Racing around Wembley

Back in 2007, I went with a group of friends to see the Race of Champions at Wembley Stadium. The event was really entertaining as seeing the world’s best drivers from different disciplines of motor racing, competing in evenly matched cars, around a figure-of-eight circuit was a real highlight to the end of the year.

So for 2008, I invited some more friends who have yet to experience this sporting event and even though I purchased cheaper tickets online, the view from our seats was better than the year before!

From our seating position, you can see all of the track and with the competition so close, the atmosphere made the event felt more like a football match than a racing contest.

Just like last year, Team Germany won the Nations Cup thanks to the driving talent of seven times Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher and Grand Prix sensational Sebastian Vettel. In the main event, it was world rally champion Sebastien Loeb who took the honours, but the Frenchman had to fight hard against David Coulthard in the final.

The recently retiree Formula One racer was in a real competitive mood and it was quite surreal to see DC challenging the likes of Loeb, Schumacher and (Carl) Edwards, as previous years Coulthard would have been knocked out in the very first round…

In addition, DC managed to damage his race car throughout the night, including his Red Bull Racing Formula One car! During his demo run, the Scotsman performed a  ‘doughnut’ but as he was spinning around creating lots of smoke and noise for his fans, the car was slowly edging closer towards the wall…The inevitable happened and I still remember the crowd reaction when the front wing got knocked off against the barriers!

Speaking of demonstrations, the pre-event promotional was the ‘man versus machine’ challenge with British Olympic winner Chris Hoy racing his bike around the track against British Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren. Unfortunately, due to the icy track conditions the organisers decided to cancel the event and instead put Chris and Lewis in an open-top Mercedes and perform a parade lap in front of home crowd. It was a real shame, as I wanted to see this duel but Chris had the last laugh as later that evening, the Olympic hero was made BBC Sports Personality of the Year, beating his rival Hamilton!

So a great day out at Wembley and I was pleased to hear that my friends loved every moment of it. The on-track entertainment certainly kept our enthusiasm up despite the winter cold and we look forward to attend the next Race of Champions.

Experience Goldfrapp for free!

Alison Goldfrapp

If you haven’t heard Alison Goldfrapp’s sensational singing voice, then here’s your opportunity to listen and download classic anthems for free – all thanks to The Guardian website.

The leading news website will feature a new track everyday for only this week to celebrate the release of the Seventh Tree Special Edition album, out on November 3rd.

I am a big fan of Goldfrapp. I’ve been to two live shows earlier this year and it was fantastic, in particular at the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank.

Why do I like Goldfrapp? I just love the different music styles. From the ambient sound in Felt Mountain (Alison’s distinctive breathy, soft vocals and Will Gregory’s multi-layered synthesizer and string arrangements is simply spellbinding!), through to electronic music in Black Cherry to a more glam rock sound in Supernature, and most recently to a blend of ambient, folk, and electronic in Seventh Tree.

I was quite jealous of my work colleagues last week as they had tickets to see a one-off performance at Cecil Sharp House in Camden. The show was recorded as part of the BBC Electric Proms and you can see why I was envious by watching the video and observing the many photographs with this dedicate website.

Feeling left out in missing the event, I immediately booked some tickets after an email dropped into my Google inbox with the news that the band will be playing in Brixton Academy next month. I’ve never been to Brixton Academy before and have heard that this venue is the best place to see live acts.

Funny enough as I write this post, I just received my tickets for the show in the mail today (October 29th). And with that note, it’s time to celebrate with this awesome theme tune!

A week in Germany

Berlin header image

My recent trip to Germany was a real eye-opener. I never seen so many fascinating places of interest, with its rich history and heritage, plus the difference in culture between the British and German was deeply interesting. I’ve managed to get by the language barrier as many Germans can speak English, so that was particular useful when ordering food!

I always wanted to visit the country since my sister lives and work there. My parents went earlier this year but I was unable to go due to the amount of work I had to do… I have made amends by suggesting to my mates to tag along by visiting Berlin (the capital city of Germany), Aschaffenburg (my sister’s home town) and Munich (for the Oktoberfest).

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A day out at the V Festival

Muse - Matt Bellamy
Picture: Andy Willsher

Last weekend, I went to Chelmsford (Essex) to attend the V Festival. I was feeling quite nervous that the wet British weather might spoil the event but in the end, it stayed dry with the sun just breaking out from the clouds.

The highlight of course was Muse. I still remember fondly the sell-out gig at Wembley last year and I was feeling pretty devastated when I missed out on the opportunity to see this fantastic band performing live at the Royal Albert Hall in London recently. (All the tickets were sold out within minutes!)

