HossC

I'll get my violin out to play for you while I wait for the 2025 F1 season to start with the Australian Grand Prix in mid-March!

I've never really celebrated the New Year, and I only remember one time when I spent it in a pub. When I was younger I used to at least stay up until midnight. Back in the late-80s/early-90s, when we only had a handful of TV channels, the BBC used to see out the year with Australian broadcaster Clive James' review of the year on New Year's Eve. After that, it was musician Jools Holland's 'Jools' Annual Hootenanny' - a show featuring a wide variety of musical acts, some performing with Jools Holland & His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra. The latter is still on tonight, but these days I'm usually in bed by the time midnight rolls around. Here's a sample from the 2012 'Jools' Annual Hootenanny':

JASON Dillard I remember her, but the name always reminds me of the scene in 'Any Which Way You Can' when they put Clyde in a dress and tell the motel owner that he's their Aunt Hortense - "The last party she was at was Teddy Roosevelt's inauguration."

Porsche

The article links to a video showing how a 1999 Ford Crown Vic was turned into a stunt General Lee for the 2017 Dukesfest. I think we may have seen it before elsewhere on HNet, but it's worth watching again:

Hazzard CONNECTION He was played by 'Boyd Bodwell' who I also remember from a season 1 episode of 'Cheers'. He played an innocent young man called Kevin who wanted to sample a bar before becoming a monk.

I'd guess that Roger's talking about 'The Great Santa Claus Chase' in season 3. It's either episode 9 or 10 depending on whether you treat 'Carnival of Thrills' as 1 or 2 episodes.

The car is a circa 1976/77 Chevy Nova. This make/model appeared in several episodes of season 6, including being the bad guys' car that's used to kidnap Lulu in the season opener 'Lulu's Gone Away'. Hobie and Eddie Lee crash their car in a junk yard near the end of 'Play It Again Luke', so unless the episodes were filmed out of order, I doubt that it was the same car being driven by Eddie in 'The Ransom of Hazzard County'. It looks like all three cars I've mentioned had different wheels, which could easily be changed, and the one in 'Play It Again Luke' was dark green instead of black (I know they often repainted cars to reuse in other episodes).

You reminded me of a joke I heard on the radio last week. It was something like "Some people will spend Christmas alone without any contact from friends or family, but there's no need for them to gloat about it!"

Gladiators (Hunter and Wolf were the names of gladiators in the original British version of that TV show)

wolf

DiXie I had Trixie breathing in my ear earlier tonight, but sadly it wasn't Hughie's genie, it was my friend's dog!

Happy Birthday, MeadowMufn.

Stooges

City

TRIXIE

The drivers for the final seats on the 2025 F1 grid have now been decided: Constructors' champions McLaren are staying with their 2024 lineup of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. After a whole career powered by Mercedes engines, Lewis Hamilton is moving to Ferrari to partner Charles Leclerc. Red Bull are keeping World Champion Max Verstappen, but have finally decided to replace under-performing Sergio Perez with Liam Lawson who drove for their junior team RB for the second half of 2024. Mercedes are keeping George Russell, and Lewis Hamilton's place is being taken by promoted Formula 2 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Aston Martin are also keeping their 2024 lineup of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. Alpine are keeping Pierre Gasly, but they're promoting reserve driver Jack Doohan to replace Esteban Ocon. Doohan previously raced in Formula 2. Esteban Ocon is moving from Alpine to Haas and will partner Oliver Bearman, another Formula 2 driver who got three F1 starts in 2024. Red Bull's junior team RB will use their full name Racing Bulls in 2025. They're keeping Yuki Tsunoda, and partnering him with Formula 2 runner-up Isack Hadjar after Liam Lawson got promoted to Red Bull. Williams are keeping Alex Albon, but Franco Colapinto (who replaced Logan Sargeant mid-season) is making way for Carlos Sainz who moves from Ferrari. Finally, Sauber are replacing Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas with Nico Hulkenberg from Haas and 2024 Formula 2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto. This will be the team's last year being known as Sauber before they rebrand as Audi in 2026. Valtteri Bottas is returning to his former team Mercedes as their reserve driver.

Hoggo the ROUND

We wrap up at work tomorrow and then I get two weeks off, but we had to keep holiday aside to get paid throughout the time off. In other news, Taoiseach [Irish Prime Minister] Simon Harris has assured the nation that Christmas will go ahead as planned, as Santa Claus will be allowed into Irish airspace on the night of 24 December. In a video posted to Instagram, he said: “This authorisation will allow Santa [to] enter Irish airspace, will allow him have access to any airports or airfields that he requires on Christmas Eve so that he can get all of the presents to all of the boys and girls right across the country.”

I moderated this post in a hurry the other morning and forgot to comment later. They're both really good. Maybe you could share some details of how you create them. You'll see some of my fan art efforts in this forum, but they're more technical drawings done with vector art.

Dog

"A couple of arrows ain't gonna do much good against KING KONG out there." Coy when Vance suggested using exploding arrows against the Mean Green Machine.

Wax

HARPERVILLE

Roger, one of our free-to-air channels has been showing The A-Team from the start, and they're now near the end of season 4. The reason I mention this is that tonight's episode was 'Mission of Peace' which included Nedra Volz in the cast. I found it on YouTube (split across several parts). She has a couple of scenes at the start and another at the end. I thought you might like to see her as someone other than Miz Tisdale. Her character's pretty feisty as she chastises BA.