Boxing (Or I Understand The Hype Principle But Why This Version?)

I don't think I've ever hidden that I am not a fan of David Haye.  And it's mostly his trash-talking that I don't like.  I hear and understand the counter-argument, that he does most of it in order to whip up interest for his fights, in what is a somewhat moribund heavyweight division that no-one cares about (although, I swear that if the Klitschkos where American, the US boxing press would be all over them), but I just find it odd that he chooses to play the role of the fighter the audience want to see knocked out when he's the (much) smaller man in his heavyweight fights.

Like Haye vs Valuev, Haye was 6 ft 3, weighed in at 15 st 8 lbs (190.5 cm and 98.9 kg) while Valuev was 7 ft 2 and 22 st 8lbs (218.4 cm and 143.3 kg)*, and against Wladimir Klitschko, Haye came in at 6 ft 3 and 15 st 3 lbs (190.5 cm and 96 kg) versus Klitschko's 6 ft 6 and 17 st 5 lb (198 cm and 110 kg)**.  You could have sold the heck out of those as tiny British David versus hulking Soviet*** Goliaths.

Against Tyson Fury (height 6 ft 9, weight at last fight 18 st 2 lb / 216 cm, 115.2 kg), Haye would be giving up ~ 6 inches in height, about 2 stone in weight and 7 inches in reach.  And it's not like Fury is Prince Charming****, so again why it Haye playing the antagonist?

Haye is not Money Mayweather.  The reason that Mayweather has to be the bad guy is because he is that much better than everyone else in the division.  Mayweather being the bad guy gives people a reason to watch his next match, because while, logically, we know that the next schmuck stands the same tiny chance of victory as the last schmuck, maybe, just maybe this will be the guy that shuts Mayweather up.  That's how Mayweather makes his money.

Haye isn't the best guy in the division, he isn't unstoppable, so I don't see why he's going down that route, unless it's that he's incapable of being polite for 10 minutes in front of camera.

All that being said, if Haye can get to the end of the twelfth, I suspect he'll win the fight just because he is a better boxer, technically, than Fury.

* source
** source
*** yes, I know.
**** Fury does have the advantage of occasionally being on free tv being the lovely, supportive older cousin to Hughie Fury.

Singapore Grand Prix

As I described in this post, I was going to put imaginary money on the fastest drivers after the Friday free practises, Saturday practise and qualifying to see which betting strategy would gain me the most money over the season.

Fastest Friday Practice	Price	Fastest Saturday Practice	Price	Fastest Qualifying	Price
Vettel	4/11	Vettel	4/11	Vettel	4/11
Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.36	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.36	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.36
Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£13.63	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£13.63	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£13.63
Season Total £1 bets	£5.88	Season Total £1 bets	£14.59	Season Total £1 bets	£15.57
Season Total £10 bets	£58.96	Season Total £10 bets	£145.96	Season Total £10 bets	£155.79

More Complaining About Rush

I've just seen the second trailer.

I am now torn even more because, seriously, they couldn’t find a British actor for James Hunt? I mean, I love you Chris Hemsworth and I admire your attempt at James Hunt, but it really doesn’t work.

They do at least seem to be giving Niki a fair shake, he’s just a bit harder to get across to begin with. This month’s Lufthansa in-flight magazine has an interview with him and he is still very much himself. A sort of mixture of “does not suffer fools gladly” and “my way or the highway” mixed with an acceptance of his (many) faults and the fact that he can be out-stubborned (mostly by his wife).

I hope the film gets across his sense of humour, which is particularly dry. (This is the guy who makes jokes about his own fiery near death experience) And he enjoys mocking everything.

Brühl does his best, but the voice isn't right, and never will be right (like by about half a pint of gravel and about an octave) and ... I still don't see why they're making this film. The dude that made the Senna documentary, if he chose to make a documentary about this, that's something I'd choose to watch.

Italian Grand Prix

I have to admit that Monza holds a special place in my heart, because I am a Ferrari fan.  I am also a Gerhard Berger fan so I would like to thank whoever in the Monza camera crew keeps showing me glimpses of him.

The betting figures will be a little off because I was coming back from France on Friday and was only able to catch the odds after qualifying.

As I described in this post, I was going to put imaginary money on the fastest drivers after the Friday free practises, Saturday practise and qualifying to see which betting strategy would gain me the most money over the season.

Fastest Friday Practice	Price	Fastest Saturday Practice	Price	Fastest Qualifying	Price
Vettel	8/15	Vettel	8/15	Vettel	8/15
Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.53	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.53	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.53
Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£15.33	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£15.33	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£15.33
Season Total £1 bets	£4.52	Season Total £1 bets	£13.23	Season Total £1 bets	£14.21
Season Total £10 bets	£45.33	Season Total £10 bets	£132.33	Season Total £10 bets	£142.16

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the 2011 film version

For @Tiberius_Jolly.

Huge spoilers throughout

The short, twitter-version of the review went - TinkerTailorSoldierSpy - Oldman exceptional, everything else (with a couple of honourable exceptions) a bit meh.

