The wonderings, ponderings and other 'ings' of me. Lifestyle, review, news and opinion posts. Chic with a hint of sarcasm... hopefully!

Monday 27 September 2010

A Novice’s Guide to Formula 1

Pub 27/09/2010

So it’s Sunday afternoon and I am meant to be packing up my house getting ready for a move, but I'm not. I’m sat on my sofa engrossed in the lead up to the Singapore Grand Prix. A couple of years ago I doubt I would have known it was on, let alone bothered watching.  Even now I have minimal knowledge of the cars, even less about the mechanics and the only thing I knew about Bernie Eccles-cake was that he looked a bit like a hobo in a suit and needed a hair cut.

Grand Prix, as far as I was concerned, was a bunch of rich kids racing round and round and round a track and at the end, the top three trundle into a media interview wearing massive watches and caps advertising some bank or other and the number 2 and 3 usually moan about why they aren’t no.1.

But having given it a chance I think I’ve got a slightly better grasp of it now.  So if you’re reading this and know next to nothing about the rules here are the main ones as I understand them. And if you're reading this and know a lot about the rules don’t laugh. Okay:

• There are 2 drivers per team
• There are 3 races or 'qualifying heats' before the main event and the driver that gets the fastest speed at the end of these heats gets to start on pole position for the actual race. (Actually not 100% sure that is strictly true but it sounds like its a good idea so we'll just go with it, cool?)
• There are certain rules everyone needs to abide by - all cars have to change tyres at least once and they can’t refuel the car (that’s a new one this year).
• Then there are the things that seem a little unfair. Mechanics can develop parts of the car within certain strict rules of which I couldn’t even begin to comment on! I don’t think they are really that important anyway.  If they do it quicker than the mechanics in the other teams, their car will naturally be faster. For example Red Bull developed something that pushes down on the erm...exhaust (?) thereby creating a more streamlined G-Force - I think. Don’t quote me on that though. So they were winning all the races until the other teams managed to invent the same thing.
• There are 19 races (this year) and the person that wins the most races gets a massive cup and a ton of cash.

But enough of the technical talk. There is part of the Grand Prix I feel more qualified to comment on, the personalities of the drivers. This is for no reason other than I'm quite good at getting a feel for a person from snippets of information provided to me by my television. My opinion of the current top five follows:

Webber (Nickname Desperate Dan) Drives for Red Bull - Here’s a guy that should be on top of the world. Tall, rich and I’m sure many people find him at least a little bit attractive but I have never seen such a moaning old woman in my life. Even when he wins he still moans! He’s the first to complain if he feels someone has messed up but the last to accept any responsibility for his own mishaps. Watching him when he’s happy is just as annoying, his stupid leap-frog fake happy jump when he collects his trophy makes me wish he would go back to eating cow pies.
Alonso (Nickname Alfonso Bonzo) Drives for Ferrari - He seems like a decent driver, isn’t a big moaner and is doing rather well at the moment having won the last two ,but a man that waxes his eyebrows into two fat caterpillars across his forehead is not to be trusted. Who knows what secrets he hides underneath those hairy beasts? Plus he has taken to copying Webbers 'leap frog' happy jump which is just wrong.
Hamilton (Nickname Cutie Pie) Drives for McLaren - He’s the wonder kid that came from nowhere, took the championship in 2008 and hooked himself a rather hot, if slightly vacant looking, girlfriend (probably by batting his eyelashes). But I reckon the highlight of his year was when Santander made him into a toy for their advert.

Vettel (Nickname The Village Idiot) Drives for Red Bull - Off duty he rather resembles a German student on his gap year.  He's made some ridiculous mistakes which has left him and several others not able to finish races, the Button incident in Belgium to name one. But I kind of like him, he looks like a kid that can’t believe his luck at being allowed to race cars for a living. Except when he's grumpy, then he looks like a kid who's pissed off!


Button (Nickname The Gentleman) Drives for McLaren - I’m not really sure how you can be racing for as many years as he has, come 8th pretty much consistently, still make a mint and then jump right up to win the whole thing last year, but that's what he did. Maybe being towards the back of the points section for all that time has contributed towards his relaxed persona but he has yet to put a foot wrong. He covers for his teammates if they make any mistakes, doesn’t judge others for their driving (or for their preference in jewellery, BTW nice earring Hamilton) and basically delivers sportsmanlike behaviour at all times. He’s pretty much one of the only drivers you could have a normal conversation with. And he’s hot.

With four races left I’m more hooked than ever and as long as neither Desperate Dan or Alfonso Bonso wins the whole thing, I’ll be happy – check back with me on 14th November.
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Sunday 19 September 2010

Covet

Pub 19/09/2010

Louboutin, Louboutin, wherefore art thou Louboutin?








Deny thy actress and refuse thy pop-star;
Or if thou wilt not, be sworn my love
And I'll no longer wear Dune!
'Tis more than thy name that is my passion:
Thou ist art itself! Thou not a high street brand.

