WitchHunterGeneral - a not necessarily comedic character

[Fenderman]

ROOTING TODAY

EDITORIAL

Welcome to a new thread where Rooting Today introduces you to WitchHunterGeneral. Be warned! This is where Fenderman intends to tear into certain subject matter with fangs bared and eyes ablaze. Some of it will be funny, some of it banal and some of it tragic and deadly serious. This is a "tragicomic thread". A black comedy of extreme emotion. We in fenderman's head hope that you will get something out of it. If not, well it's worth a punt.

Fenderman, Editor in My Own Mind, Rooters news Group


WitchHunterGeneral

Let The hunt Begin

I often have the desire to defend people and give them latitude, benefit of the doubt, understanding, patience, sympathy and other simpering stuff like that. I have followed F1 since the 1960's and I am not usually moved to making the kind of comments that I have felt the need to make today but now I have to nail my colours to the mast.

For the third time in his F1 career a driver has wilfully driven an opponent off the track. Obviously, no amount of video or photographic evidence is sufficiently conclusive proof for the naysayers of my statement. So, I make this prediction. It is similar to a prediction I made in another place, at another time, with regard to a very popular character. He was young man in his prime and in the dawn of his career in a senior class of motorised combat. He was liked as much by me as by any of his other fans.

Today I see the same issues at play in a person who clearly demonstrates his inability to control his red mist. In the case of my previous prediction it tragically came to pass with a fatality. I will not tell you who that was. The memory is painful enough as it is, not just for me but partcularly for his family, friends, acquaintances and fans. I do not want to see a repetition in my lifetime but fear that I will and that it will be in f1.

So, and I make no bones about predicting this, if Maldonado is not taken to one side and given some heavy duty mind management training by a suitably qualified person, he will continue to use his car as a weapon and one day the result will be serious injury to himself or to a fellow competitor, or worse.

This is a serious issue that needs looking at by the powers that be. The stewards today missed that opportunity and their decision will not help Maldonado to reflect and progress. It may not reinforce his belief that he did no wrong but it certainly will not do enough to cause him to reflect to any sufficient degree. This season is so tight with racing so close that I fear my prediction may even come true before the season is out. I do hope not, but ...

WitchHunterGeneral, Evil Entity in Fenderman's Head, Rooters News Group

Important notice from the Editor​

​

Rooters News apologises for any offense that this article may cause the family, friends, acquaintances and fans of anyone who they think may have been referred to in this piece. We do though implore you all to watch out for the danger signs in your loved ones and, if you feel it is necessary, get professional help.​

​

Fenderman​

 

[Fenderman]

ROOTING TODAY

EDITORIAL

Well, what can we say, WitchHunterGeneral obviously has a fan. Here he blows his own trumpet because as a fictional character he is ever so proud of the fact that a real life person, a racing driver no less, echoes his thoughts about one Pastor Maldonado (or as we like to call him Passedorbust Maladynado).

Fenderman, Editor in My Own Mind, Rooters news Group

WitchHunterGeneral

The Hunt Is On

In my last article I said a load of stuff about Maldonado and his attitude. Well, I'm not going to blow a trumpet as Fenderman says. I don't need to and the truth is this is too important. No, I will simply quote the words of driver Sergio Perez. After all, he has at least twice been a victim of Maldonado's careless driving. So here is his opinion as he explained his side of the story to an Auntie Boob reporter regarding their tangle at the British Grand Prix on Sunday 8th July 2012.


"Pastor is a driver who doesn't respect other drivers," he said, "It's just a matter of fact. I was already in front, and if not he should have given me enough space not to crash, but he tried to push me all the way to the outside. I don't understand the way he is driving. I really hope the stewards can make something because the last three or four races he has done something to ... It is not the first time he has damaged my weekend. He did the same in Valencia, and they gave him a drive-through, which I think is not enough. This guy will never learn if they don't do something, because he is a very dangerous driver and he can hurt someone."

Asked if other drivers shared his view, he said "Everybody has concerns about him. He is a driver who doesn't know we are risking our lives and has no respect at all. It is not a matter of close or not. He has no respect at all. The way he is driving I think the stewards really have to do something because it is not the first time he has done something. He affects a lot of drivers; I am not the only one."

