#fia's dad sucks

[jennegatron]

happy father's day to hank hill, coach taylor, and every dad that Brian Murphy has ever invented for a dungeons and dragons game.

[nerdyfangirlingbooks]

I've had a stupid merlin au idea stuck in my head for days now and I know I'll never get around to writing it the way I want it written but I kinda wanna try anyway even though I am 100% of the target audience

[hamilando]

ੈ✩ cowboy ride or ring ? (smau) ੈ✩

pairing : max verstappen x norris! reader

summary: a move will test where the heart lies

tw : fluff, suggestive

fc : nailea devora

a/n : this was requested anonymously ! lysm 🫶🏻

·:｡･ﾟﾟ�� ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ

liked by norriz, max1, lilyhye and 74 others

wdcrider being a cowgirl for halloween because my riding skills have no complains

view comments

chillijr why sing up for pornhub when the whole thing is right here

lordpercival you are going to get your account banned

wdcrider we will just do community service 💪🏻

max1 it’s meta not FIA

norriz CAN YOU LIKE NOT !?

norriz HOW ARE YOU AN INTROVERT !?

norriz MAx !? CONTROL YOUR FREAK

wdcrider how I feel knowing I am the only norris who gets to suck the verstappen dick

norriz AND I HAVE NO INTEREST IN HIM Y/N

norriz unless he lets me win the wdc, I don’t mind sucking

max1 ew

max1 you both are siblings fr

lilyhye but my girl is serving looks, SLAY MOMMY

wdcrider ITS SLAY COWGIRL

norizz ew, EW, eW, Ew

wdcrider telling mum about your 231 hookups

norizz EXCUSE ME !? I AM ALSO TELLING MUM

wdcrider about what? how I have one dick since like 4 years or that you can’t stay fixed on one ?

norriz HEY! I WAS COMMITED FEW TIMES

wdcrider ONLY TWICE, ONCE FOR LIKE A YEAR AND THE SECOND TIME FOR LIKE 3 MONTHS !?

norriz not my fault

wdcrider accept it, you don’t last with anyone for more than 5 days, surprised how you are with mclaren for so long

georgey calm down you two ratatouille rats, doesn’t lando’s recent situationship follow you ?

norriz fuck, bye , I don’t get married, it’s all on you dear sister

wdcrider well I am getting married because of you dear brother, so thank you 🤩

liked by norriz, lordoerceval, max1 and 103 others

wdcrider my man got me pink drink to show off my ring, what did yours do ?

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alexmieux mine didn’t get a FIA penalty 🤭

lilyhye mine crashed his car 😉

carvroom mine is obsessing over Lewis

rebecamour mine is jobless

chillijr I do have a seat at Williams.

wdcrider technically jobless

albono what do you mean all these years …?

colawithice yes alex, I am off to redbull

wdcrider I AM ADOPTING YOU COLAPINTO

colawithice MOMMY 🤓

max1 sorry, I am young to be a dad

wdcrider who asked you to be the dad?

colawithice mommy 😚

wdcrider it’s ok baby, you go beat him

liked by max1, lilyhye, chillijr and 64 others

wdcrider max said that he will only marry me if I finish my finals

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norriz great, you both are never marrying

norriz you pass any of your subjects and I am laying for your honeymoon

max1 well I am actually financially well off, so I can pay for it myself

wdcrider GO MY HUSBAND ! ! AND WAIT, LET HIM PAY

wdcrider I passed interior designing

norriz what bout the other 4 ?

wdcrider YOU SAID ANY

chillijr when is the wedding tho ?

wdcrider after yours and Rebecca

rebecamour 🤭🫶🏻

chillijr you really aren't getting married in this century

rebecamour the couch is waiting for you for the century

wdcrider blocked @ chillijr

wdcrider NO ONE TALKS TO MY WIFE LIKE THAT

wdcrider I WILL PUT A RING ON IT

rebecamour 😭🫶🏻

max1 return the one I gave then

wdcrider no refunds

liked by user1, ynverstappen, landonorris and 4,487,629 others

maxverstappen the one who gave me wings @ ynverstappen

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f1wags BREAKING ! FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPION MAX VERSTAPPEN IS MARRIED TO HIS LONG TIME GIRLFRIEND Y/N VERSTAPPEN. Currently no information is available as the couple seems to be very private about their relationship, the only picture which we could find of y/n is on alexandra mieux’s Instagram from 2021 when her account was private.

view comments

user1 and I oop-

user2 well, that’s enough Instagram for today

user3 HELLOOO!?

user4 MAX YOU CANT DO THIS !?

user5 ITS LANDO'S SISTER !?

user6 oh god, the fights-

user7 MAX BAGGED THE NORRIS SISTER !?

user8 HOW IS MAX ALIVE ?

user9 Max may beat him in f1, but in life Lando will beat him up

user10 the amount of plot twists -

user11 now imagine saying Franco got the rebull seat

redbullracingf1 yes.

user11 BAHAHAH WHAT !?

user12 STOP, ENOUGH NEWS TO DIGEST FOR A DAY

[alexjcrowley]

Was watching Babylon with my dad when I got jumoscared by Brad Pitt and mesathinks that if the fucker wanted a "serious" movie about F1 instead of Talladega Nights- F1 version, his only real alternative was NOT making a shitty self-insert adaptation starting the current grid (who will probably suck at acting, let's face it), he should have done a balls to walls movie about the frankly disgusting streams of money and corruption of the F1 world, basically Babylon- F1 version, but I understand the FIA would have never allowed that. And also Brad Pitt is not Damien Chazelle.

[liasblocks]

sameee I'm so happy to see all my goofy little guys back on the ice 🥹

I've been interested about getting into f1 but at the same time I don't really have time to watch it or learn rn loll

F1 for en is difficult to watch because I am Australian so most of the races are at midnight and with f1 I found it easier to get into because there are more people talking about it/a bigger fan base

if you want to get into it i linked some info

A primer by @lina-corsasa breaking down the teams, tracks, calander etc. she also has one for team history

But there has been so much to happen this year that i will give you a very basic run down.

Red Bull: Something to note with Red Bull is that they have a junior team called "Visa CashApp RB" terrible name i know but it used to be known as AlphaTauri and Toro Rosso. And these two combine for lots of driver change drama. like this year Liam Lawson (the rb reserve driver) replaced Daniel Ricciardo (fan favourite driver) after the singapore drama. This sparked a lot of drama because no one knew for certain if it was daniels last race and it was only announced a week after the race finished that it was.

RED BULL AND VCARB DRIVERS:

Red Bull; MAX VERSTAPPEN (Dutch): he has 3 drivers championships (2021,22,23) he is the youngest ever f1 driver (joined the sports in 2016 when he was 17, that is why the fia added that you have to be 18 and over to get a super license), hes currently on top of the championship and his closest rival is Lando Norris. Also his dad is a piece of shit that made max sacrifice his whole childhood to be the driver he is today.

Red Bull; SERGIO PEREZ (Mexicain): he is in the second red bull seat which is seen as the cursed seat because so many people have been in that seat than replaced. And compared to max, checo is not performing well and this is what give him a lot of unnecessary hate. (well in MY opinion sergio is so hated and not for good reason most of the time its because he's in a good team but is driving like shit, but that isn't a good enough reason for him to be on of the most hated people).

VCARB; YUKI TSUNODA 角田 裕毅 (Japanese): he was very crash prone in his earlier years but he has cleaned up his act. and he is one of my personal favourites. He is a very intense driver and oftentimes not taken that seriously because if his earlier years which suck :(

VCARB; LIAM LAWSON (kiwi): his first f1 race actaully wasn't last weekend (Austin GP) but was the Dutch GP 2023 when daniel ricciardo (second race back) crashed and broke his hand so liam being the reserve driver he got a shot. And so far in is very short f1 career he is doing well. Also one of his biggest inspirations growing up was lightning mcqueen.

MCLAREN DRIVERS:

LANDO NORRIS (British): jack hughes but f1 driver version (but less injured and more egotistical (sorry ln4 fans))

OSCAR PIASTRI (Australian): Oscar is my goat and the reason i got into motorsports. He is consisdered a generational driver. And because of that fact he caused a whole legal meltdown between mclaren and alpine. He was in the Alpine junior driver program and was their reserve driver, then when fernando alonso announced that he was leaving alpine announced oscar but he had already signed a contract with mclaren. so of course alpine wasn't happy took oscar and mcalren to court but oscar and mclaren ended up winning. also oscar is very funny and i love him.

ALPINE:

Esteban Ocon (french): he is leaving the team at the end of te year to go to haas. people don't like ocon because he is a teammate... annoyeer? idk none of his teammates like him. But that doesn't mean his story of barley having any money but making it to f1 is any less inspiring.

PIERRE GASLY (french): pierre... idk how to describe pierre. he's like a very competitive tiktok fuckboy that just so happens to be an f1 driver.

ASTON MARTIN:

FERNANDO ALONSO (Spanish): has two world championships (2005,06). he has been in the sports since 2001 and is one of the GOATS because he can extract everything out of the car. also his tiktok is hilarious check that out

LANCE STROLL (Canadian): not many people like him because he is a pay driver to the highest degree as well. His dad literally bought racing point (now aston martin) so lance is never leaving the sports until he gets tired of it.

FERRARI: i'm not a ferrari fan but you cannot deny there would not be f1 without ferrari

CHARLES LECLERC (monegasque): a fan favourite driver and he can genuinely fight for a championship but he has the worst luck

CARLOS SAINZ JR (Spanish): his dad carlos sainz sr is a world champion rally cross driver. Carlos isn't driving for ferrari next year after it was announced lewis hamilton is driving for the team next year (that caused an absolute meltdown btw). Next year he is driving for williams.

WILLIAMS:

ALEX ALBON (Thai): he is a dual citizanship driver he was bron and raced in britain to a thai mother but he doesn't like being called a british driver and called people out on this. They mention his dual citizenship when he does well. also he has a lot of pets and his gf lily is very cool as well.

FRANCO COLAPINTO (Argentine): his first race was Monza (italian gp) this year after he replaced logan sargeant. Franco immediatly became a fan fav because he is funny a charismatic and people really want him to get a seat next year but the only place avalible is the sauber but no one likes sauber.

STAKE F1 KICK SAUBER TEAM (i actually don't know their name most people just call them stake or sauber):

VALTTERI BOTTAS (finnish): one of the most famous second drivers because at his time at mercedes he was always behind lewis hamilton. he's just idk there ig he likes to show his ass.

ZHOU GUAYNU 周冠宇 (Chinese): the first ever chinese driver. and i have a soft spot for him even though he cannot qualify well but it's not helped when the sauber is an actual tractor.

HAAS:

NICO HULKENBERG (german): he is amazing at qualifying but since that haas is a trashbox (to note: less so this year) he can barely fight in the race. also something that is mentioned when hulk is mentioned is he has the most race starts without a podium. also he is racing for sauber next year because sauber is being taken over by audi in 2026.

KEVIN MAGNUSSEN (danish): he doesn't have a seat for next year, sadly. because this year he has been an ontrack terrorist to make sure nico gets points. Kevin Magnussen you will be missed next year.

MERCEDES:

LEWIS HAMILTON (British): 🐐 (he also has a dog called roscoe)

GEORGE RUSSELL (British): idk who to describe george i genuinely don't. hes a good-solid driver and his humour is underrated (imo).

DRIVER TRANSFERS FOR THIS YEAR AND NEXT YEARS:

VCARB: 2024

Danial Riccardo -> Liam Lawson

WILLIAMS: 2024-25

Logan Sargeant -> Franco Colapinto -> Carlos Sainz

FERRARI: 2025

Carlos Sainz -> Lewis Hamilton

ALPINE: 2025

Esteban Ocon -> Jack Doohan

HAAS: 2025

Nico Hulkenberg -> Esteban Ocon

Kevin Magnussen -> Ollie Bearman

MERCEDES: 2025

Lewis Hamilton -> Kimi Antonelli

NEXT YEAR DRIVERS:

JACK DOOHAN (Australian): he was the alpine reserve driver and is replacing esteban ocon next year. he also was a twitch streamer and did some pre and post race commentary for sky sports.

OLLIE BEARMAN (British): Ferrari junior driver. Already a fan favourite and is racing for has next year.

KIMI ANTONELLI (italian): he is also generational and that is why team owner and principal of mercedes wants kimi in a seat so bad. and so when lewis dropped the ferrari bombshell people were already speculating that kimi would be announced. But there was a slight issue he was 17 so he wouldn't be eligible for a super license. but he turned 18 so he's now eligible (idk if he got it i think he does)

[mionemymind]

For some reason season 5 felt very different to the others. Maybe bc I didn’t watch immediately after season 4. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. Lots of little twists and turns. Have to say Steiner is such a character just so funny.

Carlos winning his first Grand Prix, I was literally jumping for joy. So happy it finally happened for him, can he’s hair be anymore perfect.

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned how fast those guys on the pit crew can be like less than 3 seconds crazy. Pierre and Yuki’s friendship felt so natural and genuine. Loved to see the big brother little brother thing they had. Yuki, he’s a funny little guy I really liked him.

Mick Schumacher having such a tough start was hard to watch. Feeling like u need to live up to ur father who has 7 world championships. Come on that is entirely too much pressure, so many chances and possibilities to mess up just trying to measure up.

