*interrupt* Go and see best friend since childhood who I haven't seen for almost two months. Walk his dog with him. Show him unusual parts of Middlesbrough which we agree we hadn't seen before despite their closeness. He is impressed. Have reasonably good chat. Now in better mood.
The new qualifying system for Formula One is not quite the spectacle that it might be, though I can understand the reasoning behind it. It was strange to see so few commercial breaks on ITV during the qualifying session - and the breaks did occur were just filled with public information films, for there is so little demand for off-peak advertising at the moment. I do like the new theme tune and presentation package rather more than the old one, though.
The on-track action had a very experimental, trying-to-figure-out-what-we-can-do-with
Predictions for the season: hard to say, but I anticipate lots of rule-changing and tactical shenanigans. Back in 1998, I maintained a strictly-paper spread-betting account to see if I could notionally make a profit over the duration of the season; all told, I exactly broke even. My usual tactic was to sell one particular driver or "The Field", thus making a small profit if they did badly or a large loss if they did well. (It's a known tactic, though there were tales of someone losing tens of thousands using it in the Monaco GP when there were only four finishers.) In 1999, I had one notional bet for the season, buying Michael Schumacher's final points total (effectively an "over" bet on an under/over line). Sound theory, but that was the season where he broke his leg. I've been rather turned off sports betting, even only on paper, since then.
Two other good pieces of news: my blister from last week lost all its swelling over the last 2-3 days and has even split today. Also my favourite comedian, Tim Vine, will be playing at Middlesbrough Theatre about a quarter-mile away from here on June 11th. Today has improved a lot.
