The official Franck site has recently uploaded some more pictures to the gallery, featuring photos throughout the man's career. Whilst perusing these pictures, it reminded me of something from Autosport International. We were busy stalking FKM, as expected, and he was asked to pose in front of the Peugeot car, with fellow driver Nicolas Minassian. The photographer said: "Let's see some smiles." And Franck muttered something like: "I am smiling." …

Peugeot Sport announced their lineup yesterday for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, confirming that Montagny would join them for the second year in a row. He'll also turn up for a couple of prepatory events, the 12 Hours of Sebring, and 1000 Kilometres of Spa. I've never heard of either of these events but am now very excited about them. FKM's team mates for Spa and Sebring have been …

The BBC seem to have gone a bit doolally over Twitter. First it was Jonathan Ross spending at least ten minutes discussing the micro-blogging site with Stephen Fry. Then Radio 1 picked that up and ran with it, with at least three of the DJs signing up for Twitter accounts, maybe more. Whilst it's good to see radio branching out even more into the online world, this seems like a …

With iTunes now starting to roll out HD versions of some TV shows, alongside the standard def versions, we had to investigate. Given the option, it feels wrong to buy a lesser quality version, even if it is slightly more expensive to do so. LOST returned to our screens recently, and by screens, I mean monitors playing the HD show with the help of an Apple remote. I wasn't sure …

It'll be a while before I'll be able to get those images of a plane in the Hudson River out of my mind, but at least it's one of those feel good stories where it all ended happily ever after. The passengers were safe, the crew were heralded, the pilot called a hero. It's all good. But aren't they forgetting someone? Today, the audio from the black box on the …

Thursdays are rubbish, aren't they? I'd go so far as to say they are worse than Monday. With that being the case, I need a little bit of cute baby panda goodness to cheer me up. In case anyone feels the same, here you go: If that's not enough, here's something else: Credit: ErikaMCz/Flickr And if after all that, you're feeling generous: IKEA: Klappar Panda Well, I certainly feel better. …

IT SNOWED!! Of course, I am much too unorganised to have snapped a picture of this momentous occasion. It is a bit of a phenomenon where I live, but of course, it's also a bit of a nuisance. The snow covered my car, soaked through my gloves, and caused random pedestrians to slip off the road. It also took three times as long to get to work, for no apparent …

A few days ago, a new update appeared on the news section of Franck's official site, and I have just got round to translating it and having a read. There's not much in the way of news, Franck's in training for the new season, and will apparently be getting in the Peugeot soon. The bit that interested me, though, was this: You may have noticed that the stories were more …

I've never really understood Lollipop Ladies/Men. (Have never seen a lollipop man before, though.) In this day and age of excruciating Health and Safety, it's acceptable for the council to pay someone to step out into the path of oncoming traffic. Seems odd. I also think it's better for children to learn how to use actual street crossings. Those traffic lights are put there for a reason, you know. Otherwise, …

During his second day at Autosport International, Franck chose to talk about his prospects with Peugeot Sport. Having worked with them for the 24 Hour Le Mans race in 2008, Franck quickly signed up to continue racing with them this year, but at the moment, he doesn't know to what extent his workload will be. I am with the team for 2009, I don't know exactly what my programme will …

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, Mr M turned up at the trade show in Birmingham, and he had plenty to say for himself. He's been pretty quiet recently, after finishing up his year with ALMS, and he turned up at the show on behalf of Peugeot Sport - his Le Mans team. He wasn't the only member of the squad there, but of course, he was the most …

I've just found this and had to share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1fQ1P4Mwlc Utterly amazing. Aside from the fact it's scary how many songs are alike, I'm very impressed with their ability to switch from one to the other. I'd just get carried away and at least finish the chorus of one song. How do they manage to control themselves to just do one line of each?

It's Franck's birthday today. I am ashamed. I didn't forget, but I did not actually know when his birthday was. This is terrible and I now have the date burned into my mind for future reference. Happy Birthday, Franck! As it turns out, I was reminded by Scott Woodwiss, who has written an excellent blog post on the subject. I will point you in that direction, and simply say: What …

Matt Smith is the new Doctor Who, facing the daunting task of replacing David Tennant. It's an unenviable task, especially from someone I'm sure not many people have heard of. I'll reserve judgement until I've seen him in action, but on first impressions alone... he doesn't look the part, and he certainly doesn't sound the part. What do you think?

