nebristolred

For what it's worth, I'm 99.9% certain The Churnups are Foo Fighters. Too much going in their favour for it to be anyone else. Thursday night in the SE Corner is looking great fun. Friday night is looking painful for clashes, could quite easily make a case for seeing Arctic Monkeys, Hot Chip and the Chems DJ set. Same for Sunday, would quite happily watch any of Elton, Phoenix or QOTSA. There's so much going on, an understated but really fun lineup. Glastonbury man... can't bloody wait.

So then.. Churnups anybody? ?

New Blur single just out, brilliant song imo. The guy is a machine.

That's a great pic, love the deckchairs!

Pretty much agree with everything above, and what makes it even worse is that by every conceivable metric F1 is actually doing brilliantly. Never has the sport been so prominent or made so much money. The problem is, a lot of it is superficial. Most of the new interest is sparked by a Netflix TV series that drums up tensions where they don't exist, that explicitly misleads the viewer by using team radio and camera clips from alternate races to portray a rivalry or argument that never actually happened, etc. So those coming in think it's great but actually are being mislead into believing complete untruths. It's not real racing. Once upon a time it was a genuine big prize (Grand Prix) - where the cars had genuine innovation and differences and the drivers were able to push to really show their talents. Today it's little more than a procession of moving billboards going at a fixed pace due to tyre management and in an almost pre-determined order. It's about as far from pure racing as you can get. F1 has definitely moved in the right direction with regard to fan involvement and media portrayal. If they can nail the actual racing somehow then it could be the best it's ever been, but at the moment it's really, really bad.

For reference. The cars are just obscenely large these days. I get that it's partially in the name of safety but there has to be a way around this. You watch any highlights or onboards from the late 90's and the cars look miniature.

The thing is here you're comparing dominating periods of cars as if they're equal, when they're quite clearly not. Firstly, for most of Hamilton's 6 titles with Mercedes he was at least in a Championship fight. In addition to the fight with other teams, you actually had a bit of beef between Hamilton and Rosberg who really wanted to go at each other, that was great, and most of the time the title wasn't decided after the first few races. None of that applies here, the title is already a foregone conclusion and the only 2 cars who might actually be able to fight at the front, are never allowed to do so. Secondly, the racing is dreadful, largely due to the regulations but also thanks to the cost cap, which while well intentioned, means it will be nigh on impossible to catch up to a leading car over a regulation period, let alone over a year. Combine the fact that it is extremely difficult for a team to catch up with the leading team who are refusing to race, you have a recipe for a dreadfully boring race. Then you have the size of the cars and the tracks. To be fair this is probably not hugely different to the Mercs period of dominance but it is certainly a factor. We have cars like buses which desperately need downsizing. You could almost forgive F1's use of some quite honestly dreadful tracks for racing (Bahrain, Miami, Monaco, Zandvoort, a few others produce very little) if the cars could actually physically overtake on most of these, but they just can't without a ridiculous pace advantage, which rarely comes up after qualifying. Finally, and yes this is arguably a bit biased, but it's also a bit tricky to enjoy when you have the main beneficiaries of this being a team that are about as unsportsmanlike and cocky as you can get, and pride themselves in being so, while having the most jumped up and arrogant driver leading them. There was no humility following the farce of Abu Dhabi 2021, no public commiserations for the rest given that they were cheated, just scummy behaviour. And that's forgetting the fact they cheated regarding the cost cap and now by coincidence are miles ahead of everyone. F1 was already on it's downward trend during the period of Merc dominance but this is without doubt a new low for F1, at least since the Schumacher years.

I can fully appreciate this, but whatever it was like, being in there for the Palace play-off game must have been pretty close. Carnage at times during that match next to the away fans. Only the United match has ever come close to that for me.

I'm gutted

When you have to completely invent things in your own head to back up your argument you’re probably not onto a winner here really are you?

Nicely explained.

But it's not 0.09% is it? If that is per horse per start, then over a whole career of 21 races that is 1.89%. And it could potentially be higher than that I believe?

So 0.09% chance, on any given race, for any given horse? So let's assume an average of 7 races a year (no idea how accurate that is btw), over 3 years. That becomes a roughly 1 in 68 chance of that horse dying, is that correct? If so, I'd say that's pretty ****ing horrific.

Where is this 0.09% stat from?

