The Vijay Mallya-lookalike-on-a-bike has inspired some other lookalikes, notably the doorman at our hotel, who has a frightening ressemblance to Tonio Liuzzi. Mr Doorman’s uniform is splendid, consisting of a boiler suit and a striped cravat, of the kind that one used to see at Lord’s. This is topped off with a very striking turban. This might be of interest to the HRT driver, who has an unusual sense of fashion and indeed has his own clothing company called Pirate.
When I googled “pirate fashion” I was rather disappointed that nothing much about Liuzzi’s enterprise came up among the results, but I was entertained to see a picture of Keira Knightley, Google’s wonderful algorithms having concluded that Ms Knightley must have something to do with fashion and pirates. I concluded that Liuzzi would do well to invest in making the star one of his models.
This morning’s adventures getting into the track included some sacred cows trying to get into the paddock, photographed by a pal of mine. Otherwise it was all easy enough, despite one or two bimbling locals who tried to crash into Abdul’s hurtling bolide and a plethora of intrusive security checks (including engine inspections, and looking up exhaust pipes) in case any of the visiting Europeans are secretly terrorists.
Overnight Bernie Ecclestone has been talking about problems in Korea, where I believe there is now another full-scale F1-standard track under construction to the east of Seoul. This is not the Everland facility but something completely new…
In the meantime pals in America have said that there is no chance of the planned GP in New Jersey taking place, as construction will inevitably unearth previously unknown Italian-American burial grounds, with the skeletons all featuring concrete boots.
This being Soprano country and all…
For all those non-pitpass-carrying journalists copying this information, it should be pointed out that this is actually a joke.
Please O please will some “journalist” copy paste that.
Joe, there’s nothing you can do about the copy-paste situation, so you’ll save yourself a lot of future grief and aggravation if you just let it go. Your snide comments about it just make you appear bitter, and I’d like to think you’re above that.
Oh, and… guys in concrete boots don’t get buried, they get eaten by fish
TokyoSpark
With regard to the copy-paste journalists I am sorry but the world needs to know about these frauds and I am not going to stop pointing out that they are cheating the fans by pretending to be something they are not.
Thank you explaining the joke in full. I always find that it helps to have humour dissected to such a huge extent that it ceases to be funny. Why not just laugh and move on…
don’t worry Joe, no journalist would bother copying your shit.
Just-in,
…and yet you wasted your time and energy not only reading it, but also commenting on it.
I guess that you have time to kill down there in Adelaide. You should get out more. Come to India, where the action is.
I find it really sad that F1 left Adelaide 100 years ago and there are still folk down there pretending to be F1 journalists…
LOL Joe. Great to have a good laugh with my coffee!
But the one about Korea was not joking, right. … funny people those koreans.
I’m shocked that people will openly admit to stealing from another journalist, how could you possibly have any pride in yourself at all when you know you’re plagiarising? And then to claim that nobody cares what you write Joe, when they OBVIOUSLY read it themselves, is just moronic.
Keep up the good work
Haha! Nice one Joe. India sounds like an amazing experience. Thanks for the updates.
Mr Doorman looks more like Freddie Mercury to me!
01 Just-in
Ouch.
Brutal Joe – but very funny. Though your ‘friend’ is technically correct – no real journalist would copy paste – a deluded bought and paid for little hack however…
Writing something for the copy paste journalists = easy, fun and a laugh .. that one of them may reply and not realise that admins can see the general area where a post came from = priceless.
your fighting a Battle Of Wits With Unarmed Men Joe
“Why not just laugh and move on…”
It’s a bit different when you write for a living it’s more than plagiarism.
Scarbs justifiably got very annoyed with certain journalisti copying and pasting some of his complete articles to an Italian rag.
I recall a meeting with out then PR agency which was just round the corner from Harrods, we were talking about doing a series of ads. One guy never stopped talking, another doodled constantly. The doodler turned out to be the words man and the talker, the artist, they reversed roles until they started being paid.
The BBC were showing some 1987 season races in between FP1 and 2, now that was how it should be today, none of this one move only and ask first if he will be offended stuff!
Wohooooo! You made my day ;-D
Can’t wait for the next Grandprix Edition!
have fun and hopefully a good race over there.
