Paul

well as this summer of sport draws towards it's close it looks likely to be a winter of discontent for Canaries fans.

We've not hired Pacific Sunshine but I have been onboard and would not have thought of the interior as being green until your post. It is not that apparent when you are onboard, but yes her gelcoat is green and the interior has been fitted to compliment that. The main influence on the interior is the wood. Of the boatyards you have mentioned I would go for Pacific every time, without a doubt. As for specific boats that's very much personal preference but I would not be put off by Sunshine's interior, in fact quite the opposite. Where to hire from is not really important, if you are going for two weeks I'm guessing you'll cover most of the system anyway so start and finish point is not really too important, though Loddon Staithe makes and excellent last night mooring and is just five minutes gentle chug from the yard. I would just give a cautionary note on availability. Pacific are all but fully booked on every boat for the rest of this year and many people rebook year to year so I would not hang around in making your decision. You might already find the choices for next year very limited. Rather than the minority I think the vast majority of people will vacation in the UK next year.

It would have been very interesting to see what would have happened to the restart if he had pitted too as there is no protocol to cover that scenario, a standing "grid" start with all cars starting from the pit lane. The current regs allow any car to return to the pit lane after a formation lap but they must wait for all cars starting on the grid to pass a line on the track denoting the end of the pit "blend" lane before they can leave the pit lane proper. Only at this point does the red traffic light at pit exit turn green. If there is no car on the grid to trigger that opening of the pit exit then it all gets a bit stuck. All in all he might just have been safer doing what he did. As champions the Mercedes pit is the first on the pit lane, so he would have been first in, and presumably out of his pit box then has to travel the length of the pit lane past all the other teams at the speed limit. We saw plenty of dodgy releases as it was. With auto release systems (something I am vehemently opposed to, I think they are inherently dangerous) the risk of someone firing out of a pit box straight into the side of him meant settling for a podium, much as it is not Hamilton's mentality might have been the best "long game". Had he adopted that policy in Azerbaijan instead of going for the lead at the restart he would have a very comfortable lead in the driver's standings now, even with the Red Bull's dominant pace.

A weekend to remember that motor sport is dangerous, and despite all of the advances in car and track safety it will always be so. I have been a volunteer marshal in the past, it is a fantastic thing to be involved with. Thankfully fatalities and serious injuries are very rare but we should remember that without these people and their dedication motor sport at any level simply would not exist. Not only do I send my condolences to all those impacted by the events at Brands Hatch but also take the chance to thank all those who give up their free time to put on the show for the rest of us. As for the race it highlighted for me just how much of an issue overtaking has become with the modern cars. Even with fresher tyres, a faster car and DRS Hamilton couldn't get past Alonso until the latter eventually succumbed to the relentless pressure and made the tiny error Hamilton needed. I have never been a Vettel fan but I do feel for him, disqualified for such a technical infringement but it is a bread and butter job for teams to make sure these standard regulations are adhered to. I note that the results have now been adjusted and the standings updated. Once again we see Hamilton leading a world championship in a clearly inferior car, I wonder if he can take it home from here and win number 8? Whether he can or not I have no doubt there will still be those who want us to believe that "it's all down to the car" .....

Sunair was 1964, ILG was 1970. After the ILG collapse Goodman created the Travel TV Channel. He was 24 when he set up Sunair and it's generally acknowledged as the UK's first "beach" package tour operator. Clarksons predated Sunair by a few years but in the early days they were a specialist market sector company doing art tours, house and gardens, wine tours etc. Clarkson's grew out of Clarkson's shipping group and was created by Tom Gullick. You might remember they had an "air terminal" in the west end but then coached everyone to Luton to use the Court Line flights. Clarkson's only started beach holidays later in it's relatively short life and many see the over extension as leading to their downfall. Goodman always said that they couldn't compete with him! Court Line bailed them out and took over for a couple of years but yes, I remember the "bang" when the Clarkson debt took Court Line down. I more remember their unique catering, mainly on the one-elevens where the in flight meal, usually based on spam (either salad or sandwiches) was prepacked into the seat backs, thus doing away with galleys on board allowing an extra row of seats. The outbound and inbound food was loaded in Luton to avoid using overseas catering and the "inbound" food was locked away until the return flight but it was easy to pick the lock and eat the inbound meal as well! I am too young to remember Sunair but worked with Harry on a couple of his later projects, he was a difficult man to read, he did not suffer fools but would let you develop your own ideas, until he decided he did not like them and then it was back to the drawing board. If ever you tried to speak to him about Majorca or Ibiza, or especially Benalmadena, Puerto Banus etc his answer would always be "you don't need to tell me, I invented the f****** place"

Just a point of order, it was not Freddie Laker who popularised the package holiday but a man named Harry Goodman who founded the International Leisure Group, parent of the tour operator Intasun, and prior to that a company called Sunair which opened up the Spanish Costas and Balearic Islands. If Thomas Cook invented the package holiday with his temperance rail package from Leicester to Loughborough 180 years ago it was Goodman who enlightened the world to the cheap beer and permanent sunshine of the Med, long before Freddie Laker's ill fated Skytrain came, and just as suddenly went.