Clearly I made my opinion on Horner very clear but can the FIA be more of a joke. The budget obviously didn’t go towards the car. Never thought I’d feel bad for Red Bull or Horner but the scrutiny they went through being called cheaters was totally not right. Got me having sympathy for them. I don’t know if it’s just me but Zak from McLaren gives me such bad vibes.

Very much feeling like this is a start to the Max Verstappen dynasty. Understand why u mentioned he’s dad bc from what very little we seen of him, there was still so much to not like. Can u not seriously not ever be happy or cheer for ur son, win or god forbid lose.

Also I’ve made the unfortunate mistake of going to TikTok and following all my favorite drivers and teams. At first they were funny and happy then they got so sad, like am I really tearing up over a TikTok.

Oh no season 6 is next and that’s the last season. I also might finally be sending in that Wanda x reader request maybe? Anyway hope u have a good week.

-S

Hey S! Wanted to start off with the fact I'm unable to attach a Carlos gif on this post today. Doing this illegally on the work laptop lmaoooo (pray for me).

But some highlights that I wanted to respond to was that Pierre was Yuki's favorite teammate. Like to me, he seemed so heartbroken when Pierre was gone.

Also, that cheating scandal with Redbull sucked and Zak gets on my nerves sometimes. But his lore is crazy beause he won money from a game show and invested it into motor sports and down the line he became part of F1 and is CEO of McClaren. Like bruh! That's a fanfic right there.

But don't be too sad about season 6 being last, more is to come. Also, try and watch the F1 interviews and fun games that the drivers sometimes participate in. It's such a fun way to see them in rather than just constant racing.

But send in that request! I'll definitely consider it but don't hate if it's like months before I actually post it.

Can't wait to see your thoughts about season 6 :))

[naddpod-encounter-tourney]

Broken Bonds:

for this, i will be copying the description from friend of the show tournament @chompe-diem’s comments on round one. they are as follows.

zirk and stella confrontation. ok i could go on about this for ages so let me just pull some quotes

> "when will it be enough!" (caldwell pcs yelling. mwah easy way to the heart)

> "You're stuck. i've spent so much time trying to fix things and you're the one thing that's always broken, and I, I just can't anymore; there's other people that need me, okay?"

just the move of fia's suggestion and then. man i fuckin love the way murph narrated stella in that. her just absentmindedly taking it apart as she keeps talking, it just,,, it does things to my brain

henry's obviously been a pretty shit dad so far, but the way hank/jake so genuinely and naturally acts protective of hank jr when he's chewing out stella. it's just a nice touch, it really adds

stella vervain. yes all the above points involved her but she's one of my favourite npcs and this ep is where u truly see all of her and what she is.

the reveal of big rex and little rex moxora and prophet cain

batilda's heartfelt moment with fia, the i love you

emily with the momentary stasis and pretty much saving batilda's life by incapacitating cain

zirk w the nat 1 death save

bukvar getting taken by moxora and having the form of a bookish little boy who could be fia's brother- *sobs*

and the whole philosphical/emotional ending w fia and the crew etc etc

The Dark Lord of Ember Heaven:

The Band of Boobs watch from Shadowfell as monsters, aided by the Grave Robbers, descend on the material plane.

Everyone gets another shot at taking down Galad Rosell, and this time he is running Shadowfell.

Hardwon gets sucked into a sword, where he meets his mother, who is tortured and split into many emotions, reliving the day her husband died. He tries to fool her and play the role of his father at first, but then says “You saved the child.” and frees Lydia from her mental prison.

Everyone sees that Hill Home is being protected by elven archers from Gladeholm and gets a peek at someone who might just be Moonshine’s father.

The Boobs defeat Galad once again!

[fiaxsouza]

Fia couldn't help but chuckle, but was impressed that Sloane could accept that word. Not many people were that self-aware and okay with that version of themselves. No one had it together all the time. Today was a perfect example for the Sousa herself. However, she was thankful that she found someone she could be vulnerable with in this town. It was certainly going to be difficult to navigate things a bit, but knowing that Sloane was only a text or phone call away was reassuring. Now it was nice to know that she could return the favor with Sloane's newest life update. Fia tried her best to stifle a laugh as the redhead expressed her woes already with pregnancy and her hormonal shift. Boy was she in for a long ride. "Thankfully, you got Jake by your side right! How do they feel about becoming a dad?" Fia didn't know much beyond that they were a stellar musician, but from what Sloane had mentioned they sounded like a really good person.

"Sloane!" Fia scolded lightly. "It? Really?" Granted Fia could extend grace of course to Sloane and she had the right to refer to their child however they seemed fit. However, Fia would like to think that she should lean into the pregnancy a bit more instead of teetering on the edge. Granted, she wasn't in their shoes, she wanted to support Sloane wherever she could. If being assigned as the baby stylist for now, she'd happily oblige. Giving Sloane's hand a squeez,e she tried her best to reassue the woman. "Your Christmas is not going to suck at all. It's going to be lovely and you're going to be glowing and will be a great mama. Relax a bit! All will be okay, I promise."

“If it’s warranted I’m never against being called that, just for the record. I know what I am.” The redhead shrugged her shoulders because she was just being honest - the girl never had an issue being called one when she deserved it. She was honest, some people just couldn’t handle it, sometimes she was a bitch to be an asshole, but not all the time. That’s why she was always pleased to find someone who understood her properly because it made it so much easier for them to get along with, she wasn’t constantly on the offence. Fia understood Sloane, and vice versa. It’s why they clicked so fast no doubt and the other was rapidly becoming one of her best friends. “Sometimes crying is okay, but the amount I’m been doing it recently? There is a limit. I dropped an orange this morning and had to take a ten minute time out under the duvet to recover. Hormones are a bitch.” Up until a few months ago she reserved crying for very rare occasions but now she didn’t have much of a choice over it. “Although if you’ve ever tried a good cry in the bath while you watch Titanic I can recommend.” 

Sloane put her hand on her predominantly flat stomach as they sat opposite each other, breathing a bit easier with no secret between them. Ironically Fia and Sloane had been in each others lives the same amount of time as Sloane had been pregnant, less actually. “Well maybe I’m going to have to put you in charge of making sure they’re the most fashionable little thing around, since I’ll be so busy battling weight gain and hormones. I mean after it’s born we can both play dress up, but before then I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.” Okay she was being a touch dramatic. Also there was no way in hell she wasn’t going to indulge in the maximum shopping she could do for the baby, already having browsed a few stores she’d passed just because she couldn’t help herself. “Oyster crackers? Noted. So far I’ve been on toast and orange juice alone, but I can’t wait to be able to eat something else. Um, the doctor said January 31st when we went to see them a couple of weeks ago. So I guess my Christmas is going to suck.” She joked halfheartedly. 

[katiefratie]

0h Fia...... Her dad sucked we all know this but god that still hurts

I SUPPOSE YOU DON'T KNOW ME ANYMORE FI AHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[weraceasone]

Hi Elle (and anyone who reads this)!

This is going to be a long ask/rant so get your snacks and drinks ready (sorry in advance)

What does it mean to be a “real man” or how does one act like a real men? I’m really confused. Yesterday I tweeted that I love seeing the new generation of F1 drivers being friends and complementing each other and even hang out together outside of racing. All of a sudden I get a couple of tweets of people being mad about what I said: “they should act like real mean instead of showing their soft side everytime.”

So I asked one of them on Twitter: what do you mean by they should act like a real man? To this question I got a lot of ignorant answers like: They should man up, stop being shy, handle criticism like a man and stop crying about negative comments. (PS: What’s wrong with being shy?)

I’m half Dutch (hallo daar!) and I know that in our culture we can be very straight forward and honest (maybe too honest). We can also be very critical but what’s wrong with showing your REAL emotions when a comment hurts you? F1 drivers have a lot of pressure like we all know and of course it’s a hard world (bla bla bla) but that not an excuse to kick them when they’re down.

Seeing drivers being disappointed or even sad about their race or the comments people make on the internet does not make them less of a man (whatever that means). I mean how would you feel if almost everyone on social media is clowning you or laughing at your results? Ignore it?? St some point it’s impossible to ignore it when it’s presented right in front of your face. We put way too much pressure on these boys. At the end of the day they are human beings with real feelings.

When I see people hate on a certain driver it makes me so sad. You can be critical, nothing wrong with that, but let it be constructive criticism, something they can use to better their driving skills. But things like “you suck as a driver” “you don’t deserve to be in F1” is in my opinion mean. Look how people treat pay drivers. I think it’s disgusting how they talk about them.

I really hope that in the near future the F1 community will talk more about this topic and mental health since FIA wont do shit about it. It’s very important because the way some of us are ralking about these drivers can cause some serious damage to their mental health. Isometimes have to check myself when I talk negative about a driver.

Speaking on mental health actually applies to any sport and not just F1.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. This was weighing on my heart and I had to vent about it lol. I know this is all over the place but I hope that you and anyone who is reading this will get what I mean and I'm very curious what you think about this.

Ik wens je alvast een gezond 2021! ✨

hey Anon!

you know… lots of men have been angry with me on the internet before. one time somebody screenshotted a post of mine that pointed out the differences between people on Twitter reacting to Kimi’s radio messages and people on Twitter reacting to Lewis’ radio messages, and that person put it on Twitter without my permission and without my context. I had to read through hundreds of tweets calling me all sorts of degrading words and everything they insulted me with somehow always came back to me being a girl. it was the core of every insult they wrote. and you know, it’s funny until it isn’t. it’s funny until I decide; “this is going too far, and this is where I draw the line”. yet, I told myself to be thankful because it is nothing like it could be. I am thankful because they don’t actually know who I am, or where I live. I am thankful because I guess those men are good men, after all. they are good men because even though they said all those things, I know they will not act on it. they are good men because even though they just dehumanized me for being a girl with an opinion, they will still kiss their unknowing wives goodnight and they care for their daughters in a way they one day didn’t even believe was possible themselves.

when a driver shows even a sliver of emotion it’s “girly” or “he’s acting like a woman”, because apparently there’s nothing worse than being a girl. I remember Ziggo Sport making fun of Lando’s laugh because “he sounds like a girl”. however, the comparison with a woman is never made in a positive way, because being a woman is a pitiful state of being for these people. yet the phrases “be a man” and “grow a pair” will always refer to a state that we should aspire to be in.

and when I dare to write about it; I am the eternal man-hater. I am a man-hater, because pointing something out and the only conclusion being sexism, is my fault. it is my fault that writing about women in motorsport will somehow always end up on the topic of sexism. it is my fault that not writing about it, is somehow still writing about it. but the truth is; I don’t blame these men for the things they were told, I blame them for not looking beyond that. I blame them because I know the things they say on the internet will somehow always find a way to translate back to real life and I already feel sorry for the kids who will get their dad a tie or shaving cream or a fishing kit for father’s day, for Christmas, for every single birthday, because they never made a true emotional connection with him, because that’s stupid and unnecessary. I blame them because they don’t realize that the things they write, the thoughts they share; do have an impact on the people around them. I blame them because ever since I have gotten into this sport, there’s always a voice in the back of my head telling me that I don’t know enough, that my opinions aren’t good enough, because I’m a girl and I’m a girl and I’m a girl.

being an F1 driver isn’t easy, especially in this day and age where you don’t just have to deal with the pressure of being and staying in the team, but also with the unwarranted for opinions from people all over the internet, who think showing emotion is synonymous with being weak. but, at the end of the day; why do we watch this sport? would we still watch if it weren’t for the joy we get out of it? where would we be as fans, if we didn’t hope for the best? why are we only allowed to talk about the happy emotions?

the things we say on the internet, the thoughts we put out there; they always find a way to plant certain thoughts into our minds. and I’m not asking for anybody’s sympathy, because I can care for myself. I can braid my hair and neatly fold my clothes and I let myself sing off-tune and I let myself have an opinion on this sport, regardless of those men on the internet. but the thing is; the way we are online, is a reflection of the real world. if there’s never a man who dares to talk about his feelings; I will keep crying at videos of men doing nice things and your daughters will too. we will see a man quitting his job to be with his kids, a man speaking out about feminism, a man cooking dinner for his family and we will all keep on saying “you know, he doesn’t have to. he doesn’t have to”. because somehow, they never have to.

(I’m sorry this basically turned into a rant, Anon. this is also the longest answer I have ever written. it was a whole page long in Word. ik wens jou ook een gezond 2021, en allemaal fijne en leuke dingen🧡)

[baldwinboy5choices]

The Family Night Out (M! Robin Flores x MC)

Someone who absolutely never, ever writes fics (me) is so in love with Robin that they were actually compelled to write Choices fic for the very first time.

Book and Pairing: The Nanny Affair, M!Robin Flores x MC (Jett Hawthorne)

Words: 2.7k

Rating: I’m so new to writing fics I don’t even know what kind of rating system to use, but this is extremely tame, and, much like a PG-13 movie, contains exactly one very judiciously-placed F-bomb. 

Summary: I sort of started with “collision course,” which is the name of one of the Ice Age movies, and then worked my way backwards. So, in a manner of speaking, you could say that this is Based on the Comedy of Ray Romano. (Not really. The first part’s true, though.) No, it’s really more about the start of Robin and Jett’s relationship, with a little bit of inspiration from Sam saying in a diamond scene, “You could do so much better than him.” (me) (also me)

Thank you so much @semiautomaticheart for proofreading, and thank you @yaushie & @brightpinkpeppercorn for first pass feedback! You guys are all really awesome and I appreciate you all so much. 

