I have just read on the BBC website (as most of these blog entries tend to start) about Michael Parkinson’s comments about the media treatment of Jade Goody. The former talk show host went on to say that the media treated her badly; using and manipulating her. What I say is “if you don’t want to be in the public eye, they don’t put yourself out there”. She used her fame or maybe I should say infamy to her own advantage making lots of money from publishing deals, TV shows and more. She has no-one to blame but herself, maybe if she conducted herself better then maybe the press wouldn’t have given her such a hard time. Take for example when she appeared in celebrity Big Brother and racially abused Shilpa Shetty calling her Shilpa Poppadum because of her Indian heritage. Goody was always in the headlines for some high profile act of stupidity, If you choose to be in the public eye then expect to be ridiculed for being a dumbass. Personally I would have preferred to not have her polluting the airwaves and newspapers but unfortunately I don’t choose who is famous or not! She was famous for the wrong reasons and frankly it was her choice, no-one forced her to enter Big Brother and no-one forced her to do all the things that made her hit the headlines on a regular basis. That may sound harsh but that’s the reality of the situation, she exploited the media as much as it exploited her!
In Formula 1, McLaren have been summoned to appear before the World Motorsport Council on April 29th facing charges of lying to officials in Australia. McLaren are treading on thin ice right now, the Woking based squad need to keep their head down instead of courting controversy after the spygate saga in 2007. McLaren took a step in the right direction by firing Dave Ryan, the man that caused this issue in the first place. Teams really don’t need liabilities like that on their payroll! The FIA (Max Mosley) and Bernie Ecclestone have come under fire (what’s new eh?) for changing the start times of Grand Prix to later in the day to suit European audiences. The races in Australia and Malaysia has been dominated by drivers and teams criticising the late starts because of the setting sun making driving very difficult. In the case of Malaysia the massive thunderstorm that caused the race to be abandoned; which would have been avoided if the race has started at it’s usual start time of 2pm local time. Races have always started at 2pm local time regardless of time zone. The phrase “if it aint broke, why fix it?” springs to mind… I’ll say it again, Bernie and Max need to leave Formula 1, not that it’s likely to happen soon!