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BigBadDaveB

Listed below are comments made by BigBadDaveB between Thursday, 23rd April 2009 and Friday, 11th September 2009.

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Africa gets connected 12:02pm on 11 Sep 2009 "It's a place where you can get a vision of the mobile future, where millions of people use their phones to run their finances and as their main point of access to the web.

But it's also an area where millions of people have a huge and unsatisfied thirst for faster connections to the rest of the world - and a belief that this could change their lives for the better."

For a moment I thought you were talking about Wales.
MOTs: Putting h2g2 through its paces 09:29am on 09 Aug 2009 Wikipedia for nerds, then?
Leave no Silverstone unturned 3:45pm on 26 Jun 2009 First congratulations on the Mosley interview. Your style is kinda in the mould of Louis Theroux: you ask awkward questions but appear to come from a position of total ignorance, and I mean that in the nicest sense of the word. There's no suggestion that you're taking sides, you just give the impression that you genuinely don't know the answers and you don't bring a prejudice to the interview. It's a powerful technique that reaps rewards: Max was relaxed and chatty with you.

It also appeared to work wonders on Bernie. He was, let's be frank, a bit of a fool on Five Live during practice, feigning ignorance over FOTA but making himself look stupid. On the TV coverage, however, he was the most sensible I've seen him for a good few years.

Regarding the coverage in general, the opening montage was just brilliant. If ITV's coverage earned them BAFTAs then that sequence alone should have guaranteed one for the Beeb's trophy shelf.

Big thumbs up to whoever decided to leave the world feed running on the interactive streams during the build-up. You couldn't leave it on a bit earlier so we could watch GP2, could you?!

I'd also like to withdraw my comments earlier in the season about replacing EJ: leave him there - his verbal sparring with DC is becoming compulsive viewing!
F1 gossip column 10:08am on 14 May 2009 With the amount of coverage F1 is being given here, it's understandable that not all of it is the quality we'd like. At least you're trying something different, and at least you're open enough to invite and publish feedback.

On that note, I see that the indexing of the F1 website is improving, with better and more links to multimedia content and columnists. Nice work.
Viva Espana! My Spanish GP moments 10:04am on 14 May 2009 Excellent as always, shame the videos are only five minutes. Maybe a "Monaco Special" could be a bit longer?
Classic Monaco Grands Prix 09:57am on 14 May 2009 1961, purely because it's so rare to have the opportunity to watch races from that era.
Motorhomes, sliding doors and wild Spanish applause 08:31am on 11 May 2009 I think this weekend we've seen the true level of the BBC's coverage during a "normal" European race, now that the excitement and surprise of the long-haul races and new winners is over.

From the evidence it looks like the BBC is doing a very solid and capable job, far superior to the past few years on the other side. The rapport between the team is growing all the time, the features are well balanced rather than being the Lewis Lovefest, and proper attention is being paid to the scheduling - the post-race forum being a masterstroke.

I wasn't keen on the QPR / Briatore feature but you can't please everybody. I treated it as a pre-qualifying splash and dash opportunity! At least you didn't repeat it on the Sunday - in previous years I didn't bother with the race build up as it was basically a repeat of the previous day's show with a 5-minute qualifying report thrown in.

The weak link remains Eddie Jordan. It's fine having an opinion, but it seems that once he's got his teeth into something he won't drop it. We get that he doesn't respect Kimi, we get that he hates KERS, but please ask him to stop banging on about them all the time!

Some people are still criticising Jonathan Legard, but he's improving with every race and at least appears humble enough to accept *constructive* criticism. Plus if you really can't stand him there's always the option of Five Live commentary - last year you were stuck with one soundtrack like it or lump it.

The onboard stream was finally full-screen, so a big thanks for listening to feedback, it really is appreciated.

If it seems that I'm being overly critical then so be it, but honestly I'm just taking the opportunity to give you feedback on comparitively minor points - the overall standard is so high.
My Spanish Grand Prix predictions 7:31pm on 08 May 2009 "There have been more winners from pole here than from any other track on the F1 circuit - out of 18 races held in Barcelona, 14 eventual winners started in pole position."

Not this year! Alonso will be on pole, easily, but compromise his entire race by having less fuel on board than my lawnmower.
Who will be the next star of Formula 1? 4:43pm on 08 May 2009 Pre-season rumours suggested that all the support races would be on the BBC. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when the best and most popular support series is on arguably the worst pay-TV provider. Say what you like about Sky Sports but at least they put together a decent live broadcast.

It's a shame in a way that ITV didn't keep the rights to GP2, at least ITV4's awful picture quality with a blonde airhead presenting would have been better than Sentanta.

Back on subject, I'd put my money on Grosjean but for the likelihood of him replacing Piquet Jnr at Renault mid-season.
The chaos and thrills of a grand prix Sunday 09:38am on 23 Apr 2009 I hope your bosses (hello, Roger!) are reading this, and will take our feedback into account.

This weekend was the best of the three so far. Everybody seems to be settling nicely into their roles. The relaxed and informal style of your pitlane walk - especially on Saturday - was welcome and gave us a chance to hear from people we don't normally. Shame about that PA system though!

The post-race forum is such an obvious thing to so that I'm surprised ITV never managed it. It's perfect for us "proper" fans to get more insight and interviews without alienating the casual fans.

My only real criticism is that you are massively under-using Ted and Lee. I understand Lee's brief is to interview retirees, but in a race with such low attrition could she not be tasked with seeking out team members to bring more strategical insight? I'm not sure we heard a single word from her during the race in China.

One final word of praise for Mike Gascoyne. No offence to EJ but Mike was just so much better, offering an invaluable technical insight. I hear he's applying for a job with a certain Italian team, which may limit his availability, but please consider using him more often.

Looking forward to Bahrain and a weekend of relatively normal sleep patterns instead of getting up a stupid o'clock for free practice!

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