Another Story - Last Best Hopes For Brit Glory

There are times when a chap or chapesse has to nail their colours to their car aerial. The Euro Footie Championship recently ended and Wimbles likewise drew to its usual "so near but so far for the Brit's" finish. On Sunday we had a dismal showing for Brit' hopes at the home Grand Prix. Meanwhile, the Olympic Torch is touring the country and the Union Flag and the standard of St.George continue to adorn car aerials all over Blighty. Yes, the Olympics remain our last best chance of British glory this year. There are other sports and categories of sports of course, but these are the biggies, the ones from which we will draw heroes for the Sports Personality of the Year Awards. Methinks that this year we will have plenty of heroes, heroines and personalities but precious few champions.

Come on you Olympians! Bring it on and bring home the Gold!

WitchHunterGeneral, Evil Entity in Fenderman's Head, Rooters News Group

 

[F1ang-o]

What about The Open Golf Championship................it is happening on my doorstep sometime very soon...
I thought there were some pretty good British Golfers at the moment...some glory maybe.....Tony Jacklin is on the cover of the souvenier magazine ....perhaps the last time a Brit won was quite a while ago. For the duration I am inconvenienced with nose to tail traffic everyday morning & teatime.........& some people rent out their homes for loadsa money........Just heard that Seve Ballesteros, who won here twice...named his house after the course.
The Olympic Torch passed a few yards from my house last Saturday at 7am ish....nobody special carrying it...I really couldn't see the point.......so I got my paper & waited for P3
I think this maybe should be on the RANT thread............

 

[the_roadie]

Perhaps when sport becomes an end in itself again (instead of just the vehicle for a fuck-off sized marketing exercise by multinational corporations that it now is, Olympics specifically included) then this thread will no longer have a reason to exist.
Until then, don't hold your breath waiting, keep posting !

 

[Fenderman]

ROOTING TODAY

EDITORIAL

WitchHunterGeneral, although a merely fictional character, very occasionally feels the need to speak. Strangely, though, like all the fictional characters inhabiting Fenderman's head he has been silent. The antics of Romanesque Grossjeans and Pastemintothebarrier Maladynado seem to have failed to elicit the vitriol one would otherwise expect from WHG. Why is this? you may ask. Well, truth is Fender's and his multi-dimensional personalities is fed up. WHG cites just one short example to demonstrate why that is and why the Rooters News Fictional Media Empire Group has grown tired of its own existence.

Fenderman, Editor in My Own Mind, Rooters news Group

WitchHunterGeneral

The Hunters Are In The Bar Pissing It Up And Likely To Stay There For The Foreseeable Future

Rooters is in trouble. When Fenderman has writers' block the whole team goes down. When Fenderman is fed up, the whole team is infected. What the deuce is going on? I'll tell you. We've had some F1 race weekends recently, lthough one would be forgiven for thinking otherwise. In an increasingly bizarre twist to the 2012 F1 season a lot of folk's seem to have gotten distracted from the main show.

Consider this ... protracted discussion about overtaking and overtaking statistics seem to have dwindled and almost disappearesd yet this season has seen (as did 2011) some of the most prolific overtaking in modern times. So where has attention been drawn? Not to diversionary "FIA versus Everybody Else in F1" political wrangling, buffoonery, unfairness or otherwise, that's for sure. No, it's months of "Hamburgerman should get out of MacLawrence" or "shouldn't" with that cardinal sin slap bang in the middle. That sin that derailed Macca's 2007 constructors championship challenge.

I refer of course to that cardinal sin of sharing confidential data. In a frickin' tweet, no less! So there we had Tweetgate and as I understand it there is now Tweetgate II. Doh. Having seen this tosh resurface in thread after thread I had hoped that at least one of our fellow intelligencia on Clip The Apex would point something out to the Molehill Construction Club but no, not a peep. So it is left to me as I emerge from the longest period of boredom, dulled senses and mind-numbingly boring brain fade, tedium and creative juice sluicegate blockage that I can remember, to point out just how meaningless and inconsequential Tweetgate should have been to all concerned.

Although I personally do not have access to Sky, with all its bells on, I have been able to see enough to know that any individual with half a brainfull of smarties can sit on-board with the (top six) driver of their choice, complete with read outs of acceleration, braking, G-force loading, rpm, speed, etc. for lap after lap. A few more smarties, some software and time on one's hands and, lo and behold, one can produce a trace of all of the data like that found in Hamburgerman's tweeted release. By the time he tweeted that stuff it will have been old news to anyone interested enough to want it. FFS!

And that's just one example of the pointless, low rent stuff we've been subjected to recently. The guilty know who they are and I don't give a flying fig if I've offended anyone. This is not a tweet so it's allowed.

