HossC

The Ferraris looked fastest in practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix at the weekend, but it was World Champion Lando Norris who took pole in his McLaren. Both Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) and Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) got 3-place grid penalties for separate incidents in qualifying. Off the line, Lando initially got a perfect getaway, but went wide a few corners in and lost the lead to his team mate Oscar Piastri. Both Ferraris also got good starts as did Max Verstappen. These five then swapped positions a bit though different pit strategies, and Lando managed to take back the lead from Oscar. Sadly for Oscar, his gearbox failed on lap 56 (of 70) and he had to retire from second place. At the flag, Lando took his first win of the year followed by Max. Kimi recovered well to take third, and after Lewis managed to pick up a pit lane speeding penalty, he was demoted to fifth behind Charles Leclerc. That's still four different teams in the top four places. You can see the highlights here. Kimi has now extended his lead to 50 points over Lewis, which is two race wins. F1 now takes its annual 4-week break, during which time the factories have to shut for two weeks to give their globe-trotting staff a break. One bit of extra F1 news today: if there's still war in the Middle East at the end of the season, the finale will be held in Europe.

I'm sadly back to using this thread for an obituary. The news broke just before midday that Irish musician Glen Hansard had died in a motorcycle accident this morning at 56 years old. He was lead singer with The Frames, but also sang solo, acted and championed new music. Most of the radio since lunchtime was devoted to playing his music and music he liked, as well as voice notes with memories of Glen. I started to feel like I was the only person in the country who didn't have a great story about meeting him. The song below came in at #31 in the Today FM top 100 Irish songs (mentioned above). As I said above, Glen also acted and appeared in Alan Parker's famous BAFTA-winning movie 'The Commitments' in 1991. In 2006 he was in a small independent movie called 'Once'. The song 'Falling Slowly' with Marketa Irglova from the movie won Glen an Oscar in 2007. I'll admit, his music has mainly passed me by, but all the good stories today have made me want to look into it.

Here are a couple of images from 'Officer Daisy Duke'. The beer is a Cuban brand called Hatuey Oscura, although I can't find this exact poster. My Google searches haven't found any matches for the other two yet, so they may have been made for the show. The Nesel Wine neon sign gets smashed during the fight.

Just a little stat that amused me when I heard it yesterday. Sunday was also the date of this year's All Ireland Senior Hurling final (Limerick beat Galway 1-29 to 1-18). I know the global viewing figures are hugely different, but attendance at the hurling final at Croke Park in Dublin was 82,300. Attendance for the football at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey was only 80,663.

Kimi Antonelli took another pole at yesterday's Belgian Grand Prix ahead of Max Verstappen, George Russell and the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. World Champion Lando Norris had to start from 13th after he got a 10-place grid drop for using too many engine components in a season. Max briefly took the lead on the first lap before dropping back to third, and Lewis hit George, ending George's race and earning Lewis a 5-second penalty. After the resulting safety car, Max got back to second and Oscar Piastri moved to third before both Ferraris got ahead of him. There were a couple of short VSCs (virtual safety cars) which mixed the order a little through the pit stops. Lewis failed to receive the front wing tweak he wanted and knocked over a mechanic as he left the pits. The mechanic was unhurt, and although the incident was investigated after the race, it didn't affect the outcome. Despite being shuffled back to third in the pit stops, Kimi retook the lead with 10 laps to go and went on to take another win. Behind him were Charles, Max and Lewis. Lewis' fourth place was enough to move him to second place in the Drivers' Championship ahead of the non-finishing George. The race highlights are here. Next week's Hungarian Grand Prix is the last before the summer break, and several teams will have upgrades for the race.

On at a more reasonable 8pm, I decided to watch the final last night. It was a long way from 10-goal thriller the night before, and the game was still goalless after 90 minutes. There were a few yellow cards and two of them went to Argentinian Enzo Fernandez which meant that he was sent off just before the extra time. He became the sixth player sent off in a World Cup final, three of whom have been from Argentina. Spain scored the winning goal in extra time against 10-man Argentina to claim this year's trophy. They are one of the co-hosts for the next World Cup in 2030. The action didn't end at the final whistle, and Argentina's Leandro Paredes also received a red card when a fight broke out between the players. Maybe they'd spent too much time in Waffle House while they were in the US. I'm not a big football fan, but I hope this marks the end of hydration breaks and half-time shows, both of which ruin the flow of the game. It would also be good if it was the end of highly inflated ticket and transport costs, and questionable choices by FIFA, but especially the latter seems unlikely.

I wasn't going to watch last night's third place play-off, but I switched over with about 20 minutes gone and found England were already 2-0 up against France. By half-time they'd doubled that to 4-0 and it looked like being a walk-over. The French coach must've given his team a strong talk during the break, because within 10 minutes of the second half they had pulled back two goals. It was a nail-biting time for England as France then made it 4-3. With three minutes of regular time left, France conceded a penalty which England's Bukayo Saka scored to complete his hat-trick - 5-3. France weren't done, and brought the score back to 5-4 in injury time. Then, with seconds left on the clock, late substitute Jude Bellingham scored an amazing goal for England to make the final score 6-4. It's shame that England missed out on tonight's final, but it was an action-packed way to end their 2026 World Cup. You can see all the goals in just over two minutes here.

Yes, they were released here and the DVDs are still easily available.

The BBC news website has a timelapse video of the World Cup final stadium almost disappearing due to the smoke in the air: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c1w1nqwxgexo

I know the smoke has spread over a large area of the northern United States, but it hasn't made it across the Atlantic. It may, however, affect the air quality at Sunday's World Cup final in New Jersey.

Irish actress Brenda Fricker, who was the Central Park pigeon lady in Home Alone 2, has passed away at the age of 81. She won an Oscar for her role in 'My Left Foot' and was one of the original cast members of long-running British hospital drama 'Casualty'. Read more here.

Well, last night was the end of England's chances of winning this year's World Cup when they lost 2-1 to Argentina. The final on Sunday will now be between current European champions Spain and current World champions Argentina. England will play France for third place.

Book

Another Country song I'm hearing most days on the radio is 'Dry Spell' by Kacey Musgraves. I really like the innuendo-laced lyrics that treat the subject matter with a lot of humor without going too far. I've just watched the video for the first time, and it just adds to the fun. Maybe the British movies and TV shows I grew up with in the '70s and '80s make me appreciate it more!

After he scored both England goals last night, Jude Bellingham was serenaded by the crowd singing the Beatles' 'Hey Jude'.