F1 was back Sunday after a 3-week hiatus as the European section of the schedule began in Spain. Who would come out on top in Barcelona? Come with me below the fold to find out…
F1 Grand Prix of Spain — Qualifying results
No point in putting it below the fold at this late date and no time to go into detail…
Hamilton earns another Pole as unstoppable Silver Arrows lock out front row with Rosberg 2nd; Ricciardo carries Red Bull hopes at 3rd
Complete coverage for the 3 rounds of Qualifying here via F1.com.
Top 10 Qualifiers for the Spanish Grand Prix below:
| Pos | No | Driver | Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:27.238 | 1:26.210 | 1:25.232 | 16 |
| 2 | 6 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:26.764 | 1:26.088 | 1:25.400 | 19 |
| 3 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 1:28.053 | 1:26.613 | 1:26.285 | 16 |
| 4 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Mercedes | 1:28.198 | 1:27.563 | 1:26.632 | 17 |
| 5 | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault | 1:28.472 | 1:27.258 | 1:26.960 | 18 |
| 6 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 1:28.308 | 1:27.335 | 1:27.104 | 18 |
| 7 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1:28.329 | 1:27.602 | 1:27.140 | 16 |
| 8 | 22 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1:28.279 | 1:27.570 | 1:27.335 | 18 |
| 9 | 19 | Felipe Massa | Williams-Mercedes | 1:28.061 | 1:27.016 | 1:27.402 | 16 |
| 10 | 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 1:27.958 | 1:27.052 | No time | 11 |
Complete Qualifying results here at Formula1.com.
The race can be seen live tomorrow morning at 7:30am Eastern on NBCSports channel here in the States.
tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — May Selection
Got another cool vintage beauty on offer this month: a 1960s Eterna-Matic KonTiki 20 with stunning blue dial. These Kontiki 20s with classic tapered lug case are terrific value for money: all-stainless steel case with screw down crown & back, good size at 37mm and high grade ETA-based automatic movement with Eterna’s own patented 5 ball bearing rotor mount (hence their logo) and date complication. This example even comes with its original hard-to-find brick link bracelet. All that for well under $1000 bucks? Adds up to an affordable and rugged watch that is frankly still undervalued and represents maximum vintage style for not a lot of money.
What we’re wearing this Spring/Summer — Timberland Earthkeepers Hookset Slip Ons
At last the warm weather has arrived to the New York Metropolitan Area! (Well warmer anyway… but dammit, it’s sure to come.) And that means it’s time to think about Spring & Summer footwear after a long winter of being trapped in heavy boots and wool socks. One of the most comfortable casual light duty slip ons we’ve found comes from Timberland, which has branched out from their all boots, all the time image and come up with an impressive and fashionable variety of lighter canvas-based designs. Their Earthkeepers Hookset Handcrafted Slip Ons were made for warm nights on the beach and casual dining and bar hopping al fresco.
With a variety of expressive, washed canvas colors and a reasonable $75 price tag, the Hookset continues the Earthkeepers line’s original concept of utilizing sustainable and recycled materials to make up as much of their shoes as possible. So you can actually feel good about purchasing more than one pair to suit your different outfits because the canvas that makes up the body of the shoe is certified organic natural fiber and the sole and footbed is made of natural slip-resistant latex.
Now that virtuous manufacturing is all well and good but these Hookset Handcrafted Slip Ons are also mega comfortable and just as cushy on the concrete as on the dunes. They breathe well and they feel good with or without socks. Looking good, feeling good and doing good? That’s a win-win-win for these cool shoes.
You can peruse & purchase the entire Earthkeepers line at Timberland.com and also find the Hooksets at a discount through Amazon Prime
What we’re listening to — Big Country
In the wake of U2’s burgeoning success in the early 1980s, a small Celtic music invasion took British and American radio by storm. With their unabashed passion, politics and anthemic rock, it was as if Bono and the boys pointed the way for other British Islanders to follow their road to success by bucking the synth-pop trend. Of course, U2 proved to have the staying power and artistic innovation that bands like The Alarm and The Waterboys could only dream of.
