Singapore Grand Prix - THE MOVIE

Just for a bit of fun I have made a short movie from scenes at the weekend's Grand Prix.

Oh! What a night!

THE SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX EXCEEDED ALL EXPECTATIONS BUT LIKE ALL GOOD PROJECTS THERE WAS A PLAN B. THERE IS ALWAYS 'HOPE' TO RELY ON AND A BIT OF TLC TO MAKE IT BETTER AGAIN.

Massa messes up! Alonso says 'I told you so'. Mr Hamilton is Mr Sensible.

That sums up the race, although of course it was much more exciting than that. The building up of tension and expectation before the race was almost touchable. I could sense that this was an occasion and suddenly the hype seemed worth it. There was the usual beauty parade of the stars of the show before hand and I think it was very big of these young men to show their appreciation in a build up when, for most other sports people, they like to psyche themselves up and go into a little bubble. I enjoyed seeing these racers and they genuinely seemed to enjoy the adulation.

Just in case you are wondering who this is. It is Mr Hamilton before he became Mr Sensible!

Then down to business and there was an eerie hush and tension as the countdown began. The roar of engines only just out played the roar of the crowd as the race started. All eyes glued onto the giant TV screen as Massa took the first bend and Mr Hamilton could only settle in behind. As the cars passed my vantage point for the first time the crowd went into manic mode as cameras of every shape and size clicked and whirred at the short procession of multi million dollar technology whizzing and roaring by.

Of course Massa was increasing his lead and just when I found my eyes automatically following the blizzard of technicolour vision and ear busting noise there was the unmistakable bump of car hitting concrete and Nelson Piquet's car suddenly looked a lot smaller than it had moments before. Almost in front of me the car hit the right hand barrier and swung across to the left side, and in between were bits of carbon fibre and metal. The drama was only just begining as our attention was diverted to the 'Massa Mess' in the pits. The sight of a fuel hose flapping wildly with petrol pouring out of one end and it still attached to the car at the other was straight out of Laurel and Hardy. It was very lucky nobody was seriously hurt, but I bet there was serious talking going on this morning pin pointing who was at fault, even though Massa was very quick to say that no-one was to blame. Yeh right, I believe you Massa.

No point in having 3rd party, fire and theft insurance in Formula One is there.

Luckily this Nelson hadn't lost an eye, only his pride and the race restarted with Mr Hamilton not believing his luck. As for Alonso well his come back from a wrecked car the previous night and only fifteenth on the grid was a great comeback - in my book heroic because it was against the odds. Mr Hamilton settled into cruise control and realised he only had to finish to consolidate his position at the top of the Driver's Championship. Sensible young man, that Hamilton chap!

Well that was it all over and done and dusted. What a great weekend and especially for Singapore and the thousands that came into town and discovered the jewel of South Asia.

Even though I have been here for only five months I felt some pride at the way this event was staged. The Singapore government are go ahead and determined to make this little island special and this weekend's event went a long way in telling the world that this is a special country.

Very sensible road sign on the Singapore circuit

Khamma's going to give me loads of YAK YAK for this one!

Saturday Night at the Races

This road sign was repeatedly ignored by twenty of the world's best drivers.

Saturday was day 2 of the Grand Prix and the weather was superb. This brought out the crowds and there was a distinct carnival atmosphere. Smiling and happy faces everywhere; the main ingredient for the Singapore Spirit!

I arrived a little earlier to walk around and see the sideshow attractions and was soon rewarded with a display of the Samba from Rio. The quick tempo and the Latin beat seemed to rise from the distance and soon the vibrant colours of the head dresses made no secret that there was a party taking place.

Further on, close to a display of Ferraris and Lamborghinis, attractive Singaporean girls in skimpy clothes would pose and groups of friends egged each other on to have their photos taken and claim a few moments of fantasy.

Elsewhere disco beats, Indian fusion with sitar and tabulas, the ubiquitous bars, hawker stalls and of course the people made a relaxing afternoon stroll. I called into our restaurants in the Flyer and they continued to be busy and expect it to be relentless for the rest of the day.

