Franck won the race - hoorah! The Montagny/Sarrazin car was in the lead when the race came to an end, although it wasn't exactly a stunning victory. The entire race was marred by bad weather, with a lot of the running halted due to lightning concerns. McNish was dominating up until a serious downpour, when he spun on his cold tyres, and let the lead change hands. It may not …

Here we are with the second episode of this rough and ready podcast. Don't be expecting them on any schedule, mind you, just because I've done one for the last two Thursdays, and just cos I mention next week. Shh. Kinda Hard to Describe in Audio This week we discuss all things piracy and newspapers, plus an iPhone app, a Google Labs project, and a really expensive gadget. All that …

The first test day is complete, although Audi finished the day on top just ahead of FKM and Sarrazin's car. The difference was only about 0.16 seconds, so that is a good start. One very important thing to note, from the Peugeot press release: Running in blue and chrome livery, the two Peugeots will be distinguished by: white mirrors and wing for the N°07 Peugeot 908 HDi FAP Pedro LAMY …

Baby Panda with added pillow. Credit: Pok Kusuwan/Flickr

Chris Packham has hit headlines for resurfacing an old argument of his, that pandas should be left to die out with dignity. This is bound to ruffle my feathers, because I am one of those people he so resoundedly sneers at, donating £3 a month because the panda is cuddly. But why shouldn't I? In the original argument, Packham introduces his theory, pointing out that the panda lives on the …

Okay, fine, I'll hold my hands up and admit it, not only am I a blogaholic, I am also a podaholic. Instead of writing several posts on our very new project Media Future Change, I thought I'd dive straight in and create a podcast. It's a simple trip through some of the news of the past week or so, looking at how the media is changing or resisting the changes …

It's all quiet in FKM-World right now, so here's a quick photo to brighten up your Friday. Credit: Mark Mattox/Flickr

I found myself with quite a few stories to discuss today, and rather than spend time trying to string sentences together on the page, I thought I'd bite the bullet and get on with the podcast. If You Want More Than 140 Characters A roundup of media news over the past week, including behind the scenes of TV shows, editing podcasts in the clouds, and a small victory for ebook …

People, I have found a new game! It's been a while since I subjected you all to the addictiveness of I Love Traffic, and the wackiness of Skywire, so I thought it was time I shared another gem with you. This time we're talking about Meeblings. At first it looks like a lot of random coloured blobs on the screen, and actually... that's exactly what it is. It ever so …

If you have access to the BBC, and particularly iPlayer, I want to recommend the Saving Britain's Past series. I have seen the first couple, and was very struck by the second episode in the series, all about the Park Hill Estate in Sheffield. The programme tracks the attempts to save some of the more iconic developments in Britain's history, with other episodes focusing on country houses and the iconic …

I have just remembered that Mr C asked me to write about the downside of the Google map via Android experience, just to provide a bit of balance to my previous post on the subject. We were headed out and about to visit the lovely Alex and Kat, but only managed to get five minutes from our house before hitting some serious traffic. We don't tend to sit in traffic …

Ah, stupid Thursdays. Here are some baby pandas to help us all through the day. Credit: Dustin Crawford/Flickr I also want to point out the latest ZooBorns post on pandas, which introduces us to the newest cub at the San Diego Zoo. Nick, over on Sidepodcast.com, said the cub looked suspiciously like George from Rainbow. It does too!

Here are a couple of Twitter bits and pieces I have found that I wanted to share - when Twitter does good. Cabbie's tweet reunites lost Blackberry with owner - a simple tweet saved a lot of headaches, which is a really nice story. However, the way Twitter is organised at the moment makes this kind of thing really unusual, as you have to be searching for something specific and …

It finally happened - the App that has been hitting headlines for weeks now has made it into both the Android and iPhone store. There was a lot of doubt over whether Apple would allow the app into their store, particularly over in this corner of the web. However, it's there, it exists, and it's time to see what all the fuss is about! Here's a first impression review of …

I have spent my Sunday evening arguing with Final Cut, however, I got there in the end. Here's some footage I put together from this year's Bournemouth Air Show. https://static.mrschristine.com/blog/videos/2009/the-red-arrows.mp4 Music: Manda and The Marbles, Upside Down Also at the air show, the Avro Vulcan Bomber. Mr C donated some money towards getting the Vulcan back in the air, so we'll dedicate this short clip to him! https://static.mrschristine.com/blog/videos/2009/avro-vulcan-bomber.mp4

I bought a new pair of shoes! These are pretty cheap shoes that were in a sale from one of those cheap shoe shops, so I am not bragging about the style or quality of the shoes. The point here is: it was an impulse buy! I hate buying shoes. Really and truly, it is one of the worst things I have to do, second only to getting my hair …

