaos in the opening laps and a number of other overtaking moves that all together kept me glued to the screens throughout the race.  

I was constantly wondering whether Rosberg could actually get close enough to Hamilton to pass him (he didn’t), whether Massa’s Prime tyres would last long enough to one-stop (they did, and he did) and get fifth place (he came close), and whether Kimi could catch the impressive Valterri Bottas for the last step on the podium (not quite). For me, you see, the interest in a Formula One race is at least as much about what might happen as it is about what does.

So imagine my surprise when, all over Twitter, I saw comments that the race was boring. Boring??

@F1statman said: https://twitter.com/f1statman/status/607632245847826432

@CameronW96 said there needs to be “more overtakes”

@GrandPrixDiary said the race was dull and “something needs to be done”

Even @TedKravitz called it a “snooze-fest”. 

Whaaat? Frankly I’m gob-smacked. What more do you want? More overtaking? Are you sure about that? Because if that’s what you’re after go and watch Indycars, there’s plenty of that there.

Have we become so desensitised to the nuances of a race, that all we crave is perpetual excitement? Constant gratification? Is there no longer a place for tension? For anticipation, even unfulfilled anticipation? Ladies and gentlemen, a formula one race is as much about strategy and tactics as it is pushing the loud pedal. There has always been the need for drivers to conserve their cars; forty years ago that was because engines and gearboxes often broke, fuel ran out, oil leaked, and so forth. “To finish first, first you have to finish”. Today it’s more about conserving tyres and fuel, but at this race, that was possibly because most teams expected a Safety Car that, had it been required, would have saved them all some fuel and reduce their need to save it.

Come on, race fans. Let’s see what F1 for what it is – a fascinating blend of speed, strategy, and getting the car to the end in one piece.  In my view, with all the additional information available to us, F1 races today are even more enthraling than they have ever been. 

Satire – bullying for journalists?

I am not for one second condoning what happened on the streets of Paris on Tuesday at the offices of Charlie Hebdo. Not at all. The execution of those journalists and policemen is unforgivable, and I hope the perpetrators are brought to justice. Or just shot. Whatever.

But here’s the thing. The Charlie Hebdo satirists were supposedly shot because they insulted the Prophet Muhammed. It’s what they do. They draw cartoons that poke fun at religion. And politics. But politicians apparently have thicker skin.
What got me thinking was that satirists do what they do to provoke thought, debate, controversy, reaction. And that’s what – in an all too extreme version – they got. And a large portion of the population of the world posted “Je suis Charlie” on placards and stood in the streets, or posted it on social media in a fit of justifiable anger.

But just think for a second about this. Journalists write news. They inform. Satirists are not journalists. They do not inform. They poke fun. Usually, it’s just funny, but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it crosses a fuzzy line and becomes insulting. And insults are just plain rude and disrespectful. If kids did it, it would be called bullying. Cowardly bullying, in the case of those who hide behind noms du plume. Why is it okay for someone with a talent for drawing and satirical wit to insult people from afar? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favour of free speech and if someone wants to disagree with my point of view, that’s fine. All I ask is that you respect my point of view, and I’ll respect yours, okay?

Those who bully others in print are worse than those who do it in person. It’s like road rage – you’d never do in the supermarket queue what you’d do on a motorway, tucked up safely inside your car. It’s a lot easier to poke fun at someone when you’re just a byline in a weekly paper, and you never have to say those things to people’s faces.

Some satirists provoked a reaction the other day and paid the ultimate price. And somehow we’re surprised. I hope we can now all go back to being a little more respectful of others.

Pay by Phone parking

I was delighted to discover that I didn’t have to find a handful of £1 coins every day to pay for parking my car at work… there’s an app for that!
I’ve been using it for a while now, and I have just discovered something very interesting. If you park your car for 2 hours, you pay £0.80. However, if you’ve ticked the option to receive a text alert before the two hours expires, it will charge you 10 pence for the privilege. Okay, so you’ve paid £0.90. No problem.
What if you decide after an hour that you’re going to see a movie and want to extend your parking time? Again the app does this very easily. Just say how much more time you want – say another 2 hours – and it charges you another £0.90.
And what if, after the film, you decide to stick around to have dinner? So you extend the parking period for another 2 hours and get charged another £0.90. No problem with that, right? Wrong!