WitchHunterGeneral, Evil Entity in Fenderman's Head, Rooters News Group

Important notice from the Editor

Rooters News apologises for any offense that this article may cause the family, friends, acquaintances and fans of any Tweeter who they think may have been referred to in this piece. We do though implore you all to watch out for the danger signs in your loved Tweeters and, if you feel it is necessary, get professional Tweeter help.

Fenderman

 

[Fenderman]

ROOTING TODAY

WitchHunterGeneral

Auntie Booby's Dead Button - The Button That Might As Well Be Off

If anyone can tell me what good having just one video stream in a Red Button service is, I would be glad to hear to hear it. Personally, I think it's a waste of fucking time and an insult to the license fee paying public.

WitchHunterGeneral, Evil Entity in Fenderman's Head, Rooters News Group

 

[Fenderman]

ROOTING TODAY

WitchHunterGeneral

Auntie Boobie's Latest Insult

Great motorcycle grand prix racing on Sunday. Final meeting if the MotoGP season in difficult conditions. I wish I could say the same for the coverage. Why oh why does the director insist in cutting away from action to give us slo-mo replays and shots of people on pit wall or just following or focussing on one rider at a time when the live timing tells us where the battles are. In the senior class we were down to one impending battle in the last third of the race and what did we get? Another replay of the start!

BUT, the worst sacrilege of the day was Auntie Beeb breaking off their Red Button coverage of Moto2 in the final throes of the best race of the day, telling peep's to go online. I'm okay, I had Eurosport on at the same time but what about the punters worse off than me whose PC's are slow or in the wrong room? We all pay the same bloomin' BBC license fee so a lot of people will have been greatly inconvenienced and I for one feel for them.

In the preview shows, there was a lot of talk about what bike sport needs to do to improve the show for the punters. Well, for the viewing public the first thing they need to deal with is getting it reliably on air for mass viewing Jo and Jane public and sort out the way the directors and producers show the races. I may be slightly nuts but I do think that we want to see the racing and the action not still photography, people looking gob-smacked or pee-ed off on pit wall or the audience. We are the audience and we want to actually see what that lot are seeing.

Sometimes what I write in:
http://cliptheapex.com/threads/rooting-today.3576/page-3#post-161661
http://cliptheapex.com/threads/rooting-today.3576/page-3#post-163349
http://cliptheapex.com/threads/rooting-today.3576/page-3#post-163354

.... is just too close for comfort.

WitchHunterGeneral, Evil Entity in Fenderman's Head, Rooters News Group

 

[Fenderman]

ROOTING TODAY

EDITORIAL

Welcome to a new hot news item in the thread where WitchHunterGeneral tears into certain subject matter with fangs bared and eyes ablaze. This issue is about the subject that completely overshadowed the on track events of the first day of practice for the 2013 Canadian Grand Prix. It seemed to be of absolutely no interest that Lewis Hamilton might have got his mojo back or that Fernando Alonso looks good for a back to back win following his success in Monaco.

Of course with the changeable meteorological conditions prevailing this weekend, all that hope and promise may not actually be fulfilled on race-day, but for a lot of people it was a good day. So what did we get in the Friday press conference? Sorry there are no prizes for guessing the answer. That was the easiest quiz question ever on Clip The Apex. Of course it was tyre-gate and the opportunity for the media to try and grill Ross Brawn until he was cooked enough to eat.

Let WitchHunterGeneral explain ...


Fenderman, Editor in My Own Mind, Rooters news Group

WitchHunterGeneral


CNC and Bernie Ecclestone may yet live to regret selling the semi- exclusive F1 broadcasting rights to Sky. Rupert Murdoch's newspapers and television news media have a long standing reputation for perpetuating "news" at the lowest level of tabloidal journalistic standards. The latest controversy to receive the Murdoch Media treatment is, of course, Tyre-Test-Gate.

In Canada on Friday evening the press conference was utterly dominated by the subject. Sky's headline to its report on the conference was: "Ross Brawn confirms Mercedes' controversial Barcelona tyre test was his decision". The piece that followed that inflammatory headline was then dominated by hyperbole about RB not being drawn on this question or that question with the obvious implication that Ross is hiding the truth (well something at any rate).

The fact that there will be certain things his legal team will have advised Ross to keep schtum about is not exactly a surprise. Anything that constitutes part of the evidence (such as emails and letters) and statements that may be relied upon in giving evidence at the tribunal will now be confidential in the extreme. In fact, it will be off limits to the outside world right up until the proceedings of the International Tribunal. Brawn and Mercedes are now bound by those strictures to keep their traps shut.

