Drifting and Doughnuts

As a blogger of ill-repute, I am occasionally invited to attend sponsored PR events.  Sometimes I come back from these events wondering what on earth I was going to write about.  Other times I would come back needing a hot shower and a cold drink to erase the memories of the limp canapés and warm wine.  But sometimes, not often mind, I come back with the
‘OhMyGodThatWasSoFrickingAwesomeIthinkMyHeadMayExplode’ feeling.  The Fastest Blogger event organised by buyagift.com that I attended last week was one of those events.

Their invite was quite simple, come down to Silverstone and spend a day driving a Caterham 7.  I am not beyond introspection and there is a reason that I only drive a Ford Fiesta – It’s because I’m an idiot.  Put me in a car and I want to drive it fast, hence only trusting myself with a Fiesta on the roads – anything faster would be a disaster (with a ghetto blaster, and a headmaster).  So there was no way I was going to turn down the opportunity to drive one of those beasts.

Upon arrival I met the Caterham team and my fellow bloggers and we were given a safety briefing.  The instructor tended to look at me a lot whilst giving his warnings, I think he could smell the speed-freak in me.  He then explained that they were going to teach us how to drift a car and do doughnuts (you know, the ones policemen don’t like, the tyre smoking ones not the glazed ones).  Drifting a car involves careful manipulation of brake, accelerator and wheel coupled with lots of screeching, smoke and adrenaline soaked fun.

There were three cars and 17 bloggers so in between turns we would sit down and have a bit of a natter.  I had sat myself down with Miss Daisy and her daughter Megan (sorry Wendy, I did warn you) and soaked up the sun in-between bouts of boy-racing.  There was banter, there was laughs and occasionally there was clapping when one of us achieved a spectacular doughnut.

Believe me, there is no better feeling in the world than screeching sideways around a corner with your heart threatening to jump out of chest and not getting nicked for it.  We were a mixed bunch in the driving talent department (the best line I heard was “This is the first car I’ve ever been insured on”) but by the end of the day all of us had improved beyond our wildest expectations.  I had started the day thinking that everyone would get all testosteroney and über-competitive, but there was a real sense of camaraderie as we all cheered each other around the final drifting course.

If you ever find yourself going to one of these events (and I strongly suggest you do), I can’t guarantee you the same weather – scorchio, or the same great laughs with fellow bloggers, but I can guarantee you will have a day you will remember for a very long time.

I want to thank the team at buyagift.com, the perfect place to find fathers day gifts (especially if my kids are reading this).  I’d also like to thank the Caterham 7 team for letting me thrash the nuts out of their cars, even after I thought I had broken one after a spectacular spin off the track.  The only negative thing about the whole day was having to drive my front wheel drive Fiesta home, all in the knowledge that it couldn’t recreate the day in my local Tesco’s car park.  Damn.

Not on the High Street

When you name your kids Storm, Kaede and Nate you are often hard pushed to find anything with their names on in the High Street shops.  It’s not something you consider when you are playing the naming game, why would you, but it can be a proper pain in the butt later on down the line.  So when NotontheHighStreet.com asked me to pick and review one of their products, my answer was an obvious “Yes”.  It’s a site my wife had often used for personalised door signs, piggy banks and the like.

Before I went onto the site I had to decide who was going to be the lucky recipient of whatever I picked.  Storm has just celebrated her 18^th so she was off the list.  Kaede has just turned 7 so ditto her.  Nate is 5 in a few weeks but the Mrs has been über-organised and had already got all his pressies.  It is Mothers day soon but I always get my Mum daffodils (as a bump they named me dilly, I don’t know, it was the 70’s?) and the kids insist on picking their own presses so Mum’s were also off the list.

So that leaves little old me, it’s not my birthday for months so I decided that I deserved the free treat.

I went onto the site and went straight to the ‘for him’ section and to say I was spoilt for choice would be an understatement.  The site has the tag line ‘one basket, hundreds of unique shops’ and they’re not kidding. 

I saw a Skyline Wall Art sticker, a print of the London skyline that would fit perfectly on the big blank wall we have in one of the rooms, but then I realised that would only prompt the Mrs into demanding that I redecorate first, so I clicked away.

Next was a cashmere football scarf that comes in your teams colours (obviously).  Supporting footy in style was sounding good until I remembered that Kaede was becoming quite the footy fan and had taken to nicking my current scarf and wearing it to school.  It wouldn’t last a day in her grubby paws, so again I clicked away.

I then saw a personalised ‘…likes’ poster print, the idea being that you name 10 things you like and it would be turned into a ‘Goonerjamie likes…’ blah blah blah.  I started to list my ten things.  When I had finished four of them were alcoholic beverages, three were ex-Arsenal players, one was Arsenal, one was unmentionable and one was a Hollywood actress.  I decided that my list may not go down too well with the Mrs, so I carried on a clicking.

