F1 Launch Week
In which I look at pretty colors on race cars, plus look forward to talking about words and things.
The 2024 Formula One season will mark my 50th year of following the sport.
Back in those days, it was normal for car designs to last for several years, and the team identities in terms of color schemes and liveries would hardly change either. But as the years have gone by and the technical regulations have tightened up, for both safety and to promote closer competition, the drive to be competitive has meant new cars each year, and the changing commercial landscape often means new sponsors, and sometimes rebranded team names.
In today’s F1 the season doesn’t kick off on track, but rather with a week of new car launches and livery reveals. It’s an annual tradition I’ve come to enjoy looking forward to each day’s launches and getting that first glimpse of what we have in store for a new season. It’s also a fun exercise to pass snap judgment on the pure aesthetics of a new car ranging from, ‘What were they thinking?’ to “Wow that looks great.’
Having said that I think I must in some ways be something of a traditionalist in that my favorite four liveries from this year’s launches were those that changed the least, Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, and Aston Martin.
Back in the mists of time, I did my college degree project on F1 aerodynamics. Although the science and application of that discipline have far surpassed any claim I had to expertise on the subject, I still find the first look at the cars fascinating from a technical standpoint too.
This year’s areas of note for me were Mercedes abandoning the ‘zero sidepods’ concept it used in the last two years to a more conventional sweeping sidepod design, and Red Bull’s addition of tubular fairings at the top shoulder of the engine cover - I have no idea what they are for aerodynamically or functionally, but it's great to see last year’s all-conquering team try something new rather than just rest on their laurels.
Roll on testing next week when we will start to see if these new cars perform as well on track as they looked under the floodlights of the launch stage.
Other Stuff
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Word Slinging
I’m looking forward to joining a bunch of friends, plus making some new acquaintances, at the upcoming FenCon literary SF event in Dallas in just over a week.
I’ll be at the event on Saturday and Sunday and as well as generally enjoying my time and chatting with like-minded folks it looks like I’ll be participating in panels about:
James Bond: Man of Mystery
How to Turn Your Idea Into a Graphic Novel
Networking for Introvert Authors
Science & Technology in Alternate History, and
The Cities and Locations of Comics.
If you’d like to join us you can find more details by clicking on the convention banner below.
Pages and Screens
Books Read in 2024 - “The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures” by Paul Fisher.
The oldest surviving fragments of a motion picture were filmed in 1888 by Louis Le Prince a French-born, naturalized American, working in Leeds, England. Two years later he was granted patents in four countries for his invention, well ahead of his rivals who were also trying to perfect how to capture motion photographically.
Later that same year just before he planned to make his work public, Le Prince reportedly got on a train from Dijon to Paris and was never seen again.
Three years later Thomas Edison revealed his new motion picture device to the world, one that bore a striking resemblance to Le Prince’s patents.
This is a fascinating story of one man’s twenty-year obsession to develop a practical way to capture and project motion pictures, the efforts of his rivals, and the battles of his family for justice after he was essentially written out of history.
Podcast Procastinations
This week I spent time on various podcasts chatting about The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Beatles among other subjects. I’ll be posting links to those shows as and when they go live, so keep a lookout for those in future newsletters.
Bond Briefings
The new bi-weekly James Bond Lexicon newsletter is off to a great start with more subscribers than we could have hoped for over the first few weeks. - Thanks to everyone who has subscribed.
In our latest issue, I take a brief look at Bond on Vinyl, along with news of Ian Fleming Publications 2024 plans, and a sneak behind-the-scenes look at the setup of the upcoming Bond-In-Motion exhibit in Washington DC.
If you enjoy the worlds of 007 and haven’t subscribed, you can join us at the link below
Before They Were Beatles Updates
The latest edition of BEFORE THEY WERE BEATLES PRESENTS: THE FORGOTTEN BEATLES podcast is now available on your favorite podcast platform.
In this month's episode, we tell the story of guitarist Ken Brown of the Quarrymen and the Blackjacks. You can give it a listen HERE.
The February issue of the Before They Were Beatles newsletter is now out in which we take a sidebar to talk about the influence of legendary “Play in a Day” guitarist, Bert Weedon. If you don’t want to miss out on the expanded story of the early Beatles history, you can sign up for a subscription below.
Weekly Web Round-Up
Forest Comics - It’s been a busy week at the online store with a sudden flurry of sales, especially for Saint paperbacks, Spider-Man graphic novels, and general SF novels. - You can check out our current offerings right HERE.
Batman On The Cover - The journey through Batman’s comics publishing history continues this week we look at the comics published in November 1968 in Brazil, Denmark, Germany, and Italy
Although all were reprints of previous US covers I have to give a shout-out to the repurposed Golden Age cover on the German edition of Superman und Batman this month - as the Dark Knight seems to have taken a liking to a nice fluorescent shade of pink for his costume.
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See you next time
Alan J. Porter
The Can’t See The Forest (TM) newsletter is a production of Megrin Entertainment, a division of 4Js Group LLC