I notice that Sky didn't have a problem with Hembery being advised not to attend the bloomin' press conference by Pirelli's legal eagles. It looks like they at least gave good advice to their client. Ross might want to have a word with his.

Well Rooters hopes that Ross sues the arse off of them for the inference that the test was Mercedes and his idea. Yet again, the airwaves will be full of rubbish about how it's all down to an evil fixer and his team. This time Ross Brawn and Mercedes and not Ron Dennis and McLaren.

What part of "IT WAS A PIRELLI TEST" do the numpties at Sky not understand?

It's also interesting that every time anyone talks about safety with regard to the de-lamination issues, the pundits keep saying that the tyres were are because they didn't deflate straight away. That's like saying the lack of wheel tethers didn't mean that Senna's car was less safe because only one wheel hit him on the head and it hadn't happened to anyone else. Tell that to a young bloke called Surtees a decade and a half later. Was there not an increase in the height of cock-pit sides implemented for 1995? Nobody protested then that wheels had never bonked a head before.

The only reason we haven't seen a big accident following a de-lamination is because they haven't happened in the middle of a fast corner like 130R. There is no guarantee that such an incident isn't going to happen. What we do know is that if a tyre on one side has grip and the opposite tyre hasn't, then the car is going to rotate in a direction one doesn't want it to turn.

So whilst Pirelli and the authorities continue to downplay the safety issue, which was an extremely good reason for having an extensive tyre test of this years tyres on a current car, we, thanks to the media, are preoccupied with dragging a team through the mud, who lest we forget accepted an invitation to help Pirelli by providing a car. Who the fuck will ever want to do that again even if they do sort out the rules. If I were team manager I would say "Fuck you. When you make a tyre we can race on tell FIA where to go, we'll give you hand."

So why, do you ask, has WitchHunterGeneral chosen to shout out this time around when there have been all sorts of other controversies since the last time we heard from him? Well, the short answer is that I can be arsed. It also pisses me off big time that the FIA didn't see this coming in the run up to the 2011 season when Pirelli requested the ability to hold specific tyre testing to enable them to meet the commitments of their contract.

Once again a team and its head honcho have their heads on a chopping block because the FIA did not think it a good idea to frame a set of rule specifically to set the parameters within which Pirelli could perform their test. How can Mercedes and Pirelli be prosecuted for breaking rules that were clearly not designed for the testing regimen that the FIA seem to have been making allowances for? A bunch of memos and conversations do not a body of rules make.

The bum line is that FIA had twelve months to come up with sensible guidelines for 2013. It is their failure to do that which is to blame for this whole sorry saga. Stuff 'em.

And Auntie Beeb Is Not Off The Hook

In a shallow attempt to emulate Sky that quaint old sinking ship The Auntie Beeb F1 Commentooter Team managed to surpass itself by regurgitation the types f questions that Clip The Apex members have sieved and pretty well explored the subject to the nth degree over a week ago. Clippers have come up with a host of excellent observations and ideas (regardless of whether they are on the same side of the fence or sitting astride it, painful). But The Beeb's bunch? Their questions have been as inept as their exploration of the subject matter and with as much insight as one gets from looking at the universe with a telescope the wrong way round. Brilliant. A TV licence refund is so overdue it's now reaching the status of a criminal act. I think that's called extortion. Pirelli's legal team are probably the right folk's for helping out with a civil action. If I could be arsed (and had some wealth) I would phone them up!

Thanks for reading.

WitchHunterGeneral, Evil Entity in Fenderman's Head, Rooters News Group

 

[Fenderman]

ROOTING TODAY - HASTY CORRECTION ISSUE

RE: WITCHHUNTERGENERAL EDITORIAL

The paragraph which reads:

"This issue is about the subject that completely overshadowed the on track events of the first day of practice for the 2013 Canadian Grand Prix. It seemed to be of absolutely no interest that Lewis Hamilton might have got his mojo back or that Fernando Alonso looks good for a back to back win following his success in Monaco."

Originally read before a dozy Fenderman re-edited the post for umpteenth time:

"This issue is about the subject that completely overshadowed the on track events of the first day of practice for the 2013 Canadian Grand Prix. It seemed to be of absolutely no interest that Lewis Hamilton might have got his mojo back or that Fernando Alonso looks good for a third win this season or maybe Nico could do a back to back win following his success in Monaco."

...and a lot if other stuff that I took out because the piece was too blooming long ...

Thanks to F1ang-o for spotting the error. The editor in Fenderman's head has been demoted.

Thanks for reading.

WitchHunterGeneral, Evil Entity in Fenderman's Head, Rooters News Group