In that scenario, you have yet to receive the text alert you’ve signed up for – you obviously will at some point – but you’ve been charged for it three times!

A bit unfair, wouldn’t you say? I have emailed their customer service centre suggesting that the £0.10 charge is only levied once unless the text has actually already been sent. Watch this space.

Pause, Reflect, Remember, Move on

Two years ago today, a work colleague and friend died.

Just a few months earlier, we were having lunch together and sharing anecdotes, gossip and dreams. Then she developed stomach pains, had trouble eating and keeping food down. She was diagnosed with stomach cancer, but in reality it was a lot more widespread than that. She went into surgery and never recovered. She died about a week later.

I remember these days not just to be morbid, but because she would want me to. Because those who pass away should never be forgotten. And more importantly, because it reminds me how fragile life is.

I remember birthdays of even old friends I don’t see anymore for similar reasons – because life is there for the living and should be celebrated.

When days like today arrive, let us pause a moment, remember, reflect, and draw renewed determination to life as best we can. It’s the only time we have.

Whitehall’s pocket money

Financially, things have not been looking brilliant lately, have they?

The government plans on spending at least £42bn (The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) says up to £80bn) on the HS2 project that very few people apparently want and for which the economic benefits are now in doubt. Frankly, it will probably be so expensive, I’d rather drive.

Two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy are now projected to cost around £6.2bn, double original estimates, and not including the £74m of public money that was wasted when the MoD changed its mind (twice) on the type of aircraft that were going to fly from their decks. And as far as I am aware, those F35 Joint Strike Fighters have yet to be purchased too, at a cost of… wait for it… £100m. Each. That’s £4.8bn for the 48 jets allegedly on order.

It is estimated that British military operations in Afghanistan cost the taxpayer £17bn, not to mention the tragic human cost.

It has been alleged that the NHS wastes about a Billion pounds a year in the way it purchases products, and another Billion on sick pay, plus today it was revealed that the NHS pays £700 in criminal negligence insurance for each of the nearly 700,000 births in the UK each year. Insurance! Against negligence! The NAO reports that more than half of maternity units don’t have enough consultants, and there is a national shortfall of 2,300 midwives. More than 25% of units were forced to turn away women in labour. Think about that for a second. This is the National Health Service. Turning away people in need of their services should never happen; it’s in direct contravention of their ethos of “good healthcare available to all”. Perhaps because of this severe staff shortage, in 2012/13 You and I are paying nearly £500m on insurance per annum and more than £3bn between 2000 and 2010 on malpractice claims because of blunders during labour.

We recently heard that a large part of the £425 million spent so far on the disastrous Universal Credit project will have to be written off due to poor governance and planning.

Then there’s the EU and the additional £800m we have to cough up from somewhere because the EU mis-spent almost £6bn in 2012, according to official auditors.

Have you been counting? Well, let’s just say it’s an awful lot of money. With, if I’m honest, not a lot to show for it. Oh sure, we’ll have some shiny new ships and a lot of war planes to play with, and – maybe – a fast-ish railway service between London and Birmingham. So much for “fiscal responsibility”, eh, Mr Osborne?

And yet… the NHS is really in a crisis with patients dying needlessly. There are too few qualified British doctors or nurses available and the latter are horrendously under-valued and under-paid. Likewise our teachers, because our children can’t read or write properly, because their teachers can’t either (just read half the stuff on social media and it’s obvious we can’t spell properly). And fire-fighters are going on strike because the government want to reduce their retirement age to save money on pension pay-outs.
While on the streets of London, the homeless sit on cold pavements, cups outstretched, despair written on their faces. And people with buckets urge the public to contribute a few coins to help war heroes or the cancer ward at a nearby hospital, things that we already pay for through taxes and National Insurance.

I don’t know about you, but I think we need to seriously reconsider how much pocket money we hand to the children in Whitehall every year. Because they apparently haven’t learned how to spend it very wisely.

A deafening din

The Law. One of those things that is simultaneously a cornerstone of modern civilisation, and the butt of numerous jokes at its sheer absurdity. For example, in California you can’t set a mousetrap without a hunting licence. Here in the UK you are forbidden from dying in the Houses of Parliament and it is an act of treason to place a stamp bearing the Queen’s head upside down. Silly, but hardly worthwhile getting in a froth over. Particularly smirk-worthy is some of the dross that comes from the EU bureaucrats, like the law banning producers of bottled water from stating that it “can prevent dehydration”. Yes, seriously.

