HossC

I'll hold my hands up - I'm not great with change. I've lived with the new layout for 48 hours now, and it's still not gelling with me. I completely understand the need for the upgrade and appreciate the work put in by Meadowmufn, but the site feels like it's lost its identity. The default scheme on my laptop is a really bright background (white or almost white) with gray text which I find hard to read. I switched to the HazzardNet theme which allowed me to select Dark Mode, but that loses the HazzardNet header. On my phone, dark seems to be the only option, and again the header is missing. Going to Forums now shows a load a tiles which take longer to scroll down and aren't as clear as the old list format.. Finally for now, I don't like the menus being all in capitals. Capital letters on the internet always feel like shouting. I remember when the site moved from vBulletin to the last layout and it took some tweaking. Hopefully, it'll be possible to put some of the blue and orange back into the site without too much work.

Qualifying for tomorrow's Italian Grand Prix was tight today. Mercedes have decided to take grid penalties for exceeding their engine component allocation for this year for Kimi Antonelli's car, so he's starting near the back in his home race. Liam Lawson is standing in again for Isack Hadjar at Red Bull, and he's also taking grid penalties. That meant that two of the top teams could use the car being penalized to give a tow to their other car. In Q2, Oscar Piastri blocked Liam, which earned him a 3-place grid drop. Lewis Hamilton had been quick in practice and Q1, but scraped through to Q3 by a thousandth of a second. That must've been a relief as a Ferrari driver in Italy. The real story of the day was Pierre Gasly getting his first pole position after nine years in F1. It's one of those occasions where the whole pit lane seem happy that an unexpected driver achieves something remarkable. His Alpine team are currently 6th of 11 teams, and he's just had his Monaco podium finish belatedly taken away after appeals from other teams. George Russell will start in second. He apparently lost a chess game to Pierre 15 minutes before qualifying and thought he'd beat him on the track. Oscar got third, but will start in sixth after his penalty, promoting the Ferraris to third and fourth. You can see the qualifying highlights here. You can see what a six hundredths of a second difference looks like over a lap with the ghost car comparison of Pierre and George.

...it's always the same! 🙂 Nervous

pen

Just after Dolly's death was announced last week, the King's Guard performed a tribute outside Buckingham Palace.

Field (1060 West Addison if I remember my 'Blues Brothers' correctly)

It turns out that there's a place called Parton in the north of England. After Dolly's death, someone added stickers to one of the signs to read "Dolly PARTON R.I.P." - see the story here.

I've never used Spotify, but it looks like they offer a free option with no credit card required. It includes ads and has a limited skip function. An individual subscription is $12.99 per month rising to $21.99 per month for a family of up to six at a single address.

Sadly, his death was overshadowed by that of Dolly Parton, and they were the same age. I know him best from 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' which featured Susan Sarandon 16 years before 'Thelma and Louise'. He was also in 'The Hunt for Red October', but he looked so different that I missed him when I first saw it at the cinema.

Yes, as well as racing cars, Brian Johnson also does this...

Loretta Lynn

I'm a bit late this week... F1 was back at the weekend after its summer break with the last Dutch Grand Prix for the foreseeable future. Local hero Max Verstappen chose this race to announce that he's staying with Red Bull for a few more years, but the contract to host the event ends this year. Aston Martin finally seem to be making a bit of progress after major upgrades at this and the previous race. However, US based teams Haas and Cadillac appear to be slipping backwards with the latter replacing their team principal during the break. Red Bull's Isack Hadjar injured his wrist during the break meaning he had to miss the race. Liam Lawson got a temporary promotion from Red Bull's second team Racing Bulls, and his place was taken by Yuki Tsunoda. Mercedes driver George Russell took pole for the sprint race and converted it to a win in what turned out to be a fairly processional race with little overtaking. George could only manage second place on the grid for the main race with McLaren's Lando Norris taking pole in a car that he didn't rate as fast enough. Championship leader Kimi Antonelli started third ahead of the McLaren of Oscar Piastri and the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. Max could only manage seventh in his Red Bull. Sadly, Max's last home grand prix finished at the end of the first lap when he was caught out by a slightly damp track at hit the wall hard off the last bend. This resulted in a lengthy red flag. Kimi made up one place at the first start and took the lead after the second. Oscar also made a good second start, but then got passed by both Ferraris. Once Lando retook the lead he converted it to another win with Kimi and George behind. Lewis had to settle for fourth although he may have got third if his team had let him pass his team mate a few laps earlier. Liam Lawson got seventh in his stand-in drive and Fernando Alonso tripled his points total by finishing ninth. You can see the highlights here. Kimi has now extended his lead and George is back in second, although he has the same number of points as Lewis. The next race is in just over a week with the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

He likes his cars. He also once held the record for the fastest Star in a Reasonably Priced Car on Top Gear.

News is just breaking that Country legend Dolly Parton has died at the ago of 80. Above is the song with which I started this thread.

Southern