St Landrew

Ah, I was trying to think of that very point the last time we had this discussion about equal treatment at McLaren and other teams. There's a lot to be said of Ron Dennis's attitude. At least a driver in his team fairly wins a championship. One or two of Schue's toll could be said to have been helped along very much via his teammate of the season. Nobody talks about favouritism in other teams, yet McLaren come in for a lot of scrutiny because they try to be evenhanded.

Had a go a few years back [about 2004]. It was running around in 256mb of SDRAM. I think its absolute limit is 512mb, but I can't quite remember why. Anyway, it is probably the fastest I've ever seen an edition of Windows of any description run. The real trick was to see how many things it could do compared to Windows XP. Vista wasn't on the market at that point. It was quite surprising what 3.11 was capable of. If we all used it, we'd all have to be nerdy types to do anything new, but Microsoft would be a lot poorer as a result. It's perfectly capable of doing 70-80% of today's OS capablities. What you don't get are the bells and whistles. But just imagine what it could have done if the code had been in the open community, like Linux. Getting online took the biggest amount of time, if I remember correctly. That was a bit of a strain on my memory. Was it ever quick though, and super stable.

Here's Johnny..! http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=4368

The man that gave Gretna FC their time in the sun has gone. I doubt if they'll ever reach those fairytale heights again. But it must have been a hell of a lot of fun while it lasted. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/7707081.stm

That's quite profound DSM, and a timely reminder to people to think a little bit.

Oh come on people. He may not be in your little cliche, but it doesn't hurt to say Happy Birthday.

I would agree with all of that. But what you've now said is hardly the same as Alonso... wiping the floor with Hamilton though is it. If you give people equal cars and equal status, then they can show their abilities. Are World Champions supposed to get a leg up to make things easier for them. That's hardly fair. In his first season, the rookie Hamilton showed he was a match for other more experienced drivers, and oh-so-nearly won the F1 championship at the very first attempt. That got up the nose of a few of them. Strangely, it also got up the nose of a few British F1 supporters. I say strangely, because with the exception of those with a vested interest elsewhere, for example, our esteemed friend Ponty [Renault], I would have thought Hamilton's brilliance would have been shouted from the rooftops. Still, there's nowt stranger than folk.

Johnny Shearer. 87 today. I'm only looking to get to 85 myself [which is 35 years away before people start signing me off].

True. In fact it possibly was, as I just wanted a gas explosion pic, and didn't check what the circumstances were.

Tbf, it may not be rocket science to cap off a gas connection, but the CORGI registration is there to ensure that the not-so-resourceful don't have a go at it. The consequences of getting it wrong could be somewhat alarming. Now that's OUCH..!

Well now you know. Old OS'es can be fast and reliable. Never thought I'd say that about Windows ME though.

Found an old ATI ME driver and it works very well. Blimey, this OS is screaming along. Much faster than anything I've used in years. Must be indulging in all the RAM room it's finding. It's as if I've just spent several hundred quid on a new PC. What a laugh.

About 20 minutes ago I was writing an e-mail attachment to a company I'm doing some work for, when the system HDD on the PC I'm currently using started making the tell-tale rapid pickup flyback noises that let you know the HDD is on its way out. Well OK, I thought... bloody inconvenient, but I have two other computers I could do the work on. Before you could say Western Digital, the HDD failed completely. Just to get the repair underway though, I put a spare HDD in place that had been on another old PC of mine I'd given away from a few months back. I was going to format the HDD, and start again. But just for the laugh I let it boot up to see how far it would get before it fell over. Well, it would wouldn't it, as Windows ME was the OS in place on the HDD and this computer has been setup for Windows XP and bang upto date. Imagine the amazement..! This old and rather bad mouthed ME OS, not only booted up, but configured the internet connection, sound, almost everything, except the high res ATI display card I'm using. In fact, I'm typing this on the very PC. I might even keep Windows ME on here for a short time just for a laugh. I never thought I'd say this about Windows ME, but hats off to it. Just need to find a display driver for it.

Aren't you forgetting the previous season..? Both in the same car, both given equal status, and there was no wiping the floor with Hamilton. And this was a World Champion against a Rookie. IMO, both drivers are very evenly matched. They both have their strong and weak areas. And if you're thinking Alonso made up for a bad car, I believe you're not giving enough credit to Ponty's bunch. They progressed their car midway through the season to be extremely competitive. And Alonso, being the fine driver he is, took advantage. If you're thinking the McLaren was a very special car, and Hamilton is nothing special, then why was his teammate P-nowhere all the time..?

1. Jan Poortvliet 2. Mark Wotte 3. Kelvin Davis 4. Chris Perry 5. Wayne Thomas 6. Claus Lundekvam 7. Michael Svensson 8. Rudi Skacel 9. Bradley Wright-Philips 10. Paul Wotten 11. Nathan Dyer 12. Lee Holmes 13. Tommy Forecast 14. Andrew Surman 15. Simon Gillett 16. David McGoldrick Almost complete guesswork with a hint of utter randomness.