And I still stick by that.  Gary Oldman is exceptional in this, really, I mean, even by his high standards.  Especially the scene where he's reliving his interrogation of Karla is the dictionary definition of OMGoshWow!
and I would have been cool with him getting the Oscar.

The honourable exceptions previously mentioned are

- Tom Hardy's Ricky Tarr who is made a lot more likeable than in the book but the man works it well, I just wanted to give him a hug.
- Mark Strong's Jim Prideaux, who they didn't mess up, saints be praised. The bit at the Christmas party before the end ... it made me make that internal 'gah!' noise which is always a good thing, I am caught up in the narrative.
- The Christmas party itself, which is every bit as ghastly as the novel (in passing) mentions. Smiley when he finds out about the affair, and Prideaux and Haydon and, I'm sorry but I got the intended giggle out of the British Secret Service singing along [with the glorious exception of Toby Esterhase] the Soviet anthem (as did the woman behind me, the rest of the cinema I was in, not so much).

The major problem is that, because it only runs to 2 hours 7 minutes, they've had to squash things and bend things, which is not going to work when your original book is 440-ish pages. But for some unknown reason, it's the female characters who have been hit hardest by these changes.  (And yes, I know it was a female script-writer that did the adaptation)

Ann, for instance, who the film reduces to a voiceless, faceless, nymphomaniacal cypher, is a vibrant, forceful, intriguing, admittedly nymphomaniacal, enigma in the book. You can see why George fell for her, and that's all missing in the film. And it's quite disturbing, the lengths that the film goes to to keep her faceless and voiceless.

Then there's Connie, who is not just another researcher, she's head of Research section, thank you very much, and the person who fires her and tells her to go out into the real world is not Alleline, but another female character, the dreaded Dolphin (who is never seen in the book, but is a constant presence).

Connie's replacement as head of Research is another woman, Molly Purcell, who is one of the grown ups in the scene where Guillam gets interogated.

Then there's Sal in Archives, who is a jolly hockeysticks judoka and who Peter asks 'what are you doing this weekend' not vice versa.

On the Russian side, Irina is also a Moscow-trained hood, and is the one who says 'it takes one to know one' (or that kind of thing), and is a more qualified textiles trader than her old man.

I mean, there were some points where the film gets mega props, you know, actually engaging Russian speakers to play Russian speaking characters. I can't comment on the quality of the Russian or the Hungarian but I have hopes.

I assume they switched to Budapest because the bit of Prague they want looks totally different now. That was one of the fun bits of reading the book after visiting Prague, being able to map the locations almost exactly.

I am also amused that despite this being a big film, they still don't have the money to do Tarr and Irina's bit in Hong Kong where it actually is. I accept Istanbul as a substitute.

Apparently the reason that everything in London looks so grotty is that it's based on the directors reminisces from when he visited in the 70s. I am somewhat ambivalent about some of the changes, I don't like what they've done to the Islay Hotel or Lacon's Berkshire Camelot. They've somehow managed to make Sarratt/The Nursery and the whole of the Circus look even smaller and meaner than it is in the book, which I quite like, while the inside of Control's flat makes me violently homesick.

As I said previously, the changes in plot/character/stuff have been forced on them due to running time. Some of the choices made are thoroughly reasonable like moving Prideaux's adventures to the start because otherwise the beginning really is just a lot of men talking, smerging Jerry Westerby with Sam Collins, even though the character is definitely Sam Collins, not putting in Max.

Not showing Karla's interogation by Smiley was genius, and I loved the use of 'Oh Mr. Wu' to throw suspicion on Bland.

Some of them I'm neutral about like it being Control going to Lacon saying 'mole!' rather than Smiley.

Some of them I just don't get, rather than disliking, such as changing the timeline of Rikki's misadventures in Hong Kong Istanbul so that it occurs before Prideaux's trip to Prague Budapest. I have to admit it confused me and I shall ask the person who'd never read / seen it how he felt about it.

Then there's the changes I understand why but dislike:

Okay, so in the book, it's not obvious who the mole is, but there is really only one person it could be, and I think the film tried to make it less obvious, which I understand. So they gave Alleline Haydon's job of speaking to the Americans, and they gave Bland Haydon's womanising (all though, in Bill Haydon's defence, he doesn't pester women into it, they throw themselves at him) and they just up Toby's sinister central Europeaness (although in a major backfire, I do feel quite sorry for him at various points). Unfortunately, that leaves Haydon somewhat underwritten so you don't get the same feeling of upset and loss when the mole turns out to be SHINY WONDERFUL BILL HAYDON.

Because Gary Oldman isn't old the way Alec Guiness was old (not an age thing, an aspect thing) it meant that everyone else was made so much younger. Not a problem with Tarr, and I don't mind Control being the one to recruit Toby and Bland. The one it presents a problem with is Peter Guillam who looks like a young, up-coming buck who is barely old enough to wash behind his ears. The film just gives you all his bad qualities, his temper, his rush to judgement without thinking, but they don't give you that he's someone who has successfully run agents in North Africa, that he's not a bad boss and that he's actually a damned good agent. The book is him growing up and learning that all your heroes (he is specifically mentioned as having modelled himself on Haydon) all have feet of clay. Not that Benedict Cumberbatch doesn't do his best with aforementioned underwriten role. As does Colin Firth.