Joe,
Miss Knightley does, indeed, have something to do with fashion, and pirates. Mr Liuzzi clearly needs the work of an SEO expert on his clothing range website. Please pass him my contact details……
“no journalist would bother copying”
Condemned by his own words.
“as construction will inevitably unearth previously unknown Italian-American burial grounds, with the skeletons all featuring concrete boots.”
very good, Joe!
And to all the haters: On an average race weekend, I visit perhaps up to 45 different websites, all related to F1. On PP, I can read the story in their own words, which is a good thing I think, but only after everyone else have been writing about it. They tend to use a lot of words to cover what basically is plagiarism. Or look at it this way:
Joe, a renowned and respected journalist who have covered every single race for how long, Joe? 20 years? More?
And in the other corner, some columnists calling themselves journalists, who are stealing – even from me! – and telling their fans that they are attending races, which they are not. No matter how you look at it, fan of PP or not, they are not the real deal.
In regards to the NJ circuit: fuhgeddaboudit!
Hi Joe, Great as ever, I am an avid reader of your blog, and a subscriber to the Grandprix report.
Keep it up,
Joe, it wasn’t 100 years ago F1 left Adelaide, it was more like 15. Sob.
I for one am shocked there is still anybody there pretending to be anything!!
Just In 01, whoever you are, please don’t dis Joe.
Joe, do you know how the New Jersey GP announcement has been received by the Austin promoters? I can’t imagine it has gone down well with them. Within a day, a single announcement has turned the spotlight away from Austin to a place where they so far haven’t even begun building anything.
F430-FOX
It is good for them. Two races in the US will increase increase throughout the Americas. And Mexico will come soon to add to the mix.
Why don’t all you cowardly, loudmouth dickheads sod off and let those of us who enjoy Joe’s reports, musings and investagative journalism along with the community contribution debate get on with it.
I don’t get much free time to indulge myself so when I do I don’t wish to have your crap spoil the experience.
Pathetic idiots.
Shake n Bake,
I hate to sound like teacher, but language please!!
Joe, I like the comment about the burial site, makes me think of the times down here in Austin that projects HAVE stopped because some one digging found a toothless three-toed blind albino cockroach.
I understand that Bernie isn’t too happy with Korea…
Joe
You should not published such comments as the ones of 01 just in
Ignore them….
And go on with the good work
so cool to read these updates from india. like how joe provides infromation on other parts of the weekend, outside of the track and of course what happens on the track.
keep it up joe.
Thanks for a good chuckle this morning, Joe. It would have perhaps even been more amusing to have *not* pointed out what was clearly (to many of us I am sure) a little joke, and to have seen where it would have been reprinted…
Many thanks for your tireless work on the blog and GP+.
-k-
The Soprano gang is going to make a pile of money from this GP…they are looking forward to it hapenning!
Joe, et.al.,
it seems this copytheft lark is a sub industry, and i use the word “industry” correctly, there are many significant components. Although companies like Google are in an arms race to try to deal with the problem, they are also receiving income from ads delivered to theftsites. Few are as good as Google, and i could bad mouth the goog all day for advertising. And praise them on a truck load of technical issues.
This sorely needs highlighting, because not only does it devalue genuine work, but it dilutes the ad market for real producers. Joe or Scarbs ought to do well out of advertising on their websites. Meanwhile, we are deprived, because subscriptions simply have to rise to compensate. Free website here, expensive magazine there. Trying to find insight into this balance actually troubles me.
I just brought up Joe’s Car boys and Indians page, in a standard install IE9, and i get a jitterbug ad saying i have won an iPhone4. On this page, i see a advert for i have no idea what, saying “Download” and “Play Now”. Several browsers later, sanitized or left deliberately “dirty” with weeks of normal office use, and not much change. I get not much different on some major newspaper sites. Is this normal? Can we organize a survey?* I am frankly insulted Rolls Royce is trying to sell me a new motor when i drop by here!
The sheer number of the “ad networks” is mind boggling. One just launched with the revealing name “Lijit”. Honest, Guv! (that’s how that sounds to me, anyhow)They are like mushrooms, popping up, and have one thing in common, they live in dank dim and musty places.
I am not sure whether i want to do something to sort this mess out, or become a billionaire by default as the last person to know what a bromide is, or screen density.