I wonder how many of you stayed up until midnight on Sunday to waive goodbye to the coronavirus? No? Me neither. I am close to assigning the aforementioned Freedom Day similar white elephant status as given to Jan 1st 2000, the "millennium day". Foretellers of doom were proved wrong you might remember. Computers didn't stop working, the internet didn't collapse, planes didn't fall from the sky, in fact nothing really changed and such appears to be the case with "freedom day". Out and about in Norfolk and Suffolk over the last 48 hours and nothing seems to have changed. A trip to Latham's yesterday saw everyone in store sticking with their face coverings. The cafe at Sea Palling was still serving take away only, order at the door and wait outside. Our favourite cafe, the Mere Tearooms at Thorpeness was likewise serving takeaway only at lunch time today which could at least be enjoyed on it's outdoor seating by the mere. Ideal for a sunny Suffolk lunch time. It appears that, so far at least the switch from civil enforcement to social responsibility is being taken very seriously, and that is good to see. Remember, the virus hasn't gone away. These changes are not being made because there is no longer any danger to you and your loved ones. They have been made because there is now less likelihood of the NHS being overwhelmed by the dead and dying as many of us are vaccinated. The one time we saw these newly won freedoms being openly flaunted was at a shop in Leiston this afternoon. The window still clearly displayed a limit of persons inside and the request that all shoppers wear a face covering and, with there being already two more than the prescribed number inside we waited at the door,only for two young ladies to walk straight past us in to the store with no face coverings evident. At this I donned my mask and began to enter when the shop keeper asked me to wait outside as the capacity was already exceeded. Being an understanding and forgiving individual I explained why I had not waited outside, as others had clearly been allowed in and suggested a place of limited sunlight penetration where the shop in question would fit perfectly. A valuable sale lost to a nearby supermarket. It does beg an interesting question. When will we discard our face masks? When will we be able to stand side by side with fellow customers? When will we get back to normal, or will there be a new normal the basis of which we are already seeing?

I own a boatyard (I don't really, but bear with it) I have to employ staff, run a payroll, work out rotas, arrange cover for sickness, I have to be an accountant, an HR executive, a personnel manager etc, etc, etc. I have to maintain my fleet, and if I want to survive I have to budget upgrades and refits to what I have plus renewing boats completely now and then to stay current. I run 12 boats, the average hire price is £1k per week, we have a twenty week season and my boats are fully booked every week. that's an income of £240k per annum Sounds great yes? Then I pay the rates, the river tolls, the staff wages. I pay the insurance, the maintenance, I sell an old boat and buy a new one. I pay all the other bills and hopefully I have enough left to live on. Then a developer comes along and says "sell all your boats, they're worth 30k each, thats 360k. Then sell your boatyard to me and I will build 8 super luxury riverside apartments on it worth £3.2m, your cut of that is 800k, Thats £1.16m and no sleepless nights wondering if you will make this months insurance payment, of if you can pay your broads tolls on time, or if you have enough money to pay the wage bill at the end of the month. So I sold all my boats, and let the developer build his riverside apartments. Now I live in a villa in the South of France. I made a few decent investments and bought some property and I'm very well off thank you very much. When I finally shuffle off this mortal coil my kids will have a healthy inheritance not a mill stone of a boatyard to deal with. That's what happened to your small boatyards.