Arguably the “best of the rest” behind the Dublin superstars was the Scottish quartet, Big Country. Fronted by gifted songwriter, singer and guitarist Stuart Adamson, the band also featured the outstanding bassist Tony Butler, as well as second guitarist Bruce Watson and Mark Brzezicki on drums. After quickly building their reputation by opening for the Jam on their farewell tour, the band found near-instant success in 1983 with their debut album, The Crossing. With their trademark sound of chiming, almost piper-like guitars, soaring, declarative vocals and rock solid rhythm, their namesake single “In a Big Country” quickly became ubiquitous even as it went seriously against the grain of both the Depeche Mode/New Order/Cure style of dark electronica then dominating the Alternative airwaves and the slick, synthy, MTV-ready fare that Tears for Fears and Duran Duran were having such Pop success with. Nonetheless, The Crossing was a critical and popular hit, going platinum in England and gold in the States. Everyone seemed to agree that U2 had real competition for world’s best Celtic rock band. And with songs like “Chance”, about a love affair that ends only with unwanted children, Adamson proved himself a master of nuanced, evocative narrative balladry in addition to his beloved anthems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2mn8cTyWzQ
The band followed up with the excellent EP, Wonderland — the impassioned title track wound up being one of the best songs they ever recorded. Continue reading
Art Notebook – The Wilton Diptych
For a while now, I’ve been meaning to write a bit about specific artworks and artists I think highly of, and I thought I’d start this new series with my favourite artwork of all time, The Wilton Diptych. Only about 21 inches x 14.5 inches in size when opened for display, but radiant well beyond its size, the work is actually a folding “portable” altarpiece comprising 4 paintings in total. The two paintings on the inside make up one continuous picture (the “diptych” referred to in its title), while the final two paintings serve as decoration for the front and back “covers” of the work. Most likely painted at the end of the 14th century (circa 1395-1399), the work was created for King Richard II of England around the time he was about 11 years old.
Done in gold leaf and tempera on two oak panels, the diptych is an stellar example of pretty much every aspect of art-making. The draftsmanship, brushwork, craftwork with the gold, and execution of detail are all mind blowing. The inside panels depict a young King Richard being presented to The Virgin Mary and Child, surrounded by angels. On the left we see Richard kneeling, surrounded by his presenters John the Baptist, Edward the Confessor, and Edmund the Martyr (I admit I had to look him up). On the right hand side, we see the Virgin holding the Child in her hands as he appears to reach out to Richard, the two of them surrounded by angels. The outside panels show coats of Arms on one side, and a white hart (stag) on the other. This last panel is my personal favourite, The white stag (Richards symbol) sits on a field of black grass. He wears a collar of gold (actually just an unpainted negative space) that blends into the gold leaf background, as do the delicately painted horns on his head. After seeing every major museum in the world, this panel is still hands down my favourite.
When I first saw the Wilton Diptych, medieval art and religious art weren’t my default favourites, and I think that’s what really got me about this piece. Like all masterpieces, it’s so beautiful that it transcends any intent or ideology that went into making it, and even its own physical nature as an object, and becomes a completely self-defining thing. A sum much greater than the whole of its parts.
Another kind of cool thing about the Wilton Diptych is that nobody knows who painted it. People sometimes attribute it to “The Wilton Master”, but no one knows who that is. Based on it’s stylistic characteristics, it’s generally thought the artist was French, and that he perhaps had experience working with illuminated manuscripts, due to the intricacy of the detail and the gold work. Some people are also confused by the name, which has nothing to do with Richard the II. The Wilton Diptych gets it’s name from the Wilton House in Wiltshire (home to the Earls of Pembroke for centuries), where it spent a large portion of it’s life before being purchased by the National Gallery in 1929, but it’s history is much deeper than that. If you’d like to read about the panel in great detail, the best place to find all of the info is actually here on Wikipedia. And of course, you can still find this tiny masterpiece sitting deep inside the National Gallery in London, waiting for you to come and check it out. It’s worth a trip to London just to see it in person.
Gorgeous Lady of the Week — MyAnna Buring
Yet another Swedish beauty, although this time by way of England, you may not know MyAnna Buring‘s name yet but you’ve probably seen her elven visage on several of BBC-TV’s & BBC America’s most popular shows. The 34-year-old MyAnna was born in Sweden but was raised primarily in the Middle East before immigrating to Great Britain at the age of 16. After graduating from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, she had her first big role on a 2-part episode of Doctor Who in 2006.
