Sidepodcast

Friday Fun - Song Title Squeeze

Following on from last week's press release related game, something came out of that which covers today's Friday Fun as well.

All you have to do is pick a band, and then write your press release quotes, fitting in as many song titles as you can. Craft your press release well and they should fit in without anyone noticing.

Here's an example:

B*Witched

"It was not a good race out there today, a bit damp, but we can only Blame It On The Weatherman. I would have liked to win but C'est La Vie. When I crashed, it was pretty scary and I just thought oh, Jesse, Hold On.

I know you can do better.

Friday Fun - Things Not to Do in Press Releases

This week, Lotus introduced their brand new lineup, confirming Trulli and Kovalainen as their drivers and issued various press releases about their plans for the future. Unfortunately, the prose hideously misspelled Jim Clark's name, as well as mangling their own driver - Kovalainen. The comments were not impressed.

Alex had an excellent idea for this week's Friday Fun:

What not to do in F1 press releases

We already have spelling your driver names incorrectly, what else would you advise teams to try and avoid when it comes to issuing notes to the media?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments, and if you have an idea for a future Friday Fun topic, let me know via email: christine@sidepodcast.com.

Friday Fun - Create Your Own Press Release

It's Friday Fun time again, as we try and lighten the off season - something particularly important after the week we've just had! This time, I'd actually forgotten it was Friday, but thanks to a last minute idea from Lukeh in the comments, we have a game to play. Here's the premise:

Create your own press release. Choose a driver/s, choose an event, choose a consequence/action

This is a very interesting one as it can vary wildly from serious business to something rather ridiculous, and I know we're going to see some great responses.

For now, here's an example from me:

Press Release
Rockall 20.11.09.
Sidepodracers would like to confirm that they have signed their drivers for the 2010 season - Franck Montagny and Yun Zi - the baby panda.

Understandably, we have brought Franck in for his considerable expertise and epxerience, whereas we have gone for youth with Yun Zi. We are hoping to be able to train the panda up. Our only concern is the language barrier between our two drivers.

Yes, that really is our only concern.

End.

I'm sure you can all do much better than that, though, so I look forward to seeing plenty of press releases throughout the day. Get typing!

Daily: 13th December 2008

Not sure what to write really, nothing much happened today, did it? Oh yea, except for Max's small press release that has changed the entire future of Formula 1. There's so much to discuss that it really can't be covered in a small list. We've already been arguing the pros and cons of pit stops, what's next?

• Why are Renault getting special treatment? Have they already given next year's championship to Alonso?
• Alianora pointed out that the new engine rules aren't exactly clear. But that's hardly a surprise when it comes to the FIA, is it?
• Should we all go and work at F1 factories, if they get to have six weeks off a year? Make sure you don't accidentally apply for a job on the race team, though, as they're getting whittled down.
• The FIA are suggesting that market research is the way forward for any ideas that Max didn't think up, so Bernie's kindly put a poll on his site. The only answer is no, if you're in any doubt, click no. Just say no, people.

We're also in the midst of planning the live Sidepodparty for next week, so if you've got any ideas, head on over to the Wiki and pop 'em up there. See you in the comments.

F1 Digest - France GP

• Length: 10:05 
• Size: 9.3 MB 
• File: digest32.mp3 
• Transcript: digest32.pdf 
• Torrent: digest32.torrent 

It's been a while since the French GP has been eagerly anticipated, but with such a mixed up grid, today was one of those days. Tune in to F1 Digest for a recap of all the action, plus driver reactions.

The Race

A race of some serious fighting, Raikkonen battling his machinery, Hamilton trying to get through the traffic, Trulli holding off Kovalainen.

Conclusions

Whilst Honda and Force India seem to be feeling pretty low right now, Toyota and Toro Rosso are flying high. The others fall into various moods in between.

Mountains and Molehills

You can imagine that researching F1 Minute means I read a lot more news now than I used to. In fact, quite often, I'll be talking to the man and he won't know what I'm on about. Did you read that right? I'm ahead of him. Brilliant.

Anyway, I was browsing Autosport.com today, and saw the return of their traditional posts headed up Preview Quotes: #Team Name#. You know what that means, don't you? The season is truly coming back. I was excited, I may have even whooped out loud. But then I saw that Autosport didn't just have one post about the Previews. They'd managed to stretch it out to three posts.

I know this isn't unusual for Autosport, we've certainly picked up on it in the past. I know a lot of other bloggers find their site very frustrating. I've been giving them the benefit of the doubt, but it's starting to get a little bit ridiculous.

Talk about milking something for all it's worth - three stories out of a few questions on a single press release? We get these press releases sent to us too, and other than re-printing them, I can't think of a single story that's worth a whole page of it's own.