I didn't see the start of the race yesterday, being on holiday the family were not going to let me stay in and watch the TV, fair enough. I saw the restart while we were stopped at Fritton and the last twenty or so laps at the Three Horseshoes once we arrived. I have played back the accident and in line with a number of other penalties I have to wonder what the stewards are seeing. F1 is supposedly sporting a mantra of let them race yet we have seen a number of highly dubious penalties in the recent few grands prix effecting a number of different drivers. Rather than let them race the policy being applied by the stewards is much as it is by the police on road collisions, there must be someone at fault and someone must pay a penalty. It is ruining the racing. The reason for the penalty according to the stewards was that Lewis "was not ahead" entering the corner and not taking a line to the apex, as in the tightest line around the corner. It seemed to take no account of the width of the track and the several car widths of space left to Verstappen. TV replays clearly show Hamilton was ahead at one point approaching the corner, being on the inside he naturally has to brake earlier to make the corner so the "was not ahead" line is a total joke to me, have the stewards not heard of overtaking? Have they not heard of the technical regulation that they should be enforcing, there is a clear regulation and that is something that is black and white on paper… that if the front axle is over the middle of the car on the outside, it's your corner. Why did the stewards not abide by this rule? The clear fact here, to me at least, is that Max expected Lewis to back out, he usually does. By his own admission he usually plays "the long game" but he cannot afford to any longer. The Red Bull is clearly a much faster car and Hamilton will know he has to take every chance he gets if he is to compete this year. Both drivers wanted the same bit of tarmac and neither was willing to give way. Karun Chandhok summed it up perfectly for me, either driver could have avoided the incident but neither was obliged to, the result is a racing incident. Ultimately Hamilton continued his line through the corner, Verstappen tightened his which caused the collision. And as for Christian Horner's comments the word that comes to mind is hypocrite. I like Christian Horner. I like the access he gives TV to the Red Bull team, not something you get in many garages but wind back one week and he was bleating about a penalty for Perez on what was a much clearer offence and bemoaning the stewards for not letting the drivers race, not the boot is on the other foot he seems to be showing us a different face. You can't have it both ways Christian. Unfortunately you are forming your opinions from one interview when Max was very cleverly playing the injured innocent, a role he plays very well. If you want to form a real opinion, and especially express that opinion you need to review a wider set of examples. Perhaps start with his FP2 radio rant at Portimao last season when a string of obscenities and insults were heard live by millions, and his numerous refusals to apologise when asked to by his team, his management and even F1 bosses. Max is nothing like an honest down to earth young man, such an animal does not exist in formula 1, motor sport chews such people up and spits them out long before they reach F1. If you want nice, honest young men go watch tennis or golf, except you will find exactly the same there. Watch John McEnroes excellent video on the BBC sport website about "popularity contests". It will put you straight on success in sport. So I am confused, several people are saying he didn't applaud, yet this post suggests he did. Having not seen it perhaps someone could clarify. Sadly this part of the race build up is not available on the F1 highlights page. Sadly criticism of Lewis Hamilton is something we have come to expect, be it down to his success, we British hate success, be it his personal beliefs, his colour, or even his background as a council tennant kid. People are quick to hammer him (pun completely intended) yet are very quick to forget the support that Lewis Hamilton has given the NHS, the race suits auction for NHS charities, the video messages of support and the donations directly to NHS projects. His patronage of Great Ormond Street Hospital, his work to support under privileged children both in the UK and around the world. No, they forget all that, they decide they don't like the way he was clapping the NHS and so they disengage their brains and start spouting bull#### about the man. Maybe they think it makes them look or sound big. Sadly it just makes them look bitter and ignorant. It's a shame that in all the comments made so far nobody has deemed it worthy to decry the racist abuse that Lewis Hamilton has received since the end of the British GP. I for one will, this kind of hate speech has no place in sport, no place in the society I want to live in. If it is a part of your world then please leave it there. Right minded decent folk don't want it.

I'm firmly in the unwanted gimmick camp, I can't stand it. Formula One should be the ultimate motor sport challenge, about who can get from the green light to the checkered flag fastest on Sunday afternoon. Sadly the powers that be are hell bent on dumbing it down in order to appeal to those part time fans who think that cars lapping tracks at incredible speed is not exciting enough. And so we get rules on tyres, how any sets for a weekend, using different compounds during the race, forcing cars to start on the set they produce their fastest laps in Q2, even F1 bosses telling Pirelli how much grip and how long tyres should last. .... it is all Daffodils. For me F1 should be one hour of qualifying on Saturday, fastest lap starts at the front, slowest at the back. Use what compound of tyres you want. None of this stupid knock out then reset and go again, and certainly no sprint races.

how about something a little bit special for "mondeo money" https://www.hscboats.co.uk/boat_for_sale/miss-dolly/

Technically speaking it is not a game, it's a match. Football game is a US phrase Football match is the correct mother tongue phrase

