I only saw 4 films in the cinema this year. I am confident that my ranking will not change between now and writing up my reasoning. Warning, at the moment my write up is mostly "I agree with Christopher Nolan."
My top 4 films of 2020 are:
1 - Jojo Rabbit
2 - Away
3 - Spies in Disguise
4 - Tenet
I promise this was delayed because of work, not because I couldn't think of anything to write. I mean, I also couldn't think of anything to write, but … does any one remember either Ferrari doing anything at all in Abu Dhabi?
I mean, really?!
The only important thing that happened as far as Ferrari are concerned was that BOTH FERRARIS FINISHED BEHIND AN ALFA ROMEO!!!
Really, you let a customer team beat you!
What?!
Even Binotto accepts that this was 'not acceptable'. Do something to fix it, you're the team boss. If you can't, no one can.
I am trying to be positive about next year, but if there's no change in the technical regulation I can't see anyone beating Mercedes, definitely not Ferrari. The thing that frustrates me as Ferrari fan is not the getting beaten, it's how much Ferrari are being beaten by.
Due to complete lack of anything happening, Ferrari-wise, there has been no change to the bingo card.
L believes that Vettel bursting out into song should count as a dab for "not sure why Vettel is laughing like that, let's not do it again", but I don't think it does. I do think that Vettel transferring to Racing Point (or Aston Martin as they will be) will be good for Vettel, Ferrari and Racing Point.
I hope the team will be better for Sainz jnr. (His father is a world champion, he is Sainz jnr., whatever the F1 coverage says.)
In the other big news, while I am sad for Albon*, I am happy for Perez.
Plus, Perez has experience of always getting the worse car in a team and not letting it affect his performance so, if that's why the non-Verstappen driver in the Red Bull has been underperforming, at least it won't be new to Checo and he will be able to cope with it. I don't think that is what's been happening at Red Bull. I think the non-Verstappen drivers have been performing as well as that car lets them, and Verstappen has been outperforming the car. But that's based on gut feeling and how much better various drivers have been when they drove for Alpha Tauri, before and after driving for Red Bull, not on evidence.
I might try to write a more thorough/less unspeakably Ferrari-biased review of the year at some point, but the main thing on the to-do list from an F1 point of view is the number-crunch post I promised previously.
*OMG, the BBC F1 coverage read out one of my tweets where I pointed out the factual flaws in one of their meaner analyses of Albon's season. I am both pleased, and wish they'd not have been so unnecessarily and inaccurately mean about Albon.
I also apologise for the lack of punctuation in the tweet, I was walking home from food shopping.
Twelfth is not good enough. Ferrari have not been good enough. I can't see it changing for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this week, and I can't see it getting better next season. They are so frustrating!Mercedes have just gone all Ferrari.
— Grand Prix Diary (@GrandPrixDiary) December 6, 2020
With 2020 being 2020 I had completely forgotten that this was happening.
The actual result of the draw for the UEFA teams is here:
Group A: Portugal, Serbia, Rep of Ireland, Luxembourg
Group B: Spain, Sweden, Greece, Georgia
Group C: Italy, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, Bulgaria
Group D: France, Ukraine, Finland, Bosnia
Group E: Belgium, Wales, Czech Republic, Belarus
Group F: Denmark, Austria, Scotland, Israel
Group G: Netherlands, Turkey, Norway, Montenegro
Group H: Croatia, Slovakia, Russia, Slovenia
Group I: England, Poland, Hungary, Albania
Group J: Germany, Romania, Iceland, North Macedonia
(Thank you Guardian for being the only news source that had it all in writing. Dear BBC, some of us care about teams that are not the home nations.)
While this year's ceremony did serve the function of reminding me that the qualifiers were starting (as though international football ever stops any more, in between European Championships qualifiers, the European Championships, European Nations League games, World Cup qualifiers and the World Cup itself), the purpose of the draw to shake the teams up probably failed; several teams will be looking at their draw going "you again?!"
I wanted to see what the draw would look like done straight off the rankings, or straight off the rankings while avoiding prohibited clashes, excessive travel combinations and too many winter country combinations (official FIFA explanation here, significantly clearer Wikipedia explanation here).
I was then going to draw straight from the rankings, considering those rules, and the whole European Nations League finalists have to be in one of groups A-E and have a maximum of 5 teams in their group.
Done completely from the rankings, the draw looks like this:
If the prohibited clash, excessive travel and excessively cold country rules are applied, amazingly, only two sets of teams have to swap.
The first is Estonia and Kosovo, as otherwise, there are too many "too cold" countries in group E, which already contains Ukraine and Norway.
The second pair that need swapping are San Marino and Gibraltar, as putting Gibraltar into Group G would force Kazakhstan to have too many excessive travel countries, as Iceland are already in there.
If the European Nations League rules are applied, it whips Italy into group D, but only one other knock on effects, Estonia and Kosovo didn't have to swap because Ukraine and Norway are now no longer in the same group.
See, so much less fuss than the FIFA method.
No bingo update, because after that crash, I am really not feeling it. Don't worry, I have made a charitable donation in the hope that whichever divine providence was looking out for everyone realises that I am grateful and would like it if they continued to look after them all.