Another day, another experiment for Mickey and Mason. Today’s flavor was taking photographs of deep space, courtesy of the telescope they remembered they got last Christmas, and their father’s old phone that they were allowed to occasionally play games on. 

“Do you think that counts as… deep space?” Mickey wondered, as he and his brother peered at the phone screen. 

“Well, yeah! And we’re just starting out,” Mason insisted. “We’ll get better!” 

“Yeah! Print it out!” Mickey hollered. “Our very first picture of outer space!”

Jett heard the bell of the elevator as she watched the boys signing the printout in colored pencil and running to the refrigerator with it. “Hold on, boys. I think I hear your father,” she said. 

Jett never met Sam at the door when he arrived home, with the exception of the time she had to distract him so Mason and Mickey could finish the birthday dinner for him. Today, however, she had a friendly warning for him. It just so happened that when she stepped out into the hallway, she was greeted by not only Sam, but also Sofia and Robin. 

Jett’s breath caught in her throat as she and Robin met eyes for a brief moment. The sight of him reminded her that the same night of Sam’s birthday dinner was also the night that brought Robin into her life, right here in that hallway. She quickly composed herself with a neutral demeanor. Addressing all three, she instructed, “Hey, guys. When you get inside, there’ll be a really blurry piece of paper on the fridge. Pretend you love it.” 

For once, Sam, Sofia, and Robin were united, sharing the same puzzled look directed at Jett, but before anyone could voice an actual question, Mickey and Mason were bursting out of the apartment door. 

“Mort’s! Mort’s!” the boys were chanting. 

“That’s right, boys,” Sam said brightly. He then turned to Jett and said, “Jett, we were hoping you could join us.” 

“But… it was going to be a night off,” Jett replied. Sam generally preferred dinners at home, but occasionally, he would take the boys out for some family time, and Jett would be off those nights. 

“I insist - dinner’s on me,” Sam said firmly, as everyone poured into the apartment and began raving over the hazy photo of a blob on the refrigerator. 

“M&M graciously donated one of the unused save files on their video game to me. And I thought tonight was supposed to be family night,” Jett said lamely. “Wouldn’t I be intruding?” 

“No, because someone invited you,” Sam said, tossing his head in Robin’s direction. “And even if he hadn’t, you’re welcome to join us on the family night out.”

“Oh… you’re going, too?” Jett said, catching Robin’s eye once again. This news changed things. 

Robin gave her a casual grin. “I never pass up Trader Mort’s.” 

Sofia chimed in, “It’s literally the only place all of us agree on. Even the kids, and Robin with his crude taste. That in and of itself should be considered a miracle.” 

Jett knew of Trader Mort’s, a no-expense-spared tiki bar and restaurant that liked to tout itself as more of an “experience” than a mere dining establishment. She herself had never gone, but she’d heard others sing its praises. The founder, James Mortemer, was supposedly descended from some legendary pirate captain and the restaurant apparently hinged heavily on this gimmick.

“Has something for everyone,” Sam put in. “There’s a cool volcano show for the kids, Sofia and I both adore their menu…”

“Separate bar area where Robin can always find a girl to take home,” Sofia finished. 

Jett studiously ignored this comment as she led the boys away to find their coats. 

Moments later, Jett was finishing getting ready herself, and wandered back into the boys’ room. Robin then appeared at the boys’ bedroom door. “Kiddos, you want to go tell your dad you’re ready?” Robin said, knocking on the door frame. 

“Yep!” they cried in unison, running off. 

“You’re coming with me in my car, right?” Robin asked. 

Jett shot back his question with another question. “Because you want me to, or because it’ll piss off Sam?” 

“Nah, that’s boring now. Because I want you to,” Robin said with a grin. 

Jett had to smile. “Okay, you got me, then.” 

They spent the drive in comfortable conversation, and Jett’s heart fluttered when they left the car and approached the restaurant entrance, because of who was accompanying her. 

“Shall we, beautiful?” Robin said lightly, offering Jett his elbow to hold as they walked through the door. 

At dinner, things were generally civil, even as Robin insisted on sitting next to Jett and keeping close to her. The adults made polite small talk, and Mason and Mickey, as children were wont to do, had already long forgotten about “Suck-fia” and had moved on to other things. 

As the meal wound down, Robin nudged Jett. “You know, when those two take the kiddos to watch the volcano show, I bet we could sneak a little time to ourselves,” Robin said in a low voice into Jett’s ear. 

Though Sofia couldn’t hear the words, it was impossible to miss that Robin had leaned in very close to Jett to whisper to her. 

“Jett, tell me you’re not falling for this,” Sofia said with a slight roll of her eyes. “And Robin. Really? Just because you’re in a dating slump doesn’t mean you should be going after her.” 

“What, just going to do a drive-by on me like that? I have a great personality,” Jett said with a hollow laugh in between bites of her dinner. 

Robin glared, all traces of his earlier good mood gone from his face. “There’s nothing wrong with Jett.” Then, softening his expression, he turned back to Jett and asked, “Split one of these desserts with me?” 

Sofia sighed with exasperation and forged ahead. “I meant, you shouldn’t be leading her on, and then subsequently breaking her heart like you so frequently do, and leaving us to deal with the mess. We’ve never had to deal with your dating disasters before; why bring us into this now?” 

“Yes. For goodness’ sake, she’s an integral part of this family, now,” Sam piped up. “You can’t do that to her.” 

Sam had been admonishing Jett to steer clear of Robin ever since the three of them had met. It felt to her as though, even if Sam couldn’t have her himself, he still wanted to be the one that she longed for. 

But could it be that it wasn’t jealousy on Sam’s part, but simply the truth? Jett also remembered back to when she first met Sofia - she, too, had warned Jett that Robin was “a player.” That was the word she had used. 

The entire conversation made Jett let out an audible chuckle. It was the type of nervous laugh that one lets out when they know they’re in deep trouble, and so, one can’t help but simply let out a joyless laugh with a hint of melancholic despair. 

Sam glowered, and then turned towards Robin. “Don’t make her pay for it just because you’re annoyed you can’t get anyone else to fall for your charms right now.” 

“That’s not true,” Robin protested. 

“Fine. Then pick up one of the other beautiful women here tonight. Now. I bet you can’t do it.” 

Sofia raised her eyebrows in slight interest and amusement. She felt that Sam was more bewildered than upset or hurt by the situation. Things had always been handed to him, and, with the tragic exception of the loss of his wife, he’d had little experience in dealing with anything less than Easy Street. Sure, Jett had started the nanny position with an infatuation for Sam, but that was before she had gotten to know everyone better. Jett now wanting Robin instead of him appeared to have short-circuited Sam’s brain. 

“Watch me,” assured Robin belligerently, standing up to begin the search for his quarry. 

Sam couldn’t hold it in any longer. With Robin now gone from their table, he demanded, “Jett, what do you see in that guy?” 

An eight-hour explanation formed in Jett’s mind. “Nothing,” she ultimately said. 

Sam let out another sigh, and pulled out his phone. “Look,” he said. “This was actually an old business partner of Robin’s,” Sam said, scrolling through the phone. He handed the phone over to Jett. It was a multi-part Pictagram post. Swiping through revealed a rant written by an angered woman about how she’d felt “led on” by Robin only to find that their relationship was not what she thought it was. 

Jett skimmed the Pictagram post as Sofia and Sam watched Robin continue to walk around all the various sections of Trader Mort’s - the bar, the dining area, the fire pit, the merchandise booth. He was observing all of the other patrons of the restaurant as carefully as if he were shopping for a house or a car. 

“This was an old girlfriend,” Sam said, navigating to a different Pictagram post showing a scowling woman, followed by a lengthy diatribe of a caption talking about how truly wronged she’d been during their breakup. 

Sam took his phone back, swiped around, and gave it to Jett again, showing another Pictagram post with a different woman. “Girlfriend,” he said. 

“Girlfriend.” Another post, equal amounts of rage and spite in the caption. 

“Aaaaand, girlfriend.” Another post. More rage.

“Sam, you seem like you’re just looking out for me, which is… nice, but totally unnecessary,” Jett ventured cautiously, before a touch of anger seeped into her voice. “And, I mean, did you just already have these pictures ready, or something, just to show me?! All prepared to disparage him like this? You pulled these all out awfully fast.”

“Oh, no, I just searched by the hashtag. It was really easy to find,” Sam said with pure innocence. He showed the last photo again to Jett. Oh. There it was: #fuckrobinflores 

“Oh.” 

“To be perfectly fair, sometimes he just has one-night stands and the women aren’t all that bothered by it. You wouldn’t see those on the hashtag, though, I guess,” Sofia said with a chuckle. “But he hasn’t been getting any dates at all lately. I think that’s why he’s targeting you.” 

“I wouldn’t call it targeting,” Jett insisted. “We’re not exactly… well, you know we’re not together, but I wouldn’t say any of this is one-sided.” 

The conversation was interrupted because Sam noticed that Robin had settled at a standing table. Sam had to hand it to Robin - the girl he picked was absolutely stunning, a tall, slim brunette with a beautiful face. 

Robin had ordered the Poseidon’s Revenge Grog, the most expensive drink that Trader Mort’s offered, which was an elaborate, fruit-topped rum drink served in a carved bowl so massive it could comfortably house several tropical fish. 

Deftly as a master painter crafts their portraits, as a maestro weaves their notes together in a beautiful melody, and as anyone of extraordinary skill in their art wields their talent, Robin demonstrated to his onlookers his effortless skill in flirting. He simply poked two straws into his monstrous Poseidon’s Revenge Grog, pointed one of them at the girl, lowered his chin an inch, and gave her a sultry smile in invitation without so much as a word.  

Sam’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline - he thought he saw the immediate future flashing before his eyes. As the beautiful brunette girl leapt for her straw, and Robin leaned forward for his, Sam saw the inevitable collision course that their respective heads were on and tensed up, bracing himself for two visits to Concussion City. He would have sworn, “There’s nothing anyone could have done.” 

Except Jett wasn’t just anyone. In a lightning-quick motion, Jett lunged for the Poseidon’s Revenge Grog too, and her hand shot out between Robin and the girl, preventing the double head injury. 

“Jett!” Robin exclaimed. 

“Oh my god! Thank you!” cried the girl. “That was almost a disaster!” 

Jett shook out her hand and winced, looking everything like a hero who’d just punched out the bad guy. “I was supposed to be off baby-sitting duty tonight,” she said through gritted teeth, though her tone was light. “The universe decided that this would not be the case.” 

After a few more rounds of “Thank you,” and “Are you okay?!” the girl introduced herself to Robin as Phaedra, and smiled at him. 

Robin mumbled a quick apology to her. “Sorry - keep the Grog, though. I’m headed back to the bar with her, for some ice.” 

“No, I get it, totally. But if you want to hang out sometime - give me your phone?” said Phaedra. 

“Oh. Sure.” Robin placed his hand on Jett’s back as Phaedra typed away, and as soon as she was done, he gave her a quick thanks. 

“See you!” said Phaedra, grabbing the tiki bowl and flouncing away back to her friends. 

Robin led Jett to the bar, where he found an empty bar stool. He cleared his throat and gave a charming smile to someone seated on the next bar stool, and asked with all the confidence of a man who could still score the phone number of a girl he’d almost concussed, “Hey, buddy. You mind?” 

“Not at all,” said the other man, moving one stool over. 

“Thanks,” Jett managed weakly, as the two of them sat side by side and Robin asked the bartender for a bag of ice. 

“What do you say you and I share a much more reasonably sized drink?” Robin asked. 

Jett laughed. “Yeah. Sure. And dessert, too, since that didn’t happen earlier.” 

They sat mostly in silence for a short while, as Jett iced her hand, and awkwardly ate with her non-dominant hand. Jett mumbled an apology as her hand brushed against Robin’s, reaching for their shared drink. They had decided on a Damnation, a mixture of light and dark rums and fruit juices served in a ceramic mug in the shape of a piranha. It was, as Robin had suggested, a much more reasonably sized concoction. 

“I’m really uncoordinated with this hand,” she joked.

In response, Robin closed his hand around her uninjured one. “Jett?” he said softly. 

“Yeah?” 

“You can trust me,” Robin said with an unusual sincerity. 

For a moment, Jett debated feigning innocence and asking, “About what?” 

She couldn’t decide what to say for several more minutes, but eventually settled on “Yeah. I want to.” 

When Robin and Jett returned to the others, they were then standing at the miniature volcano display waiting for the show to start. Sam had a triumphant look on his face. It dawned on Jett that this was a win-win situation for him: either Robin couldn’t pick anyone up and Sam would force him to admit that he only wanted Jett because he’d been in a dating slump, or, he did score some other girl’s number, and well - he would have scored the number of a girl who wasn’t Jett. It was as though Sam wanted to somehow prove that Robin couldn’t ever take her seriously. If Jett were to ask Sam, he would probably tell her that he would treat her like royalty - never mind the fact that he was engaged to someone else - while Robin would treat her like a customer at a delicatessen. “Now serving number five-oh-eight.” 

Jett could see herself understanding why Sam would think that. But Robin… Robin had asked her to trust him. 

“I hate to say I told you so…” Sam began. 

“Then don’t,” Jett snapped. 

“Well, it seems this was to be expected. All of us always have a good time when we come to Trader Mort’s,” Sofia said flippantly. “Congratulations are in order, I suppose, Robin. Enjoy your date with what’s-her-name.” 

“Mickey, Mason, look above you!” Sam interjected. 

