Monthly Archives: September 2013

This film is about the intense rivalry of James Hunt and Nikki Lauda for the world championship of the 1976 Formula One season.  The characters are quite different. Hunt is good looking, superficially charming womanising playboy with a dilettante reckless attitude to motor racing.  By contrast Lauda whose buck teeth give him the nickname of the rat, is dour, cerebral, disciplined, calculating and not much fun.  Both men however are obsessed about motor racing and have rebelled against their rich parents by taking up the sport. There’s not only professional rivalry but also a seemingly personal dislike between the two men which provides some great scenes, not just dramatic conflict but also a lot of humour. At first I was rooting for Hunt then the film shows a dark side to him when facing adversity; he could be quite nasty wallowing in a drug and drink filled stupor.  So in the mid part of the film I was neutral but after Lauda’s horrific crash I was rooting for him. At this point there seems to be a grudging respect between the two men. The actual motor racing scenes were visually quite exciting and I had the added advantage that knowing nothing about motor racing I didn’t know in advance the outcomes of the races being shown. Overall this is a very good film which I can recommend even to viewers to have no interest in motor racing. 4 stars.

As part of my research for my alternate history thriller I’ve been visiting the British Newspaper Library.  This is a great place for authors and researchers who want to look at back issues of newspapers, magazines and periodicals going back to the 19^th century. Some material even goes back to 1603.

Any adult resident in Britain can use the library for free; you just need to register first. The library is based in Colindale North London, but in November 2013 is due to move to the new British Library building in St Pancras, Central London.

The newspaper library has material in hard copy, microfilm and digitised media. There are copies of The Times going back to 1875. These are on microfilm and can be borrowed self-service from shelves in a reading room which has a number of microfilm reading machines available. For all other items you first determine the shelf number from a computerised index, fill in a card and hand it to a member of staff. They in turn collect the material from the shelves and bring it to you. This can take up to forty five minutes and you’re allowed to borrow up to four items simultaneously.

There are a number of restrictions of what you can bring into the library. Apart from the obvious such as no food and drink, sharp objects and pens are also banned. I found the last a bit of a pain as it meant I could make notes only with a pencil.

The refreshment facilities are rather limited. There is a lounge by the entrance with a coffee and snack machine. There are no cafes in the area so if you plan to spend all day there you need to bring your own food and consume it in the lounge. Of course this should improve when the library moves to St Pancras.