From today's News of the World:Ronaldo dived with his boots on: ONE of Cristiano Ronaldo's team of holiday conquests last night came off the bench to reveal how he bedded her —but kept his orthopaedic BOOT on all the time.Striking Niki Ghazian confessed that the rampant Man United star even broke off from their passionate romp several times to put ICE PACKS on his injured ankle. "I'd be lying if I said the boot didn't get in the way," said the swimwear model. It was, nevertheless, "the most amazing night ever."The same august journal of record also carries an article by the Most Rev and Right Hon the Lord Carey of Clifton, formerly His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey. But of course. News of the World readers are no doubt fascinated to hear his take on the...

People will no doubt be expecting some comment from me on the verdict in the Max Mosley privacy case. On the substantive issue, that of the right to privacy versus the freedom of the press, reams of analysis have already been produced and much more, surely, is to follow. I have no real expertise in this area, and few original thoughts to share. A few points that struck me on reading the judgement, and the reaction to it:1) The decision by Mr Justice Eady changes little, though it undoubtedly adds to the sense that privacy is a steadily, if not exponentially, growing area of law. There was little to justify the somewhat hysterical claim by News of the World editor Colin Myler that "our media are being strangled by stealth" by "laws emanating from Europe." One of the points made by...

Readers may remember the tragic death of the former MP Fiona Jones. Her former colleague and friend Helen Clark certainly does, contributing a Comment is Free piece on the matter. Helen herself was beaten in the 2005 general election where she had served for eight years as member for Peterborough.Will Parbury has this linking to a YouTube vid, featuring Helen Clark, that has now been taken down. Rupa Huq comments here. And Peterborough Today tells us that the former MP is ready to take legal action and reminds us all that bloggers and video hosts are eligible as defendants in defamation cases.Considering the ongoing Max Mosley case I might also add privacy cases. I hope that Will and Rupa will reconsider their posts and that they and their friends and family are never subject to (a) sneak...

Thanks to Jonathan Hopkins I went along with him to Interesting’08 at Conway Hall in Red Lion Square.  Here is my notes from the event, I took some videos of the afternoon session that I am struggling to get on to the interweb; but when they’re up I will put the links here as well. Russell Davies, Lloyd Davis and all the rest of the people involved in making Interesting’08 a successful event. The talks covered a wide range of topics, here’s my notes (where I can read them) and links to videos that I made with a Flip portable video recorder and pictures from the event that I took with my phone are available on flickr here. If you can’t listen or read any further you have to check out a video of three dozen of the attendees playing the recorder including...

A video showing F1 boss Max Mosley with five prostitutes can be shown after s court refuses an injunction....

As TD has admitted that F1 is the only sport he really watches, I thought I'd save this for the weekly guest post instead of putting it 'Bites.That, and the visual images created by the News of the World's classic reporting techniques when the story broke on Sunday morning meant I was too busy being violently ill to write about it myself. If you're having breakfast, put the porridge down.[Max Mosley, t]he son of infamous British wartime fascist leader Oswald Mosley is filmed romping with five hookers at a depraved NAZI-STYLE orgy in a torture dungeon.Then, head bowed and tied up in chains, he is interrogated by a dominatrix before being chained up and LASHED so hard over a TORTURE BENCH that he WHIMPERS for mercy and has to have a wound dressing put on his backside. (News of the World)I...

Max MosleyThe Grand Prix motor racing season is now well under way. It is one-all between the two main contenders, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen, but Lewis has his nose ahead with a small points lead. Whether that slight lead will be enough to fend off what is obviously a strong Ferrari team remains to be seen. Last season was the most exciting in living memory but blighted towards the end by Max Mosley’s unremitting pursuit of the allegations of industrial espionage made against Mclaren. Allegations that, all too sadly, were finally admitted. It seems now that this year’s season is to be blighted by more controversy following allegations made by the News of the World about Max Mosley. What is the fascination?Yesterday, the Times said:The Germans are second only to the British in...

Like many involved in motorsport I was taken aback last night with the news David Leslie and Richard Lloyd had been killed in the Kent plane crash. They were both well respected and very much liked people in the paddock. I had the pleasure of meeting David back in his touring car days and as many people are remembering today, he was always amiable and a great ambassador for the sport. I'd never met Richard but his reputation as a good guy went before him. His team races in the same series as one of the teams I work with and I know everyone in the series is shocked and will feel the loss of a great paddock character. Also the news a young engineer, Chris Allarton, died with them is tremendously sad; a young guy at the start of his career in a great sport. The two pilots also proved...

In case you were wondering, I have decided against writing a review of F1’s ‘bigwigs’ — for the sake of my health. I just wrote a big rant about Max Mosley the other day anyway. My next post was going to look at F1 websites. But this week Ollie White wrote a post about podcasts, so I thought I would move my post on podcasts to this week. I’m a relative newcomer to podcasts. As a concept, they have grown much more quickly than blogging and I would bet that ‘podcast’ is more of a household word than ‘blog’ already. But they never really grabbed my attention because, for me, they are rather inconvenient to listen to, as I wrote a few months back. Since I wrote that post, I have transformed into a big fan of podcasts though. This was...

Series: 2007 F1 season reviewTOCF1 season review: the backmarkersF1 season review: the frontrunnersF1 season review: the constructors (11th–6th)F1 season review: the constructors (top 5)F1 season review: broadcasts Today’s post in my series reviewing the 2007 Formula 1 season was going to be about F1’s bigwigs — Max Mosley and the FIA, Bernie Ecclestone and FOM. However, events in this area are continuing and show no sign of stopping yet, so I’ll leave it for later. Instead, I’ll move on to what I was going to write about next week — the television and radio coverage. Because I live in the UK, this means ITV and BBC Radio 5 Live. But I’ll also have a look at the most important aspect of the television coverage, the...

This has turned out to be McLaren’s annus horribilis when it should have been a year of celebration. After an unprecedented series of years in the doldrums on the track, McLaren have finally gone back to their winning ways. But off the track, it is difficult to imagine what else could have gone wrong. It would have been bad enough had it just been the Stepneygate scandal from which McLaren (at the time) escaped any harsh punishment (probably rightly given the evidence there was at the time). But despite escaping punishment, the cloud of suspicion lingered, the media was not impressed and the tifosi were livid. But there have also been rows over team orders and the status of the drivers which was kicked off by a deterioration in the relationship between Fernando Alonso and Lewis...