As the boys marveled over the animatronics display descending from the ceiling - which Jett had to admit was actually pretty cool - she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Robin giving her a small smile, and holding up his phone screen for her to see. It showed the name Phaedra, followed by her phone number. Her contact name was accompanied by a bunch of heart emojis, a sort of digital age equivalent of kissing one’s lipstick to a napkin and writing “Call me!” 

Wordlessly, Robin made a bit of a show out of displaying the screen to Jett as he pressed “Delete contact.” 

He tossed the phone into his pocket. 

Lights began to flash and fog filled the room, and the Trader Mort’s crew started chanting. Jett’s hand slipped into Robin’s as the two of them watched the volcano erupt while the crowd cheered.  

[englishchinesetranslations]

This is a piece about me visiting Riyadh, several times, for Formula E.

Formula E is an electric racing series that says OK, boomer to 20th century petrolhead culture.

I am a high-performing, self-absorbed diva who writes about cars for a living.

Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh. It’s not a place, in the western imagination — which despite my scattershot efforts to broaden my horizons I definitely have — it’s a synonym for the Saudi Arabian state. Which, again, in the western imagination is one millennial and a network of shadowy contract killers.

The name Riyadh inspires fear, like a monster under the bed, something unknowable and threatening that doesn’t say anything about a city nine million people live in. Like most people, I hate admitting I’m afraid of anything real so in my mind it’s never been more than an imaginary metaphor to shield my own delicate ego.

I don’t think about the place much outside headlines. Or well, didn’t used to.

If you asked me if I’d ever imagined going to Riyadh a few years ago, I would’ve had to first work out if I could imagine Riyadh. In my mind — and I have an international relations degree so this is extra embarrassing — it was a mediaeval fortress. Perhaps some heads on spears on the walls. I’d seen some pictures on the Daily Mail or something and for some reason never considered whether this was a bit racist.

This starts in Berlin, 2018. Formula E, a street-racing electric motorsport series, announce the championship is going to Riyadh. Which is a ridiculous concept because Riyadh isn’t even a place with streets, in my mind, because I have not yet managed to stop being racist about this and actually learn anything.

More ridiculous is that I can’t go — I’m one of half a handful of full season journalists in this series that I decided to upend my life for completely a few years ago and I can’t go to the season opening race for the next ten years.

Because of strict Sharia law in the Kingdom, I can’t work in Saudi Arabia without my dad or husband giving me permission. Which at then-31 years old, divorced and resigned to my parents disapproving of everything I do for some time now is extremely laughable. I can’t work in motorsport there at all, classed as a dangerous profession. And how the hell am I going to get in in the first place?

There is some quite emphatic shouting on a street near Tempelhof when a fellow journalist asks me what I think of it and accidentally triggers the nuclear codes on my brain. I can’t do this, are they joking? How can I even continue in the series, I used to work in the humanitarian sector, for crying out loud.

I spend a night stewing in my hostel bed and wondering how all this can be thrown back into my face so hard. And then, trembling with rage and the less hot emotion I don’t like to think I’m capable of, demand answers from then-Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag in a press conference where he’s meant to be passively introducing Nico Rosberg.

The press conference is important because he tells me that there will be women there, that there will be arrangements made, that I can go. Which is the moment Riyadh has to stop being a fictional, mythical fortress to me because if I can, then I can’t not. No matter what else I think right now, I can’t let my male peers go and exclude myself so now even worse than being banned from Riyadh I have to actually go there.

Then my handbag gets stolen on the U-Bahn and I have bigger problems in the immediate, because the British embassy’s closed for a royal wedding.

Why is going somewhere so bad? Especially if you’ve already sucked down the moral serving of working in motorsport, gone the distance and done the deeds to get there.

I don’t want to shy away from the facts, here. Firstly, that motorsport is an intensely conservative world — all sport is. Formula E is by miles and miles the most liberal, even confrontational element of at least the cars bit of it but there are no openly gay drivers at a top level, there are very few women.

It’s bizarre to me, as someone who lives in London’s very leftwing queer scene, to work somewhere where shaving half my head was a bit edgy not just ‘had a breakdown on Tuesday, lads.’ I am more left wing than most normal people and motorsport as a whole is considerably more right.

I love my job. I whine about doing it, constantly but I love motorsport. I am obsessed with it, it’s what makes me feel the most and I am fascinated by the tech and I adore my friends in it, this is a job I have worked insanely hard to get — not something I am being forced to do, disinterestedly. But there is a disconnect between the realities of it and myself as a person.

Even motorsport people, however, were shocked by us announcing we were going to Riyadh. Until this event, the FIA (motorsport’s global governing body) had never sanctioned an event in Saudi Arabia, not because there was no interest from the Kingdom (Saudia, the national airline, have been an F1 sponsor for decades) but because until recently, women were completely banned from driving.

That changes, in the months between the announcement and the race — because it had to, as a condition of the event happening. You can view that as the Eprix clearly directing positive change or not if you want but the fact that it had to is important as part of the situation, as part of understanding why people were shocked we were going there.

Saudi Arabia operates a guardianship law for women, who require their husband or male relative’s permission to do things like open a bank account, get a job or a passport. Women are required to wear an abaya (the usually-dark coverup garment that covers you from foot to neck) as well as modest clothing and muslim women must wear a hijab. All Saudi Arabians must be muslim and a religious police force exists to enforce strict adherence to sharia law.

Kissing in public is absolutely banned, as is alcohol and western music. There are no cinemas and media is restricted. LGBT acts can get you imprisoned, publicly whipped or even executed. Human Rights Watch lists the “dissidents” who are detained on long charges in Saudi Arabian jails — they are women’s rights activists, people who have criticised the government, protestors who in most countries would be considered very mild. Torture is documented by HRW as being widely used as an interrogation tool against detainees.

It’s not fully whataboutism to say “well, other countries have terrible records on human rights, too and sport still happens there.” But Saudi Arabia has been off the table for a long time, not least because events like this — people congregating and especially in mixed gender settings — have been banned for a long time by the government themselves.

So is Formula E so financially or morally bankrupt to take the Saudi Arabian money and go there? It’s not like the country has a longstanding connection to electric technology and green solutions — absolutely the opposite, Saudi Aramco is the world’s largest producer of crude oil.

It’s complicated. WWE were the first big sports brand to announce an event in Saudi — but WWE isn’t really a sport and isn’t governed by a sporting body, wrestling a strictly choreographed entertainment product, despite the athleticism. As a consequence, the event in Riyadh could be bent to meet existing Saudi restrictions — no female wrestlers, no women in attendance, etc.

The FIA couldn’t do that and neither could Formula E. The event was somehow going to have to cater to, well, people like me. And they could have done that by spending the Saudia money on ferrying us around so we never saw anything but for whatever reason, they didn’t. They’ve never told me what to tweet or what to write about it. I don’t work for them, they didn’t sign this off and if anything happens to me as a consequence of writing it it’s not their problem.

They’ve got me access to princes to ask questions and put me in front of an exhaustive list of local TV and newspapers to prove that, yes, there is a woman — I’m aware I’m a bit of the PR to all this. And that that’s why people question whether what I think about it is true and why I’ve spent over a year writing this and why it’s so long.

I am incredibly sick of the persistent accusation Formula E journalists do not ask about this. That the media has not had to think about it, that nothing’s been written. So here you go, I’ve written it all.

There’s a view that these big, international events happening in Saudi Arabia is ‘sportswashing’ — that the intention is for Saudi Arabia’s international reputation to be rehabilitated by being thought of as a sports venue. That brief, highly-controlled environments are giving an unrealistic view of life there.

The events are short, for sure. I have made three brief trips to Riyadh and I am not about to pretend that I know about ‘normal’ life there in any meaningful way. This isn’t intended to be documentary about Saudi Arabia writ large, it’s about what it’s like to go there as a journalist to cover the events and what I’ve seen and the people I’ve spoken to. A lot of it’s just about what goes on in my head during the weekends — it’s part travelogue.

I don’t think about Riyadh very much for the next few months because I don’t know what I’m going to do about it, until Formula E call me a few weeks before testing and ask if I’d like to go on a trip. Would I. My entire method of managing my fragile psychology is dependent on going off somewhere every few weeks and the pent up home time is sending me scratchy, I say yes before I’ve even heard where it is.

It’s Riyadh, obviously. They post me some abaya and I read some not very reassuring travel advice, most of which doesn’t make much sense, while trying to work out a way of covering up my confrontationally queer hairstyle.

At Jaguar’s season launch I scope out who else is going — it’s all men but then again, there are not many things like me in motorsport. I contemplate my own death in a mediaeval fortress a lot, because this, for some reason, seems likely to be something Formula E would be sending me to.

The flight over is blandly sober. My hobbies and interests are pretty much covered off by “getting extraordinarily lit on flights” so the self restraint to ask for coffee instead of wine, before we enter Saudi airspace and they stop serving it, is an immense struggle. I also keep falling over my abaya and still can’t do anything with the headscarf to save my life.

My male peers are not having these problems. One of them has a gin and tonic, for a start.

In my head, Riyadh airport is a jail. The entrance to fortress Riyadh, machinery of a despot. In my mind, this is where it goes wrong — where my hastily-issued travel authorisation is judged invalid, where the men are let in but I’m not, where somehow this turns into The Gang All Go To Saudi Prison. Sitting nervously on plastic chairs, we wait for our visas to be done and I try to be sanguine about my upcoming, certain death and consider if I could actually fancy one of the dudes or if I’m just surprisingly horny about my own mortality.

Spoilers: I am not dead.

When we get through customs, the Saudi fixer shakes my hand. My very limited googling has informed me this is absolutely illegal unless we are married and my heart leaps out of my chest because oh here we go, here’s where I die. It’s so stupid it’s unreal, my tabloid-mythological Saudi overlayed like VR on what’s in front of my face.

I’d say it’s the fact it’s 40 degrees centigrade at 1am but realistically it’s just me being ignorant as all get-out and believing whatever I read, especially the most ghoulishly outrageous bits, instead of being willing to find stuff out. Which is a particularly stupid situation for a journalist.

Riyadh is, through the window of the taxi, very clearly not a mediaeval fortress. It has Starbucks. It has Nando’s. Its late but there are people walking around and when we get to our hotel, it’s easy enough for me to buy a coffee, go for a quick wander around the block and then stare out of my thirteenth-story window at a sprawling city glittering with lights. Not as built up with forbidding glass as Dubai, not quite as antiquarian-ramshackle as my beloved Marrakech and there’s something somewhere to it, a little chaos and disorganisation, a little… rule-breaking tendency that twangs on strings tied to Tbilisi.

Riyadh suddenly isn’t a story to scare naughty children with, it’s a place — where nine million people live. And I realise I have been quite stupid about this. Embarrassingly, shamefully so. I don’t get anything like enough sleep, thinking about it because I hate being wrong and I’m not quite sure how I so bullheadedly was so off the truth.

At the showcase I interview some Saudi princes. In the back of my mind lurks a vociferous argument I had with my ex-husband once, where I called him morally bereft for even considering working with the Saudi state. It is funny when you schadenfreude yourself.

My image of a Saudi Prince at the time is very limited. And by limited I mean I can name one.

I have not thought about HRH Abdulaziz bin Turki AlFaisal Al Saud. At this point, he’s the person personally tasked with making Formula E happen and he is vibrating with anxious tension about making it work. In my steady realisation that Saudis are people, too, I clock that they’re as nervous about screwing this up for us as we are of doing something wrong. Maybe a lot more so.

Abdulaziz is funny. I worry halfway through the interview I’m going to get in trouble for flirting with him because when I listen back to it, we laugh a lot. It’s the slightly anxious giggling of people doing something weird they’re not sure will work, at the start and then just genuine jokes. We “do a bit” about everyone telling Saudi they need to make changes for decades and then telling them they’re going too fast when they do.

I find out most Saudis, in fact almost all Saudis, are aged between 15–30 and think about what that means for the life expectancy in this bakingly hot, dry country. 90% of the population works in agriculture, which must be backbreaking in the extremities of the peninsula’s climate and that quality of life is poor, especially compared to the state’s wealth. It is very obvious he is a devout reformer and wants to urgently improve things for Saudi Arabians, starting with what he knows (he used to race in Blancpain GT in Europe) by bringing motorsport and technology to push the country away from the oil enriching — and endangering — it.

He’s not a cold despot, or a charismatic liar — there are plenty of both in motorsport let alone other fields I’ve covered — he’s a little bit thousand-miles-an-hour, talks more like Formula E’s bouncy kiwi Mitch Evans than a politician and with slightly more honesty, not offended when I push things and offering more to ask about than he tries to hide.

If the whole trip has wrongfooted me a little by just bringing Riyadh out of the mythical then this does something else. I do some gormless, rapid recalculations, brain as vacant as that meme because despite my almost unshakable sense of western entitlement it has finally got through that there’s a chance the race in Saudi is not actually about me.

In all my righteous, ask-a-manager fury about having to do this myself, I haven’t thought about the Saudi equivalent of me. Who wants to watch motorsport, work in it, has been denied it right up until now unless she was privileged enough to get to other states — and 90% of the population isn’t. Doing the maths in my head, that 70% 15–30 year olds includes about 13.6 million women my age or younger who’ve just got the right to drive as part of the FIA negotiations for the race. And the right to work at it. And here I am pitching a fit because I have to comply with what might as well be a uniform, to a tourist, for a weekend.

