Despite my blog post on Saturday about why I was going to miss the Korean Grand Prix, I need to confess that I actually did end up watching it live! Not only did I sit through the pre-race coverage, into massively delayed start and then the entire race, but I also watched the BBC’s F1 Forum on the red button!

I was very impressed with my friends, who offered me the living room to myself to sleep in so that I could get up when I wanted to watch the race! Not only that, but when the others emerged they tolerated me watching the F1 Forum. As lookingspiffy said to me on Twitter yesterday, it’s good to have a bunch of friends that appreciate how much it means to me, even if they don’t quite understand it!

However, it does mean that I won’t get the chance to find out if missing a race is good for the soul until some other time in the future. It looks like I made the right decision to get up for this particular race though, given all the issues that the BBC’s mid-race channel-switch caused with iPlayer and PVRs!

I have been really enjoying the new album by Squarepusher. I had feared the worst about the Shobaleader One project since I first read the Q&A.

It sounded suspiciously like Gorillaz on the cheap, complete with odd psuedo-humorous band member names. A low-budget Gorillaz would necessarily be a bad thing. But it seemed like an odd move for Squarepusher to make. And the music, while clearly the sound of Squarepusher, was shockingly immediate and borderline cheesy.

The one or two tracks that had been released as teasers for the album seemed good. But would a whole album that sounds like a proggy Daft Punk be bearable?

Amazingly, yes. I have immensely enjoyed listening to this album.

In a way, it is a logical next step for Squarepusher to take. Squarepusher has been pushing on with the fantasy-prog sound since his 2004 album, Ultravisitor. This album created a novel half-live, half-studio atmosphere. The follow-up, Hello Everything, dispensed with the live elements, but placed more emphasis on the multi-instrumental talents and a further step towards a futuro-prog sound.

Then came Just A Souvenir, introducing Squarepusher’s fantasy band concept. It was as much about the stories of what this incredible futuristic band could do on stage as about the music.

Shobaleader One and d’Demonstrator appear to take the fantasy band concept and turn it into reality. Squarepusher is promising more Shobaleader One material, and live shows too. Despite my initial doubts, I’m looking forward to seeing what is coming next in the incredible development of Squarepusher’s sound.

At this time of year, it is often best to leave petrolheads alone. They may be tetchy. Perhaps they are a bit zombie-like.

This section of the Formula 1 season, in mid-autumn, is the part that contains a lot of the “flyaway” races that take place in Asia. This means getting up at ridiculous hours, all for our fix of watching cars go round in circles for a couple of hours. This section of flyaway races, and the one that comes at the start of the season, truly is a feat of endurance.

This year at work, I have ended up with lots of holidays to use up before Christmas. I have decided to use a lot of them around these flyaway races to help me cope with the unsociable hours. It is working out fairly well — I might plan my holidays around the concept next year!

But here is the thing. Is getting up ridiculously early to watch the grand prix taking our devotion to the sport too far? Lukeh has just published a post about his inability to explain this behaviour to his colleague.

This is just adding to the thoughts I have been having about whether it is time for me to relax my policy of trying to watch as much F1 action as possible live, rather than recorded. Is it such a big deal if I swap ridiculously early mornings for a nice long lie in and the comfort of watching the race whenever I want?

The appeal of watching it live

Since I originally got into F1 back in 1996, I can only have missed a tiny amount of races. There was the 2000 United States Grand Prix, which ITV neglected to broadcast live on a proper channel, leaving us with a late-night extended highlights show. There may have been one or two other races that I have failed to see, but I don’t think so. Naturally, if I can, I watch a race live — and qualifying too. And practice if I can get away with it!

It is easy to understand why watching the race live would be preferable. For one thing, nothing beats the thrill of seeing events unfold in front of your eyes as they happen. You just don’t get that feeling if you’re watching the highlights later in the day.

It’s also pretty cool to have Twitter open and to chat with fellow fans about the sport we love as the event itself is taking place. And for me, watching the race and qualifying with live timing open is an absolute must. The onboard channel is another nice bonus. Anyone who has seen the set-up I use to watch races knows about my need to have data as the race unfolds. These options wouldn’t be available if I had recorded the race.

I suspect that one of the reasons I became interested in F1 was that it gave me an excuse to stay up late and get up at exotic hours when I was young, when I otherwise wouldn’t have been allowed to. I became hooked to the sport during 1996, but I have very fond memories of staying up to watch the 1997 Australian Grand Prix, when ITV had a full night of special programming celebrating their first race since winning the rights.