Browsing through the iTunes TV Programmes store yesterday, I came across this little gem: That's one single TV episode, that lasts for an hour and is £2.99. Is this the first time that iTunes have given in to the variable pricing pressure? I haven't seen it before. When NBC said they'd be returning to iTunes, we all assumed they'd had to give in and admit that Apple's platform is a …

As am I! According to this story, Peugeot Sport will be showing off their cars at the Autosport event next weekend - with the details as follows: Kris Meeke and Paul Nagle will be on the Peugeot Sport stand on Thursday 8th for interviews. Nicolas Minassian and Franck Montagny will also be available on the Peugeot Sport stand for interviews on Friday 9th and Saturday 10th. I'll be there on …

I'm all for the return of Top of the Pops and TOTP2, and I don't really think they should have disappeared in the first place. There are very few decent music programs on TV as it is, I'm pretty sure the Beeb could have adapted Top of the Pops to remain mainstream if they'd really wanted to. Of course, they didn't, and then they announced it wouldn't even be back …

I don't usually make resolutions, as I know I'll either break them or have forgotten them by the end of January. However, I had already been talked into doing so over at Sidepodcast.com, so I thought I might as well share my three very simple resolutions for 2009. Try and stick to a Wii Fit schedule. I enjoy it when I do it but quite often forget and only remember …

The Mac doesn't really have any cheap and cheerful image editing software. You've got the very limited features of iPhoto, and then you've got the expensive software of Fireworks and others. I don't do that much image editing, as I let the other half invest in the software. However, as I intend to blog more, I at least want the ability to resize and crop as needed. I discovered Picnik.com …

At some point, if you're looking at Smarter Than Your Average, it should change from a Wordpress.com template, to a rather more customisable design. While the web is gradually making it's way towards 3.0, STYA has taken that great leap into the world of web hosting and FTP for it's very own version 2. I'm not going to make any rash promises about hundreds of posts and lots of fascinating …

The Boxing Day sales certainly were popular, especially at the Westfield Shopping Centre. The BBC have a short video of the mass hysteria as the doors to the centre opened. One woman even discusses the fact that she has travelled from afar, stayed overnight in a hotel, and was looking forward to her shopping trip more than Christmas Day itself. Needless to say, this freaks me out. Our cupboards are …

Whilst it is the norm to not even open presents until Christmas Day, nothing about me is normal. That would explain why I bought the present for myself, wrapped it, gave it to myself during a live stream of a party, and have now finished up with the present already. You know how it is. The gift I bought myself was the Mega Bloks Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Pit Stop - …

It never ceases to amaze me what a small world it is. My mother called me up and said a temp at her work had asked if she knew me (same name and all), and it turns out he's a temp I had to train up at my last job when leaving for this one. When she said he worked with me for two days over there, I immediately said …

A colleague gave me one of those desk flip things, that should be a calendar, but actually is labelled as "30 Hilarious Desktop Signs." I actually found it on Amazon, but I'm not recommending it. They're really not all that hilarious but there are a couple I like, so I'll share them with you. They are written as though they are motivational posters, all big fonts, with a little sub-message …

I was listening to a recent episode of Get-It-Done Guy and he talked about how to keep your desk tidy. This is a real bone of contention at home, as my desk is always in complete chaos. It's weird, really, because at work I have the tidiest desk of everyone. If only I could bring that mentality home with me as well. The Get-It-Done Guy, Stever Robbins, talks of folders …

We went to Paris at very short notice a weekend or two ago, and one of our main aims was to snap a picture of the FIA headquarters. Yes, fine, people go to Place de la Concorde for the history and the beauty, but we went for the F1. Obviously. Anyway, it was a brilliant trip, but there were just a few tips I wanted to share with the class. …

With the G1 only available on T-Mobile, I had to cancel my Vodafone contract. Firstly, it was almost impossible to find out how to do it, with the information tucked away in the smallest corner of the Help section of the site. I can understand a company's desire not to lose customers, but if you're going to have a help section, it'd be good if it was actually helpful. I …

I'm not entirely sure why, presumably just as an exercise in corporate relations, but Peugeot Sport took their Le Mans team to the Michelin factory in France. They had a look round they tyre manufacturing plant, but also learnt some of the basics of production and had a go at making a tyre themselves. Wurz, Gene, Sarrazin, Minassian and Lamy were all very impressed with what they saw, but here's …

I use the alarm on my phone to wake up of a morning, so was happy to see how easy to use the G1 alarm clock was. I even got to choose a sound! The first time I set it, at midnight, I thought it would be hilariously brilliant to choose the rooster alarm noise to wake up. It wasn't so funny in the morning. Also, my boss has the …

I got myself the Google Phone last week, and have been playing around with it for a while. I'm not going to do an extensive review of it, because there are gadgety types who can do that much better than I can. All I will say for now is that I love it, and as I find things I really like, I'll be sure to tell you all about them. …

I was listening to Buzz out Loud, and they pointed out a phishing email scam test. I'm never one to pass up the opportunity to rate myself, so I looked into it. The idea is to see if you can tell the difference between a legitimate email and one that is phishing for your details. There are ten questions, and each one shows you an image of an email, and …

I was just checking out the official Franck site for any news and updates on our favourite Frenchman and the latest article is about his test with AGR. However, at the end of the post, there is a snippet of information. Since then, Franck returned to Europe on our good old continent. On the agenda this week, a Training Camp in good and due form! Franck joined his coach and …

After a relatively good showing with AGR's American Le Mans team, Montagny was given a road course test with the IndyCar team a couple of weeks ago. Franck already had a go in the Indy car back in September, testing at the Kentucky Speedway, but this time he got to have a go at Sebring - which should be a more preferable circuit style to him. He tested with Tony …