Well time has moved on, and highlights only aren't enough for F1 to maintain its presence as the premier 4 wheel motorsport. I've no doubt the Beeb will put on a great show. ITV have never annoyed me for their coverage, apart from a tendancy to over-analyse at times, but that is always going to happen when you start your programme approximately 1 hour ahead of the race start time. And invariably all they do is have talking heads. The Beeb are showing the way with their MotoGP coverage, which is never less than informative, as well as interesting. No, it has always been the adverts for me, which have killed any interest any F1 race might build up. It buried the tension stone dead. I know for a lot of people this doesn't matter, and obviously they don't have a problem with commercial breaks, having not seen F1 coverage without them. Just wait for next season...! Highs for me today were Hamilton's overtaking maneuver on Fisichella, when he was on hard drys and Fischella was on softs, and it was still damp. Also James Allen made his first and only joke comment during his entire F1 commentaries.. there's nothing worse than a misaligned nozzle..! Brundle was so focused he missed it. And of course, the drama of the event. As usual, I actually started to nod off at one point, haven eaten a large meal about 20 minutes before, and being comfortably stretched out on the sofa. The race, even this one, wasn't really holding my attention. Strategy alone doesn't do it for me and I was flicking to the Velodrome on BBC2 at every ITV break. But the drama kept me going, and I'm glad I stuck with the event. Hamilton will be a fine champion, I've no doubt. The racing will be better next season, with the changes towards less reliance on aerodynamics, and slip streaming making an obvious welcome return. It should bring a bit more more competitiveness across the field. P.S. Having just watched the highlights, even old Beeb employee Steve Rider admitted the problems negotiating those pesky ad breaks.

By the way peeps. The repeat is just starting now. Thankfully, for the last time on ITV. Award winning coverage..? Take the adverts away and I might agree. What a shame they can't, as their commercial setup ultimately screws any sports coverage that ITV have ever taken on.

Do remember that if Glock had gone in for intermediates, there wouldn't even be a talking point about this close championship climax, because there wouldn't have been one. Glock would have been behind Hamilton, and therefore Hamilton would have won the championship with room to spare. Because Glock stayed out on dry tyres, the issue was... would the weather gods smile on Lewis or Massa..? The weather tried to throw everything at Hamilton to upset his championship, and it nearly did it. Only failing by a corner or two.

That's a bit unnecessary Ponty. That is far and away the best F1 race I've seen in years, but there there have been absolutely hundreds of snoozers. Note that on this occasion there was plenty of position swopping and FIA didn't get in the way. Hopefully, F1 will learn from this. You can't have processions and expect people to maintain their excitement, midway through a season. I don't feel bad for Massa in the slightest. It happened to Hamilton last year in very similar circumstances [championship lost by a tiny margin], and he got on with it to come back this season. Congrats to Alonso for his 2nd spot. P.S. Hopefully FIA won't penalise Hamilton for taking too long to get his steering wheel back on the car post-race.

Nope...Thank you Glock for going too slow..! well done World Champion Lewis Hamilton.

First comment today..... British luck licking in again..?

Also the 2nd goal against Man City at Eastlands. Down the right, Delap's long throw to Beattie; headed across goal to Phillips, and headed in at the far post. Bloody good goal too. Beat them 3-1 that day, with Sturrock managing. And a thorough peformance it was too. [

Currently..??? Sorry, but this gets up my nose, a bit. It has almost never been popular to call Association Football by the name of Soccer in the UK. For a couple of reasons; 1] because the English [yes the English] invented the bloody game, and it was called Village Football, and because 2] the modern day game has a round ball which is primarily kicked by the feet - hence Football. Whatever other countries call their own ball oriented [orientated], invented sports is a matter for them. The original organised Football is from the UK. I think we can call what we like, and it isn't Soccer. Soccer is the world name for Association Football to distinguish it from, amongst others, another UK invented game - Rugby Football [League or Union]. It's Football.

That's true. God knows I hate saying it, but it is true. Give him the room to make his own decisions and tactics and he can do it. If anything, that pseudo-co ckney, bung type, swervy, twitchy manner the man has, has held him back. He's perfectly capable of doing a good job, but he needs the situation to be right for him. The Spurs job is the perfect scenario for 'Arry. That's not to say that he still won't screw up this job eventually..!

If it rains tomorrow I expect Alonso and Hamilton to come through the field as they are the class car control drivers when things get less than 100%. However, don't rule out Hamilton being taken out of the race by someone, or the usual British untimely bit of unreliability curse falling again. Of course, Massa is the type of driver who, being mercurial, could blow the whole thing himself, during the early laps and the race descends into a boring procession, with the only excitement being... will Hamilton break down or not..? Which wouldn't make any difference anyway. Anyway, I'll be as pleased as punch if Hamilton becomes World Champion tomorrow, He rightfully should have been champion last season, but for the crucial errors in the last couple of races.