What I loved about this race weekend was the fact that field was so close, through qualifying at least, with at one point Max two tenths clear of second then only a further two tenths between second and twelfth. It seems to me that McLaren for one are, if not quite crossing the bridge between them and the front runners yet at least getting close. The midfield teams are really getting their act together too, some of them, anyway. I grew up watching what for me was the golden age of F1, with multiple potential winners of every race and the team and driver which performed best on the day had a great chance of winning rather than the modern era whereby results are often determined by something which happened in a factory thousands of miles and away and many months ago. For me one of the great seasons was 1980 when Alan Jones won the title in his Williams. In the 14 races that season there were no fewer than seven different race winners, and that was by no means unusual. It's a shame that this is happening through a season where we are looking at major formula changes for next year and sadly I see that opening up the field again with one or maybe two teams adapting to the new rules best and taking a clear advantage for a number of years whilst the others play catch up, as we saw with Mercedes at the dawn of the hybrid era. Ferrari got close to them at one stage, in fact for a season, perhaps a season and a half they were clearly quicker but only it turned out in hindsight by using an illegal fueling system. I fear we will see that happen again with the "2021" spec cars which were delayed until next year because of the pandemic. Mercedes have clearly been caught out by how much other teams are developing the 2020 spec car in season and have fallen behind Red Bull as a result and seem in the clutches of McLaren too. Toto Wolff says there is nothing in the locker and that what they have now is all they have. James Allison in a rare break of protocol paints a different picture and says they do have upgrades in the wing. If they are to compete for either drivers or constructors titles this year they will need them, and sooner rather than later or Max and his Red Bull will be out of sight. Mercedes policy has been clear, there is a spend cap now in place and that means that any development of this year's car compromises next years. Compromise next years car and you will be one of those aforementioned teams playing catch up and with the spend cap reducing year on year could find yourself in the wilderness for years to come. So MB have maximum effort on the new car, at the cost of performance now. From the differing reports coming out of Brackley it would appear the team are not fully resolved to this approach and the upcoming races are going to be fascinating to see if Mercedes, so renown for maximising their advantage when they have it, can play catch up just as well. What remains to be seen is if those teams putting so much effort into this years car have still managed to find a way to give maximum effort to next years, "within" the imposed spend cap. Spend caps are great for controlling spiraling costs and increasing competition IF they are enforced rigidly and policed properly. If not then you will find one team which blatantly cheats and rises to the top unfairly as we saw with Saracens in Rugby Union.

I have to agree with your first point, couldn't agree with the second though. The only way to stop simulation is retrospective reviews, and long suspensions for layers found guilty. We have even seen the aforementioned Harry Kane go down in this tournament clutching his face like he's taken a right hook from Mike Tyson when replays showed very clearly there was no contact with his face. Review these, and where evidence is clear ban the player for 30 days, second offence make it 60 days. It is the only way you will stop these supposedly super fit highly trained incredibly strong men going down like a little kid every time the wind changes direction. Whilst in the subject of Harry Kane at present he is doing nothing for this England Team, and hasn't for some time. In fact his desperation for a goal is actually becoming a distraction both to the team and his own play. I don't particularly blame him, his form in the Premier League last season shows you what quality he has, but the position and role he is being asked to play by the manager just doesn't suit him. If you play Harry Kane you play him as a striker, an out and out number 9 rooted to the opponents penalty box, If not then don't play him as he cannot play this "false 10" link man job that Southgate has got him trying to do. There are not as many genuinely world class players at this tournament as we have seen in previous incarnations. In the past you could look at teams like France, Spain, Germany and sometimes others and see world class players in every position, I don't think any team has more than three or four of them at present. Some of those from previous tournaments such as Ronaldo are now past there best. Sadly this dearth of quality runs to the England team too and one of our genuinely world class players (Alexander Arnold) is sadly sat at home injured. Another (Maguire) is coming back from injury and the other (Sterling) looks tired and lacking confidence, though is still finding the net thank God.

The Hampton is a Broads classic, I don't care what people say about GRP or "tupperware" but it is of it's time. Would that same design be a hit now? No it wouldn't and that is why nobody is building them. Today's hirer is looking for something more, more space, more facilities, a little more luxury and that is effectively what the boats AndyG references are offering. Boats like Barnes' Brinks Encore are the modern day equivalents of the Hampton, but they are sleeker, better fitted and most importantly bigger - both longer and wider.

