Richard Williams
@rwilliams1947
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‘24 Hours: 100 Years of Le Mans' out now from Simon & Schuster. Music blog:
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Joined December 2010
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Last Seen Profiles
Sorry, but I’m switching off. On no planet in the solar system should that Pukki goal have been judged offside. VAR is a complete joke, a disaster, a self-inflicted catastrophe. And I’m neither pro-Norwich nor anti-Spurs. I just happen to have loved football for 60-odd years.
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As a neutral, and with nothing against Man City, I must say that Real Madrid vs Liverpool feels like a proper European Cup final. A game with history in its bones.
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“I’m so glad that I’m still around to see that” — Glenn Hoddle with the quote of the night. Wonderful.
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Michael Gove telling John Humphrys that the Windrush scandal is “about politics”. It’s about human lives, you rancid little twerp.
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John Isner: "I am most definitely not a better tennis player than Andy Murray. I might just have been a little better today." What a gracious and beautiful quote.
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Apparently Emma Raducanu spent her non-playing evenings in her New York hotel room watching F1 and listening to jazz. No more need be said.
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To this very pertinent column I would add that in the last 72 hours the BBC has given platforms to Isabel Oakshott on Question Time and Richard Tice on Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday morning show.
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How journalism works: interested party (left), disinterested party (right).
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There have been some bad Tory governments in my lifetime, from Eden to May, but never before one so completely defined by its amorality.
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Pretty clear that a curiously selective application of the safety car rules in Abu Dhabi created the opportunity for a Netflix-pleasing final lap of head-to-head racing by the two championship contenders. If you were
@MercedesAMGF1
, you'd appeal too.
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From today, Nigel Farage will forever be the Man of the PayPal. Thank you, Gordon Brown, for inventing an epithet worthy of
@MarinaHyde
.
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West Ham United charge mascots’ parents £700 while paying “Baroness” Brady £438,000 in “consultancy” fees on top of £898,000 vice-chairman’s salary. Football, eh? The Visigoths couldn’t have done a better job.
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Today’s message from the man who unlawfully prorogued Parliament.
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Very interesting bit of keen-eyed parliamentary sketching from
@tompeck
in today’s Times. They won’t be giving him that seat again.
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An excellent letter in The Times this morning from
@ClaughtonJohn
— who, if memory serves, combined his work as a master at Eton with writing cricket reports for the Independent on Sunday.
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Fun fact. England squad member Ben Chilwell is from Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes literally didn’t even exist the last time England reached a final.
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It’s good when a manager who is also a very nice person turns out to be the smartest guy in a very noisy room.
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Here’s my
#Aretha
obit for the Guardian. Like everybody who’s been writing about her today, I wanted very much to do it right.
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Just heard someone on Radio 5 describe the Giro d’Italia as “the Europa League”. It’s the fucking Giro d’Italia, mate. Get some history.
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Anyone who is surprised that Nelson Piquet would say something unacceptable to civilised society hasn't been paying attention.
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While recognising that it’s dangerous to make comparisons between very different eras, I reckon Lewis Hamilton’s 101st GP victory in Brazil yesterday was up there with Fangio’s legendary chase of the Ferraris at the Nürburgring in 1957. Than which no higher praise can be given.
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All this year I’ve been saying that, under its current leadership, The Times is turning into the Daily Mail. Well now.
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Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen showing today how grown-ups race in F1. Unlike Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen (and maybe you have to ask who their mentor was).
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Boris Johnson thinks it's time the World Cup "came home". The World Cup was invented by a Frenchman. The English FA refused to participate in the first three tournaments (1930, 34 & 38) and in the competition's predecessor, the Olympic football tournament. Just another lie, then.
It's time the football World Cup came home.
I want it to show our national confidence as we get Brexit done: a sign to the world that whilst we are a small country, we’re a great one with a proud history and a strong future.
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Best thing in sport today? Mark Cavendish winning the final stage of his last Giro d’Italia in Rome, helped in the lead-out by his former team mate Geraint Thomas. Hard to imagine that happening in another sport.
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What we’re seeing is that “the BBC” isn’t Richard Sharp, Robbie Gibb and Tim Davie, the Tory plants. It’s the people who actually work there, creating programmes, working at every level, and who feel themselves to be the heirs of the best of its traditions. All power to them.
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Three majestic paragraphs to conclude
@rafaelbehr
’s superb piece in today’s Guardian. Read it all.
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Six years ago tomorrow Arsenal lost 8-2 at Old Trafford. Today's Anfield defeat is worse because it shows that nothing was learnt that day.
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Pity ITV haven't followed Southgate's example and shuffled their commentating squad.
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Very nice to see Roy Hodgson as a guest at Julian Barnes’ book launch tonight. In his speech Barnes said that when they first met, he wanted to talk to Roy about football. Roy wanted to discuss the state of the contemporary British novel.
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LEWIS'S FINAL LAP (THREAD)
1. Got some stats from Mercedes which show that Lewis's puncture occurred 2km into lap 52, with 3.8km left. Over that 3.8km he was 22 sec slower than on lap 51. That 3.8km included two high-speed corners: Copse and Stowe.