Ok, somehow I have got some perspective. But that doesn’t make this all automatically fine, does it.

Aseel Al-Hamad, a Saudi woman who’s just driven an F1 car at the French grand prix, is there. There’s a flamboyantly camp young Saudi YouTuber or something who is flirting with everyone. I still can’t drink coffee without dripping it on my headscarf.

Everyone keeps saying “it’s just a normal place.” Which is true — it has coffee shops and supermarkets and I eat an extremely salty salad with two other journalists after we get back to the hotel and none of us get arrested for not being married to each other. But also that dumbs it down, to just our own flighty concerns about how to exist here.

I can’t stop thinking about those stats. Saudi, which I’d thought of as ruled by old zealots, is so modally young that I am above the average age here.

There are young, excited Saudis at the showcase. Obviously, because that’s what 70% of the population are. 39 million people live here, who I’ve either thought of as generically oppressed or generically oppressive, drawn on some very primitive gender grounds. When I worked in humanitarianism, no one ever mentioned being humanitarian to Saudis and to my genuine horror, against all my ethics, I’ve casually dehumanised an entire population.

Don’t tell me, sitting from the west and spitting blood on social media at the idea of racing series going to Riyadh, you haven’t done something the same. Because I’m pretty good at this and yet somehow I can get my head around going to New York while toddlers sit in ICE detention, can get on with living in the UK despite knowing full well the horrors my own government is committing but I didn’t know any Saudis, you see. So somehow it hadn’t occurred to me they might want things like entertainment and sports and other things I take for granted and don’t assume I should be denied just because the prime minister’s done a racism again.

Formula E wasn’t taking a compromised event — not like WWE’s male-only show for a select few. It was going to be an Eprix like any other, bar the podium champagne. Not only that, there’d be women on track.

Saudi Arabia was about to go 0–60 by never having had women driving to hosting an event where, during a test, the largest number of women, anywhere, ever would be driving current, top flight machinery alongside men. A statement, yes but not intended to me about Saudi but to Saudi women about motorsport. I mention it to the prince, who thinks it’s quite funny as a statistic — he’s raced in Europe, after all, he knows what the numbers are like in our glorious egalitarian societies.

(If you don’t: they’re atrocious. I can name every woman who’s ever got as far as single seater racing, while I can’t remember which men were in F1 5 years ago, there’ve been so many.)

I tell someone on Twitter that if other countries wanted to do it they’ve had the preceding 70 years and well, where is the lie?

The flight to Dubai, en route back, is weird. I rip my hijab off in the airport terminal, no longer able to cope with my own inept wrapping and try to stop the side-shaved bit of my hair standing up. A male journalist asks me why I bothered with it in the first place and I try not to give him too much of a death glare because actually it’s becoming apparent things aren’t what I assumed.

I absentmindedly delude myself into thinking I’ve been invited to hang out with the guys, not just tagged along by proximity, for the rest of the journey and it hurts for about half the subsequent season that I’m incapable of learning not to make assumptions, despite the big ol’ wisening experience I just got lavished with. But those are other places.

Jamal Khashoggi is brutally murdered in an embassy in Turkey shortly after our showcase trip and the number of names of Saudis most people can think of increases to two. One deceased.

I nervously ask Formula E, at testing, if we’re still going. We are. It’s fuel for some very gory nightmares for a few weeks and can I really go there? I feel pretty strongly about dismembering journalists.

As the days tick down to going, mythical Riyadh re-descends on my mind. I forget the place I saw in broad daylight and brood on the fact I’ll be arriving at 1am, totally alone. It’s stupid fear, not the healthy respect I have for the fact travelling so much on my own, anywhere, is generally dangerous.

My usual attitude to being presented with a dangerous opportunity is to immediately take it. My sense of self-preservation isn’t impaired but my survival skills are over-developed, it’s left me with some excellent stories I can never put my name to and which I often only tell softened versions of, to avoid upsetting anyone. I can think or… Well, let’s say manoeuvre or lie or cheat or manipulate myself out of almost anything and the things I can’t, I can chalk up to a big bucket of Things That Are Making Me Weirder And Weirder But I Just Can’t Stop Doing Them.

I don’t think that will work in Saudi Arabia. And I’m so incapable of behaving myself. I’ve already forgotten the manifest demonstrations I saw that Saudis handle strict rules the same way everywhere else with them does, ie by each pretending they must apply to other people and look like you’re doing it when it matters, my own MO for everything.

Meanwhile my own unelected leader in the UK nearly tanks us out of the European Union for the first of what will be several, increasingly grim times and I have this vague feeling of unassailable doom.

All the thinking about going to Saudi has stopped me doing any thinking about actually going to Saudi, which because I booked my flights late and am permanently broke, is via two Ryanair flights, a gruelling overnight layover in Milan Malpensa (0/10, do not do) and 11 discombobulated hours in Jordan that I thought I was going to enjoy but it turns out the fear is kicking in.

The silly thing is, the thing that scares me is a taxi driver in Ammam who I throw some Jordanian dollars at while bruising my thumb forcing the lock down at some traffic lights to escape after he tries to essentially extort me. But if I can’t handle Ammam how am I going to handle Riyadh? A lot of me wants to turn around and go home.

I get to the airport for my final flight much too early and when they tell me I can’t check in yet, it all suddenly hits and I unexpectedly sit down on the terminal floor and cry hysterically for ten minutes.

By the time I get on the plane, I’m delirious with panic. The insane idea I am going to get arrested at the airport dominates my entire thoughts — after all, last time I was with Formula E but I’m not normally in the group, the showcase a one-off excursion.

Also, most pathetically given I’m 32 not five, I have not told my mother I’m going to Saudi Arabia. My mother disapproves of most things I do but I feel like there’s a relatively legitimate case for that here and also that I am a gutless coward for not being able to take that on. Gutless cowards afraid of being told off probably shouldn’t be trying to do this.

I cry so pathetically with fear the Flynas staff, who are spectacularly kind, give me a free coffee and one sits with me, thinking it’s the thermal-buffeted take off that has me hysterical, not the country they live in.

It is, obviously, not Formula E’s responsibility to check I get anywhere. Or where I’m staying or in particular I’d really rather they didn’t attempt to regulate what I’m doing because I reserve my right to get up to all kinds of things without them trying to stop me. But sometimes there are moments when I think anyone would quite like to think there’s someone who’ll know if they don’t make it to their hotel and I’m having one, feeling much too vulnerable to be able to do this. The monster under the bed is scaring me, mooom.

Needless to say, it’s fine. Uber is very well-regulated in Saudi Arabia and the process of transferring to my apartment hotel is extremely straightforward and despite my sudden inability to do maths convincing me it costs three times more than it does, really cheap from a London perspective.

The guy at the check-in desk thanks me for respectfully wearing Saudi-compliant clothes; my hair at this stage is still difficult to not look aggressively asymmetrical and I’ve finally learned how to do a hijab but it sort of unnerves me. Am I either appropriating or colluding with something, here? After all, I’m not muslim. I’d be a terrible muslim, I already miss wine.

I really need to sleep but don’t, which turns out to be basically what I spend most of my time in Riyadh doing because my brain won’t stop turning over and there’s not enough hours before I have to get up and go to the track anyway.

Here is where things get interesting, of course. Because I’m not staying in a hotel full of Formula E people, I’m not staying with anyone else at all, I’m just any old regular person in Riyadh, staying in the kind of place an average-income Saudi might if they were visiting from Jeddah.

Formula E don’t have my address, I didn’t have to put it on my visa application (handled by the championship so I have no idea how difficult it would be to get one as a journalist otherwise) and unless someone very carefully trailed me from the airport then I’m just out here alone. I’m staying in Al-Aqiq, which is a neighbourhood sort of near Diriyah and as decentralised as the whole of Riyadh seems to be.

Riyadh is a weird city, from my perspective — it seems to have no centre and there’s motorways everywhere. In any 500m walk, you can find at least two demolished buildings with the rubble in situ and another one under construction, a petrol station and a kebab shop. Every road feels like a dual carriageway and I don’t understand the shops.

Not for the reason I assumed I wouldn’t understand the shops, which was more specifically cultural issues. I don’t understand the shops because they sell things that make absolutely no sense to me whatsoever — I’m staying in an apartment hotel and there’s a petrol station nearby, a coffee shop on the forecourt.

That’s reasonably sensible to me. I can also get my head round the oddly Roman-themed kebab shop and the phone shop the other side — fine, that’s how modern life works right?

What I do not understand is the stationery warehouse that also sells party gear and interior design trimmings that seems, by all accounts, to be the big shop in the area. It’s sized for a DIY shop and stocked by the crazy crap aisle in Lidl and although it sells me an exceptionally good pencil sharpener that I’ve jealously guarded ever since, I cannot work out what the heck its deal is. It opens at like 7am and has supermarket trolleys available but every time I go in everyone’s buying like one box of paper plates?

There will be no answers. Some elements of Riyadh, I have to accept, I will not fully understand.

But I find myself going in a lot. I buy some weird new stationery that doesn’t really set me up for the season, because Al-Aqiq doesn’t have much else going on. I get really invested in trying every type of latte flavour the petrol station coffee shop does because it sort of gives me a sense of direction in my attempts at exploration that are otherwise coming up short because I can’t find anywhere to poke around, sleepy residential and mosques the main features of the area.

I assumed it was because I was sort of on the outskirts but this continues to puzzle me a year later. I’m used to cities with centres, high streets — I don’t know if it’s the heat or just a different, dispersed way of doing things or because (and I definitely have noticed this) Saudis don’t really have a culture of congregating places, turning up in crowded scenarios or what. But the structure of the town kind of makes no sense to me, and maybe never will.

There’s, seriously, no public transport on the enormous roads and coming from London that confuses the heck out of me. Contrary to the imagined SUVs of gulf state, most of the cars on the road are old and Japanese — Toyota Camrys and Hyundais, clearly proudly cared for but long in the tooth on mileage. There are almost no European or American cars and the ones that exist look weirdly out of place, a Renault Megane looking like an undersized curiosity in a line of Honda estates.

From that, you can probably gather I walked around a bit. I actually walked around a lot more than I initially intended to, especially on the first day I was trying to get to the track.

This is where it gets a bit technical about the business of motorsport, which is that for the first and only time this year, I need to get to the accreditation centre and pick up the pass that will let me into the circuit — and the rest of the season. This is a very minorly stressful process — and only so because I haven’t been to the circuit before so there’ll be a degree of wandering around trying to find the right place.

What happens is that I initially book a taxi to the wrong place, as it turns out there are several bits of Riyadh called Diriyah. Then I rebook a taxi and it goes to a different version of the wrong place, including having to get through several military checkpoints that my taxi driver is increasingly confused why I think I should be going through — and to be fair, so am I. There wasn’t any of this last time.

I bail out when I see some Formula E hoardings on the basis I must be nearby. This is a stupid idea. I’m the wrong side of the track and have to walk through it to get to the thing that will let me get the lanyard that says I am allowed to go through it but there doesn’t seem to be any other sensible way of making it there.

This feels like the sort of thing you could get into a lot of trouble for. It feels more like that when I get to some catch fencing that hems me in so totally I realise the only thing I can do is walk a long way back, to possibly not be able to find a way through or to climb it. Reader, despite the clothing situation and the fact I am carrying a rucksack full of precious scarred Macbook, I climbed it.

Jumping down the other side, I realised one of the reasons was because it was next to what looks really like a military compound and there’s a bored-looking dude with a gun staring at me. To quote Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye: ok, this looks bad.

There’s a sort of weird thing that happens when you are in a genuinely bad situation. Like, this is obviously not what I am supposed to be doing and it’s hard to guess whether the FIA or the Saudi government will get angry at me wandering into places I am clearly not meant to be first — or most severely. Technically I haven’t signed my behaviour waiver with the FIA for the year yet and also they probably have fewer guns.

As you can probably guess by the fact I’m writing this a year later, the next 45 minutes are quite stressful but ultimately end up in the accreditation office with extremely smudged eyeliner but no permanent damage. And for the record, the Saudi soldier I end up speaking to through Google Translate is nothing but helpful.

Which should probably be the end of me getting lost in various places in Riyadh except it’s kind of only the beginning. I very rarely get lost, I’m great at yeeting myself round the world and reading cities from their layout alone — I don’t know if it’s just that Riyadh is so decentralisedly alien to me or if it’s just the same thing that happens where I cannot stop myself trying to read Arabic the wrong way round and it’s just that I’m too stupid to understand it.

Whatever it is, I get lost a lot. Nearly continuously. I have to develop an uncharacteristic level of chill acceptance for not knowing where I am or when I will next be able to work that out. For sometimes wandering at length down motorways, in the rain, trying to hope that there’s a point on the horizon where GPS will work and maybe I won’t run out of road before then. It’s never that horrible, as an experience — Riyadh actually has fairly decent pavements — it’s just slightly bizarre and adds to my sense of being constantly wrong-footed and out of my depth, which is the kind of on-the-edge-of-fear feeling that makes me crotchety and unobservant and the whole problem ten times worse.

Anyway, that’s for later.

Occasionally, people call me inspirational. How inspirational of me, pursuing a career in a male dominated field. How inspirational of me, tootling round the world on my own and with no budget. How inspirational of me to not have ended up dead given all that.

