HossC

Well, that's F1 over for 2025. The top three got off the line in order, but Oscar Piastri overtook Lando Norris on lap 1. McLaren split their tire strategy with Oscar on hards and Lando on mediums. George Russell lost a couple of places at the start which let Charles Leclerc pressure Lando in the early laps. Lando and Charles made pit stops on lap 17, and Lando proceeded to overtake four cars in the next two laps. On lap 23, Lando caught Max's team mate Yuki Tsunoda, who attempted to slow Lando a little. In the end, Yuki forced Lando off the track by making an illegal double move under braking and earned himself a 5-second penalty. Lando and Charles made a second pit stop on laps 41 and 40 respectively, which was a lap before Oscar made his only pit stop. In the closing laps, Lando was catching Oscar, but his team told him to ease off and not take unnecessary risks. At the flag it was Max first, Oscar second and Lando third, which was enough for Lando to take his first F1 championship. McLaren boss Zak Brown came on the radio on the slowdown lap to say, "Lando, this is Zak from McLaren. Is this the World Champion hotline?". Lando finished the year with 423 points to Max's 421 and Oscar's 410. It's McLaren's first drivers' championship since Lewis Hamilton won in 2008. Speaking of Lewis, after a poor qualifying, he had much better Sunday finishing eighth in the race and sixth in the championship, although it's his first F1 season without a podium finish in one of the main races. You can see the race highlights here. McLaren won the constructors' championship a while ago and finished on 833 points. Behind them, Mercedes were second with 469, Red Bull were third with 451 and Ferrari fourth with 398.

In just a few hours the 2025 F1 championship will be decided. After so much promise and hype, it looks like being the end of a year to forget for Lewis Hamilton who failed to make it out of the first qualifying session for the third race in a row. By contrast, his Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc will start from fifth. At the front, Max Verstappen claimed pole despite complaining about his car's handling in practice. Close behind were Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, so all three drivers who can become this year's champion are starting in the top three. George Russell is next in fourth and could still play a part in the outcome. This weekend will also be the last to feature the Sauber name on the cars. Peter Sauber has been in motorsport for over 50 years and has had a stake in an F1 team since the early '90s. With a change in ownership, the Sauber team will be Audi F1 next year. Gabriel Bortoleto did a great job to put his Sauber in seventh place on the grid.

That's my Christmas list sorted!

When You Wish UPON a Hogg BTW. It's Mr. Terwilliger. You spelled it right in October!

A little bit of F1 driver news - Red Bull are promoting Isack Hadjar to their first team to partner Max Verstappen next year. Taking his place at Racing Bulls is F2 driver Arvid Lindblad.

Apologies for my late review of the Qatar Grand Prix. Lando Norris went into the weekend needing to outscore his rivals by two points to clinch the championship. In the sprint race, Oscar Piastri took pole ahead of George Russell and Lando Norris. Max Verstappen started a couple of place back in sixth. The top three finished in grid order, but Max made it up to fourth. You can see the highlights here. For the main race, Oscar took pole again, but Lando was close behind and Max was in third. There was a rule for this race that tires could do no more than 25 laps, so everyone had to do at least two pit stops. When Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly came together on lap 7, the safety car came out. Max pitted along with most of the rest of the field, but the McLarens stayed out. That gave them an uphill struggle for the rest of the race. At the flag, Max won with Oscar behind. Lando passed Kimi Antonelli on the last last to take fourth behind Carlos Sainz. Due to a radio message from Red Bull suggesting that Kimi let Lando past, some idiots sent Kimi death threats. Red Bull have since apologised to Kimi and Mercedes, and have accepted that Kimi just went wide. You can see the race highlights here. The final race of the season is this weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Lando still leads the championship, but now by only 12 points from Max in second with Oscar four points further back. Any of the three could still win.

Why Can't We Be Friends? - War

Hollow

The RANSOM of Hazzard County

Here's a little reminder of Tom in 'Blackadder'. For anyone unfamiliar with Edmund Blackadder, you may know Rowan Atkinson as Mr Bean.

Jerry Springer

I also watched Tom Baker era 'Doctor Who', but did you ever hear him narrate 'Little Britain' or see his guest appearance in the second season of 'Blackadder'? Here's the intro from 'Little Britain' with some questionable claims about Britain's inventions.

I wish he'd skipped the geography and just stuck to the science.