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Pure comedy from start to finish in today’s Daily Mail. “Boris chose to leave with dignity”… “The nation has lost a transformative political genius”… “We shall miss this blithe spirit who accompanied us through dark times”… The gags just keep on coming.
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After reading that Nelson Piquet acted as Jair Bolsonaro's chauffeur on Independence Day in Brazil last year. I propose that henceforth Piquet shall no longer be referred to as a three-times world champion but as "Bolsonaro's chauffeur". Suits him perfectly.
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Listening to the TV commentary on Spurs v Juve and reading tweets from some normally sensible writers, you realise that the English will never, ever understand Italian football.
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For two years in the 1970s I bought a season ticket for a club with which I had/have no affiliation, just to watch the teenaged Ray Wilkins play. Total investment: £50. Money very well spent. Marvellous player, lovely man. RIP, Ray.
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Whatever view you take on it, that ride by Chris Froome today made you yearn for a time when no one questioned such feats. Astonishing drama at the
#Giro
, but I have no idea how to feel about it.
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Very strong piece on Lewis Hamilton's latest anti-racism T-shirt by
@SMitchellF1
via
@wearetherace
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Thirty years ago tomorrow Curtis Mayfield suffered the accident that paralysed him from the neck down for the rest of his life. Three years after the accident he gave me an interview I'll never forget:
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Always a special pleasure to see Diego Simeone lose a football match.
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Yesterday I stupidly tripped over myself and hit the pavement quite hard. The people at Teddington Memorial Hospital patched me up with care, kindness and efficiency. The NHS isn't perfect, but it's the best of us. Those wishing to harm it define themselves as the worst of us.
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With this pre-race presentation in Miami,
#F1
plumbs new depths of tawdriness. Lowlight: security goons trying to prevent Jackie Stewart — a three-time world champion — entering the VIP area on the grid.
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Good grief. As well as driving through the field, Max Verstappen has managedto get Lewis and Nico involved in the same conversation.
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Listening to Chris Hoy talking to Hazel Irvine on BBC1. I only interviewed him once, but I’ve never forgotten how courteous, thoughtful and interesting he was. And still is, obviously.
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I was a bit afraid the BBC2 version of the Northern Soul Prom wouldn’t live up my memory of the live experience from a few weeks ago. Needn’t have worried. It’s utterly joyous.
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RIP Charlie Watts, keeper of immaculate time and a gentleman, too. (photo:Jack English)
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First copy. The story of 100 years of Le Mans, the world's greatest sports car race, featuring many heroes, a few villains, and the woman who drove a stint through the night in her fur coat. Publication date 25 May.
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This is why we have poetry. (The poet laureate in this morning's Guardian)
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A little story: The man in the cap is Gerd Straub, a Mercedes mechanic who has looked after this most historic car — the Moss/Jenkinson 1955 Mille Miglia winner — for the past 30 years. He’s driving the car at the Goodwood Revival today, before they both go into retirement.
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So sad to see Mark Cavendish leave the 2023 Tour in a medical car. But his 34 stage wins, equalling Eddy Merckx’s record, guarantee his sporting immortality.
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Try reading this — from today’s Times — with a straight face.
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In any sensible world,
@bbclaurak
and
@Peston
would be stood down for the remainder of the election period. Don’t they have editors who can see the gravity of reproducing unverified propaganda as fact 72 hours before polling day? Hurried apologies don’t do it.
I know we're always supposed to be knowing and ironic on here, but after this afternoon I just can't find it in me. At the height of an election, journalists spread actual fake news. The greatest threat to our profession - and we did it ourselves. I feel utterly downcast
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The Guardian asked for a piece about the meaning of Lewis Hamilton. Here it is.
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This should win some kind of award for the best non-match photo of the 2018 World Cup.
Bolshoi ballet dancers watching the Russia - Spain game backstage during a performance of Raymonda
(via: Bruna Gaglianone/Bolshoi Theatre)
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On Easter Monday 65 years ago, my father took my mother, my sister and me to Mallory Park for our first experience of motor racing. An unknown 23-year-old Scottish farmer named Jim Clark won four races: three in a Lister-Jag and one in a Lotus Elite. I was 12 and had a new hero.
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Great turnout for today’s sad but lovely memorial service: Robson Reid Hoddle Brooking Coppell Zola Hollins Conte Southgate Hodgson Keegan Terry Lampardx2 Spackman Jordan Stapleton McQueen Beardsley Wise Sinclair Woodcock Lewington Wicks SirLes Viv Anderson and many, many others.
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Wonderful joke with which to start the first day of the F1 season. Thank you,
@patrick_kidd
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You have to laugh at being lectured on reproduction rates by Boris Johnson, whose actual R is unknown.
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RIP Charles Wilson, 87, editor of The Times 1985-90. Charlie wasn't to everyone's taste, but he did one unequivocally good thing: in 1988 he sacked Boris Johnson for lying.
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3. The combination of feel and skill it must have taken to get to the line in those circumstances and at those speeds deserves the very highest admiration. You can imagine one extra kg of side-thrust ending the whole thing. One of the great moments in
#F1
history, if you ask me.