But one thing is for sure (another longshot bet, but with some evidence) is that “free” webhosting and all manner of services provided to us all, are not going to remain free very long. In the last week alone, the RE4 model disk drives i like jumped by 80%, ** because Thailand is under water. Quite apart from the human awfulness of such vast flooding, disk drives fail, even the cherry picked nice ones i prefer. You can estimate the replacement rate form a paper Google helpfully published. What happens then, is that normal shops get squeezed, may not even secure supply, and some important economic models get broken. One of Google’s absolute successes was working out how important disk drive costs are, and pushing them down through engineering. This might be tricky, depending how long it takes to build new factories. Absolutely everyone is hit bad, right across the high tech products game. Companies like wordpress exist in part because authors provide search fodder which drives the online ad game.
*Joe, you might check out MailChimp and SurveyMonkey. They have widgets for your blog, and i reckon you could get a decent sample size.
** if disks were fungible commodities, it would have made a great trade. The most expensive models actually trended downwards, towards a parity, whilst the smaller capacity ones hit the roof because of false economy buying.
As with all humor, its funny because its rooted in truth. I’ve lived in Weehawken for 12 of the last 15 years. It’s in Hudson County, which is the most corrupt county in the most politically corrupt state in the union. I drove those roads every day telling my (bored) wife and (tolerant) friends that this was exactly where they needed to have the USGP. I said it could only happen because it was so…um…morally flexible. To paraphrase Evelyn Waugh, it’s a new “Sunny place for shady people.”
I just moved out (one block from the track!) in February. But I’ll be in my friend’s guest room in 2013 for sure. Let me know if you need any information from a local. Enjoy India.
Nicholas d’Amato,
To paraphrase Evelyn Waugh’s comment about… Monaco. What better recommendation is there for a race?
01 Just-in…
Deluded, will never be in. Just out more like.
If anything, it’s better than Monaco. I can’t sleep on friend’s couches in the principality. Next, Amber Lounge – Hoboken. They’ll finance it by making a reality TV series…
Joe,
I won’t worry too much about the third division. There budget most likely only got them as far as Germany. I think right now they are sitting outside the court room sharing a coffee with Mr. Bower. Thinking of how to spin, we told you, no we really did tell you he never paid it, oh sorry, yes he did pay it, but not as you think or read about it. I got lost after the fifth or was it the tenth revision of did he or did not do or pay.
So leave them to it Joe, you have more important things to inform us of what is actually happening in the sport, and of course you new career as a travel writer. I hear the BBC is bringing back Wish you were here Show, so have you got your name down for it?
@ 01 Just-in
You ignorant twerp….did you hear me, no I not sure you did…
We’ve already had this troll conversation I believe? The vast majority of contributors took this for the joke it is – although I freely admit I might copy the Carboys and Indians line…
Going back to the doorman/Tonio. You see he has a moustache? He is most likely from Southern India. Most men there grow a ‘tache as an identity – ask him if he knows a place to get a good Thali. Food from the South. Yum.
The realy important question which is not answered is did John (other John) succumb to the advertising and buy a Roller?
Hey Joe – very informative post. Thanks! Hope the race lives up to all the build up. It would be nice to see a Ferrari victory
Just wanted to point out that Keira Knightley starred in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie – which is probably why one of the google hits returned with her picture?
Anyway – thanks for posting. Big fan!
Apparently WordPress serves spammy adverts to readers who do not use Firefox, in a attempt to make them switch.
I only have a secondary source for this, and can’t find the quote, which was attributed to one of their senior people at a conference. But it conforms to my experience.
This is interesting, in the context of whether they explicitly have agreed with Joe to be able to promote unclear values under his banner. Unclear, because software competition has a politicized undercurrent. Unclear for lots of other obvious reasons. I shall look into this.
This is a good place to note that a high traffic photography blog, The Online Photographer (great place for actual photography criticism), tried ineptly to move from their blog system domain to work under their own banner. They soon enough reverted from their dot com, or defaulted to a subdomain controlled by typepad, so didn’t achieve their branding and independence move. There are ways to make such a move work, but they are not very obvious. (i know what i am looking for but i have to look it up, and i would want to survey how search engines react from people who do this seriously.)
David Hodge,
giggling here, it was wishful thinking, both on RR advertising with Joe, and me buying their wheels . . if i could arrange the first, likely i would be driving the latter! (They are very very hard to book)
all best to all, – j