So I made amends by grabbing hold of those elusive V Festival tickets post-haste. I went for the Saturday only ticket but in hindsight, I should’ve gone for the weekend. That way, I get to see Muse performing twice!

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Goldfrapp at the Royal Festival Hall

Goldfrapp Seventh Tree

Two years ago, I attended a charity gig to see Goldfrapp performing at the majestic Royal Albert Hall and it was a stunning night. Fast-forward to this year and with the group’s latest album Seventh Tree doing well in the music charts, it was a great pleasure to experience the wonderful and cool sounds from the talented Alison Goldfrapp live in the Southbank.

Even though there was a problem with bad sound at the Royal Festival Hall, it was a fantastic night out to see Goldfrapp performing a range of great tracks close up – I had a great seat at the front row.

From the crowd favourite and clubbed-up powerhouse that is ‘Strict Machine’ to the sublime and provocative ‘Paper Bag’, Alison was on fine form entertaining the crowd with great enthusiasm. The highlight was of course ‘Happiness’ and each member of the audience was given a kazoo to play along!

Finally got a PlayStation 3

PS3 GT5P

Back in March 2007, I posted on my blog that I wasn’t that interested in the PlayStation 3 as it was too expensive and didn’t have that many games. Well, after a year of waiting for the price cut and a certain “real driving simulation”, I have finally purchased the new Sony game console.

Sure, it doesn’t support the backwards compatibility to play PlayStation 2 games like Okami, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, but at least I didn’t have to pay over £400 to buy this advance machine. Okay, it has a smaller hard drive than the 60GB model – that can also play PS2 games – but I feel I made a wise choice in buying one as there are some decent quality titles coming out on this system in 2008.

The first of which is Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. It maybe a demo offering a slight glimpse of what the real game will be like with hundreds of car manufacturers, real race tracks from around the world and at last, damage mode – but the fact that this game showcase the potential of the PS3 with high definition visuals and sound means I am genuinely excited by this next gen video game console.

The PlayStation 3 uses the Blu-ray disc media that is now the definitive choice for high definition viewing – though I won’t be spending my cash on purchasing the same films to have a rich and nice display.

I believe Konami’s tactical espionage action game that is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of Patriots will be the biggest hit for the PS3. From scanning those stunning screenshots and digesting every bit of information about Hideo Kojima’s stealth-based video game, I am genuine excited to play it.

For the time being, I will make do with the racing games I got for the system with the likes of Formula One Championship Edition and MotorStorm to fulfil my need for speed.

Autosport International 2008

Autosport Show 2008

A new year means another visit to the Birmingham’s NEC for the annual trip to the biggest motor racing show, the Autosport International.

The main highlight was the 50th anniversary of the British Touring Car Championship. Seeing the many ‘tin top’ racing cars up close was a real treat, especially the dominate Vauxhalls of the late 90s but I was slightly disappointed not to see the sinister black Ford Sierra that dominate the series in the mid 80s.

Another high point was the Colin McRae tribute stand, featuring an impressive collection of rally cars. Observing all these vehicles that the 1995 World Rally Champion drove throughout his career was highly emotional and it is still a shock that the popular Scot is no longer with us.

The Live Action Arena was extended with more racing action from the likes of Formula Palmer Audis, stockcars and new to the show, dragsters. These straight-line accelerating monsters sounded great in particular the 1953 Studebaker. I was amazed how much tire smoke it produces as the whole arena vibrated to its powerful engine (not to mention going deaf)!

As for the Formula One grid, it was fascinating to see the 2007 single-seater cars up close and personal. The chrome McLaren is simply gorgeous while the ‘earth’ theme Honda didn’t… This year’s Autosport International also included an extra feature, the Pistol Head performance car show and to be honest, I wasn’t a fan, Sure it was nice to see exotic supercars from the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche, but it felt like I stepped into Max Power world… And it didn’t help that the promo girls were wearing less (on second thoughts, that’s a good thing!).

At the end of an exhausting and long day, we left with a range of photographs stored on our digital cameras and fantastic memories of racing cars and stars.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

Guitar Hero III Slash

After playing both version of Guitar Hero II on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 to death, it’s nice to experience a new set list of rockin’ tracks with the latest instalment of the popular music rhythm game.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock has been developed by Neversoft after Activision decided to focus its attention on creating a brand new music game – the quite superb Rock Band (which is currently available in the States). Even though the game play to Guitar Hero III is identical to the previous titles, it some how feels different…

Yes, you still need to play through the different tracks by pressing the five colour fret buttons with the unique guitar controller but new to Guitar Hero III is the boss battle mode. To be honest, I really despise this new game play element as the balance between winning and losing is so random…

Okay its great to face-off legendary guitarists like Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave), Slash (of Guns N’ Roses/Slash’s Snakepit/Velvet Revolver) and Bret Michaels (of Poison) but you have to rely on sheer good fortune to take victory.

