Sorry.... you're English, you can't eat popcorn, you must eat something much more stereotypical like fish & chips or black pudding. Don't forget to cover up that hair with a bowler hat and put on your Jimmy Saville tribute shell suit. Oh... and don't forget to abuse a German and kick out a polish immigrant today! God save the Queen old bean!
I dont get paid enough to afford the huge price on fish these days. Where as the Italians, Germans and Austrians are spending huge amounts of money on fish. Probably because the corrupt EU are giving them huge subsidies which is a bit unfair. Maybe if I sell some old mackerel I have laying around the freezer I could raise funds for a fish and chip dinner next week?
As a reward for us British doing so much better than all the other European countries at reducing our deficit, we now get to hand over £1.75bn of that saving over to the EU, to help all the other countries who can't be bothered to do it. All helping to keep the price of fish down abroad, that and the fact we aren't allowed to fish anywhere these days, but the French and Spanish can nip up to our waters and ignore the fish quota's without worrying about the EU imposing any fines as they just don't pay them over anyway.
In all seriousness though, us English folk have been outed by FIFA today. It turns out we're the corrupt ones after all. I think we owe Qatar and Russia a written apology for smearing their good name. Typical of us, hey? I'm going to renounce my citizenship and move to Cuba with Vanessa Mae.
Quite right Sarge. It's disgusting that one person has so much control over a global sport, to the point that everyone does as he says and no one dare stands up to him, for fear of retribution and loss of income. All he is concerned about is making sure his pockets are well lined, and that all of the big players in the sport are well funded, to the detriment of any smaller entities that dare try to step up. It's a good job that it only happens within football, imagine if F1 was run by someone like that.
Apparently there's a rumour a Qatari circuit's going to be on the F1 calendar soon... Normally I'd complain but it actually looks alright...
Interesting points made by Karun Chandhok on F1 budgets these days... [video=youtube;Vu8t3vr6WOU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu8t3vr6WOU[/video]
Well this is absolutely correct, if you can't afford it, **** off. Same as in life, everybody has an income, we have to live within our means. Don't start up an F1 team if its not funded properly, Fernandes has just walked away, now he realizes it much tougher to succeed than he thought, he has his own cash, but he's not the real deal team owner is he like RD. Fernandes is just a chancer, proven by his choice of football team and he didn't read the small print when he thought he had bought the Lotus name.
Bit of a Capitalist statement there Ernie. Maybe you have more in common with Bernie than just old age!? Seriously though, surely the problem is that the lower teams simply don't have the funds to even enter F1, let alone be competitive. How can that be correct? It will just make the sport more elitist than it already is, driving out any form on new teams or new competition. Is it anti-competitive? Should the EU be having a look at how the sport is run? The big teams (and Bernie) want F1 to themselves so they can just make as much money as possible, without really having to consider the sporting aspect of it. Bernie wants even bigger trust fund for his kids, Horner now has a washed-up Spice Girl to finance and I bet she didn't come cheap and even Ron, who used to be a real racers man, now just seems interested in the teams bank balance and nothing more.
Yea, Capitalism works, it may not be perfect but it aint that bad, just get off yer arse use your brains and get on with it, and we don't need any more EU rules FFs, we actually need less. Lewis Hamilton is a prime example of how to do it, a black kid from North London wanting to be an F1 WDC, yea right, look at him now !!! Thats a high achiever, no EU rules applied.
It's the anti-competitive nature of F1 that is bugging me. Yes, some will always be more equal than others, that is life, but when the balance is so blatantly one-sided that it gives outsiders no hope of getting into the club, that is taking it too far. This is supposed to be a sport after all and should be about the 'sport', rather than purely a money making exercise for those involved. It is those blurred lines that needs to be addressed. In industry, the strongest survive, the weak fail and the intrepid will sometimes get their heyday, but also usually fail, but F1 is not/was not an industry so shouldn't be looked at in that way. When the fans turn off and the sponsors leave, suddenly the big teams will be doing something to get a full grid back again. It's a shame they are being so short sighted about it all.
In the wider world, the problem as I see it is that there's no longer any counter-weight to capitalism: communism and socialism have gone and even social democracy is being finished off. Consequently, everything is out of balance and greed runs rampant. F1 today is another symptom of this, the neoliberal world in microcosm. The newer teams were invited into the sport under false pretences of affordability, only to get clobbered with crushing additional costs once they were up and running. I'm inclined to agree about Fernandes but he's just one person among many who have been part of these teams; unlike Fernandes, most of these people are now jobless or will be shortly. There'll be no Rolex for them this Christmas so Bernie won't want them even watching the sport anymore. I bet Lewis didn't have a Rolex as a child.
I think you're missing the point Ernie. F1 has become too expensive for any minor team to compete in, which isn't their fault. Sponsor's either have no interest or bring very little these days and the major wealth is shared among the dictatorship and a elite few. This isn't about living beyond your means, it's about the sport making it impossible to survive and being unwilling to do anything about it. Little Jack Horner cane out with some BS comment the other day, saying would Man Utd help out QPR. Well, QPR get something like £70million from the premier league. And that's before merchandising and sponsorship. If only the small F1 teams could get a similar deal, hey?
Bhaji, the point is, I think, F1 is premier league motor racing, you must be some kind of idiot to get into a situation that's going to cost millions and millions with no assurance a return on capital, and, and it includes dealing with the likes of Ecclestone. FIA and the top teams !!! FFs The detail needs sorting before anything is formed, crazy to even consider any charitable handout's will be forthcoming from the like of those guys. Ecclestone is a hard nosed business man, he will take money off any silly bugger. Look at the chaos they have caused, both Marussia and Caterham have been total disasters and not just financially, hundreds of good people out of work, not to mention the Bianchi situation. Its even worse than forming a new football team and joining the Premiership, not that it can be done of course, at least they have a procedure to allow qualification.
