Will

It's a really cool idea but the implementation seems really crappy. It looks way too small to actually be able to play in any enjoyable way and having only four of the games on each colour of console means you need to spend more for extra hassle. Guess it's built for Japanese collectors. I'll probably end up buying the package with all of them included like the idiot SEGA fanboy I am.

So we have the confirmed first eight races of the season: 3-5 July - Austrian Grand Prix (Red Bull Ring) 10-12 July - Steiermark Grand Prix (Red Bull Ring) 17-19 July - Hungarian Grand Prix (Hungaroring) 31 July-2 August - British Grand Prix (Silverstone) 7-9 August - 70th Anniversary Grand Prix (Silverstone) 14-16 August - Spanish Grand Prix 28-30 August - Belgian Grand Prix 4-6 September - Italian Grand Prix Not too bad all things considered. Going to be quite a manic couple of months as they go through them all. I do kind of wonder about the double races at the same track. Will we get essentially copies of the first Grand Prix at the second? I know there is talk of mixing things up with sprint races and reverse grids for the second races but seems they will not go through due to team disagreements. Main thing is we'll have some racing very soon!

The park is re-opening in phases from this month. I think if that goes to plan and they get back to normal operations then there would be no reason not to open this when it's ready. Most of the visitors will be Japanese people anyway so any travel issues shouldn't come into their consideration.

Weather seems OK at the moment so hopefully, that holds out. Think I'll stay up and watch this thing happen.

I'm way more excited about that than I reasonably should be.

I would. To me, it's all about being as careful as you can be without letting it completely ruin your life. If I'm working at home, not going shopping as much and avoiding anywhere crowded then I've already massively reduced any contact I have with people. I'd rather see people and start getting back to normal than wait around even longer for some unknown point in the future that things may or may not happen. If not now then when do you start moving forward?

There are definitely some issues with the privacy they should address before they roll it out fully - and should have been done before the trials really. If you allow groups, especially the government, to overlook these things then it sets you down a bad path and should be stopped. That being said, the reality of the privacy issues is that they know some random codes you've generated and some other random codes of people you've come into contact with. Given the general competence levels of the people who have access to this, I wouldn't be particularly worried about them doing anything that could harm me with the data. In theory, it's a great idea to have it, but I don't think people will use it as intended as it does require some level of self-diagnosis and self-imposed quarantine. Given how people have behaved so far I think a lot of people would quietly ignore anything that meant they may have to stay at home longer or multiple times. Combined with other initiatives and traditional contact tracing it will probably help bring numbers down and isolate clusters, but it won't be a magic bullet.

The Cummings thing is totally ridiculous. Even if he can wriggle through having done anything technically illegal there is no way they can say he complied with the spirit of the rules - which people following is the only thing that will keep it from descending into chaos. The fact the tories (or increasingly, just Boris and the inner circle) are willing to keep him on and seemingly defend what he did to the bitter end does not send a good message at all. I can imagine many people in the UK will just start to ignore the advice given which could be disastrous as things start to open up a bit. On the positive side at least things are opening up. The numbers are under control so it seems right to test what happens with a more relaxed approach. If people can just be a little sensible and be ready to control movements when necessary then I think things are on the right track in the UK.

Haha, I've always wondered why it's so popular too, I remember as a kid my Nan going on about it like it was the best thing ever. Following your review of it, I'm now keen to watch it myself!

I don't think they would even consider him. Makes no sense now and even less in the future.

I'd second this. It's worth it for everyone to have a credit card for protection on large purchases and as an emergency backup. No need to use them at any other time if you don't want to, and managed properly they are no issue at all.

Not shocked by the moves but I am surprised by how quickly it's all been announced. So now I'm going to hold out hope for an Alonso drive at Renault.

Never got a chance to properly play the original launches and was always jealous of my Playstation friends having it. These new versions look pretty awesome, looking forward to finally playing them!

Sorry to hear about that @Cookyman - sounds like you had an awesome trip planned. Hopefully when things recover you'll be able to get it done. I'd keep up with complaining and trying to speak to whoever you can on the bookings, a lot of the companies will try their luck at keeping as much money as they can while quietly sorting it out with those who shout loudest about it. The new TV and PS5 will be a pretty good consolation prize - you definitely deserve it and hope you enjoy them!