What's in a name? That which we call a shoe
By any other word would feel as great;
So Louboutin would, were it not Louboutin call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which it owes
Without that name, louboutin, doff thy price tag,
and for thy name, which is only part of thee.










If it were within my power,
I would take all for myself.
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Saturday 4 September 2010

E.R. (Emmy Red carpet)

Pub 04/09/2010
When I started this blog I knew full well that red carpet dresses were going to feature heavily and I have been itching to get started passing judgement on what other people deem worthy of wearing. With the Emmys I can finally begin condemning or congratulating those people that have filtered through to my attention by that all knowing source we like to call E! TV Luckily we haven’t reached the Grammys so no Kanye West bitching about awards going to any people that aren’t black just yet.

What we do get are the True Blood, Glee and Mad Men types popping on out to tell us what they are wearing whilst dodging personal questions. I so enjoy watching Giuliana Rancic gushing about everyone's clothes when you know full well she’ll then pretend to be shocked at what Joan Rivers says on ‘Fashion Police’ the next day. Not that anyone asked but here are my 2-cents …

Kelly Osborne (Tony Ward):
Shame she caved and has gone Hollywood skinny. Her dress was OK being all black elegance with a plunging neckline, but the hair! It looked like a style your Nan might favour and was starting to look a little brittle to me, I would say it’s time to stop the dying.







Kim Kardashian (Marchesa):
Loved the hair which wasn’t too skin-tight 'face-lifty' and the white Greek goddess gown really did look amazing. But unless you catch her without her make-up on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, I defy you to see this girl ever looking bad.






Lea Michelle (Oscar De La Renta):
Another one that has yet to get it wrong, her navy blue dress made me quite jealous and with great jewellery, wicked eye make-up and cool hair there’s no denying she looked beautiful.







Sophia Vergara (Caralina Herrera):
Well it’s not black (as many of the dresses were) but it’s not great either. Waddling around in a gold dress made out of fishscales that was too long for her body and strangely also too big for her chest.  She moved one way but the dress stayed put, still a hot mama but this was definitely an off night for the Modern Family actress.





If I have to add a token guy in here it would be Ricky Gervais in ‘couldn’tgiveatoss':
Unshaven, sunglassed and without a tie but he actually looked better than most other guys. And he's still showing signs of being reasonably normal as when asked if he was going to be on the American version of The Office he replied I get paid anyway, why work too? – Good Man!




Christina Hendricks (Zac Posen):
One that I missed off my 'gingerevolution' blog but it turns out she’s naturally blonde anyway. I used to think Zac made gorgeous incredible gowns but I think he might have been having a mental break down when he came up with this feather-caped shoulder-padded ‘I look like I’m a 12 yr old off to my first birthday party’ concoction. This is the worst dress at the whole event. Totally rubbish, the only saving grace is she had great make-up and her boobs looked amazing.



January Jones (Armani):
This is a weird one, at first I hated it, then I liked the colour and cut, but the tacky shell material was beyond dreadful.  Hair and make-up looked cool though - the jury's still out, you decide!






Anna Paquin (Alexandra McQueen):
Not meaning to speak ill of the dead I’m wondering if this was the dress that tipped him over the edge? The heavy gladiator style amour on top of silky black satin material just didn’t work.  Even she must have known it was hideous as she was one of the only people to change outfits for the after party). And how it made her stomach look bloated is beyond me – bad bad bad!



Heidi Klum (Marchesa):
Well it’s black but it’s not dull! The flowers covering all 3 inches of the full length of the ‘dress’ were a nice touch and there’s no denying Heidi looked pretty slamming for a mum of four.  It does feels like she was trying too hard though.






Kyra Segdwick (Monique Lhuillier):
Finally a colour! Deep red and strapless, a little heavy for the season but lovely none the less. Her hair had the ‘dragged through hedge backwards’ finish but we can forgive her that.  It seems she's going for the longest marriage in Hollywood title (after Paul and Joanna Newman of course) as she has been hitched to Kevin Bacon for 22 yrs now.  Well done them!



Jane Krakowski (Escada custom-made)
Why Escada saw the need to custom make a navy blue dustbin liner I have no idea, good shoes though (not that you can see them of course!).









Nina Dobrev (Zuhair Murad)
Loved the one shouldered twisted strap of this very flattering ensemble. Pretty cool for a relative newbie on the red carpet.








Saving the best for last we have Jennifer Carpenter in her single long sleeved damn fabulous sparkly dress by Oday Shakar.

The hair all swept over to the bare skin side worked as well. This is a dress which screams ‘in your face anyone who isn’t me. I am the shizzle’.








So there we are, feel free to let me know if you agree (or not - debates is good for the soul) and I look forward to giving you all my opinion that you didn’t ask for again when the awards season really does kick off.
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