Much though I loved Polyakov's "I don't know why you're worried, you'll get a medal and a flat in Moscow, I'm the one that's going to be sent to Siberia", I really don't like how they did the reveal because they have no ratcheting tension, not the way they should be. It falls flat.

And let's not talk about how Prideaux gets to within far too close for that rifle distance of a government building buzzing with secret agents in broad daylight and shoots prisoner number one without anyone noticing.

But yes, it's well made, and it's not bad, but it's not good either.

Belgian Grand Prix

As I described in this post, I was going to put imaginary money on the fastest drivers after the Friday free practises, Saturday practise and qualifying to see which betting strategy would gain me the most money over the season.

Fastest Friday Practice	Price	Fastest Saturday Practice	Price	Fastest Qualifying	Price
Vettel	13/8	Vettel	7/4	Hamilton	9/4
Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.63	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.75	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1
Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£16.25	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£17.50	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10
Season Total £1 bets	£2.99	Season Total £1 bets	£11.70	Season Total £1 bets	£12.68
Season Total £10 bets	£30	Season Total £10 bets	£117	Season Total £10 bets	£126.83

Why I Am Dubious About Rush

First of all, I'd like to make a brief conflict of interest statement.  Until I was 5, I was brought up in Vienna so I come pre-programmed to like Niki Lauda.  My grandmother was very clear on that matter.  Mr. Lauda isn't my most favourite ever, that would be Gerhard Berger, but I am very fond of him.  Also, Lauda Air remain one of the few airlines to ever run a direct flight to Vienna from Manchester and served the best in-flight meal I ever had.

In short, I <3 Niki Lauda

So, many years ago, I start to hear rumours that a Hollywood director is thinking of making an F1 film.  And I'm not sure why they'd bother because we get really cool footage nowadays so there's not much they can add in technical terms, and I didn't think any given scriptwriter could come up with the same kind of emotional pull we get from real life.

Even when I heard Ron Howard was the director in question, I didn't really change my mind.  Ron Howard is a safe pair of hands and makes films that are lovely to look at but why bother?

The feeling of "why?" is increased when I find out that this film is going to be able the Hunt - Lauda rivalry.  There's already been several books and documentaries on the topic.  While James Hunt is sadly no longer with us, one of the participants is still around and still willing to talk about it.  What exactly is a fictionalised version of events going to add to what we already have?

I admit that part of my doubts are because it will be a Hollywood film where there is an Anglophone vs a German speaker and we all know how that usually goes down in Hollywood.  Add to that the nature of their personalities and you get a situation where, even if they paint in shades of grey, one guy is going to get the darker shades of grey and it's going to be the one I like.

I like Chris Hemsworth, don't get me wrong, but Daniel Brühl is not my idea of Niki Lauda.  And that's before we get started on, what, you couldn't find an Austrian actor for the role?  (Yes, I know Hemsworth isn't British either, but there are things I am more forgiving of.  Please see the conflict of interest statement.)

So yes, I have doubts about this film.

Hungarian Grand Prix

As I described in this post, I was going to put imaginary money on the fastest drivers after the Friday free practises, Saturday practise and qualifying to see which betting strategy would gain me the most money over the season.

Fastest Friday Practice	Price	Fastest Saturday Practice	Price	Fastest Qualifying	Price
Vettel	1/1	Grosjean	11/2	Hamilton	10/1
Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£11
Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£110
Season Total £1 bets	£1.37	Season Total £1 bets	£9.95	Season Total £1 bets	£13.68
Season Total £10 bets	£13.75	Season Total £10 bets	£99.50	Season Total £10 bets	£136.83

The German Grand Prix

As I described in this post, I was going to put imaginary money on the fastest drivers after the Friday free practises, Saturday practise and qualifying to see which betting strategy would gain me the most money over the season.  Sorry for not doing this for the British Grand Prix but I was a bit busy in Stratford watching As You Like It  (http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/as-you-like-it/) which I heartily, thoroughly and utterly recommend.

Fastest Friday Practice	Price	Fastest Saturday Practice	Price	Fastest Qualifying	Price
Vettel	11/8	Vettel	6/5	Hamilton	9/4
Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£2.37	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£2.2	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1
Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£23.75	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£22	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10
Season Total £1 bets	£2.37	Season Total £1 bets	£10.95	Season Total £1 bets	£2.68
Season Total £10 bets	£23.75	Season Total £10 bets	£109.50	Season Total £10 bets	£26.83

Canadian Grand Prix

As I described in this post, I was going to put imaginary money on the fastest drivers after the Friday free practises, Saturday practise and qualifying to see which betting strategy would gain me the most money over the season.

Fastest Friday Practice	Price	Fastest Saturday Practice	Price	Fastest Qualifying	Price
Alonso	9/4	Webber	14/1	Vettel	5/6
Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.83
Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£18.33
Season Total £1 bets	0	Season Total £1 bets	£8.75	Season Total £1 bets	£3.68
Season Total £10 bets	0	Season Total £10 bets	£87.50	Season Total £10 bets	£36.83