Wilson
Today Where's Teddy? is two years old. When he's thinking he wears the exact same look of utter concentration as his father. Two years old, a toddler, still a baby & yet so much a little kid compared to how he was just twenty-four months earlier. Happy birthday, Teddy! Uncle Mike is your favorite! (Even if that's true now it won't be forever; the poor lad was doomed from birth to be a hated Buckeye, just like both his parents, & sooner or later will look upon his Uncle Mike's allegiance to the Maize & Blue with scorn & ill-informed contempt. Where's Teddy? is doomed to root for remorseless cheaters & pyromaniacal hatemongers. But enough of that.) Happy birthday, Teddy!



This Week in Motorsport
Formula Fun!
Last Sunday's Gran Premio de España (Round 5) was incredible! For the first time in 2011's five grands prix, someone other than Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time in qualifying; Mark Webber, also of Red Bull, "pipped" the reigning World Champion by several tenths of a second to claim the pole position for the race start. The best start of the grand prix belonged to '05 & '06 World Champion Fernando Alonso of Ferrari; the Spaniard started from fourth but took off like his Ferrari had been shot from a cannon, passing Webber, Vettel, & '08 World Champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren by the time the cars reached the first corner. The largely Spanish crowd were over the Moon at their countryman's start. But as the grand prix wore on it was clear that the Ferrari just couldn't sustain the same pace as the Red Bulls & the McLarens. Vettel stopped for tires early & often, until in the closing stages of the race he was leading on older "prime" tires while Hamilton slowly but surely caught him up on fresher primes. The situation was looking like a replay of the Chinese Grand Prix (Round 3), where in the closing laps of the race Vettel was hobbled by spent tires, allowing Hamilton to make an easy pass & claim the victor's top step of the podium. But lap after lap Vettel's RB7 had just enough extra quickness through the corners to overcome the straight-line speed advantage of Hamilton's MP4-26, until the checkered flag was dropped for Vettel, his fourth win out of five races (& in the odd race out, Hamilton's aforementioned victory in China, Vettel still finished second). Polesitter Webber, who had been improving his finishing position by one spot every grand prix & had finished second last round (the Turkish Grand Prix)—making him "due" for a win—finished fourth. It's early days yet, there are still between fourteen & fifteen* grands prix left in 2011, but things are looking dire for everyone who isn't Sebastian Vettel. Vettel über Alles?

*The Bahrain Grand Prix, meant to be the opening round of the Championships, was postponed due to the unnecessarily bloody suppression of the peaceful protests in the island kingdom; time is running short & Bahrain is still under Saudi, et al., occupation, but F1 "supremo"-cum-Bond villain Bernie Ecclestone keeps moving back the "deadline" by which a decision must be taken on a new date or final cancellation.

But for all Vettel's heroics, the drive of the day belonged to Nick Heidfeld of Lotus Renault. Mechanical problems had deep-sixed Heidfeld in qualifying; so, he began the grand prix from twenty-fourth, the very last spot on the grid. After a long opening stint on the harder, slower primes, he ran the last two-thirds of the race on softer, faster "option" tires, tearing through the field with torrid lap times. From twenty-fourth he fought his way up the grid to finish eighth; given two or three more laps he almost certainly would have passed the Mercedes duo of seven-times World Champion Michael Schumacher (who in '09 returned after three years in retirement & has had a disappointing return to the sport over which he towered like a colossus) & his younger, usually quicker teammate Nico Rosberg. From twenty-fourth to eighth was incredible; that sixth was within striking distance is unbelievable. (Wayback Machine, "The Saga of 'Quick Nick'," with "The Saga of 'Quick Nick,' Part II" being long overdue).

Just one week after the Gran Premio de España, three days from now on Sunday, will be the "grandest grand prix of all," "the jewel in the F1 crown," the immortal Grand Prix de Monaco (Round 6). Two years ago, rather on a whim, I decided to watch the three parts of the Triple Crown of Motorsport: the familiar-to-all-Americans Indianapolis 500, some mad "endurance" race called the 24 Hours of Le Mans, & the Monaco Grand Prix. The 2009 Grand Prix de Monaco was my first Formula One race & I've been madly in love with the crooked affair ever since. Because Monaco was my first grand prix I didn't do anything crazy or obsessive like watch qualifying, much less practice, though as the '09 World Championships continued I'd come to realize how important Saturday's qualifying was to Sunday's grand prix. In time I began watching the whole race weekend, including Friday practice & Saturday qualifying. May 2010 rolled around & I set my V.C.R. to record live practice early on Friday morning (early afternoon in the Principality). Yet when I checked the tape I'd recorded nothing but infomercials. Had I set the time incorrectly? Nay, I had not. Monaco is unique on the F1 calendar: Friday is a "quiet day," meaning practice is run on Thursday instead. On Sunday, the Grand Prix de Monaco will become the first Formula One race I've seen thrice, yet this will be the first time I've seen the delightfully chaotic practice session.

By Endurance We Conquer
Only a fortnight until the 79th running of the 24 Heures du Mans! I recommend a preparatory regime of Audi's brilliant propaganda film/documentary Truth in 24 & Steve McQueen's motion picture Le Mans, the "best film ever made on motor racing" (Le Mans at Le Mans). Also recommended, & much more convenient in length than the other two, is this spectacular web video brought to my attention by the FaceSpace pal Paul Z. (a FaceSpace pal, but one I met in the real world first): "A Day in the Life of an Audi Driver". Two weeks until the 24 Hours!

Also, there is a chance I will be attending an American Le Mans Series race in August, gratis, thanks to Captain Malice. Watch this space for further details.

The Queue
I shall be reading more le Carré in due course, starting with The Honourable Schoolboy, both the second book in the "Karla trilogy"—bookended by Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy & Smiley's People—& the only book of the three not to have been adapted into a television miniseries starring the late Sir Alec Guinness as George Smiley. The Honourable Schoolboy will be a better chance to evaluate le Carré's worth as a writer than was Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a story to which I was favorably predisposed thanks to the brilliant television production. But that will keep for a while, there are long backlogged books that deserve their place in the sun.

Recently
Karen E. Olson, Driven to Ink
Len Deighton, XPD
John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Currently
"Richard Castle," Heat Wave

Presently
Sloane Crosley, I Was Told There'd Be Cake
Drew Karpyshyn, Star Wars: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
Anthony Hope, Rupert of Hentzau

Project PANDORA
The O.W.L. reports that she will be not in the State of Michigan but rather the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania until September. The ball having thus been placed in her court, I fully expect not to hear from her until well after September, & then the contact to be late at night/early in the morning & fueled by excessive imbibing. The cycle continues as before: tiresomely.

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
MxPx, "Kings of Hollywood" from Before Everything & After (T.L.A.M.)

Mittwoch, 25 Mai
The Best Week Ever, "Unforgettable" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "I never should have given you up."