Charles John Huffam Dickens, FRSA (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was the foremost English novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous social campaigner.
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.”
Like Michael Schumacher and probably now Sebastian Vettel, Dickens was either loved or despised.
Henry James when reviewing Dickens work and his place amongst the greats had this to say, “The greatest of superficial novelists… It were, in our opinion, an offense against humanity to place Mr Dickens among the greatest novelists”.
Franz Kafka remarked, “There is a heartlessness behind his sentimentally overflowing style”.
George Orwell described Dickens talent as follows, “Dickens seems to have succeeded in attacking everybody and antagonizing nobody”.
Anyway one of my all time favourite novels which I first read as a boy and was enthralled was ‘A Tale of two cities’. Having penned a post Malasia GP review entitled, ‘a tale of two teams’ this drove my thoughts to the opening stanza of this classical work. It appears to form an appropriate narrative to some of the amusing pictures inspired by the 2013 F1 race in Sepang. Enjoy.
“There were a king with a large jaw…”
D. Coulthard
who is, “the queen with the plain face” then 😉
Suzi Perry
Britney.
Wasn’t that the ‘bald’ head?
Food for thought:
Imagine you are a team boss or owner. You invest millions upon millions in your team. You head hunt the absolute best brains in the business to design your car and manage your team. You have 2 drivers that are finally, after 4 years of Cold War, at each others throats.
One is a 25year old prodigy. Has 27 wins and countless poles in just over a century of GP’s. He has been your lead pts contributor for 4 years straight and won all 3 WDC’s you car could win. This guy is considered one of the fastest drivers over a lap on the planet. His race craft is up there also. Designers can be sure nothing is left on the table when they have this young kid. Oh yeah, he hates losing and will take any opportunity to win.
The other is a bitter driver in his late 30′s. He has 2 weekends a year where he is unbeatable. He is public about anything and everything he feels might be a slight on him, even if he also perpetrates similar crimes against the team. He is high maintenance to say the least and plays the media against his own team.
What would you do. Who would you secure and foster?
I know what I’d do.
What would Charles Dickens have done – I wonder?
Blackmail the kid into signing a contract until end of 2016 or punish him!
“I know what I’d do.”
Yes, I know what I’s do: not give team orders to the 25 year old prodigy over whom you have no power, and which are bound to result in you being shown up to the world as an ineffective powerless team manager who is certainly known to be good at one thing – talking bull.
Flavio Briatore sum it up well:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/106393
“Their car is very competitive so drivers want to stay there, but [Sepang] was proof that no one is in charge at Red Bull.”
“Vettel is the boss there.”
“If there was a manager with balls, he would have had them switch positions again,” said Briatore.
“Christian didn’t even have the strength to get on the podium – because they’re terrified with a driver in charge instead of the team manager. “
Let me put it another way.
Imagine you’re a team boss and your prodigy that’s been carrying you to 3 consecutive double titles, messes up his strategy call and comes up behind your no 2. The Mercs look really competitive and you’re also worried about tyre degradation given what happened in the last race to your prodigy’s car. At that point you decide that after that last pit stops, the two drivers hold station to bring the car homes, because the Mercs might challenge and your tyres might go off given the last race experience.
So in such a scenario, the team orders make sense. The mistake wasn’t so much whether they should have taken the team order decision or not, the mistake was to not reenforce them, to stab the team’s authority and not being showed up as ineffective management.
I was thinking a bit more poetically
With apologies to WCW
This Is Just to Say
I have taken
the checkers
that were in
Malaysia
in which
you were probably
hoping
for victory
Forgive me
it was delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Such erudite readers at TJ13 🙂