The action on the track soon started and as I have only had a relative interest based on watching out for Lewis, I soon picked up on the excitement as the qualifying sessions passed by. Mr Hamilton was lucky to get through the first session and seemed to have the final session in the bag until Mr Massa ended on a flourish and took the first spot on the starting grid tonight.

I have sussed out how you can tell who is driving by the colour of the helmet. A small but significant point in adding to the thrill, but I am colour blind so it isn't altogether that easy. Maybe Mr Eccleston could introduce another rule to help those like me that are challenged by colour identification.

There were many more people attending than last night and the exit from the Marina Mall was a nightmare, but the Singaporean Home Guard did a great job and everyone behaved.

Bring it on tonight!!!

The Singapore Grand Prix

A strange sign at the inaugural Singapore Night Race F1 Grand Prix

Last night saw the first night racing in Grand Prix history and the honour fell to Singapore to host this massive event. Throughout my stay since April there have been signs of preparation, mainly in the Singapore Flyer complex where construction of the pits and 'mega bucks' hospitality suites have been taking shape. And in particular over the last four or five weeks as the street circuit took shape. I decided in May that it was worth a gamble to buy tickets because I figured I would still here and in any case if I wasn't I could easily sell them on.

Singapore itself has been typically low key in its excitement during the build up. Several newspapers and the TV have not been slow to point out that to the average Singaporean this event is hardly the highlight of the week, never mind year. There has been a bit of bewilderment about it and a distinct lack of local hype and even scepticism that the predicted 100,000 additional visitors would bring in any extra trade. Even my own company did not know what the impact would be and we have three restaurants at the Flyer right in the heart of the action! However as usual I was like a little boy at Christmas time and was eagerly anticipating my first ever Grand Prix. There was a time when I thought the 'sport' was actually a pointless pursuit and a waste of time and money as a circus travelled around from country to country driving cars round in circles. What does this say about global carbon footprints? Not very good. But then I gradually changed from the opinionated pontificating youth to a 'middle aged' grumpy bloke and realised that fast cars were actually all right. I bought a brand new Audi TT in a fit of crisis and started to enjoy a freedom of expression. Yes, after years of barking on about the world should do this and the world should do that, I took a long hard look at myself and thought 'Sod it', and started to do things that were actually enjoyable like having sporty cars. It also co-incided with the emergence of Lewis Hamilton at a time when Great Britain needed sporting hero's (see previous entry about this definition). The football teams failed to reach any finals, the cricket team were not dominating the scene like they did with the Ashes series and so on. But Hamilton was new, fresh, young and arrogant. He is also actually quite good and so my interest in his success and in F1 grew.

Last night I set off expecting the crowd and atmosphere to be like Old Trafford when they play Arsenal, but actually it was very different. The organisation of an event like this very much depends on learning lessons from previous events and let's hope the organisers can put up proper signage to direct you to your stand where your expensive seat awaits. Let's hope the staff know their directions to these places, because I asked two policemen, two 'ushers' and a ticket collector where my stand was and only one of them knew. If I have difficulties I can only assume others did. But like everything else on these occasions the event itself is bigger than these little issues and eventually I settled down in the dusky night sky as the illumination from the lights around the 5 kilometre track began to glow and make for an amazing set and back drop. This was spectacular and will put Singapore in the world spot light, literally, and show it off at its glorious and best. Singapore will be very, very proud at the image that is going round the world this weekend.

Singapore's Spirit and looking very much the fantastic city it truly is!

The cars themselves are amazing, much faster than you think they are on TV, and very noisy even with ear plugs. My seat is quite good on the S bend on the Waterfront Esplanade and there is a big TV screen showing action around the track. I still find it difficult to identify who is who as the cars in each team appear identical, but after a while you can tell who is driving and Hamilton has a style so different from the rest. He handles the car with economic style and it is easy to understand how he can pick up vital one hundredths of a second to emerge as the leader. This isn't quite true because Alonso popped up and spoilt the show, but I don't think Hamilton is too worried with another practice session scheduled for tonight. There were two ninety minute practice sessions - that is equivalent to two football matches and it was very enjoyable.