I'm sure Mercedes were contemplating the undercut and just trying to decide when to pull the trigger when Red Bull beat them to the party and pulled Verstappen in before they could do it. Once that had happened the writing was on the wall, due to the poor performance on the red "soft" tyre. I found it interesting that since teams are supposed to have stopped using the deformable rear wing Ferrari performance has dropped noticeably, they have gone from being contenders for race wins to struggling in the midfield, whilst the other team using it, Red Bull seem to have lost no performance at all. Strange ........

And btw, I apologise profusely for spoiling the result of the 2008 Singapore GP for those who have not seen it yet.

I'm sorry to take issue with the last three posts but I don't think anyone should be banned for life for a single incident, and as a motor sport avid I have seen similar or worse incidents attract far less strict penalties, or even go unpunished. Anyone who knows the background to this incident will know that there is a lot of politics in this decision, something sadly commonplace within the FIA. A lengthy ban yes, with the majority suspended would have been ore appropriate. Calling him a brat and a bully, do you know him? Do you know his previous record? Doubtful, he has no previous disciplinary events on his racing license at all. Compare this with Romano Fenati the Moto GP3 rider who grabbed another riders bike at 130mph and pulled the brake lever. Outcome? Suspended, sacked by his team but back racing the following year, despite a long history of disciplinary reprimands. Throwing things onto the track? Not even new, I recall NASCAR driver and team owner Robbie Gordon doing it some years ago to deliberately effect the outcome of a race, Outcome? Docked points and fined. And as for those Formula 1, people seem to have a short memory to have forgotten the 2008 Singapore GP where Renault team bosses Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds ordered the number two driver Nelson Piquet Junior to crash deliberately to force a safety car, allowing their number 1 driver Fernando Alonso to make up lost time on the race leaders. The ploy worked and Alonso went on to win the race. The outcome. After much political gesturing a five year ban was handed to both the team principles "by agreement" I don't condone the young mans actions in any way, but there are other issues involved here, than just the incident you see on the video being judged.

probably running his engines, and no that is not a jest. Last time we were moored in that same spot an ex connoisseur was sat at the top of the dyke, engines running about 8pm and covering the whole mooring in fumes, not to mention the noise (what is it about those boats, they seem twice as noisy as anything else?) When the gent from the boat in front of us went to ask if he'd mind turning off the situation got very heated. We thought we might have to call the police, but people power took over, a couple of burly types from a Ricko's bathtub added their weight to the argument and the owner of the ex Conn decided he was out gunned, and in the language of my generation "bu88ered off" to annoy someone else, heading back towards Barton, no lights, pitch dark (this being 8pm in October), and peace was restored.

When we started boating in the 70's it was always "Burrer" St Peter, but "Burr" Castle, and so that is what we use to this day. But then I used to go to Chris De "Burr" concerts, and now apparently it's Chris De "Berg" My dads family are Norfolkians many of them still around Mundesley, Cromer etc, though dad himself was Rutland born an bred as that branch of the family followed work westward. His dad's dad would tell you he was a man of Cley, pronounced like the stuff potters use, he got quite uppity if somebody started pronouncing it Cl-eye which he credits to incomers that can't talk proper. He didn't quite call them incomers, he had a slightly different name of local dialect. I am led to believe it is far from polite.

Hopefully it is safe to start talking about yesterday's race. I understand the third repeat of the highlights has made it to Mars so hopefully anyone with an interest has seen what they want to. We kind of got this over the weekend, arguably none of the drivers really nailed their final quali lap but the track was going away, apparently so perhaps not surprising. I did think that not pitting Hamilton immediately after Verstappen's slow stop was an error but their strategists obviously knew what they were doing and played a blinder. It was good to hear Hamilton acknowledge that in the cool down lap radio chat. It's really difficult to tell at the moment quite who has the fastest car, and isn't that great! Obviously neither is clearly superior and lets hope that bodes well for some great racing for the rest of the season. Interesting too to hear that Hamilton wants to start talking new contract with Mercedes sooner rather than later. I'm a bit surprised by that. I really thought he might wait and see, and if he does secure his record eighth title this year look at other challenges, either inside or outside of F1.

A useful idea, we do a sort of oven chip on the boat by chipping rooster potatoes, parboiling them and finishing in the oven with some goose fat. It's a good compromise but like Hylander I would not want deep fat of any kind on board. Whilst I am not a great chip lover there are somethings like a decent cod loin or a nice fresh steak than simply need chips.

I was led to believe it is because of the organic impurities in naturally derived urea, pigs or otherwise. I think I read that on the AA, or RAC website. Or possibly somewhere completely different!

Incidentally, it is a common misconception that adblue is made from pig's urine, it is not. It is a totally synthetic substance.