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A couple of hours ago I came home from the Northern Soul Prom at the Albert Hall so full of sheer happiness that I had to write something. Here it is, with thanks to concert co-curators
@StuartMaconie
and
@joeduddell
:
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So, according to Grant Shapps (on the Andrew Marr show just now), leaving the EU has given us the freedom to find solutions to the problems caused by leaving the EU. We are truly in a land of doublethink.
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"...not the example of our power but the power of our example..." That's the takeaway from Biden's speech, isn't it?
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England played for more than an hour in such a calm, measured, constructive way. They need to put that back together now. But missing the contribution of Sterling, who was terrific: coming back, showing, linking.
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RIP Jimmy Cobb, 91, wonderfully smooth and swinging drummer, last survivor of the Kind of Blue sessions.
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The point of staying angry about Cummings is not to punish a man for his mistake. It’s to remove from a position of great influence on national policy a man capable of making such a rash, selfish and potentially catastrophic error.
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Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid… important to remember that those songs wouldn’t be those songs without Bernie Taupin.
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The first scene of Spielberg's 'The Post' is set in a Vietnamese jungle in 1966. The accompanying music is Creedence's 'Green River', released in 1969. Maybe I'm the only person in the world who thinks this matters.
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A very happy birthday to
#BruceSpringsteen
, 70 today: the man whose working lifetime has been spent turning vast arenas into boardwalk clubs.
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How would you feel, if you were Paul or Ringo, seeing newspapers (including my own) repeatedly referring to the four British ISIS guys as “the Beatles”? It’s really stupid.
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It’s actually worth reading this stuff in order to discover that Dominic Cummings thinks our problems can be solved by an understanding of conditional heteroskedasticity and subcritical Hopf bifurcations. I didn’t make that up.
The whole thing here. Can’t wait for the Benedict Cumberbatch sequel that takes in this. He’s just a misunderstood genius, right?
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Excellent letter on the Bairstow affair in today’s Guardian:
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Words fail.
72 MPs who voted against amendment to improve rental safety were landlords who derive an income from a property.
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Tomorrow it will be 80 years since Dick Seaman crashed his Mercedes W154 while leading the Belgian GP at Spa and died of his burns that night. I’ve spent the last year researching and writing his biography, out next spring. Visited his grave today to place flowers.
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Wow. Johnny Hallyday’s funeral is in the Marley / Senna / Princess Di league. Maybe a million on the Champs-Élysées, 700 Harley Davidsons escorting the hearse.
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Shocked and deeply saddened by the sudden death of Ian Jack, among the most admired journalists of my generation. It was a privilege to work with and for him, and to be able to call myself his friend. This is his final Guardian column, published last week.
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This is so, so lovely: Nigel Quashie on the day Ray Wilkins handed him his QPR debut.
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I think we might need to organise a weekend of civil disobedience in protest against VAR. A boycott of live attendance and TV matches would show the authorities the strength of feeling.
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It's 25 years this week since Ayrton Senna died at Imola. My Guardian column (and great pic by
@jonnicphotos
):
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Ok, we’ve had a 35-year-old from Stevenage whose dad took three jobs to support his career taking an all-time record 92nd Grand Prix victory and 25-year-old who used to work in Condor Cycles on Gray’s Inn Road winning the Giro d’Italia. Got anything else for us, 25 October 2020?
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Said it before, will say it again: what Maurizio Sarri has done with N'Golo Kanté is a form of footballing vandalism. And for that alone he is currently getting his just deserts.
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Sixty years ago Carole King was sitting at a piano in a cubicle at 1650 Broadway turning out one imperishable pop classic after another. She’s 80 today. A very happy birthday to her.
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Here's my full Sir Stirling Moss obituary for the Guardian:
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A very happy 70th birthday to the happiest of cricketers: Derek Randall of Retford, Notts and England, the once and forever hero of Trent Bridge.
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The idea of Bob Dylan opening a concert in St Louis, Chuck Berry's hometown, with "Johnny B. Goode" and closing it with "Nadine", as he reportedly did on Wednesday night, is immensely satisfying.
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Jacob Rees-Mogg's despicable comment on the Grenfell tragedy, his attempt to deny it while leaving Downing Street, and his subsequent hurried and hopelessly inadequate apology, should be followed by a swift and complete departure from public life.
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Here's my obituary of Sir Frank Williams for the Guardian:
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After supporting the Rolling Stones on a UK tour in October 1966, the Ike & Tina Turner Revue stuck around to play some club dates, incl Tiles in London, the Mojo in Sheffield and the Beachcomber in Nottingham (capacity: c.300). Here’s my report, from the Nottingham Evening Post.
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A very happy birthday to Chris Tavaré, the famously obdurate Kent and England batsman. He’s 65, and it’s taken him forever to get there.
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Absolutely brilliant piece by
@barneyronay
on the Winter Olympics, Clare Balding, and "the great wrong turn of British sporting administration":
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A very happy 85th birthday to Barry Davies, probably the finest English-language football commentator of all.
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