To defeat your opponent, you will need to pick up Battle Power (which replaces Star Power) to earn attacks. By using this special ability, you can strike against your fellow competitor just by tilting the guitar upwards. It may seem fun to keep on attacking but they can fight back – causing missed notes, increase in difficulty and even amp overload!

As for the visuals, the set designs and animation of the band members feels more realistic. In fact the lip sync on the singer matches the voices coming out of his mouth!

The track listing is now full of master recording from the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Smashing Pumpkins, Muse, Metallica and The Sex Pistols. It all sounds fantastic, a massive improvement over the cover versions that were featured in the previous Guitar Heroes.

And with the new wireless guitar – based on a real Gibson Les Paul model – playing the tracks is a more rewarding experience. What a shame that the boss battle seems misplace after all the fun playing encores… At least the new controller has a better responding whammy bar and is a lot more comfortable compare to X-plorer…

Race of Champions comes to Wembley

Race of Champions 2007 Wembley

After hosting the traditional end-of-season motor sport event in Paris at the State de France for three years, the organisers of the Race of Champions (Michèle Mouton and Fredrik Johnson) decided to change venue for 2007.

It may have been years behind schedule and cost a huge amount of resources to construct, but the new Wembley Stadium in North London was a truly impressive sight when racing cars took central stage.

Back in 2004, when I went to Paris to attend my first Race of Champions I was amazed by the quality of racing from the best drivers from the world of Formula One, rallying, touring cars and single-seaters. The atmosphere – with the fans cheering on their favourite drivers as they tear around the figure-of-eight circuit with tyre smoke – was electric! And when the news came through regarding the event coming to London, I wanted my friends to come along and experience it themselves!

I invited some good friends from the TokyoToys forum who are interested in motor racing. Even though Ashlea, Chris and Michael couldn’t afford the tickets (and to be honest, it was expensive) I was more than happy to pair for them. In fact, it was my special Christmas treat to make them attend the event!

On the day, I meet up with Yas at Baker Street tube station to have a spot of lunch with other TT members. We had a nice Italian meal in a nearby restaurant and it was quite amusing to see the waitress cutting some slices into Amy’s pizza, as she was having trouble with her blunt knife!

After eating, we made our way to Wembley by taking a direct (and very fast) route on the Metropolitan line. After stepping out of the tube station, the first sight you see is the impressive spanning archway over Wembley Stadium.

Chris was running late at this point so we agree to meet him at the entrance point. He finally arrived some time later and we our way in and towards our stand. Initially, I was worried that the seating arrangement at the far end of the stadium wouldn’t offer any good views but when we got to our seats, we had a spectacular vantage point overlooking the figure-of-eight race track!

The event was highly entertaining despite the harsh winter winds! We were absolutely freezing our arses off but the track activities kept our spirits warm.

Double DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom won the main Race of Champions after beating the seven-times Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher in a series of tense heats. But Michael had the last laugh as Team Germany won the Nations Cup with fellow colleague Sebastian Vettel.

The most amusing moment in the Race of Champions was when Schumacher stalled on the start and finish line! Michael was even overtaken on the track by new McLaren signing Heikki Kovalainen. This was the high point for the Finn as he would later crashed out in spectacular fashion in a dramatic race with Andy Priaulx.

After the fun day out, we all made our own way home and once back, I was happy to see the many photographs and videos posted on Facebook by the others! Reading the various comments on that popular socialising website, everyone was ecstatic about the event and Yas in particular was looking forward to attending the event next year. For Michael, he was fond to see his idol Schumacher racing while Ashlea and Chris enjoyed the whole experience. Same time next year everyone?

Heroes Volume 2 review

Heroes Season 2 cast

After eleven episodes Volume 2 of Heroes is now over and due to the writer strike, it is unclear whether Volume 3 will re-commence. In the meantime, I can reflect back on the past season of Heroes (warning: contains spoilers).

The first volume was nothing short of spectacular with fascinating characters and exciting storylines that became the show to watch on television. It is not surprising how popular it became after twenty-three nail biting episodes, that you would expect the following season to continue this thrilling drama.