Looks pretty damn impressive. Really looking forward to seeing some games designed to take advantage of the system.

I'd forgotten about Perez but yeah, it would be great to see what he can do in a top car. For Russell, as long as any move was based on the Mercedes factor then McLaren is a decent spot for a year or two, just has to make sure it doesn't stop him moving to Mercedes when the time comes.

I thought he would retire at the end of this year and I still think that will be the case. I just don't see what team would be a good fit for both sides. I would guess the Ferrari drive will probably go to Sainz, but Ricciardo could be in with a shot of it if they can come to some sort of arrangement. He'd probably have to take a huge pay cut but may well be willing to do that for such a seat. Totally unlikely but I'd love to see them put Alonso back in the car for one or two years before bringing in Schumacher for the long term.

It seems the UK has entered a similar situation to where we're at in Singapore. There is quite a sensible alert system and what should be done based on the prevailing situation. Then it's being implemented in a totally haphazard manner with nobody really sure what any of the rules are within each phase. The majority of people will do what is best for them and their family rather than what is best for everyone unless they're forced to by law. The lack of clarity will be a huge problem for handling this thing, but it does seem like the general direction of what they're trying to do is correct.

I think that's a little unfair. They've been taking expert advice and running as best as they can with the information available at any particular time. It's not like they're operating like Trump just saying it will all be fine and a great success. They haven't failed to act at all as Japan did. They haven't forgotten about a huge group of people as Singapore did. I don't think anyone knows what the 'best' course of action is, and it's very easy to just pluck something different out of the air and say it would be 'better' if we'd done that. There is no way to know, and I think it would be more luck than judgement to actually get the best result - and even if you did that, it would be impossible to know.

It hinges on how the easing of the lockdown is done and how they control things afterwards. If you go back to normal with no control in place you're probably heading for a second wave disaster. If you ease restrictions in a controlled manner and have systems in place to track the spread then you can avoid a large second wave of mass infections.

Clearly there is a huge question of when to ease restrictions and by how much, but it has to happen to some extent fairly soon. It seems like people are starting to get quite mentally drained by the whole thing and you really can't let the results of the lockdown be worse (or even close) to the impact of the virus. Any deaths caused by this are of course terrible but there is a limit to what the lockdown prevents. If people are dying because hospitals are over capacity and they couldn't be treated then there is a failure in the system somewhere. But if people are dying despite having been hospitalized and treated then really there wasn't much that could have been done. Maybe they could have avoided getting the virus in the first place but to make that viable for a sizable majority lockdown would need to be far stricter and for a much longer period of time. I don't think you can read anything into the numbers at this point. As I understand it the testing in the UK wouldn't give you a representative death rate at all. The tests are only being done once requested on cases that are already quite severe, and that severity leads to more deaths than general cases would. In Singapore, they started doing tests on all migrant workers as soon as that community was identified as a risk group. The tests are being done regardless of the severity of the case or even any sign of a case at all. They've found hundreds if not thousands of cases where symptoms were so mild people had no idea they even had the virus. The other cases have not been particularly serious and no deaths have resulted in that group of people. The death rate here is currently at 0.1% - the major difference is the testing regime and how that skews the numbers. Some form of restriction is going to persist for a long time. It will ease and get tighter dependent on how things are going. It seems a lot of people think that this easing will be the start of the end of it all but I really doubt that will be the case.

Yeah, that seemed like a total waste of time. I don't see how that can possibly add to their momentum toward launch, just seems very... meh. I guess they felt like they had to do something, but I think they'd have been better off just leaving it for a while until they really have something mind-blowing to show off.

Nothing really jumps out and makes me think I have to get one of these anytime soon. The games definitely look nice but it doesn't seem like there is anything new to get excited about. I also find it quite annoying so many of them are wearing giant headphones during this, seems very strange to me.

Yeah, this was my Asia morning time - sorry guys. This afternoon I'm down to 189, not so useful anymore.

I have 370 this morning if it's useful to anybody.