Some laws and regulations you might read and go “that sounds perfectly reasonable”, but when they are enacted, someone either mis-interprets the regulation, or applies it over-zealously to the consternation of others.

My current pet peeve is the fire alarm. Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to be alerted to a fire by getting very warm feet and the smell of burning carpets. Having a working fire alarm is essential. And the regulations requiring them to be tested regularly is, on the face of it, perfectly sound. What irks me is that I cannot find anywhere, any regulations that state it should be tested in the middle of the working day. So at the same time every week, employees up and down the country, diligently beavering away at their desks or on phones or in meetings, are interrupted by a deafening, high-pitched din that effectively stops all rational thought and reduces productivity – albeit briefly – to zero. At the average UK salary of £26,500, I reckon this stupid practice costs the economy £7.7m!

In two different companies, I have asked people why this needs to be done during the working day. Any idea what they replied? “So that staff know what the alarm sounds like.”

Sorry, but I suspect that if I was a visitor to a building and heard any sort of very loud high-pitched repetitive noise, I would immediately assume it was a fire alarm and take appropriate action. No one would have to explain it to me. So why, oh why, can they not test the bloody alarms after hours? Then approximately 16.8 million people in the UK can reclaim their lost 2 minutes of lost productivity. And their eardrums.

How to train a child

This is apparently the title of a book, which is listed for sale on Amazon, and on iTunes. Before I go any further, let me state for the record that this is not a book review. I haven’t even read the book. In fact, three days ago, I wasn’t even aware of its existence.

I heard about it because someone I follow on Twitter retweeted someone calling for it to be pulled from the virtual shelves, because it allegedly promotes “beating babies” (not my words), and asking all his followers to retweet it as well. I refrained. And today, there’s another post (@ADadCalledSpencer) also calling for the book to be removed.

Frankly, there are three things about this that bother me. Not because I enjoy beating babies; far from it. I don’t condone that at all and never have done.

Firstly, I cannot in good conscience petition for a book to be ‘banned’ without reading it myself and believing that it deserves to be. Why should I trust the opinions of people I don’t know about a book I am not even sure they have read?

Secondly, if I read that book, would it make me beat my child? No, of course not, because I don’t believe it is right to do so, and I am only swayed by the advice I read if it makes sense to me. If it is read by someone already pre-disposed to child-beating, they are probably beating their children anyway and this book would do no more than to make them feel better about the deed.

Lastly, and most importantly, why should this book be removed from publication anyway? Because it allegedly endorses some sort of corporal punishment for children? There are numerous publications which endorse, or even promote, worse things than that. I have only to point to the Old Testament. And no one is asking that the bible be banned. The day we start removing from shelves books which offend the sensibilities of some of the population, is the day we start the decline into a world where there are no longer any books to be read.

So, please forgive me, twitter. I will not be joining your campaign to pull this publication from the shelves. But I will also reserve my right not to read it, and yours to do likewise.

Prague

As the plane descended through a thick grey blanket of cloud, water droplets being hurled aft across the windows, our first impression of the Czech Republic was “no street lights.”

Our flight was uneventful, but we’d left Britain with clear blue skies and 18 degrees C. As we landed in Prague, the rain was heavy and persistent and it felt more like 8 degrees. But we met our driver at the airport easily enough – a tall young man in his twenties.
“Space hopper,” I inquired. It was actually Resort Hopper, but close enough.
Our driver kept us thoroughly amused on the 30 minute trip to the hotel.

We were wrong about the street lights too. There are street lights, but they look like they have been there for a hundred years, old fashioned bulbs in old fashioned lamps. Thoroughly quaint. Our hotel, Zlata Hvezda, translates as the Golden Star. It’s an old Baroque building right underneath Prague Castle, with a 270 year old staircase, but with mostly modern furnishings and fittings. It has 28 rooms and best of all, free wi-fi. From the windows, we can see Prague castle, the Royal route and the lesser town rooftops. It’s enchanting. And we have only been here an hour. I think we are going to have a great time here.

It is very comfortable but our room has the distinction of being about as tall as it is wide, with a beautiful chandelier the main lighting. The bed is actually two singles pushed together with a sheet over the two, but separate duvets. Odd. There is a shower big enough for two, but over the next few days we came to miss not having a bath.

