Better The Devil You Know (Or Missing Bernie Ecclestone)

I can understand why people are glad Bernie Ecclestone has gone. He was a kleptocrat, who didn't get media invented after 1980, and who seemed to be more interested in enriching himself than decent racing.

However, I do worry that Formula 1 fans might miss him more than we expect to.

When Bernie Ecclestone was in charge, you knew who was in charge and who was to blame for things. Who is in charge with Liberty Media? With whom does the buck stop? And I think with a sport, you do need *a* person in charge. Otherwise, instead of moving forward, you have lots of good ideas which never get implemented.

Liberty Media is run by a group of shareholders, who all have to be placated. With Bernie, you knew what he wanted, which was money, and more of it, but the process at least was easy.

The other thing, which could be me doing Liberty a disservice, is that Ecclestone was pretty hot on driver safety. Not openly. If he spoke about driver safety Ecclestone gave press quotes to annoy. But that was his thing, and if you believed anything Bernie Ecclestone said to the media, more fool you. On the other hand, US sports, particularly motorsports, have a reputation for not being careful about safety. Both the halo and the aeroscreen have their issues, but something needs to be done. I worry that Liberty won't give that sort of change the help it needs to be pushed through.

As I said, I could be being unnecessarily pessimistic. Liberty are doing everything right so far, especially putting Ross Brawn in charge of improving the racing, but I do worry that we'll miss Bernie.

Logan, which I'm banned from seeing

There's are many reasons why your friends would suggest you not watch a film.

They might not think it's worth watching, because friends don't let friends watch the Seth Rogen Green Hornet.

They might know it's not the sort of thing you'd like, like the time I suggested my friend, who doesn't like gore, violence and swearing, not watch Sin City.  She made it half an hour in before she said, "I think you were right."  I want it known that I didn't say 'I told you so'.

I'm not banned from Logan for either of those reasons.

No.  L, who has issued the ban, is worried that I'm going to cry so hard that I'll desiccate.

In L's defence, he was sat next to me when I got a little over-involved with the fate of a tree in Guardians of the Galaxy (and bought me a bonsai which is called Groot).  Furthermore, my family do have form on the 'crying so hard it disturbs other people' front.  The Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet was in the cinema the year my girl-cousin studied it and my Uncle took her to see it.  He cried so hard someone else's mother gave him tissues.

It's pretty much a given that I will cry like a baby at Logan.

It's a mixture of things.  Partly because I am a sucker for superheroes, and Logan plus girl-child is my platonic ideal of a Wolverine story.  The first X-Men film is probably still my favourite because they understood that, and there's that wonderful terrible moment where Logan thinks that Rogue is dead and he's doing everything he can, even if it kills him, to bring her back.  That's the nearest I've come to crying at an X-Men film.

The people behind Logan seem to get him, and get which story they're telling.  Right down to the advertising people.  I don't watch superhero trailers before they reach the cinema because I don't like to spoil myself but L does.  And he banned me from seeing Logan the minute he saw the first one.  His exact words were "they're using Hurt as the background music."  Which was when I knew I was doomed (3rd gen Johnny Cash fan here).

But beyond that, it's that it's Hugh Jackman's last film as Logan.  It's that "end of an era" feeling.  Hugh Jackman has been Logan for longer than anyone has been Doctor Who, longer than anyone has been James Bond.

I was 15 when X-Men came out, before my home town got a cinema again.  So going seeing a film was a bit of a production, and a rare treat.  I can remember who I went with.  We're not the same people anymore, there's no way we could be, but Wolverine's always been there.  X-Men 2 was supposed to be the first film I saw on my own in the cinema, but the person at the counter misheard me and gave me a ticket to the Matrix Reloaded instead (yeah, I know!).  Wolverine: Origins was the first film I saw at the new Showcase in Leicester.  First Class, which featured the greatest use of the one serious expletive you're allowed in a 12, was one of the first films I saw in Birmingham, and I saw X-Men Apocalypse in Newcastle.

I've moved house 6 times, but Wolverine's always been there.  I've gone to uni, graduated twice, had three jobs, but Wolverine's always been there.  And now he won't be.

If they do this properly, which from having finally seen the trailer, they are doing, I'm going to cry buckets.  In between me being an X-Men fan for 25 years and some damned good acting on the parts of Sir Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman (who is a criminally underrated actor), it's going to break me worse than Boromir and Thorin did.

So there's a reason L has not just forbidden but five-biden and pi-bidden me from watching it.  It's for my own good.

I'm still going to watch it though because ... oh it looks like it will be so good and I want to keep Wolverine while I can.

Yearly Book Location Update

It's only a month late ;)

As you can see, the variety hasn't improved much. In my defence, I've been reading a fair bit of non-fiction which isn't set anywhere in particular, and the books I have read that are set somewhere particular are either fantasy worlds or written by Plutarch with notes like 'citadel x is probably modern day y'.