I then happened upon a silver scroll bracelet.  Three solid silver scrolls, threaded onto double leather black cords.  The scrolls could then be personalised with two initials, with a heart in-between for the romantic at heart, or with three initials for everyone else i.e. me.  I quite like a funky looking bracelet so I had found my gift.  I decided to get it personalised with the kids initials S, K and N and that was me set.  Ironically, before I placed the order I googled the letters SKN to make sure it wasn’t some sort of dubious acronym.  It turns out that it’s internet slang for ‘OK, cool, whatever’ which pretty must describes the kids anyway (in no particular order kids, in case they’re reading).

Five days later my bracelet turned up in a muslin drawstring sack, complete with care instructions.  Every bracelet is handmade and mine had a real rustic look and feel to it.  Like myself, it looked classic and understated and I’ve been happily wearing it ever since.

The love heart silver scrolled bracelet costs £49 and for a unique personalised item, that is exclusive to the site, feels like quite good value for money.

Thanks to Harriet French from www.notonthehighstreet.com for inviting me to do the review and I must point out that this is a sponsored post and I did not pay for the bracelet that I ordered.  I must also point out that if they think they are getting it back, they’ve got another thing coming bwahahaha.

Anyone but Alonso - Silverstone

Anyone but Alonso – the slightly warped world of the anti-fan – Silverstone GP 2011

The start of British Grand Prix weekend seems to be dominated by all the talk of all the technical changes to the exhaust systems and the like.  My only comment on all this is that it must all surely be Alonso’s fault as he is the only one not moaning about it.  Come to think of it, is it a coincidence that it’s Jean Todt, as head of the FIA, that has made these specific changes that may possibly benefit his old team?  Of course it’s a coincidence, surely?

So race day begins and it’s a race of two halves – half the track dry, half wet.  It’s also a race of two eyebrows as Teflonso settles into third place from the start.  ‘Old Father Time’ Schumacher again forgets that drivers no longer just move out of the way for him and he promptly gives Kobayashi a rather impolite kiss up the butt.  Maybe Schuey should be sponsored by a rhinoplasty surgeon, the amount of new nose cones he’s had this season.

Kobayashi was in the action again a bit later as we see an interesting new pit lane tactic.  He decided to take out Force India’s wheel guns as he drove down the pit lane, a piece of cunning genius that definitely scores a ‘10’ on the Evildeedsometer.

Button mugs off Massa, who’s driving skills seem to deteriorate faster than the ever mentioned Pirelli tyres over the course of a race – then our very own leader of the Brat pack, Hamilton, breezes past Teflonso.  I can only presume he was caught by surprise, presumably because his eyebrows were obscuring his rear view mirrors.

Nigel Mansell in his capacity as Head Steward, proves he’s never one to forgive a slight against the UK and hands Schuey a rather harsh 10 second stop and go penalty.  Too late to give Damon Hill the ’94 championship he deserved, but o how I laughed anyway.  A nice close up of Schuey’s hands as he overtakes Petrov, it actually looks like he’s wearing thick mittens.  Maybe at his age he is starting to feel the cold and his arthritis is playing up?

It looks like Kobayashi didn’t need to nobble the Force India team as they have managed to do that all by themselves – some clown has decided to try to put Sutil’s tyres on Di Resta’s car.  Then, in a Dick Dastardly moment, a Ferrari mechanic manages to disguise himself in Red Bull overalls and manages to sabotage Vettel’s pit stop, thereby giving the master of the fluke unfortunate incident, Teflonso, first place.

Watching on TV it was nice to see the new ‘Cable-Cam’ flying back and forth across the circuit.  Strangely enough, we see more images of the cable cam than from it.  Then again the same can be said of the coverage of Di Resta’s race, as the BBC decides to ignore the latest British hope.  I think his foreign sounding name has fooled the TV director into ignoring any news or action of him.

The chameleon Ferrari mechanic then changes his skin to mimic McLaren overalls and ‘accidentally’ forgets to put a wheel nut on Jenson’s front right (or front left as Jenson thought).  Is it just me that thinks it quite scary watching a driver that doesn’t know his left or right?  Button – one hell of a racing driver, but a really crap mini-cab driver.

The weekend’s misery is compounded by Webber overtaking Hamilton, whose McLaren team had obviously run out of money to put enough petrol in his car.  I’m now gutted I didn’t send them my ‘5p off a litre’ voucher that I got the last time I was in Tesco’s, at least Lewis could have made a fight of it then.  Massa is now threatening to take Lewis’s 4^th spot, but as he’s almost certainly forgotten how to overtake a decent driver, Lewis should be alright.

It was nice to see the Red Bulls scrapping it out on the final lap.  Either Webber has improved his driving or Vettel has improved his acting, as it almost looks like there are no team orders.  We then hear the frantic team messages to Webber ordering him to back off and the confusion is cleared up.

At the final corner Massa proves he can’t even push drivers off the track as well as his team-mate, as he attempts to stitch up Hamilton and fails.

Well, thanks to the chameleon Ferrari mechanic, Teflonso sneaks the win - although I hear there was a Stewards enquiry into the caterpillars sitting high on his face affecting the cars downforce.  I’ve actually come to the conclusion that he is the model for the new ‘Gypsy Thunderbird’ figurine, so he should be looking forward to next seasons Romany GP.

And so on to Germany for the next episode of Some Mechanics Do ‘Ave ‘Em.