Licking Up The Crumbs

In the British past of factory chimneys and rickets, football and rugby were played in winter, for the extra pain of falling onto ground frozen iron-hard. Conversely, cricket and tennis were played in summer, so spectators could doze in the sun. We had summer sport, and winter sport, it was perfectly simple.

With the slow-dawning realisation that the earth was round came the enlightening thought that seasons are reversed in opposite hemispheres, so the England cricket team promptly set off for a winter tour of Australia and New Zealand.

Similarly, some English soccer teams went off for cash-scooping tours of South America etc., during the summer. I don't want to talk about English tennis players.

I'm not a cricket fan, and neither am I fanatical about football. What I need is my Formula One racing, but now the 2008 F1 season is over, and I go into the long dark night of the F1 soul.

The 2009 season is jam tomorrow. I could use some sweetness today, or next Sunday at the latest.

So why does F1 have an off-season? Everybody needs a break, although some people never get one, but six months? Half a year? Are they kidding me? Those people have more holidays than the Duchess Of York.

I suggest that the whole concept of world sports having seasons has become obsolete in the global village.

In the past the weather conditions of the European winter precluded F1 or similar racing; however, Bernie Ecclestone has made F1 a global sport, or so he keeps telling us. And right now, today, is the Bahrain circuit covered in snow?

It hasn't been on the news, and I really think it would be. Perhaps the Singapore circuit is blanketed in dense fog? No, it's not and closer to home the Valencia circuit is not dangerously icy, just dangerously boring.

No doubt the team managers would tell me they could not possibly have more races. They would say they have to do testing and development, especially with a raft of new regulations for next year. To all of which I say phooey, I'm the customer, and the customer is always right.

Don't tell me about logistics, there are no two points on the globe that cannot be traveled between in 48 hours.

In fact, don't tell me about any of your problems; it is the function of management to manage, not to tell their customers a hard-luck story.

My local supermarkets are open 24 hours, the logistics of that must be a nightmare, but happily they don't ram that down my throat.

NASCAR runs 36 of their premier Sprint series races each year, and I want at least as many F1 races. Anybody with me on that?

Respect to you guys doing the news thing, relaying the rumours, laying fascinating facts before us; I lap it up like everybody else.

There is a new McLaren being cooked to Colonel Ron's secret recipe, with no Italian ingredients, and the true heirs to Leonardo da Vinci will be trying to create a winner in their Marinello kitchen.

There are wars and rumours of wars in the sports's establishment, we see a tense power-play between teams and FIA. It's all jolly interesting, no doubt about that, but it isn't racing.

The cake's been eaten now, and we're just licking crumbs off the plate.