It's no secret that I'm a fan of baby animals that are cute. I'm quite specific when it comes to which ones I like, but either way, it doesn't seem like a sensible idea to take me to a country farm show. Where there are cute baby animals. For sale. No, I didn't get one. Sadly I didn't have £75 on my person, but if I did... well, we could …

I went somewhere recently and saw a chocolate fountain (pictures coming soon). I know that isn't particularly exciting, but mmm, chocolate. In my travels across the web, I suddenly uncovered a mini chocolate fountain. This is sort of desk sized. A while ago, I talked about things you could have on your desk to brighten up the work day. I think a chocolate fountain would just about do it! I …

Here we go then, a selection of photos from the amazing A Perfect World of Pandas Flickr Group. Credit: xu ye/Flickr The one one the end so looks like it is sucking its thumb. _Credit: hwee__ling/Flickr_ I'm not actually sure this one is a baby, but so fluffy! Credit: Cheryl/Flickr Ah, the cuteness.

One photo today - busy, busy, busy. 'Tis a cute one though. Credit: Ben Beard/Flickr

Not only have I just uncovered a new site covering the world of eBooks, but it is a site that is asking for contributions. Yay! Starting from the beginning, I read the Random Acts of Reality blog which is written by an ambulance technician (I'm not sure they're still called that, sincere apologies), and is a really fascinating read. The author, Tom Reynolds, also compiled a book on the same …

The Telegraph has been doing some digging into when Hulu will reach European shores and although it looks like deals are still be negotiated, progress is being made. Of course, they only have "a source" for their article but it claims that ITV are the closest to signing a deal with the online video provider and that would most likely have some exclusivity associated with it. The source says: Hulu …

Franck's official site has updated with thoughts on the race at Sonoma, and confirms what we all thought - a disappointing race but FKM still showed well. We would have loved seeing Franck repeating his last year’s success in Long Beach as he scored a strong second place for his first Champcar race. That was finally not the case this weekend but Franck still did an amazing job getting used …

At the moment, I am pretty good at dreaming up something to write about and getting it done within a few days. For a while, I went through a busy stage, where I created a lot of draft posts for this blog, with the intention of writing them up later. Some of them have come to fruition, others are just getting older and older. I had a week off last …

Boo. I can honestly say that I stayed up to watch the race, and then went to bed once Franck had to retire from the race. How disappointing. FKM had been involved in an incident on the very first lap, when the cars in front tangled together leaving little space for those behind to squeeze through unscathed. Although he was now running towards the back, miles away from his 8th …

Hello! I know I have been quiet since Franck's race seat was announced, and I should have been following his performance in testing as well as in qualifying yesterday. Apparently rookie's get a bit of extra time on track which is a really good thing to see. I saw some of qualifying yesterday, although I never really established which car was Franck on screen, and only caught the last few …

I was recently introduced to the Android App Locale and it is really rather good. I thought I would share, although if you are a Google Android user, you have likely found this already. It is basically a fancy way of storing some 'if statements' in your phone to make certain things happen. I have only set up one, but will share with you as an example: I get a …

Of course, I'm not talking about real life friends (what are they?), I'm talking about the sitcom. This is my favourite TV show ever on earth, and my real life friend (oh!) and I used to spend hours watching and memorising the episodes. I was going to make this a top five list, but then realised firstly that I couldn't narrow it down or decide which was my overall favourite. …

Another reason print is dead (to me). Once a month, F1 Racing falls through my letterbox on a Saturday morning at 8am with a massive clonk and wakes me up. PDFs do not do this.

The BBC have teamed up with online video service Blinkbox to deliver some of its TV Shows for a price, plus a few programmes for free that come with ads. It's important to point out this is BBC Worldwide, which is the commercial arm of the Beeb, and essentially completely separate from the non-advertising public service broadcaster. I have never heard of Blinkbox before, but it looks as though it …

An interesting thought about the Kindle that hadn't occurred to me. I wonder how many people have not only fallen for the sheer alleged convenience of Kindle, but because it has filled their minds with works they would not otherwise have touched. Could Kindle be a way to re-educate the world? Could it help us to bypass those scheming, artsy book designers and finally be true to our own genuine …

This is quite a cool game: Can you name the most used passwords of all time? Not a catchy title, I grant you, but it's fun all the same. You get three minutes to guess the most popular passwords. A couple of them are obvious, and I actually only got five. I am also slightly concerned as to how this data is collected. Either someone is reading and collecting passwords, …

The BBC have always been good at pushing forward new music, even as the industry changes around them. It used to be supremely hard for unsigned artists to get their music heard, but with MySpace and Podsafe music, it's easier for word to spread. Although this is better for artists, I imagine it might make the BBC's life a little harder - there is such a wealth of music out …