The entertainment off the track was good with plenty of hawker food outlets, bands, discos and the 'Official F1 Merchandise' outlets where even T shirts at 100S$ seem out place when you can buy the 'same' T shirt in China Town for 10S$. Think about it!

Anyway back to the track tonight for the next instalment............

My first attempt at taking a picture of a car travelling at 100mph! Thanks Luv!

My second and to be honest last attempt. I gave up taking any more photographs to save the planet's resources. Ha! Ha!

This is Thailand!

A number of friends have asked me what is all the unrest about in Thailand. Well I can attempt an explanation -it might not be totally correct, but by piecing together the newspaper reports in Singapore and the Internet publications I can make a simple explanation. But please bear in mind this is Thailand and it wouldn't be the same without some kind of political unrest.

Thailand is an emerging Asian economy but not on the scale of China or India. It now has a class of people of those that have and a class of those that haven't, and for that matter never will have - money! The bottom line in any society and the cause of many disputes from family wills to big national banks lending money they don't have!

A few years ago a certain big business man in Thailand called Thaksin made an absolute fortune in the telecoms market and with this money he was able to buy off most of the politicians and make even more money. He had power and with his new found friends decided to go into politics and seduce Thailand's rural populous with policies promising cheap health care and education. This worked and Thaksin was elected as PM.

However over a period of years Thaksin became less popular with the other half of Thailand's population, the neo-middle class. They were slowly becoming motivated with more disposable income and wanted an increased voice in the way things were being run by Thaksin's government. In addition Thaksin was cracking down on drug dealers and other criminal activity and was connected with over 2,500 'disappearances' from the criminal community. Not content with that it emerged that he had been involved in a few shady deals with his family and had 'avoided' paying taxes amounting to millions of baht. However the government was still popular with the rural folk because they are so far removed from drugs, tax evasion and corruption as to totally ignore it if they are getting free consultation from a doctor and a prescription for the 30 baht (say 50 pence in English money).

The urban community had had enough and they, with the Thai army, over ran Thaksin and his cohorts in September 2006. My friend Dave and I happened to be in Thailand at the time and we travelled for nearly two weeks before we found out - it just wasn't big news in Thailand.

Thaksin fled to the UK where, with his diplomatic immunity, sheltered, at my expense (I am still a tax payer in the UK despite working in Singapore). Do I sound bitter? Well I should do because whilst this guy is being harboured by my government, the very same government, but I suspect a different department, was busy refusing a tourist visa for Khamma to visit the UK for a two week holiday. Now is it me or is there some injustice there? Mercifully I got over the disappointment and eventually I began to see why the visa was not issued, but, I still don't understand how Thaksin can hide in his diplomatic brief case AND buy Manchester City at the same time.

Anyway in December 2007 a splinter group from the former Thaksin political party formed a coalition government with a very uneasy majority and started where Thaksin had left off twelve months earlier. Thereby keeping the rural folk happy and disinterested in the Bangkok political back stabbing. The new middle classes viewed the new government as Thaksin's puppet government and unrest started to increase. Through the power of the new government Thaksin was allowed back into Thailand but faced corruption charges previously made on him and his wife. With an unbelievable amount of arrogance he expected to be exonerated. At the same time the demonstrations against the new government started to become more serious and, when Thaksin's wife was found guilty for evading taxes and faced a lengthy prison sentence, the opposition pounced and tried to smoke out the government from parliament. Thaksin made an excuse to go to the Olympics in Beijing but fled to England instead of returning to Bangkok to face the music.

The opposition became louder and more threatening and sadly in a serious clash with the police one of the demonstrators was killed. The louder they demanded the resignation of the PM the more he refused and to make the whole case even more bizarre he was found guilty of bringing the office of PM into disrepute by taking money as a guest on a TV food programme. Eventually the poor man of 74 years came to his senses and resigned.