This is a story a friend of mine told me: She was walking back to work after lunch, through the underpass, and a mother pushing a buggy with two screaming kids was coming the other way. Now, when I say screaming, I mean enough to make you want to rip your own ears off. The mother was trying to quieten them but not having much luck. A policeman also entered …

Even though I consider myself to be somewhat "down with the kids", I've got to say that txt speak and internet slang are starting to confuse me. I'm not above using the odd lol, omg or wtf, but it's becoming a bit baffling. Firstly, I want to point out a very useful site for fuddy-duddies like me: Internet Slang Dictionary. There's a translator in there, if you come across some …

One of the things I regret from my lack of time these days is not attempting to play the piano anymore. I can't honestly say that it's all down to being busy, as I did hike a keyboard around with me through a couple of flats and it didn't get much use. I don't know where the motivation went but I do miss it. Playing music is great fun, and …

I've just finished the second of two exams this week. I'm pretty sure I failed both of them, but that's okay. In fact, I'm really happy about it because I now know at least one path I don't want my career to take. The reason for this post, however, is because of the severe cramp I have in my right hand. My exams have always tended to be a lot …

Michael Crichton died yesterday, and I don't think I'd be lying if I said he was my favourite author of all time. I didn't even know he was ill, which is so unusual in this day and age that it makes me like him even more. Obviously the usual applies, with thoughts and feelings going out to his family, but on a purely selfish level, I'm sad that there will …

The new look. Yes, okay, you can still view via the 'old Facebook' but presumably this will not always be the case, and I'm not a fan. It takes ages to upload photos. I tried to put up 5 pictures and it literally took half an hour. I timed it and everything. Messages from groups. I join groups to visit occasionally, have a look around, see what's in the discussion …

It's been a while, but I return with good tidings. Franck won his first ALMS race this weekend, taking the top stop of the podium with team mate James Rossiter. The win came after some good strategic calls from the team, some good decision making in the pit stops, and some good driving from Mr FKM. The team waited until the minimum amount of time a driver has to be …

Via the iPlayer, I watched a four-part series about Mark Beaumont. He's a cyclist from Scotland who set himself the challenge of crossing the world - 18,000 miles - in under 200 days to set a new Guinness World Record. If you missed the programme, there's plenty of information about it on the BBC website, including when and where it will be on (if it's repeated). The guy was absolutely …

Just wanted to point out that I'm currently in the midst of loving identi.ca. If you're fed up of Twitter's flakiness, and want something a little bit prettier, then identi.ca could be for you. I'm busy posting there at the moment, amazed at how many 140 character sentences I have come up with already, having only been registered for a week. If you're interested in following me, head to identi.ca/christineb. …

I know I'm very late to the game about this, but I just wanted to say that Google Docs is actually rather cool. I've just set up my very first co-ordination project for Librivox (as in, encouraging chapter submissions, rather than recording them) and I used Google Docs to host the text for each chapter. Being able to publish the document at the click of a mouse is amazing. I …

Apparently I am suddenly interested in lots of different sports. I vaguely remember watching bits of the last Olympics, just because it was on, and I was bored, and I liked TV. This year, I actually seem to care how well we do. This is a weird development for someone who hates sport, and I don't like it. The BBC page is brilliant, of course, with live video and an …

Did anyone else realise that along with the new redesign of Delicious, they're pushing delicious.com instead of the del.icio.us crazy url? Apparently they've always had the .com domain but redirected it. Now they're a bit more popular, the crazy url is a bit too complicated, so it's delicious.com from here on in. I've stopped embedding my delicious links in this blog, in the hopes that it will make me write …

Since the dawn of time, but also quite recently, I have been looking for a decent to-do list manager. This is how it used to work: While I'm out all day, I keep a list of things that I need to do, remember, or think about on a scrap of paper. When I get home, I action all the ones I can and cross them off the list, then transfer …

Well, I can only apologise for not updating more often. There are no excuses, except I don't really understand the Le Mans series very well, and therefore don't find myself going looking for news every day. It looks like Montagny is showing well in the series, but having some small bouts of bad luck. At the moment he's partnered with James Rossiter, I believe, and they raced this weekend at …

Another Firefox extension I have just found has made my day, and I must spread the word. It's quite simple: Copy Link Text. Basically, once enabled you can right click on a link, and get the additional option of copy link text, alongside copy link location. This should be filed under: Things You Didn't Realise You Needed Until You Found Them.

I have recently upgraded to Firefox 3 and am writing a post about my experiences so far. The main problem I have had is that none of my old extensions work on the new version. This is slightly annoying, but at the same time, they really were due a clear-out. I had a weather thing in the top nav bar that I never even looked at. Sometimes I would accidentally …

Whilst the new Amazon design is very fancy and navigation is supposedly easier, there seems to be an elemental problem. Being from the UK, I signed up ages and ages ago, via the .co.uk side of Amazon. Today, I accidentally logged in via the .com domain. For a moment, I thought the stupid site had lost my wish list. But the truth is, it doesn't seem to be able to …