Is the world crazy or am I?

Fans expressed shock when 33-year-old Sebastian Vettel revealed his new “aerodynamic” hairstyle on his first day at Aston Martin. Yet, the history of Formula One features plenty of follically challenged participants. Male pattern baldness has been with us for millennia and it would appear from his first snaps in his new Aston Martin colours that Sebastian Vettel is the latest victim.  Whilst many will joke that this is a result of his 5 disappointing years at Ferrari or from too many hours wearing a crash helmet, this is a very common thing to see from a man his age. Not only that, but it’s good to see that he’s dealing with it on his own terms, rather than trying to hide it with increasingly fiendish comb-over tricks.  Nevertheless, F1’s newest hair-challenged hero is in good company. Some of the greatest and best-loved drivers in the history of the sport also experienced similar challenges.  Stirling Moss Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_Moss It’...

World Cup 2018 has officially kicked off. This of course means that many other news and events take a temporary back seat to the festivities of people waving England fans, shouting "Come on England!" in increasingly desperate tones and deluding themselves into thinking that England will win the World Cup if they move past the group stages. Part of the experience of the tournament is also the music. Most of the time when novelty world cup songs or football songs in general are made, they are made by professional musicians and performed by well-known singers or celebrities. However, on occasions footballers have tried their hand at crooning too. Often with quite poor results. Today we're going to have a look at some of the more bizarre and terrible examples of this. In no particular order we have: Sergio Ramos (2016) There's very little argument about Sergio Ramos' prowess on the pitch, however when it comes to singing there's no amount of pitch t...

There's an explosion of sport this summer and at the moment it's currently football's turn to hold the spotlight with the Euro 2012 championships. To tell you the truth, International tournaments are one of the few times I take an interest in football - the rest of the time it seems over hyped. But at least when the Euros or the World Cup comes about I pretend at least to understand football. There's a joke involving light bulbs in here somewhere... It's not always easy to support the England team though. The players themselves are mostly a bit bland and at worst the kind of attack dogs you'd like to set loose in the House of Commons. That would be acceptable if they played interesting football but sometimes the matches can seem to last an eternity. There are occasional flashes of brilliance but it often fades very quickly and all too frequently everyone seems to latch their hopes onto one player ( a look at the number of column inches dedicated to him to...

Now I know I won’t be the only online commentator making a reference to this matter this week; but will people please shut up about Wayne Rooney’s desire to leave Manchester United FC. Just stop it, forget it exists and move on! Seriously close your eyes, and think very hard about not thinking about Wayne Rooney. There are so many better things in the world to focus on for example. Flowers come to mind, or kittens etc. Just don’t think about stroppy professional footballers. Rooney is a spud faced, over moneyed, blustering, chest beating little man-child, who is whining because his boss gave him a telling off one too many times. Besides, he hasn’t been playing very well recently, so why does a man of his status and salary deserve any coddling? Rooney’s star has been falling fairly steadily since the disappointing world cup showings. Sure, there have been some flashes of brilliance but ultimately he has been underwhelming. This matter is not helped by his frustrated approach to ma...

They say lightning never strikes twice; they also say that only the wisest and the stupidest of men never change, begging the question who are ‘they’, and what makes ‘them’ so damn wise in the first place? All these questions were passing through my mind after yesterday’s German Grand Prix, where race leader Felipe Massa was ordered by his Ferrari team to relinquish position to Fernando Alonso, who went on to win the race. This of course bore an eerie resemblance to the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, when Ferrari forced Rubens Barrichello to move over to let Michael Schumacher past. The Ferrari team has been an outspoken critic should anything not benefit the team in the sport, such as technical and sporting regulations, as seen this year when Michael Schumacher took advantage of a grey area in the rules at the expense of a Ferrari car. Now, I’m not saying Ferrari is always wrong when it comes to its bleating and blubbering that it’s been unfairly treated, the Schumacher case for insta...

It’s not often I stick my oar into football related matters. But today I’m going to ponder on the upcoming England verses Germany match this coming Sunday. Now the England V Germany rivalry is something written into national football folklore in this country, and it’s a subject many English fans love to bathe in nostalgia about. Like there was the time we beat West Germany and won the world cup in 1966, and of course when we beat the Germans 5 -1 in 2001, and err… that’s about it – although we still try to brag for some reason, despite nearly always losing to Germany. Sadly the rest of the dewey-eyed nostalgia is made up of xenophobia, which tends to link into to old World War Two jingoism such as: the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ and ‘the Blitz,’ like everyone has suddenly forgotten 1945 was sixty-five years ago and not last week. Well, that is when we aren’t resorting to sillier stereotypes like referring to the Germans in terms of sausages, lederhosen, and sauerkraut; something I can actua...

F1 this week has found itself falling in to crisis yet again this year as the Toyota Motor Corporation finally pulled the plug on its money sapping F1 programme. This is the third major car manufacturer in 11 months to do so along with Honda and BMW, and Renault too is considering leaving. Now I could write reams about my thoughts on the Toyota, and how I couldn’t care less that a dull team with no charisma or even a decent success record – especially considering that hundreds of millions a year were spent on the cars – has left, but that’s best saved for another day. Either way Toyota pulling out is a significant development for the sport. Manufacturer boom During the mid to late 90s F1 bosses lured major manufacturers into the F1, attempting to bring their wealth and influence to the sport. Needless to say these attempts were successful as Honda, Toyota, BMW, Renault and Ford (in the guise of Jaguar) all funded F1 programmes in the early years of the new century. These often starte...