I am sure there is a fair bit of chest-beating as well. Putting ourselves through this sleep deprivation is like earning a badge of honour. F1 fans can often be seen boasting about just how much of the action they have seen live and how little sleep they have had. It is easy to get sucked into this mindset. I tell my friends with pride, expecting them to be impressed — but they only react with shock and disgust.

This is before we have even gone into the traditional argument in favour of watching live. What if you accidentally find out the result? Can you spend the day without living in utter fear of somehow overhearing what happened?

Would it be all that bad to miss the race?

I am not yet contemplating missing a grand prix entirely. But I am beginning to wonder if recording a race and watching it later would actually be good for my soul. I have a reputation among some of my friends — none of whom are all that into F1 — of being a tad too dedicated to watching F1, even if it means getting up ridiculously early.

This weekend’s Korean Grand Prix could possibly be the first race in a couple of years that I haven’t seen live. Not since I had to work on Sundays, at the late, great Woolworths, have I failed to watch a race live.

Tonight, I am staying overnight at a friend’s home in Dundee, as we are celebrating her birthday. Of course, this sort of thing comes first — so I am sacrificing the grand prix that takes place early on Sunday morning.

But I would by lying my arse off if I didn’t confess that I have been thinking of ways to consume the race live. Setting the alarm and surreptitiously getting up to watch the race at 6am would probably be socially unacceptable in the extreme — even if I use headphones and turn the brightness down!

In this case, is it worth listening to it on the radio if I can’t access pictures? Perhaps even watching it on the Softpauer iPhone app could be a good substitute?

I somehow doubt it. The sensible option is therefore to chill out, remain calm, sleep through it and do my level best to avoid any spoilers until later in the day when I can watch the race by myself at home without disturbing anyone else.

I am not sure that my friends are all that impressed with the sacrifice I am making though!

I am quite a fan of DAB radio. It allows me to listen to two of my favourite stations, Radio 5 Live and Absolute Radio, in crystal-clear quality as opposed to the duff medium wave frequencies they have historically used. Two of my other favourite stations, 6 Music and the World Service, are not available on analogue radio. So DAB wins for me on two key counts — sound quality and choice.

But there is no doubt that DAB is troubled. Its future is constantly being questioned. There are grumbles about poor sound quality and reception issues. The fact that car and handheld DAB radios are still thin on the ground is no help either. Take-up has been slower than anticipated.

Moreover, technology is beginning to overtake DAB. Having been developed during the 1980s and early 1990s, DAB uses old-fashioned and inefficient compression techniques.

I am considering buying a second digital radio for when I move. But given the continued niggles surrounding DAB and the uncertainty regarding digital switchover for radio, I am beginning to wonder if buying a second DAB set would be a sensible move.

Is the future of digital radio on the internet?

I was therefore interested to read about the BBC’s new high-quality system, which they are calling HD Sound (not to be confused with HD Radio!).

At first it will be offered for Radio 3, then Radio 2. But given that feedback of the trial as so far been extremely positive — even among the demanding Radio 3 audience — this is beginning to look like a promising system.

Only one thing. It will be available on the internet only. So should my new radio set be an internet radio?

I hadn’t seriously considered buying an internet radio up until now. But it has a massive wealth of choice. There is huge flexibility. It is more future-proof. This platform has widespread adoption (you don’t see the internet disappearing any time soon — although somehow the future of DAB always seems relatively uncertain). And now it seemingly the internet has the potential to have the upper hand in terms of audio quality.

Do any readers have any experience with internet radios? Are they worth a purchase?

There is an event coming up that will interest a lot of Scottish political bloggers. Political Innovation is taking place on 13 November at the University of Edinburgh’s Informatics Forum.

The Political Innovation project is a series of free-to-attend practical events at which people with ideas on political innovations can meet up with technical experts, journalists, bloggers, politicos and others with an interest in politics and public affairs. The event will allow to find about about innovative projects like these ones. You may even want to get involved in one of them.

It sounds pretty good to me and I plan on attending. It will be a good opportunity for bloggers to meet up and chat with others that are interested in this sort of thing.

As far as I know, it has been a while since there was a bit meetup of Scottish bloggers, and from time to time people ask me when there is going to be another meetup. The political focus of this event might not appeal to everyone, but it sounds like the ideal place for some of us to catch up, as well as meet other interesting people and discuss innovative ideas. Best of all, they will be supplying lunch.