Monday

It was still raining when we woke up this morning, and we feared a dreary day. I suggested staying in bed, but Cathy didn’t want to waste a day, so we got up, had breakfast and donned our walking boots. By the time we got outside it had stopped raining, so we set off.

First stop was the shop across the road which sold marionettes. Beautiful hand-made puppets in a hundred different styles and costumes. Then we walked down the hill, looking in souvenir shops and taking loads of pictures of all the amazing buildings. We stopped at the church of St Nicholas, paying CZK 70 ( about £2.30) each to go inside. The sculpture and artwork were quite stunning, although thought-provoking. Some featured priests slaying what looked like children with long staffs or bolts of lightning while cherubs looked on from the surrounding walls.

Feeling thirsty we went across the road to a cafeteria that had photographs of Ferraris all over the walls. And of the owner with F1 drivers, including Mika Hakkinen, Fernando Alonso, Tonio Liuzi and Michael Schumacher. I suspect the place is quite famous among Ferrari fans.

We walked on down to the Vltava river and the famous George bridge, which was packed with people selling artwork and jewellery. At the other end of the bridge, we stopped outside another church, then turned around and went back to the hotel for a rest before dinner.

For dinner, we walked down the hill to a quaint little restaurant that we chose because it advertised “goulash in bread pot” which sounded delicious. There was more onion than beef, but it was a very taste of local cuisine, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Tuesday

I could hardly open my eyes for the sun streaming in through the windows. And even at 8am, the sun was warm on our skin when we opened the windows and looked out.

After breakfast, we walked up to the square and the entrance to Prague Castle and the hugely impressive Mordor cathedral. Actually, it was St. Vitus’ cathedral and a magnificent building it is. Tickets to the whole complex cost us CZK 350 each (about £11) for two whole days. We must have spent three hours walking through the cathedral, the castle, and the various other museums and historic residences that comprise the Castle. We walked back through the gardens on the ramparts and found the Terrace cafe, which served us roast pork wraps and potato cakes with smoked salmon for lunch as we sat in the glorious sunshine.

By the time we’d got back to the square at the front of the castle again, the square and the surrounding roads – including the hairpin bend right in front of our hotel – had been transformed, with pedestrian barriers and inflatable arches, into a racetrack for mountain bikes. Today was the 20th running of this annual event, which is apparently the biggest in Prague, with ex-Olympians competing in the elite race, which is finishing as I type this sentence at 7pm local time.

For dinner, we ate at Cowboys, which is part bar, part night club, part restaurant, with a lovely rooftop terrace which affords a view across the city. We both had very decent steaks and a good red wine, finishing off with cocktails before walking back up the hill to the hotel and bed.

Wednesday

It started off warm and sunny again for the third day in a row so we dressed light and walked up to the castle to find a sightseeing tour car. We found the square almost deserted, but after just a minute, the first car parked in front of us. It was originally a Morgan apparently, but I think it was a kit car, stretched and with a skoda engine. The driver, Steve, took us down to Little Venice, through Lesser Town and around Old Town, calling out interesting facts and landmarks in perfect English during the 45 minute tour, which cost us CZK 1,200 less than £40).

During lunch in a pub restaurant Steve recommended, the skies got grey and it started to rain. Luckily there was a kiosk close by that sold umbrellas. Back to the hotel we went to change into something warmer, and back out we went. Down the hill, across the George bridge again and into Old Town. And then we walked. Seemingly in a series of loops, each of which ended up back at the square. What a place! The gothic and baroque architecture was an amazing backdrop to a marathon concert by various brass bands playing everything from Phil Collins to movie themes to jazz and swing. At least one band was made up entirely of kids from an art school. And they were really good. We sat outside at a restaurant under garden umbrellas, warmed by gas heaters, eating pancakes with Nutella and whipped cream, and drinking honey beer and lemon tea. A homeless man had two pieces of wood and a length of string with which he created soap bubbles as big as beach balls for the amusement of the tourists, until it started to rain a little harder and he moved on.

Actually, we have been surprised by the number of beggars we have seen. They kneel down in the same position as a Muslim praying, with cap in their extended hands. Most have dogs with them too, as seems common the world over.

