The Sights of London

Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber had pitstop practice with the team outside the Houses of Parliament. Bear in mind that this is a country where closing a public road requires an act of parliament. Yet, apparently, having pitstop practice on a public road isn't regarded as a public safety hazard.

Take a quick look at the second picture. In the background, there are a bunch of tents. Those tents belong to a bunch of peace protesters. Said protesters are being evicted imminently. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a die-hard F1 fan and I think it's really awesome that there's finally been some street action in the UK, but isn't there something wrong with the world where a government is fine with people driving racing cars capable of 300km/h around a city centre and yet objects to a peaceful protest?

For more info on Brian Haw's protest, click here.
Photos by Mark Thompson and Peter Macdiarmid, respectively, both of Getty Images, Europe

F1 and freedom of expression

You probably know by now (given the header of my blog) that I'm Zimbabwean. We have little-to-no freedom of speech. You have to carefully watch what you say in public, on the phone, via text, and in emails. They're all monitored by an organisation called the CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation), which is known to be behind large amounts of crime (political violence, intimidation, armed robbery, car-jacking, gang rape, etc. The usual for African law-enforcement, I suppose). Thus, you don't want them to know where you are, what you're doing and what you think about the 'president'.

China, however, has taken the restrictions on freedom of expression to entirely new levels. We (should) all know by now that China bans Google search (although, according to Google, this has been lifted. For an up-to-date report, check here). It provides access to 'sensitive' information, and they don't want their population exposed to ideas that will make them question the status quo. Well, they ban twitter too. I'm not sure how a social networking site is damaging to the delicate communist balance...oh wait, they'd come into contact with people who aren't unquestioning communists, and this would be a horrific thing for the nation. [/sarcasm]

Part of me is hoping that, by F1 being in China and telling people about the restrictions (Karun Chandhok tweeted that fans had showed him how to get around the firewall [creepy that they'd go to the airport and hang around waiting to accost an F1 driver; *hi5* to them for spreading the anarchy and making sure that we get normal race coverage], and that people are asking him for tweeting lessons) the world at large will become aware of how restrictive it all is. I suppose the point would be best put across by them being unable to tweet at all, but I can't possibly advocate that (let's face it, we all need our twitfix). F1 has an audience of about 1.5 million viewers. If we all stood up and said something about the situation in China, maybe something would happen? 1.5 million people shouting loud enough might be heard...yes? Perhaps I just live in hope too much...

Learn to hack before you die

Imagine you had a terminal disease. Your doctor told you that it was inevitable that you would soon find yourself in pain, unable to take yourself to the bathroom (and thus suffer the indignity of adult diapers and the associated exposure of your parts to whoever was taking care of you. Flashback to the scene in Weeds where Andy looks disturbed and says, "I just saw my grandmother's vagina". Pleasant for all participants, no doubt), sometimes unable to move, often on a morphine drip (with the associated chronic constipation, which can't be pleasant when s**ting in a nappy), and costing your family a fortune in care. I'm sorry to tell you that these things come with old age as well.

I decided long ago that if I needed to suffer that, I'd want to be "taken to the vet and put to sleep"! Many elderly folk feel the same way as me, it would seem. The Australian government, in its immense wisdom, decided to block the site of an organisation, Exit International, to prevent people from investigating it. Here comes the awesome part: the Pirate Party of Australia decided to offer hacking lessons for the elderly so they could find out about it. As a party that is mainly a boycott vote, I think that's awesome! Remember when the Green Party was a token vote? Well, they're still a token vote, but their beliefs seems to have permeated into mainstream culture because they said something loud enough for long enough to make people listen.

I know it's idealistic of me to hope that one day we'll have euthanasia (and sex workers' unions, and decriminalised drugs, and...) just because there are people trying to get into positions of power around the world in order to lobby for these things. It would be awesome, though, if we could choose when to end it if the pain gets too bad. I was going to contemplate the guest-list for my Going To The Vet party, but realised two things: 1) it's probably a bit morbid to attend your own pre-funeral and 2) I'm not sure who'll still be alive (and arthritis-free enough) to do the Funky Chicken with me.

Boycotting for a massage

Picture in your head, for just one second, the kind of person you think goes on strike about conditions in the workplace. You probably think of workers and teachers and civil servants, right? People with low wages, striking for better work conditions; the backbone of the economy asking to be taken more seriously. Those are the ones who go on strike, right?

You may have noticed that there weren't many drivers on the grid in the build-up to today's Grand Prix in Bahrain. The ones who were absent were participating in civil action. Now, before you judge the overpaid (fine, some of them are self-funded, and they do a dangerous job, but they still get paid more than the GDP of several countries around the world) for being particular, they're protesting their personal physios being witheld from the grid. It's important for them to have massages before the race.

(I hear the sound of disgusted snorting.)

In their defense, they do get bashed around a lot. They might get paid ridiculous sums of money, but they do a difficult job. As well-fitted as those seats are, there's still a lot of lateral forces that they're subjected to. The force of the lateral G necessitates static muscle contractions. For those of you who haven't studied biomechanics, static muscle contractions are the hardest to maintain. Think about it, which is easier: to hold your arm out level with your shoulder for a minute, or to lift your arm through its full range of motion for a minute? Go ahead, try it. Moving is easier. (It's easy to explain in terms of capilliary pumps and stuff, but I won't bore you with the details.) So, imagine sitting in a cramped cockpit and having to resist moving against a force twice or three times your body weight for a few hours at a stretch. That must give you a bit of muscle ache. In addition, epidemiologically, sports people suffer fewer injuries and the injuries they do sustain are less severe if they have a trainer/physio schedule. Healthier drivers are better for the sport, yes? So we all agree that they need physios to be around before/after a race to make sure the boys are most able to perform.

Bernie Ecclestone (the FIA boss, for the non-motorsports folk among you) says that teams should arrange to have the physios to be on staff lists. That's all well and good, except that this year, there are limits on the number of staff that a team can employ. Good old Bernie and his cost-cutting strategies! (Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the F1 cost-cut. It's allowed three new teams on the grid [as controversial as some of them might be], and it's allowed smaller teams to actually have a fighting chance against Ferrari and McLaren.)

The bottom line is this: for every driver, there are a hundred people making him able to perform - physios, nutritionists, personal trainers, race engineers, mechanics. Everyone has them. Everyone needs them. However, do they really need them on the grid? It would seem from pre-race coverage that the sole purpose of people's trainers/physios is to be a water bottle holder/umbrella holder/towel holder...basically, they're walking carrier bags. Perhaps instead of the drivers on the grid before the race, they should organise for the physios/trainers to stand out there singing "Umbrella" a la Rhianna just to prove their point.