It’s a weird feeling. I am outrageously flattered by it but I don’t feel very inspirational; I’m broke, I have a professional respect level probably best described as ‘tolerated’ (and barely that) and I’m hardly out here getting awards. When I finish a season I mostly feel a crushing sense of disappointment at myself for not having done that better.

Which is the kind of thing, when the drivers say it, you feel moved to say something encouraging. But it’s true — I’m frustrated by the number of times the titanic effort to get to a race limits the ambition of what’s possible there. And I’m kind of breaking myself a bit and in denial about it.

Anyway, should I really be an inspirational figure for dragging myself to Saudi Arabia on budget flights and white-knuckle bracing to hang on for another season? Probably not. After all, the whole reason I can do this sort of thing is because I’m an overpaid London media professional with a devastating sense of entitlement about travel.

It gnaws at me a bit, because all weekend when I’m in the Riyadh paddock young women keep coming up to me. They grab at my media pass, newly-minted and full-season heavy in the folds of my abaya and we stagger through conversations in Arabic via google translate or if they know enough English to talk.

It’s very exciting and inspirational, seeing a woman journalist succeed. I know because a few months previous to this event, I got amazingly drunk and embarrassed myself telling Suzi Perry how much she inspired me. I look up to the broadcasters and the journalists I find digging through old magazines and suddenly realise that’s a woman’s byline, often from a point when I assumed there weren’t any.

To be honest, I think most people just assume there aren’t any of us either way. Women in motorsport are grid girls or PRs — at least, in that same spooky, popular imagination where Riyadh’s barely a map location but you definitely have an opinion about it even so.

As far as the young women grabbing at my pass are concerned, I’m as ludicrously mythical as I can’t seem to stop myself thinking about their city if I let my mind wander for even forty seconds. A female motorsport journalist, travelling around on her own and from their perspective the most extraordinary thing, which is that I’ve apparently come to Saudi Arabia of my own volition. In fact, I’ve had to work really hard to do so, when I could have just… not.

This is kind of incomprehensible, to the Saudi teenagers. They’re excited by the idea I’d do it but when I live in London and can go anywhere, why would I? And on my own? I must obviously be the kind of incredibly celebrated and important person who thinks they can get away with that sort of behaviour and I don’t have the heart to tell them I’m actually panicking a bit about whether I can get anywhere to even take my coverage this season.

Riyadh’s one of the problems, actually. Editors don’t want to be seen to be endorsing it and the ones I can get to take it say they have to include critique of the situation, which is maddening when they won’t let me write about anything I’m actually seeing.

Ok, yes. Here is the situation: the Saudi government has paid for the race. Someone, somewhere, always pays for a race — championships sustain themselves on hosting fees and Formula E doesn’t go for the scalp like F1 but ultimately ‘who is willing to pay’ is a major persuasive factor to an events’ viability. Not to peel back the final veil but this is how big sporting events work, everywhere.

It’s proved controversial in the past. Montreal paid extra to host a season-ending double-header over several seasons, then it turned out the (I’m compelled by journalism standards to write the word ‘allegedly’ here) corrupt mayor had made promises the city wasn’t willing to keep.

It put Formula E in a position where, contractually, they had to sue the city for a settlement — not the most popular thing to do but FE itself can hardly just wave away a contract or they’d look like mugs everywhere else. Also probably, you know, needed the money for something because no one knows more about how much doing all this costs than my Ryanair-seat-shaped arse.

And why? Why wheel and deal to make a global car racing championship happen. Well, I don’t know — there’s no actual point, is there? There’s not a moral at the heart of this, a heartwarming lesson for humanity that’s perfectly illuminated by the chance to watch one millionaire athlete smash another millionaire athlete into a concrete barrier in a shower of carbon fibre.

You’ve got to tell yourself something to sleep at night though, right? There’s got to be some reason you’re doing it. We make it up for any job, the reason you’re logically doing these things. Here’s mine.

The planet is dying. That’s not hyperbole — the seas are emptying of whales drowned by plastic as fast as they fill with Antarctic meltwater. We can’t put either of those things back, there isn’t a fix except prevention.

The sky is choking, we’re shutting off the stars with satellites and smog and after a few hundred years of building a world dependent on massive — and mass — mobility, we’ve realised we can’t use the types we’ve been reliant on. We talk about the screaming, hurtling destruction of the only place we can live in bland, corporate terms, these words like ‘mobility’ and ‘transitive economics’ neatly editorialising the end of the world as the closing remarks of a conference on disaster mitigation.

It’s terrifying. It’s so incomprehensibly, mind-crushingly fearful that even if you can somehow get yourself together enough to think about it, it’s really hard. Scientists say the risk numbers are into the bit where human minds actually don’t understand them because we just can’t really be that scared.

Which is a problem, because the last thing we need right now is numbness. A few years back, I’d slipped a long way into it — not really specifically the planet but more that some very immediate things were going very wrong in my life and the only way I could continue to get up and go to work instead of lying down and screaming was to just not feel anything. Which isn’t very sustainable, you need a cathartic ability to make sense of things even if they’re terrible.

There’s lots of crutches people use — alcohol (a generally reliable and disastrous one for me) and other mind-altering distractions, getting overinvested in box sets, obsessively hyperfixating about your OTP, pinning your emotional wellbeing on the success of a sports team.

I went for pinning my entire psychological and professional future on Formula E being the thing to dive into right that moment. In the moments where I couldn’t think of a reason to carry on, there’d be another race on the horizon. In the long nights where I didn’t want to live anymore I could motivate myself with the sheer, stubborn desperation of throwing myself into getting in.

Frivolous, yes. But Formula E does also have a point: on this dying earth, amidst the keynotes on the end of transport, we need to do something. Just stopping flying or transporting or using the massive systems we’ve rigged to plug the earth in won’t work. Same as we can’t put the whales back in the barren sea, we can’t just pull the brakes on a tangled juggernaut we’ve spent decades chaotically assembling because as much as we urgently need to, to save lives, if we do then people will literally die.

It’s complicated. It’s those things too big to think about and we needed solutions before I was born, are living through the dying moments of panic while we scrabble for a fix that makes things least-bad. The trolley dilemma between apocalypse and slightly mitigated endtime.

We’ve got to be brave. We’ve got to do things like say ‘we actually cannot use oil anymore’ — for fuel, for plastic, for millions of things that keep us alive in abstract or direct ways. The 20th century was built on such a proliferation of oil products it’s hard to imagine extracting them from your home, you can’t even extract them from your supermarket trolley without making a very contorted list.

And there’s so little time. There’s so much to do. We’ve got to fix cars and planes and medicine and supply lines and food and it’s really hard to think about it all because there’s nothing you can do, you need some sort of thing to rally around.

Yes, it’s cruder than a barrel to say that Formula E can be that thing. It’s a racing series, it’s a day out, it’s entertaining sport — but it’s also a test of shame for automakers caught out in dieselgate, it’s an on-track annoyance that says actually it is possible to make electric cars populist, you can do this.

If all the absurd, awful things we have to deal with now were built in the panicked competition of the twentieth century, then welcome to the 21st edition of that scrap. There’s no time to tear into the companies and people that have orchestrated it — half of them are dead and none of them care but if you can make a system where to succeed, they have to do what you want then that’s something else.

There’s never been and I hope there never is again a moment where motorsport, as inch-grabbing competitive hot lab for transport, has had such a crucial moment. All the years of F1’s development need to be drowned out in the next half-decade by the wind-up banshee howl of electric technologies making up for decades in absence.

And you can’t politely do that on the streets of Monaco as a nice little spectacle. You have to go where you’re not wanted and explain that, actually, you are what is needed. You can’t disrupt anything without causing a little chaos and you’re gonna have to do some stuff that scares you and other people might not approve of.

So for all that, I’d better be fucking inspirational. If I’m the in, I’d better live up to it. If I’m, somehow, the lens that someone can see something worth getting excited about through then I’d better wipe off the grime and get on with it. If I’m how someone can see themself being part of this, across whatever incomprehensibly vast gulf, then I’d better not be churlish about it.

Yes, I am a colossally privileged westerner. Yes, I am ignorant and disastrously naiive — no one looks at me in a paddock and takes me seriously. Formula One journalists consider my curious electrical proclivities like discovering the intern is into something kinky and I’m never going to get a Pulitzer.

But in a paddock in Riyadh I’m a thing people haven’t seen before because all that colossal western privilege means I get to do things they’re not allowed to. And things people have never seen before are inspiring, whether they’re race series screaming round a UNESCO world heritage site or grandstands where women sit with men or Jason Derulo’s shiny jeans.

And the government paid for it, yeah. It’s a little incomprehensible. Why would the Saudi government pay for an event that’s hardly aligned with an oil state’s economy?

One answer is the propaganda. A greenwash over ARAMCO’s continued production of the majority of the world’s crude oil. But New York has an Eprix and no one looks across the Atlantic and says ‘well, the US is green now’ any more than anyone thinks of Oman as the home of football.

So if you talk about greenwashing, you either think the Saudi government is hopelessly naiive or that the entire world is, stricken by lack of knowledge about the place. Formula E is part of a plan, though — the Vision 2030 programme of reform and transformation, which includes a focus on opening Saudi to visitors.

Saudi Arabia has a lot of visitors per year, to Mecca. But visas for non-Muslims were very hard to come by until recently, with tourist visas not at all and a lot of the country restricted.

The first year, lots of journalists were flown out by the Saudi tourism board and taken on an ultra-luxury, whistlestop tour of the Kingdom. I obviously wasn’t one of them. This doesn’t come from a place of delusion where I think those lovely people from Saudia took me on such a nice trip, I learned so much during the cultural briefings between private jet flights…

The thing about being the unexpected element, that weird thing no one expected to see in a paddock anywhere let alone Saudi Arabia, is that no one notices what I am doing most of the time because they assume I’m just recording a Vine or gazing wistfully at a drivers’ hairline or something. I don’t really get fussed around by teams or pushed out of garages or moved away from conversations because despite it being pretty obvious by this point that I do know what I’m looking at, I am also still the comedic relief.

It has turned into a bit of an act. If I actually am I tremendous dumbass then I can’t get mad when everyone treats me like one.

And no one cares what I do or where I go. As soon as I leave the circuit I’m a black shape as swaddled as any of the others. Which is why I think I can trust what I saw and what I think about Riyadh, why I don’t think anyone there was trying to impress me.

The teenage girls, after all, were there for the Black Eyed Peas concert. It was purely incidental that they discovered nice western ladies women could be motorsport journalists in the process, that my big, heavy permanent pass drew so many eyes because I couldn’t get the lanyard to bend to sitting right yet.

One of the women I speak to wistfully says she’d like to be a journalist herself but she’s been arrested before and couldn’t face it happening again. Which is where the teenage excitement melts away.

The reality is that I’m seeing Saudi Arabians get to do stuff they haven’t been able to previously which I take wholly for granted. I’m not inspirational, I’m just an exotic glimpse of someone who, for all my bleating and crying about going to Riyadh, is in absolutely no danger whatsoever.

And when I blend away into the night the only thing that stood out was I have no cocking idea how to keep an abaya out of the puddles from the unseasonal downpour. But going to Saudi is not about me.

I don’t think you can fake teenage girls. You can fake loads of things but you can’t pretend it’s plausible a restrictive state faked teenage girls’ enthusiasm. (the next year I’d get in a mosh pit with them but that’s later)

I meet a really lovely, wonderfully dedicated Saudi journalist out there. She’s a credit both to her youth and frankly to motorsport and I don’t think she even half realises how great she is at making both internet content and quality traditional journalism.

(I’m not putting her name here because this is a reasonably low-risk piece for me, I think — but I wouldn’t force anyone else’s name to be put to my words, any more than I was willing to let my own be edited)

So there are Saudi women doing this. And you should listen to them about the race far more than me and what they say is obviously the same thing I say about the London Eprix; of course you want the sport you love in your city.

Boris Johnson’s an odious prick and I’m allowed to say that. I don’t have to express gratitude to him for facilitating the event, when it happens next year. He didn’t have anything to do with it and I can be British without having a single miligram of respect for the people running the place.

I can’t tell you what Saudis think about their own leaders because I don’t know — but the attitude is definitely quite different. The situation is different, the structure is different. I don’t want to say that people are lying when they say they’re grateful to the leaders for bringing sporting events there because I don’t know that they are.

The politics of anywhere is complicated. There’s not a requirement to engage, except when there is. When you have to go somewhere the issues loom in massive print or your prime minister keeps straight-up lying about things that will get people killed.

People think we don’t ask about this. But what is there to say? I can tell you what was said in a press conference, I can tell you what I inferred from the total disregard for a lot of the stricter rules that’s obviously running through Riyadh.

Saudi Arabians like being Saudi Arabian. Much more than I think most British people like being British but that’s kind of cultural. It will come as no surprise that a young population finds strict religious law grating and wants reforms, that the handful of cinemas that have opened in the past few years are popular, that people like being able to go on dates and go out for dinner without being strictly separated into male and female and they love to party. Some of them probably wouldn’t say no to a beer.

If I tell you that Saudi Arabians (largely) approve of the race, will you approve of the race now? If I tell you that there’s young Saudis, especially women, getting the chance to do stuff they really want to do because we bring the circus to Riyadh, are you onboard? Not if you weren’t before.

I would say: why do you think you deserve the opportunity to go to things and they don’t? What are you gonna tell my friend, ‘hey, an accident of your birth location means my politics ban sport from your country?’ I don’t know if that sits right with me, personally.