The British haven't always been welcome visitors around the world, but here's a video listing just some of the inventions and discoveries they've produced. There are a few controversial points included, but most a clarified at the end. The title is a play on a Monty Python sketch (something else the British gave to the world) of which a small clip is included near the beginning.

Or just a coincidence. It's hardly surprising that one of the over 1300 passengers on board feared something like this happening.

MACK MAGEE Character in 'How to Succeed in Hazzard'.

Black Friday makes even less sense over here because we don't have Thanksgiving. I think the madness of a few years ago has gone now. The electrical shops had a few reduced items which I'm sure they bought in specially, and several clothes shops had 20% off certain lines, but no massive bargains or fights.

There's an old thread where people re-wrote Christmas songs with "Duke-ified" lyrics.

Rosco's radar gun was a HAIR dryer.

Milk

I saw this 'Home Alone' meme recently.

I obviously hear so many US voices that I don't really notice the difference in pronunciation with the name George. I saw some short videos yesterday of young Americans returning to the US after brief visits to Europe, and the most important thing they could find to say was that in "The Land of the Free" they could remove the caps from their soda bottles. For the last couple of years our plastic soda and water bottles have had caps which remain tethered to the bottles so the whole lot can get recycled. In Ireland we also pay a deposit on each bottle (15c or 25c depending on size) which we get back when they are returned to a store for recycling. The caps can still be separated easily if it's really too much to deal with, but you get used to them pretty quickly. I find it particularly odd that this should be such an issue for young Americans since when I visited the US in the early 80s you guys had soda cans with ring pulls which stayed attached while on our cans they were still separate and were often just thrown away! This video is now two years old, but the comparison of food prices and availability is still valid. The lady in the video spends six months of the year in the UK and six months in Texas, and the comparison is between Tesco in the UK and Kroger in the US.

Documented with pictures and a location link in the Hazzard Square thread.

Recently, I've been watching a lot of "Americans React to" videos on YouTube. In the ones I watch they're mainly reacting to British/Irish TV shows and stand-ups, but a few are more general videos looking at the differences between us, i.e. two nations divided by a common language. It appears that while the Brits and Irish have been consuming US TV shows (Dukes included) and cultural reference points for decades, the exchange doesn't get far in the opposite direction. Many British TV shows just get remade for the US market with widely varying results. Sometimes it seems that only Peppa Pig is flying the flag! The result appears to be that British/Irish TV shows and culture often leave Americans baffled with phrases which simply haven't crossed to the US. I thought I'd post some of the source videos, with this first one just being about how we say and use numbers differently (and it doesn't even mention Americans writing dates the wrong way around! ). Look out for a brief Dukes reference about 2/3 of the way through. BTW. To count seconds I was taught to say "a thousand and one, a thousand and two" etc. I've also heard of the "one Mississippi, two Mississippi" method, but none of the others in this video.

The Las Vegas Grand Prix was on at a strange time of day for us over here. The races usually start in the early afternoon on a Sunday, but this week's race was at 8pm local time on Saturday, which was 4am Sunday morning for me! One of the practice sessions was curtailed by a loose manhole cover and qualifying took place on a wet track. Championship leader Lando Norris still managed to put his McLaren on pole ahead of Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and George Russell. Lando's team mate and championship rival Oscar Piastri could only manage fifth. Lewis Hamilton had his worst ever qualifying finishing in 20th and last on pace (rather than a mechanical issue). Lando had a strong start, but he overshot the first turn and was overtaken by Max and George. A few cars in the midfield came together with a bit of bodywork lost and Lance Stroll retiring. After the pit stops Lando got past George, but couldn't catch Max. George's team mate Kimi Antonelli finished fourth, but he had a 5-second penalty for a jump start, so was classified as fifth with Oscar in fourth. Mainly by avoiding the crash on the first lap, Lewis Hamilton made it up to tenth. That's how it was as the race finished, but a few hours later both McLarens were disqualified for illegal ride heights. Apparently, their skid plates were below regulation thickness. The disqualification promoted George to second and Kimi to third. This leaves Lando still leading the championship, but only by 24 points, and both Oscar and Max are now in joint second. You can see the original race highlights here and a quick explanation of the disqualifications here. There's now only two full races and a sprint race left this season with a maximum of 58 points available. The Qatar Grand Prix and sprint race are next weekend.