Unfortunately, the hype of Heroes means fans were expecting too much. We wanted more action sequences and another face-off with Peter versus Sylar. Instead we got a slow start with a couple of quite frankly, tedious episodes in Volume 2.

The first episode introduces a set of new characters including Maya, Alejandro, West, Monica, Adam, Elle and Bob. Immediately I wasn’t a fan of the so-called ‘Wonder Twins’ a.k.a. Maya and Alejandro. Maya’s special ability was her ‘tears of doom’ in which people around her will drop dead whenever she cries… To reverse the effect (and make everyone around her back alive), twin brother Alejandro can heal by holding her hand.

Claire Bear’s new boyfriend (West) was also annoying. Yes, he fancy the former cheerleader by hiding in the trees ‘admiring’ her but the whole romance sequences between the pair made this part of the show feel like a teen drama – something straight out of The O.C.

As for Monica, she was kind of cool with a unique ability in replicating any physical motion after watching it. But I found it infuriating that she didn’t watch enough videos on her iPod to escape from that thug who caught her trying to retrieve back Micah’s comic books. That resulted in Niki coming to the rescue but dying in a fireball…

Adam Monroe/Takezo Kensei on the other hand was a revelation. He turns out to be the main villain who wants to unleash the Shanti virus on the world. David Anders plays this character so well (he was also a bad guy on spy drama Alias) and I enjoy the way he manipulating both Hiro and Peter that he was doing the right thing. Silly Heroes!

As for Elle, at first I thought she was a bitch! Kristen Bell played the girl with the ability to throw balls of electricity straight out of her hands. She killed Peter’s Irish girlfriend’s brother by frying him! In the final episode, she turns to the good side by helping to capture Sylar to please her father Bob.

Bob is the head of The Company in which both Noah and Mohinder try to bring down. Working under cover the doctor was easily influence by Bob by believing that he was doing the right thing by creating a cure for the deadly virus. But it turns out to be the other effect…

As for the regular characters, they still play a part in the series but I was shocked in how stupid they became! Volume 2 was titled ‘Generations’ but it should be renamed as ‘Gullible’ as Peter, Mohinder, Claire and Hiro simple lack any brain cells between them! You wanted to scream in frustration and I still can’t forgive Dr. Suresh shooting Noah in the eye(!) just because he doesn’t know whom to trust… Of course, The Company exploiting him, but I thought Noah was on your side so you just shoot him instead?

Matt Parkman was the only character that had an interesting storyline with a progression in his power to read people’s mind. He used this to his advantage in trapping his own father after experiencing first handily in a mindf*** episode (Fight or Flight).

And the re-introduction of D.L. in one episode (Four Months Ago…) and then killing him off some minutes later was a waste. What was the point in bringing Niki’s husband back? In addition, the whole New Orleans storyline involving Micah and Monica was weak. Saving a bunch of comic books (and a medal) was more important than saving 93% of the world’s population? Oh, please(!)

As for Sylar, it was frustrating that he only got his power back in the final episode (Powerless) after injecting himself with Claire Bear’s blood. I like how he runs around decapitating people head’s off to absorb their power in season 1. Here in season 2, he spent most of his time flirting with ‘tears of doom’!

But the moment that annoyed me the most was when he was isolated in the middle of nowhere after killing that shape-shifting woman. In the following episode he was lying unconscious in the middle of the road… How did he get there?!

But the biggest annoyance was Peter Petrelli. He was by far the best character on the show. Peter has the ability to fly, can generate nuclear in his hands, travel through time and be able to walk through walls and yet, if only his brain was functioning a bit more, he could have prevented the destruction of the world by using a bit of common sense… Plus, whatever happened to his Irish girlfriend? She doesn’t exist in the present because she was capture in the future…

And what about Hiro – the fans favourite? Well, the loveable Japanese geek was stuck in ancient Japan trying to help out the great Takezo Kensei in becoming a hero. He eventually returns to the present time to stop Kensei – now Adam – in destroying the world!

In conclusion, season 2 wasn’t on par with the first season. The fact that the writer’s strike is still ongoing reveal how poorly constructed these eleven episodes were. It felt rushed and the second half of the season began to hit it stride, before it ended prematurely… Even Tim Kring, the series creator, admitted he should have focus the virus storyline quicker into Volume 2 than introducing a love story for Claire and West and a host of new characters like Maya and Alejandro.

Volume 3: Villains will be interesting. Can Heroes regain its form by providing more shocking moments? I hope so as still one of the most entertaining television shows around. Plus I do fancy Claire being indestructible and the return of the evil Sylar!