Here’s some tea: the Riyadh paddock, in that first year, is the nicest motorsport paddock I’ve ever worked. As a woman. I mean, I always work in paddocks as a woman but like in terms of me being there, womanly, it was the nicest.

Within the Formula E paddock, people behave pretty much like they do in a lot of the rest of Riyadh, from what I can tell. Western women uncover their hair and some fully do away with the abaya, by year two that ratio increases to pretty much everyone but me shedding it as soon as they’re through the gates.

Women have never been banned from motorsport, in liberal western Europe. We make up 1.5% of race license holders — over the course of 125 years of motorsport events — and it’s conventional for men in racing to be able to say wildly misogynist things without it affecting their careers but we’re not banned and never have been.

Women always have been in motorsport, working and as pure fans. Most people in it start as one, end up as a combination. It’s a passion field, you can’t commit to the schedule otherwise.

But we’re a minority. And people quite often either forget we’re there or forget that any group who are so completely marginalised actually kind of needs some extra catering-for. You get used to it after awhile and kind of forget but you will never be one of the boys.

Riyadh isn’t like that because this is a totally new event. They have to make sure that it caters to a population not used to attending these kind of events at all and also that it specifically advertises to and makes itself welcoming to women, because otherwise they’re at risk of getting in trouble with the FIA. The organisers here 100% have to prove how liberal and reformed they are.

Which means everything includes me. People add “and ladies” every time they say “guys,” everyone asks for my opinion about things, I get brought to the roundtables and possibly actually given more time with people than the men.

It’s so strange and flattering, it gives me not a weird impression of Saudi Arabia, who I completely understand the motivations of about this and yes I know it’s PR and an act. But it’s an act that’s working, I do feel welcomed not specifically to Riyadh but to motorsport in a way I simply never have back home. It makes me a bit genuinely hysterical about having to go back to normal paddocks.

I don’t think Riyadh deserves a medal for it or anything — but it makes me think a lot about the ‘regular’ motorsport events.

Back to that first year; it’s fine. I distract myself by looking after one of my friends, who is finding it all much harder and who I designate myself the food and drink carer for the majority of the season.

By the time we’re leaving the circuit I promise to come back for a week next time, to see more of the city. I’ve already made myself a playlist for the way home and although I’ve been cheerfully, relentlessly convincing myself I am coping fine and the kilometre and a half down a dark motorway I’ve walked every night doesn’t bother me and I feel perfectly safe, there’s a cathartic reason it opens with the Pet Shop Boys’ Home & Dry.

But it’s done. We’ve been to Riyadh and nothing bad happened and I ate some really great falafel. Also had one of the best experiences of my life when I walked up to media pen on the test day and there was a near-equal number of female to male drivers due to a test stunt where teams were allowed to run a second car if a woman drove it.

Yeah, it’s a stunt. But it’s the one that means Saudi Arabia has now had the most women driving in a mixed-gender, top flight motorsport series, simultaneously, of any country ever. If anyone’s mad about that then motorsport has been happening for 125 years and somewhere else could have done it first. I mean, this is just sport. Somewhere could have done that. Somewhere could do it now with a larger number. In the interim, well played HRH Abdulaziz.

I decide maybe I don’t want to drink any wine in Cairo airport on my way back, for roughly the amount of time it takes me to get off my plane, walk to a place that sells wine and immediately order some. It tastes so good, I have a little cry.

Thus ends year one of what’s going to be ten years of me taking myself to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as a lone woman and trying to get around.

Something weird happens the day after that season’s final race in New York, which is that I go to a lunch with a load of other journalists. They’re all F1 and important and cool, I probably shouldn’t have even been invited. Especially given I’ve just got off a heavily delayed overnight flight from JFK and I am not feeling it.

Anyway, I inevitably mention I’m from Formula E and this guy goes off at me about Riyadh. Then when he discovers I actually go, he goes even more in on me and my moral decay. I’m genuinely shocked by the ferocity of it, especially from a group of people who go to Bahrain.

I’ve got used to having to explain myself but this guy just won’t let it lie, says I’m dancing on Khashoggi’s grave and and mocking the idea of journalism, supporting crimes against women. I kind of think, privately, that that’s a bit much coming from the lofty podium of working in, uh, famous humanitarian agency Formula One but then at the time I also do that so perhaps that’s not a great stone to start throwing in a room full of people who do too.

I don’t manage to get my brain together enough to sell it to him. I mean, I don’t know if I want to sell it? Do I actually think it’s good that we go, not just survivable?

You know what, I do. I think it’s difficult and it stresses me out and every year it makes the season opener tough and you know, people shout at me over lunch and things. But look, if you just close the door on Saudi Arabia then how’s there gonna be reform? How is freedom of the press and rights going to improve if you don’t know anything about anything that happens there? Or anything about the country? The people that live there?

It’s 2019; the same way that Saudi Arabia can’t stop the flow of information as a young, internet-savvy population gets extremely online, you can’t stand in the way of things

My most succinct summary of why I think we should go, though, is simpler: Formula E getting paid to race in the home of oil and sit there going ‘that’s bad’ without getting censored is the biggest middle finger move.

Ah, Riyadh alone: round two. Now, surely, I would be armed with enough knowledge to not screw up constantly by disappearing into my own bizarre alternate reality.

Guess what? I absolutely do not. If anything else I’m even worse. I get really, really anxious in the runup — partly because this year my mother knows I am going and oh boy am I getting told off. Which is pathetic, what the hell, what kind of tiny, baby child am I?

I booked my flights really early this time, before testing. They were way better flights and I was excited to be going home via Beirut because apparently I am a lot better at inventing fictional versions of countries that sit in my brain like mirages than I am at reading the news.

Anyway, great life choices aside (it’s not like this is even my worst one) I, in theory, should be really chill about this. Except I miss the FIA email to apply for a visa and end up doing it late and it doesn’t turn up for ages and I get really stressed and then also ill and I start a new job and everything is really full on and I want to throw up.

I don’t do my packing until the last minute, then prepare by drinking too much wine and sleeping through my alarm so I have to book a last minute Uber to Stansted. Which isn’t ideal because I’m not sure if I’ve been paid but better than missing the whole thing.

Anyway, my point-blank refusal to ever check my bank balance is very much a me thing rather than anything directly connected to Saudi Arabia. So, off to Stansted and I have to re-buy everything I need and obviously forgot in the airport but again, this is pretty standard behaviour for anyone who’s as much of a total mess as me.

This doesn’t seem like the way to do it. I can get most places half-cut and sloppy but this is not most places. Nevermind — also it turns out Pegasus serve surprisingly pleasant in-flight wine and by the time I get to Istanbul I’m feeling quite relaxed; I have hours of stopover for it to wear off in, don’t worry.

I don’t want to go. It’s got into my head. I’ve been getting all these weird emails with hate-filled fantasies about me getting killed and I keep thinking about the guy at that lunch and also about the texts from my mum and the way I don’t feel cavalier enough to be doing this.

Why am I going? Because it’s my job to go. Because I have stuff to do. Because I have this endless compulsion to do it and it’s a massive privilege. I don’t know. It’s all weighing on my brain, am I an instrument of state PR now? I wouldn’t put up with that from anywhere and besides, I don’t think I am. I’d probably be on a fancier flight if I was.

But getting onto my late-night flight in Istanbul, I know it’s descended again. The fictional, fearful Riyadh is in my head and every radical thing I’ve tweeted from the past year is haunting me. What the hell am I doing going to Saudi Arabia?

And the thing is, I can’t (at this point) recognise it’s the VR. Yet again, I’m expecting to get arrested at the airport, to get trailed, a million paranoid things that won’t happen. But now they’re incredibly real in the sort of simulated reality everyone’s told me definitely exists and is more important than my own memories.

I’m not normally like this. I haven’t been sleeping enough (I’ve had ten hours sleep over five nights) and it’s really starting to show.

Still, on the plane now so better live with it — obviously I get to Riyadh without incident and am through the airport with a warm bag of falafel and a coffee, into an Uber where I manage to stagger through a mostly-Arabic conversation and send a selection of my wilder and more enthusiastic tweets about politically safe but morally questionable topic: Lando Norris is really hot lately.

I know I said I’m never going to win a Pulitzer but with that kind of bold reporting, I really should.

Finding my hotel takes a bit (it’s another, different dubious apartment hotel) and by the time I’m in and arrived, it’s like 3:30am so I just pass out in the massive bed. By which I mean, look at memes on my phone and rewatch the camping episodes of It’s Alive and wonder at which point I stopped just writing about semi-teenage idiot sportspeople and actually became one.

Nevermind, anyway, soon enough it’s time to revisit ‘finding the accreditation centre.’ This year I am determined not to have to climb any catch fencing so pick my Uber dropoff point VERY carefully. It is to absolutely no avail and I end up lost in the enormous Diriyah Season compound down near where Ruiz and Joshua will be going at it in a few weeks but certainly there are no electric cars currently.

Because I’m still freaking out and only managing to psychologically sustain myself by internally commentating on the situation it gets steadily worse as I wobble across the paddock on a combination of caffeine, adrenaline and inadvisable 4am hotel tap water. Once I actually find the place, collect the thing and get in the media centre things feel less out of control, except that I need to write two season previews before anyone wakes up in the UK still.

At least there’s fruit and coffee.

Thursday is a bit of a mess, for me. I don’t eat enough (I’m vegan and it’s a genuine problem in paddocks) and I’m so sleep deprived I’m really not coping very well and keep having to watch Calming YouTube Content to get a grip on myself and churn out another thousand words. To be fair, all of this is just the business of being me, doing journalism so can’t really be attributed to Riyadh or anyone there.

A team are doing an event later where I’m meant to be interviewing someone who I inevitably don’t get to interview because scheduling is a nightmare and also it’s really obvious that I am about one second from falling asleep on the floor and considerably over my stress limit. Another woman in Formula E asks me why I’m letting the side down by wearing an abaya (most team personnel are taking them off the second they enter the paddock) and I just snap.

It’s because I’m on my own. Because I arrived at 1:30am. Because everyone’s spent the last month telling me how stupid I am by going here and how certain I am to get killed and it turns out even I have a limit to self-determined risk enthusiasm. Because if anything happens to me, no one knows where I am and Formula E don’t look after me -

This comes as a surprise. They don’t? Surely no one lets me run round Saudi Arabia totally on my own?

Oh, they do. And being alone is psychologically testing and I feel so pathetic at how pitiable it all sounds. One of the drivers sympathetically tells me that sounds “really fucked up, to be honest.” It, err, doesn’t help.

By the time I get back to my hotel the absolute most I can manage to do is go to a shop and buy the ingredients for a big night in in Riyadh. Which is to say, some crisps, some mystery thing in a jar that turns out to be definitely not vegan kind of fake cheese with the consistency of mayonnaise that tastes amazing on crisps (food waste is bad) and one of everything from the drinks section.

I love foreign supermarkets. Full of weird stuff. This one is crucially full of men who are understandably surprised to see a western lady wandering around shaking like she’s on a billion drugs and trying to find the hummus (I can’t) or work out which colour of water is fizzy in these parts.

Obviously there’s no beer in Saudi Arabia but there is a wide selection of like beer-adjacent malt drinks that have weird fruity flavours and also cider-adjacent things with frightening coloured labels. I go for a beer-adjacent thing in flavour ‘original’ and a threatening can of Mirinda which poses the question about itself: watermelon or cantaloupe?

(my investigative powers don’t stretch that far, it mostly tastes of heavy-handed corn syrup)

I’m freaking out, though, because when I was in the supermarket the guy packing my bags gave me a present. It was just a chocolate wafer thing and I was concentrating on understanding what number I needed to pay so didn’t really pay any attention until I left and suddenly thought: what if they’re setting me up to be done for stealing it?

There was no evidence for this at all. Every Saudi I’ve met has been genuinely helpful or openly friendly, the worst reaction being a kind of morbid curiosity about why anyone would do what I am doing. But instead of using all 10ft-across of my weirdly gigantic hotel bed to get the sleep I really, really desperately need I obviously just send myself insane googling ‘setup to be arrested Saudi shops’ and variants thereon. It’s so stupid and I am only getting stupider as I waste precious resting hours on doing the opposite of that.

Now fully convinced I will be in jail before the end of the day, it’s time for the Friday race. Either you’re into motorsport and therefore know how race day works or you’re not and so don’t care but basically a lot of things happen all at once and I have to stop writing worryingly thirsty things about drivers in other series and do some work for once.

I’m really in the toilet, brain-wise, by this point and have to cry in the loos three times during the day. Which is difficult when the loos keep being closed because of some kind of water supply issue (Formula E uses temporarily-built paddocks so these things happen) and requires quite a lot of timing effort.

Also people keep interviewing me, which actually now seems to happen more than I interview other people and the whole thing feels completely ridiculous. Why are you interviewing me? I’m an idiot and I can’t remember my own name or feel most of the left side of my body because I last had ‘adequate sleep’ about three weeks ago and for some reason I forgot to bring any socks with me so I have these really aggressive blisters and I’m probably going to go to Saudi jail over a chocolate bar.

A lot of stuff is happening to me and very little of it is conducive to doing anything useful. Which then gets in my head more and this is how every weekend goes, except with an added, imaginary carceral threat.

I relay my woes to one of my friends who advises that maybe it really would be a good idea to eat something that isn’t crisps and get more than three hours’ sleep and like ok, I can believe that.