Under the umbrella, we walked back to the hotel and collapsed on the bed, exhausted. But not for long, because we had to shower and change for dinner at Kampa Park, recommended to us by @Texpatriate who has been here before.
The restaurant has indoor and outdoor sections, right beside the river. It felt like we could almost reach out and touch the ducks floating by. The food was exquisite, but restaurants here have the peculiar habit of pouring in 125ml by judgement alone. Not nearly enough, especially when that little glass cost over £10! The total came to about £135, but that’s not too bad considering the quality and quantity of what we ate.

The forecast for tomorrow is for temperatures barely into the teens, and heavy rain. We have no plans except wait and see.

Thursday

As predicted, we awoke to a grey and misty morning, and getting out of bed was difficult. But we made it down to breakfast and then decided, since there was no rain, to go for a short walk. We didn’t want anything too strenuous or too far, given how far we walked yesterday, and besides, heavy rain was forecast. We also wanted to go somewhere we hadn’t been already. So we headed up the hill rather than down, walking past little antique shops and through the grounds of an old monastery undergoing repair.

Then we found ourselves at one end of the Petrin park, a hilly wooded area with lovely footpaths. We strolled for a while, heading deeper into the woods, curious to see what lay ahead. Eventually we came to a large homeland restaurant and a funicular railway before heading back down again. Trying to find a different route, we discovered only muddy tracks but eventually found our way to the bottom and city streets. Miraculously, we followed our noses and came to the street about 100 yards from our hotel. We’d been walking for about two hours so we walked straight into a pub/restaurant for lunch.

After buying a few more souvenirs, it started to rain. Again, we had timed it perfectly. We got back to the hotel and flopped onto the bed to doze for a while. A cup of tea for me and coffee for Cathy went down nicely, and then Cathy packed up all our clothes and gifts carefully ready for tomorrow.

We have to check out by 11am, but we’ll leave our suitcases at the hotel and spend the afternoon walking around again, I suspect, because our taxi arrives at 18:55 to take us back to the airport and home. We won’t land until nearly 11pm so it will be midnight by the time we get to bed.

Friday

It was raining steadily when we checked out of the hotel at 11am, but I had an idea. The ‘hop on, hop off’ bus stopped right outside our hotel, so we got on. I asked the driver about tickets.
“Assistant,” he replied.
So we took our seats and while the bus stop-started its way down the hill, we stared out at the traffic and the rain and thought, “at least we’re dry and warm.”
But we’d noticed that the ticket (which we didn’t have, despite my trying to attract the assistant’s attention) was valid for 48 hours and included a boat trip. And we didn’t have enough cash on us. S when the little bus stopped in the Old Town square, we joined a number of other passengers and got off. We felt like stowaways!

And karma nearly paid us back when we stopped at a cash machine, which gave us a CZK2,000 note. A gentleman approached us and offered to swap our large bill (worth about £73) for his smaller denomination ones. Except we didn’t recognise the currency. And he seemed awfully pushy. So we kept our money and walked on, pleased to have avoided being fleeced.

Umbrella raised, we strolled through Old Town, looking for shelter wherever we could, while I tried to keep Cathy out of the jewellery shops. We went down a little alley and found a chocolate museum, where we whiled away another 90 minutes, including a short demonstration of chocolate moulding and a little taste of the delicious product. Cathy couldn’t resist stopping at the shop to buy pralines and chocolate drops, which I’m sure we will enjoy cooking with. The pralines may not make it back as far as Gatwick.

Lunch was taken in the same outdoor cafe where we ate pancakes on Wednesday, including a pint of delicious honey beer. All that consumed another two hours and at 5pm we took a taxi back to the hotel. As I write this, when have another hour to wait for our airport shuttle and the plane home.

Summary

Prague has been a revelation for me. It’s a wonderful destination for anyone looking for a city break. Only two hours from London, it’s easily accessible, and the flights and accommodation packages are relatively cheap.

So what are the major characteristics of Prague?
Cobblestone streets
Amazing architecture and history
A wonderfully friendly local population, who almost all speak very good English. Most of the essential signs are also in English as well as Czech.
Litter bins everywhere, and people use them so the streets are spotless.
Good food, and good beer. Goulash and schnitzels can be found around every second street corner, and pavement cafes are everywhere in the centre of town.
Art and culture – there are art galleries and classical concerts all over. Buskers here play traditional music on traditional instruments, and souvenir shops sell original etchings and oil paintings for a song.
The Segway tour. Yes, ride a Segway around the city streets while a guide describes local attractions.
Thai massages. There seems to be a number of these in all sorts of unlikely places
Absinth is freely available for sale in small bottles in shops and, in bars, even as an ice cream flavour.
We were told that crime is rare, but we have encountered petty crime incidents twice in a week, so either we are especially unlucky, or crime is more prevalent than we were led to believe. Still, it wouldn’t keep me from coming again one day.

