RobbieMeister

Seeing the arrival of the Virgin F1 team has given me quite a lift. Not because I’m a great supporter of the Virgin brand, indeed I don’t think I use any of their products or services and not because I like blowing my own trumpet (there are enough people in F1 who already do that).

Instead it’s because I spotted young Richard on the grid at Monza in 2008 (scroll down or click) and suggested on this blog that he was there to get into F1 before anyone else mentioned it. I say this because I follow nearly all of the F1 news and information and I hadn’t seen it suggested anywhere else.

That’s it really. Have a nice evening.

Adrian Sutil after the race:

“It’s a shame – you focus so much and think you can do it, but the car was just out of control at the end. I had the same feeling as Monaco – it’s hard to believe when you are in the car and then suddenly you lose it and it’s all over from such a great position.”

Ones feelings, of course, come from what one thinks about.

There is a story about an adventurer traveling across the desert searching for his fortune. But not the Paulo Coelho one.  It goes that one night the traveler was visited by a Genie in a dream. In the dream the Genie told the traveler that in the morning if he walked in the direction that the wind was coming from he would after a few hours stumble across an old wooden and brass chest. In the chest were all sorts of riches – jewels and gold and all the traveler had to do to gain access to the chest was not to think of the colour blue as he opened it. But he would only have one chance.

This reminds me of an experience of my own when doing a police motorcycle training course organized by the Chertsey traffic center in the mid ’70’s. We were told in this course to avoid manhole covers in the road because manhole covers are slippery when wet, and that reminds me of another story but perhaps not now. The problem for me was try as hard as I could not to, I went straight over the manhole covers. I told the instructor this and he asked me where I was looking, "Well at the manholes" I said. "You will always go in the direction you place your attention, look to one side" said the copper. It worked.

When the traveler woke in the morning he set out in the direction of the wind and sure enough he found the chest. As he sat cross legged in the sand with the chest in his lap. As he tried to open it he said to himself "Don’t think of the colour blue". Of course he didn’t get the chest open. You see, before you can’t think about what you don’t want to think about, you have to think about it.

I watched Adrian Sutil as Lewis Hamilton came up behind him last Sunday and hoped that he was not trying not to think of Kimi Raikkonen slamming into the back of him at Monaco last year and loosing a points finish for himself and his team. I was hoping he had a clear picture of the chequered flag in his mind. I wonder?

I watched a TV documentary about Stephen Hawking recently on BBC TV.

Similarities were drawn, as is often the case, between the work of Hawking and Galileo, both being renown physicists.

The program pointed out that Stephen Hawking and Galileo Galilee have a date in common. The date is 8th January. In Galileo’s case 1642 and in Stephen’s case 1942.

The coincidence is that Galileo Galilee died on 8th January 1642 and Stephen Hawking was born on 8th January 1942, 300 years to the day after Galileo died.

Galileo was much troubled for his beliefs, amongst others, that the earth rotated around the sun, he was persecuted, threatened with death and after apologising for his erroneous ways was eventually allowed to spend the end of his days under house arrest.

After that lot, if Galileo had decided to reincarnate, I bet he would have chosen to return as someone who did not appear to be quite such a threat.

Hey Presto!

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