My Saudi friend notices I am having a meltdown and says she’s worried I hate her city. It finally kicks me into functional gear — I can’t be coming over here, making people feel bad about the fact I have a wholly imaginary version of their country down over my head like a visor.

So that night I first go to the concert after Formula E and purchase ‘potato,’ the most vegan thing I can find to eat. This helps somewhat and gets me into the mindset where when my taxi drops me off, I head off to the malls near where I’m staying (which are not the grander, designer sort you find in some of Riyadh) to complete the incredibly trivial task of buying socks and ordering stir fry.

Socks it turns out are easy, as there’s a shoe shop nearby and I could’ve saved myself a world of pain really easily. Which is pretty much the moral of this entire episode: stop making your life really hard and driving yourself insane and instead of just doing things like a normal, woman.

Dinner is also easy in that I get an absolutely monumental quantity of stir fry vegetables from a mall food court place and eat them in a sort of blissful semi-coma while listening to the sounds of Dr Dre’s seminal album 2001, over the mall tannoy. I seem to be staying in a very Asian district this year and most of the restaurants seem to be authentic Indonesian places.

This helps the sleeping problem enormously. It turns out just ‘not being scared’ is really key to getting six straight hours in bed and so being able to operate normally. And that’s the thing, what am I even scared of? Myself?

(to be fair, I am definitely the biggest danger to me)

It feels better. But I’m still relieved when I leave — it’s all the things: my own stupid ideas, the judgement from other people, the pressure of trying to make sure I’m doing it right.

Before I do though, I go to the last concert with a group of Saudi young people who I’ve tagged along with. Everyone is covered in glitter and dancing suggestively and jumping on each other and starting mosh pits. It feels like being at a gig I am about 15 years too old for in any other country, except that unlike if it was in London no one sloshes a pint of Tuborg down my back at any point.

It definitely does not feel like government collusion when at the end of his set, a Lebanese rapper does a dubstep version of Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do (I Do It For You) and I, an old person, absolutely lose it in front of this surreally gigantic stage, surrounded by excited young people.

For me, I could go to a gig like that every night of the week in London. But this is one of a handful. The first western music concerts were played at the Eprix the year before and there’s something there that feels big. You can claim the sport is a distraction for the rest of the world but you don’t televise concerts, these are for the Saudis.

(The concerts actually caused a really problematic ticketing situation this year where people were buying them, looking like the Formula E numbers were good because it was a combined ticket and then not turning up — when the organisers were asked they admitted they screwed up and would be trying to fix it next year)

This is what it comes down to, about the race. It’s a good track, it’s one of the best ones we have in fact — it’s produced two exciting races this season and despite torrential rain making the first year difficult, it worked then too. And yes, we have done all the bits about turning up to torrential rain in Riyadh; it snowed on the Sahara when we were in Marrakech once, too.

Climate change doesn’t really deal in imaginary metaphors.

So it’s a good track, the drivers like to drive on it, it produces a genuinely good sporting event. It takes electric racing and green principles, confrontationally, to one of the homes of oil. It has forced some small changes — which should not overshadow the achievements and struggles of Saudi Arabians themselves in getting those.

If you think it is just sportswashing then that’s too simple, it isn’t. It depends if you think the Saudi 2030 Vision plan is for you, probably sitting in the west and still thinking of this as some distant horror theme park, or for people there.

There’s an open PR angle, but those stats — the ones from way back at the show case, about how low life expectancy is in Saudi Arabia and how generally Saudis have a poor quality of life — well, a lot of this is not about how you see it. It’s about things like the massive investment into grass roots sport (especially motorsport, a nice upside to the now-head of the Sports Authority being an ex-racer) might improve things for regular Saudis.

You want to know what going to Riyadh is like? It’s a bit boring. People want stuff to do, same as you. And to meet people — each other and weird, jetlagged British women who can barely hold a coffee without tipping it down themselves.

So long as we acknowledge the other stuff (and we should do it everywhere) then I think you’re taking the wrong side, if you believe your opinion trumps their right to access that.

Ok here’s some more tea: Riyadh is covered in rubbish. If you want proof I’m not lying, here it is: the whole place is absolutely bedecked in trash.

This happens a lot in places with poor infrastructure, which Riyadh absolutely has. Because making life easy for people to get around and to meet up and to get places hasn’t been a social or specifically political priority, Saudi quality of life suffers in more ways than one. Who cares if the streets are filled with garbage if you never go out?

But people do now. Young Saudis go out in big groups and nearly all Saudis are young. Stepping around overspilling rubbish becomes the first thing I get the hang of keeping my abaya out of because man, it does not smell ok.

Rubbish in a city is a pollutant and I really hope, for the people living there, that Riyadh sorts this out. It’s all the ‘being a metaphor’ thing, isn’t it? Metaphors for governments don’t have extensive municipal recycling programmes.

I can’t tell you to unconditionally support Formula E racing in Riyadh. I don’t think you should unconditionally support anything, really, apart from maybe Lando Norris but we’re all just having a big one about that at the minute.

But anyway, this wasn’t to tell you what to think. It was slightly just to write about going there because not many people do and slightly because everyone keeps insisting no one in the Formula E media is thinking about this stuff when I have tortured myself for weeks with it. Also some of the anecdotes are funny. I could write a lot more, from my run-ins with ‘rose Lattes’ to the time I bought a lime juice and recklessly refused extra sugar in it only to discover I’d got an actual pint of just undiluted lime.

But this is long enough and it’s already much too much about me, for something that really shouldn’t be. We all have to live in our own heads.

[techasphalt-blog]

Why I like asphalt 8 game

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[mapleleaf1998]

Am I enough?

So hello again tumblr! It’s funny to say this but I just tend to open this every time I have a severe problem in my life. Maybe it is a sort of depression or an anxiety attack. Well “Am I enough” is the title because I keep on asking myself that question over and over again. Because if I’m enough, definitely my girl won’t leave me anymore cos I’m enough. If I’m enough, my dad won’t always brag and comparing his degree and high grades during his days to mine and emphasizing that I’m a worthless son to him. I feel sad because why on earth I need to experience all of these shit in my life. At the very start I already know that my parents won’t give a 100% importance to me because they didn’t let me study in UST which it is my one of my dream universities in my life. Instead they let me study here in DLSU-D which a school that I hated the most. “Anak mahal kasi tuition, wala na kaming pera, etc.” Usapang tuition ba kamo? Well UST marketing management course is way cheaper than DLSU-D. Second, malayo? well my cousin has a condo in espana where I can stay and rent for a cheap price. Ano pa? Simple arguments palang to talo na kayo, what more sa iba pa. All I want in this world is to be loved and to be accepted of who I am and what I am that’s all man. But the fucking problem is, my request is so simple but it’s sooo hard for others to do it. Even asking something sa parents ko nahihiya nako because I always think that I am not enough for them. Even asking for a brand new laptop for my studies cos the old one sucks di ko magawa cos isa lang ang maririnig ko from them. “Anak ano ba yan gastos nanaman!” And that breaks my heart and cry inside the restroom para di nila malaman that I’m crying. I always pretend to be strong and happy to cover up my real and ugly self. I always ask myself “Am I enough?” Tomorrow is another social construct day that is so called “Valentines” but even though it is a social construct, I want also to celebrate valentines with someone who I do really loved the most. But sadly, that girl that I loved the most left me already 3 months ago already. Man it’s been 3 months already, but my heart and all the pain is still in here. It’s hard to let go especially to the person who you are 200% sure with, to the person that my whole clan was already attached with, to the person who knows all my vison and goals in my life and she is part of it, and to the person who accepted me fully of who I am and what I am. Actually to be honest, our 4 months relationship with my ex was my best moments in my life. Because finally I already answered my question “Am I enough?” Because finally someone says that “Yes D, You are enough” I felt so good and my happiness overflows outside my system. But suddenly all of these happiness gradually fades away. I always ask myself. If she said that I’m enough, why did she leave me? Yes I admit, I commit a lot of mistakes to her, I’m not a perfect boyfriend that every girls is expecting with, I didn’t treat her better and taken her for granted. But I do believe, everyone deserves another chance to change and to prove their worth to someone. And for the first time in my life, I finally do things that I never did in my entire life for her because it is all for love. But why after all the efforts I’m still not enough for her that she didn’t give me another chance and she decided to leave me for good. Dude ang sakit pare kung alam mo lang tangina! Hanggang ngayon andito padin tong sakit sa puso na iniwan mo sakin. I cried and ask God “when will I be enough? Especially to someone?” Yes I’m always thankful for what I have right now. But I all ask for one thing, acceptance, love and making me feel that I am enough. fia, girls like you is so rare that makes me feel so extremely depressed because I lose you. I wont act like this if you’re not rare. Because for the first time all character of a girl that I want ay nahanap ko lahat sayo na akala ko imposible nang mahanap sa sobrang dami kong gusto. And losing you makes myself guilty and i keep on blaming myself why I did this, and I did that na kahit yung friendship natin na put into risk na and from lovers to bestfriends and now it turned into strangers that having a conversation is barely to happen. I don’t know how to move on or how this pain will finally go away. But I ask one thing, and it’s for you to come back again. And kung di na talaga kaya, sana kahit yung solid bestfriends lang dati na kung saan anytime we want to talk, we can talk or kung nasa mood ka mag call mag cacall ka yung parang dati lang, sana maibalik yun, sana maibalik yung dating tayo. Gusto ko nang mawala lahat lahat ng sakit na nandito sa puso ko. I don’t know when this will end. But if this pain will finally ends sana maging masaya ka sa kung anong meron ka ngayon, cos I’ll be happy as well. And sana someday if we’re not meant to be talaga, sana may ma meet ako na someone na rare din like you and if nameet ko sya and naging kami, I’m definitely sure na di ko na yun papakawalan and I will treat her the way a queen must be treated. And I will make sure na itatama ko na lahat ng mali ko and all of my mistakes in the past will never ever happened again. Hope someday someone will say “D/Derek/Derek Matthew, YOU ARE ENOUGH.”

[prplesctrs]

How will you know that I don't know about that point system? After being almost 23 years into that sports I should, right? 🤷

Still my opinion that's where juniors should get first before they get a seat and stick there until it's time. Without this point system, just by the teams saying they want the certain driver because of his talent. You get what I mean?

I know pay drivers suck. I'm with you on that BUT the make a difference between pay drivers that bring talent and those who do not even get their car through the half of a round without crashing it & here is the point at the toppic where I think FIA should get involved and sort them out and stick them at least into the junior programme of the teams, when the money of the sponsors(or dads) the driver brings (f.e. Force India) is much needed.

I know it's an easy thinking but in my eyes this would make those situations much easier.

Footnote: Just once again, this is MY opinon.

I see so many people complain that the teams don’t find any seats for their juniors in F1 but people, that is exactly the right thing. They can’t kick out “oldies” just because there are new ones who won a championship in another series. I don’t dount their talenta but here is the best example: Antonio Giovinazzi. Nobody complains he isn’t getting a seat. He’s developement driver for literally all Ferrari based teams and in my opinion that’s exactly the place such juniors should get first in F1. To collect expierience and not like because little fangirls scream “I want my bby in an F1 seat!!!”

[weraceasone]

Elle! Hoe gaat het? Lol I’m not Dutch but I just used Google Translate 😂. Hope you’re doing well! So my dad and I were discussing some F1 stuff and he said that Ferrari might get a chance to beat Red Bull. I’ve read somewhere that they’re changing some things about the car so that it can get faster. I am a fan of Ferrari because of Charles and I love to see him on the podium but I am afraid that they are too slow. Which, by the way, I find really strange! Because normally they were almost always on the podium and now not anymore. I do not understand that. But what do you think? Do they have a small chance of beating Red Bull?

Love your blog and your answers! This might sound weird and random but I feel like you can write great poems! 💚

hey Anon! mij met gaat het goed, ik hoop dat het met jou ook goed gaat🧡 (translate that lol).

I personally think Ferrari have no chance of beating Red Bull in 2021, but maybe it is possible in 2022. I believe the reason why they were so slow this year was because they were forced to stop using their engine from last year, because it was probably illegal. back in the summer of 2018, Ferrari suddenly were a lot quicker, which raised some eyebrows and caused all teams (except for the teams with Ferrari power units) to go the FIA. however, I believe the FIA was never able to confirm that the engine was fully illegal. eventually, the FIA reached a settlement with Ferrari and released a pretty vague statement saying that they were keeping everything a secret and that Ferrari agreed to a number of technical commitments. but the thing is... the aerodynamic design of a Formula 1 car is always based around how fast it is thanks to the engine. so Ferrari have a car that’s designed to go fast around the corners, assuming that the engine will take care of the straights. so what the problem is for Ferrari is that they don’t have the fast engine so they don’t have any pace, to say it in simple words: the car just sucks.

I mentioned before that I think I don’t think it will be possible to get faster in 2021, but it may be possible in 2022. this has everything to do with the regulation changes that were supposed to happen for 2021, but were postponed to 2022 because of the pandemic (read a full explanation on that here). so I’m very sorry I couldn’t offer any words of comfort for a Ferrari fan like you, Anon, but I’m just not very optimistic about Ferrari’s car for 2021, at the moment.

thank you for the sweet compliment, Anon! I actually do write poems sometimes in my notes app (anyone else that does this?), but I have never had the guts to share them with anyone and I’m not sure I ever will, but I just enjoy writing anything really. I hope you’re having a good day and I wish you all the best for 2021! 🧡