Lies, and the hurt they cause

I have been a little quieter on Twitter of late. Not chatting as much as I have done in the past. It’s not the first time and no doubt it won’t be the last. There are many reasons why I sometimes go quiet, but in this case it’s because I met someone on a dating site. Someone who is intelligent, and funny and pretty and great company. A woman with talent, with integrity and a fantastic parent to boot; you should meet her kids, honestly. Someone who has the same outlook on life as I do; the same political, moral and ideological views as I do. And we have been spending a fair amount of time together recently.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone you regard as a trusted friend says something about someone else that makes you see that person in a new light? Something not pleasant, but plausible. Unlikely, given who they are, but plausible. Something that would undermine the nature of your relationship with that person. When I asked if the accusation was true, I got a response so violently angry that I fear that, whether the accusation is true or not, that relationship may have just imploded.

I am in a position now where I have an accusation by a friend on one hand and a denial by someone who has become important to me on the other. And there is no evidence to prove or disprove this accusation. So I have to decide which of two people I care about is lying to me. It’s not a pleasant position to be in. I am going to lose one of those two people from my life. Relationships of all sorts are based on honesty and trust. And when that is broken, so too is the relationship. I am a very trusting person. Some may say I’m gullible, but I am more inclined to see the good in people than the bad. And when something like this happens, I get as hurt as the subject of the accusation.

How do you resolve something like that? Do you just choose to believe what you want to believe? I fear that, for at least two of us, sleep will not come easily tonight. It is my hope that someone’s conscience is pricking her badly tonight, and that, whatever the truth, I get to hear it. As well as being gullible, I can also be understanding and forgiving.

BMW and the golden age of the BTCC

It is a miserable day today, in stark contrast to yesterday when it was sunny and bright. On days like these, I prefer to be either tucked up in front of the telly or in my car, but having gone for an extended drive around the Sussex and Kent countryside yesterday, I decided to spend today indoors.

On YouTube, I discovered some old footage of the British Touring Car championship. I used to avidly watch the BTCC highlights on telly in the mid-nineties when the series was in its undoubted heyday. With frantic and delightfully enthusiastic commentary by the inimitable Murray Walker, the nineties were a golden age of 2-litre touring car racing. Factory entries from BMW, Volvo, Peugeot, Ford, Nissan, Vauxhall made household names of Cleland, Soper, Rydell, Radisich and Menu, even in South Africa where the TV coverage was as popular as it was in the UK. My particular favourite was the rear-wheel drive BMW 318’s driven by steve Soper and Jo Winkelhock, to the extent that when I got the chance I bought a 318iS – in white – in honour of the team Schnitzer racers, and I have been a fan of the marque ever since.

When I came back to the country of my birth in 1998, I bought another one. A few years later, I traded it in for a 320i SE, seduced by its creamy six-cylinder engine. They were wonderful cars. Brilliantly-weighted feelsome steering, comfortable seats and climate control made for very enjoyable cars. They feel so capable at sustained high speeds and so comfortable and economical at low speeds. The 320i got written off after sliding into a ditch on black ice, to be replaced by a 323Ci.

After a few years recovering from dire financial circumstances, I recently bought an 18-month old 1-series. It’s a 123d coupé – my first ever diesel and my first ever turbo. And I absolutely love it.

It’s not perfect – the steering is way too light and the steering wheel rim is too thick, but otherwise I am very happy with it. I wrote previously about it’s low-speed under steer, but I have subsequently decided that that was more me than the car, as I have yet to adapt to the (minimal) turbo lag and prodigious torque of this engine. And what an engine it is! Compared to my previous 323Ci, it has 201 BHP compared to 170, 400Nm of torque compared to 245, and is so far returning an average of 46mpg compared to 33. Awesome! It has the M-Sport pack as well so it has huge grip from the wider tyres.

I am planning on taking it on a track day in May, followed hopefully by a trip to the Nurburgring, which will fulfil a boyhood dream to drive the Nordschleife.