In a meet*. Either way, you don't believe that's animal cruelty now?

So 3 horses dying in a race isn't animal cruelty now?

Fair play, I thought you'd be more defensive over it but I always respect it when people actually accept that there is an element of hypocrisy or similar to it. For what it's worth, I can bang on about this as being helpful for the environment, but I fly everywhere, as you say, we are all hypocrites in one way or another. To be fair of all things I'd say this is the most obvious is it not? People like meat, they just want to eat it in a way that doesn't cause as much suffering. And as I've pointed out, vegetarians have to eat *something*. Eating vegetarian food will kill far fewer animals than eating meat, it's as simple as that. To be fair I think it's easy to turn a blind eye not for that reason, but because it's shielded from us. Right from birth, the whole idea that an animal goes through hell both in life and in being killed, that whole notion is hidden from us until we find it or until some vegetarian throws a video in our faces. And it shocks, as it should do. That doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye. And to be fair, some people think it's okay to eat meat, that's absolutely fine, they're entitled to. But I just struggle to see how they can say they care about animal welfare if they do, that's all. And it's just my perspective, nothing more.

You've made plenty of posts about 'animal welfare' including in the Kurt Zouma thread a while back and yet you eat animals who have been potentially gassed to death or had their throats slit and are therefore complicit in the absolute worst part of the entire idea of animal 'welfare'. That's what I struggle with. And I know I'm in the minority - but how can you post all about apparently caring for animals and then partake in that, and all the while keep a straight face? I've changed subject again and we should probably have another thread on it, but it just screams hypocrite to me. I just can't see how you conflate those 2 points of view. Apparently loving animals, but also being complicit in their horrible destruction on a weekly basis. And I wish I could understand it, because it would make my life a lot easier!

One thing I'd forgotten to mention, is that we've been told these horses are really looked after. The owners treat them like kings and really, really actually love them. So of course if racing were to stop there would be no issue with regard to them disappearing ?.

I know, but if it was, all of the points you make would still be there, presumably you would think they're not a problem then! 90% would be too high. But you think 150-200 per year is acceptable? Even though we could instantly remove nearly 90% of them by removing jumps?

So you don't really give a damn about the welfare of these horses anyway then. On that basis you'd have them running even if there was a 90% chance of dying as those problems would still be there - surely that can't be the case. Why don't you share your perspective?

It's small but not tiny. What's the number, something like 50 this year already isn't it? Removing jumps statistically would bring that down to just 6 or 7 killed at this point. Can anyone tell me a negative towards that, because I'm struggling to find one. That is an easy and workable solution that would get us 90% of the way there - would you be against that? Surely that is something that no one can be against? Or at least finding a way of making them far, far safer.

As much as I think using animals for any 'entertainment' purposes is wrong, I'm pretty pragmatic and I know that it is a) never attainable and b) not really wanted by the public overall. But what is key is the bit in bold. I completely agree there is an element of 'acceptable' risk. I just think we are way, way over that limit at the moment. The stats speak for themselves, a horse is 7 times more likely to die over jumps racing. As I said before, we could reduce 150 deaths per year to 20 by doing away with jumps - that is what we should be doing, or at least finding a compromise that does not harm them. There absolutely has to be a middle ground here. No one, and I mean no one, can pretend to abhor animal cruelty or really believe in the morals of the sport, while also supporting the very aspect of a race that ultimately responsible for nearly 90% of all deaths. There is no argument for that in this thread that I have seen that justifies that, other than 'I like horse racing and I like jumps'. If that is really someone's argument, then they don't *really* abhor animal cruelty as much as they pretend to imo. This compromise would bring the risk down and at least make it far closer to the 'acceptable' moral level. No sport is squeaky clean - but when F1 drivers were killing themselves every week in the 60's they had to change the rules. As a society, we are now valuing the lives of animals a little more (and quite rightly to, but not enough), to necessitate a similar sort of intervention imo.

I think it's quite clear that I'd be happy for them to be bred for reasons other than profiteering and a potentially horrendous death, yes. If we can't find a safe use for these horses then perhaps that says more about us than them. Doing away with jumps would reduce deaths by 80%, that would be a start. And you can still have your horses. As with most on your side of the argument though you are simply presenting a problem while presumably having zero intent to debate or answer the moral problem. Maybe you're happy seeing all of these horses killed.