It has taken about two weeks but Phoenix Live is officially dead, 1&1 have finally detagged phoenixlivegalleries.co.uk, so that’s the end of that era. Still waiting on phoenixlivegalleries.com to be ‘expired’ as dot com domains are notoriously complicated in their procedures, so I expect that to take another couple of week. I decided to make use of the domain I decided to keep and put up a forum for the local music community as the main site seems to be neglected to the point of no return and their forum, which was the only active part of the site has been down with a database error for more than a week, so I assume the owners have lost interest! Anyway, the site plymouthmusicscene.co.uk is up and running now if you want a look, but probably won’t be of interest if you don’t live in or regularly travel to Plymouth for music events. Not sure whether it will be a success or not, but it’s better than having a domain that is sitting there gathering dust!
In Formula One, Kimi Raikonnen has been unlucky again as his car failed while leading the German grand prix; handing victory to title rival Fernando Alonso. The Finn has admitted that winning the title this year is unlikely now as he has a deficit of 36 points, with only seven races and 70 points available, that coupled with the bulletproof reliability of the Renault will make it almost impossible to score enough points to wrestle the title from the grasp of the Spaniard. There was some consolation for McLaren as their second driver Juan Pablo Montoya who stormed from the back of the grid to finish in second spot ahead of Britain’s Jenson Button, who managed an impressive 3rd, which could have been second if it wasn’t for being stuck behind Michael Schumacher [who finished the race in 5th] for so many laps, but a good result non-the-less. The second Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella finished in 4th, while Ralf Schumacher brought his Toyota home in 6th behind his brother Michael. David Couthard finished a solid days work in 7th place, which is the best he could have expected, although he didn’t see it that way, he expected to be higher up at the finish. The final place was taken up with Sauber’s Felipe Massa to register seven different teams finishing in the points, which doesn’t happen very often these days. Although I don’t like the new FIA rules, they have certainly shaken things up with Williams and notably Ferrari struggling this season, and McLaren and Renualt being the ones to beat this season, certainly a switch from last seasons form, no more Schumacher dominance!