Now Thailand has a newly appointed PM and he is forming a cabinet. Will things get back to normal? This is normal for Thailand and we can expect another new PM within the next year. Meanwhile Khamma and the millions like her still enjoy virtually free health care and the nation is slowly becoming more healthy as a result. You can understand why the rural folk want to keep this policy and therefore keep out of what goes on in Bangkok. As Khamma said 'Up to them!'

Thaksin sold the football club - for a healthy profit by all accounts but I guess he still enjoys a round of golf at Sunningdale. It wouldn't even surprise me if Thaksin was living in the same apartment Pinochet used in the Thatcher days.

Even as I write this there is news that the new PM's daughter has been accused of evading regulations by not declaring she borrowed 100 million baht (£1.6 million GBP) from a relative. So the saga continues, and always will because this is Thailand.

Blog rules ok?

Khamma has been staying with me in Singapore over the last three weeks and at first I was fretting that I couldn't keep the blog up to date. Then I realised that I should rule the blog not let the blog rule me! I guess it was becoming addictive but I am pleased to say that I realised what was happening and that spending precious time with Khamma is infinitely better than writing the blog. Sadly though Khamma has now gone back to Thamuang and my life in Asia is re-adjusting back to the reality that was created before, but not exactly. I have been joined in Singapore by Mike who is a colleague from the UK. Over the years I have worked with Mike in the US and in the UK and he has taken over the spare room. He is welcome company even though he supports Liverpool!

We also had other guests last weekend when Dave and Ann visited us for a few days. Dave is a good friend from England and together we have had many adventures from freezing bivouacs on the side of Swiss mountains to epic river journeys in Laos and from DIY safari adventures on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia to running the New York marathon. He met Ann at the same time I met Khamma and, like me, his life has taken a new direction.

Whilst Khamma was in Singapore we visited the opera, the zoo, China Town, Little India, Arab Street, Tampines, the rain forest and a host of hawker centres where cheap and good food is plenty. We also had a weekend in Kuala Lumpur in the luxury of the Marriott Renaissance next to the Petronas Towers.

I have never known three weeks to pass so quickly and it was a difficult day last Tuesday as she returned to Thailand.

Back in the village there had been a shortage of decent rainfall for the rice and there was more than a hint of concern that the harvest would be poor. However the rain did eventually come and in Singapore you could hear the slurping and gulping of water from the thirsty rice plants in Thamuang. The relief on Khamma's face was noticeable and I was treated to an even wider smile and a hug when she learned the news from her brother. Since she has returned home she has spent her days in the fields making everything 'beautiful' and ready for harvest in early November. She loves the rice fields and is completely absorbed with the cycle of planting, growing and harvesting. The Thamuang farmers constantly compare their fields with one another in friendly rivally reminiscent of the proud villagers at the annual Diggle garden fete showing off their fine vegetables after a year's hard graft in the allotments. Her description paints a picture in my mind and I can visualise the view of the rice from the windows of Owerrrouse. When I spoke to her last night I could tell she was tired and although we both wanted to chat we had to finish to let her sleep. I guess today will be the same.

She took back from Singapore a special arrangement to show off the Buddha display in the house. We bought a gold lacquered plate which will be the background to display the Buddha with a couple of gold vases for offerings. We think it will be perfect and it is important to display our thanks and respect before we go about buying materialistic clutter like a TV and a DVD and whatever.

This is something new for me but I am relating to the traditions and customs very easily and we both have a belief that due to co-incidences neither of us can understand or explian we were brought together by following the Buddhist truths and paths. Our very different backgrounds have joined together and we both enjoy the discovery of our cultures and lifestyles. I have been truely amazed by Khamma's knowledge of nature and her keen eye in the forests for edible mushrooms and plants. Equally she is amazed by the confidence of the foreigner in the urban jungles of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. There is no doubt she is happy in her fields and I wish to spend more time there as well.

Life in Asia goes on.