A Panda Cub's Prison Break, thanks to Alex for finding this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIVRJE4v6o8

Eidos are taking a leaf out of Radiohead's book, and charging only a processing fee for their new game. Users are requested to pay what they think the game is worth. The Championship Manager 2010 game is available until September 10th, when the full game hits the shops and the price rises to £29.99. There's a rather snazzy video of the press conference, and Eidos say: We’re keen to see …

Over in the US, the purchase of digital music over CDs is rising. The NPD Group released some statistics suggesting that digital sales now make up 25% of the overall sale of music, and that figure is only growing. From the press release: Many people are surprised that the CD is still the dominant music delivery format, given the attention to digital music and the shrinking retail footprint for physical …

I've just discovered this really interesting page on Flickr (via The Next Web) which collates information from all its users and shows us which camera is the most popular. The iPhone has made quite the leap, and other graphs on the page, show that it is by far the most popular supplier of photos from cameraphones. All the point & shoot cameras are Canon's as well, which is just plain …

I have been watching a couple of new advertising initiatives that have really worked on me, and I am only talking about them to encourage more of the same from companies in the future (because I have that kind of power, you know?) and not because I necessarily have an opinion on the brand either way. Other [insert product here] are available. Firstly, I've been reading Mighty Girl for a …

I was actually going to record this as a kind of video blog, but am missing a rather crucial USB cable that without it means I have to crawl around under desks and dismantle Mr C's rather tidy cabling. I don't think he'd thank me for that, but I feel the stories are worth sharing before they get too old, so I'll post the transcript instead. This is also my …

Mashable posted an article a couple of days ago, with a rundown of 12 Things Newspapers Should Do to Survive. The majority of the pointers seem to reiterate the notion of not trying to fight the web, to embrace it, and to go niche to protect your brand in print. This makes perfect sense, because the best way to keep newspapers and magazines going is to ensure they provide something …

Whilst I've been getting more and more attached to my T-Mobile G1, it looks as though the Android development team are going through the opposite emotions. According to this story on Engadget, G1 users really need to make the most of their recent Cupcake software update, because it will probably be their last! Supposedly, HTC put a limited amount of internal flash space into the G1, and the Android operating …

The tomatoes did turn red in the end, and they were delicious.

Part two of a media-related post on our sister site Sidepodcast. Do some keywords fare better than others? Which headlines provided the most interest? Everything is completely transparent, it’s quick and easy to tailor things on the fly and straightforward to vary advertisements according to budget. We have, in the past, run an advertising campaign purely for the live commenting of races. At most that means running ads for a …

Part one of a media-related post on our sister site Sidepodcast. Linking makes the social, well, more sociable and without it conversation takes considerably more effort. Which is why we know print is dead. It’s been a long time coming, but social networking has finally rendered the printed page obsolete. Remaining marginally rational for a moment, it’s probably worth adding that the length of the printed material and the type …

If you work in an office it can be quite a grind, but there are loads of toys and gadgets out there to help the day go a little bit faster. Here are some of my favourite ones at the moment. The Desktop Henry Hoover is an ideal gadget because not only is it cute and a talking point, but it also cleans your desk! It takes a couple of …

Two Pandas Credit: La Rusa Loca/Flickr Baby Panda Eyes Credit: Elaine Gast/Flickr

This is singularly the best moment from Never Mind the Buzzcocks ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8J1Wpn9uJs In my opinion, Buzzcocks got better when Simon Amstell took over, although some of his humour was, it's fair to say, evil. Bill Bailey also made a great addition, and his weird moments could be very amusing. Bailey left and was replaced by guest captains, then Amstell left to be replaced by guest hosts. Apparently Noel Fielding …

LibriVox is an organisation with a simple goal - to make all public domain works accessible in audiobook form. I've been involved for a long while now, part of an enormous group of volunteers who record chapters, poems and entire books to attempt to reach this goal. My latest solo book has been catalogued: Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School. It's one of those books that is probably aimed …

What unbelievably good weather we had in the UK this past weekend! Mr C and I were so impressed we actually headed outside. We found our way to the river, and ended up on a boat. I didn't want to take the wheel to start with, but after a while I was desperate to take over, so I drove us up and down, whilst Mr C took some pictures and …

There has been some speculation recently that Franck would be signed up by AGR to race for them in a forthcoming IRL event, and now it has been confirmed. FKM will take to the wheel of the No. 25 on the 22-23rd of August, in his IRL debut. He says: I am certainly looking forward to my IndyCar debut in Sonoma with AFS and Andretti Green Racing. I was able …