Thereafter, she alternated theater work with English television roles on shows such as Midsommer Murders and Inspector George Gently. Her international breakthrough came in the omnipresent tween blockbuster series, Twilight, where she appeared amongst the vamipres and wearwolves as the reformed succubus, Tanya, in Breaking Dawn, Parts 1 & 2.
After that popular success, MyAnna had a banner year in 2012. She landed a featured part on the runaway hit, Downton Abbey, as the striving, social climbing maid Edna Braithwaite who uses her sexual wiles on widower Tom Branson in an attempt to climb above her station. And she also won the principal role of the alluring but tough-as-nails brothel madame, Long Susan, on the excellent 19th-century crime drama, Ripper Street. In this latter role, the pixie-sized Ms. Buring uses her beauty and fierce unsentimental intelligence to dominate both men and women to further her ambitions. Are we sensing a pattern here?
She is slated to be one of the leads in BBC’s new period series, Banished, currently in pre-production for a 2015 debut and intruiguingly set in Australia during the 1700s as England established its penal colony on that continent. We can only hope that despite her indisputable success on British TV that she will continue to grace us with her beauty on more projects here across the pond. It seems decidedly unfair of the BBC to keep such luminous natural beauty all to itself. In short, may we have some more MyAnna, please?
Documentary view — The Last Gladiators
Since it’s that ultra-exciting time of year known as the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs, it seems fitting that we take a look at Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney‘s 2011 documentary, The Last Gladiators. This compelling and viscerally satisfying examination of hockey’s most feared enforcers is also a paradox, serving as both cautionary tale and celebration of professional hockey’s unique culture of acceptable violence and the men who best practice it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y9i9RxX7Qw
With unprecedented access to the toughest men to play the game, Gladiators’ main focus eventually settles on Chris “Knuckles” Nilan, a hard-nosed kid from Boston whose NHL dream came true as a beloved character on the 1986 Stanley Cup-winning Montreal Canadiens, the NHL equivalent of the New York Yankees. With relentless bravado and aggression, Nilan stepped into the fray to defend his more skilled teammates from other teams’ taking liberties, the key function of the enforcer, and went toe-to-toe with the toughest guys of his era. Craving validation as more than just a goon, Nilan even scored 21 goals in his best season under legendary coach Jacques Lemaire. But as it does with many athletes, Nilan’s career slowly declined due to injuries and, after a decent stint with the New York Rangers, petered out unhappily with his hometown Boston Bruins, where the the former Canadien was viewed with deep ambivalence.
The fascinatingly complex star of the film’s many present day interviews and great historical clips, the older Nilan comes across as extremely intelligent, self-aware and still quite cocky. Continue reading
tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — April Selection, Pt. II
OK, so I found something else to offer this month after all. And boy, is it a beauty — a classic 1967 Breitling Navitimer with gold plated case/steel back and beautiful original “Twin Jet” dial. Very hard to find this iconic pilot’s chronograph in such nice all-original condition, as these dials are prone to moisture damage from dodgy water resistance.
What we’re listening to today — No Expectations by The Rolling Stones and Johnny Cash
It’s amazing how a great song can be interpreted by two major artists and be turned into two diametrically opposed versions that are still fantastic in their own way. Take “No Expectations”, originally recorded by the Rolling Stones in 1968 for their Beggars Banquet album. This Jagger-Richards gem is conceived as a slow, mournful Robert Johnson-like ballad — Jagger called Brian Jones’ weeping slide guitar his last meaningful contribution to the band. So the bluesy melancholy of “Expecations” takes on even more layers knowing that Jones would soon depart the Stones and, shortly thereafter, this earth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rIqBeMZAMc
Now fast forward 10 years to 1978 and the Johnny Cash cover of the same tune. One of the standouts on the grab bag of an album Gone Girl, where the liner notes admit that Cash was anxiously trying to come up with enough tracks to fill it, “No Expectations” is reborn as a hopped up Rockabilly travelin’ song.
With a vibrant live feel, chugging bongo beat and the glorious June Carter Cash backing up her man, the song is virtually unrecognizable save the lyrics. But within those profound lyrics of loss and resignation, the two versions point the way to differing ways of dealing with heartache. For the Stones it’s wallowing in the misery and ever so slowly coming to grips. For Cash it’s admitting defeat and getting the hell out of town ASAP. One great tune with two great versions to fit whichever way you feel like leaving those mean ol’ blues behind.
