Writing | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

The 10th Edition of the Singapore Grand Prix – and a New Racing Section to this Blog

September 14, 2017
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Chase Carey of Liberty Media at Singapore GP 2016. Photo: Brad Spurgeon

This weekend marks the 10th edition of the Singapore Grand Prix, the first running of which took place in 2008, as Formula One’s first ever night race. As it happened, that first edition would take place just as the world financial markets began to fall apart in the beginning of the financial crisis the effects of which we are still feeling today. I recall the strange atmosphere in the paddock perfectly: We were gathered in the financial hub of Southeast Asia in the slickest racing environment in a downtown setting that we had ever seen, and basking in the paddock in an atmosphere of wealth and luxury. While all the talk was about the underpinnings of that wealth and luxury falling apart around us – banks going bust, the global financial system sinking into an apparent abyss, and with it, the prospect of so many of the series’ sponsors pulling out and leaving Formula One adrift in a series that survives on begging for money.

As the series continues to negotiate for a new contract with Singapore, and in a season in which a new company has taken over the running of the series – the U.S.-based Liberty Media – I thought it would be a great time to look back at a couple of the stories that I wrote in the past, as well as to start a new auto racing section on this blog. Today I am running what I feel is the biggest story I wrote about Formula One as almost classical theater, a big, world story of glamour, glitz and drama. This was a Page 1 story in the International Herald Tribune, and later ran in the New York Times, and summed up the state of Formula One at the time, at its biggest race of the season: The Monaco Grand Prix. Read the story and tell me if the series is the same today 15 years later?

Tomorrow, I will run my preview for the first ever Singapore Grand Prix, and talk a little more about how the weekends go in Singapore.

By the way, while we all thought the first night race and the collapsing financial markets were the biggest story of the weekend in 2008, it turned out that there was a much, much bigger sporting story going on behind the scenes. But that scandal would only be revealed a year later when Nelson Piquet Jr. told the world that he (and his team directors) had staged a fake crash in order to help his teammate at Renault, Fernando Alonso, with his race strategy. The help would lead to Alonso’s first victory that season, and a year later, to the banning of two of the team’s directors from the series in one of the sport’s worst cheating scandals. Last year also marked the beginning of the Liberty Media story, as the announcement of the takeover of Formula One had just been made at the beginning of the month and Chase Carey, the new boss, visited the Singapore paddock – his first ever visit to a Formula One Grand Prix.

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A Celebration of My Father’s Life, an Obituary of David Carey Spurgeon

April 15, 2015
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David Spurgeon

Today, it is with great sadness that I am announcing on my blog the death of my father, David Carey Spurgeon, who died on Saturday, April 11, in a hospital in Ste. Agathe, Quebec, two days after celebrating his 90th birthday. Although I rarely speak about my family on this blog, I am also announcing with a sense of pride, that I have decided to celebrate my father’s life and achievements here in a formal obituary that I wrote yesterday while waiting for my flight from Shanghai to Bahrain.

My father was a lifelong journalist, notably as science writer at the Globe and Mail in Toronto, and I have to say that a majority of the things that I know about the craft of journalism, I learned from him. I did so both through osmosis and his constant help. That help from him came especially in the early part of my journalism career, and especially in terms of his building up my confidence, at a time when I was receiving a barrage of rejection slips from editors for several years! He was my secret weapon against defeat, telling me what was right, or wrong, about my stories.

Although I had considered for this blog to write some personal reminiscences about him, it occurred to me that as a first step, I’d rather take up the challenge of writing a newspaper-like obituary, impersonal, but factual; which is to say, the way that he spent most of his writing life, always trying to be objective, rarely putting himself in the story. I’ll let time take care of the rest of it, and perhaps some day in the future write something more. I have never before published an obituary of anyone, having only made one effort to do so in the past, and having had it rejected.

So here, for the moment, in my blog section of “Blog articles as opposed to posts,” is my obituary, of my father, a trailblazing Canadian science journalist, who covered most of the major science stories of the second half of the 20th century: David Spurgeon: A Life Devoted to Science, Communications and Living Well.

Movin’ On In, Progress Report

January 29, 2015
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PARIS – When there is a big break between blog posts I start getting really itchy, and start worrying about my imaginary regular readers. What do I know? Do I have any regular readers? When I disappear for so long, do I lose them? Do I even exist as a human being when I have not updated my blog for as long as I have in this month?

The itch gets me nervous, and I feel like I have to put up a post even when I have nothing to say. So here is a short post just to explain why I have temporarily disappeared from the face of the blogosphere: For the last few weeks I was involved in an intensive apartment hunt followed by a move, in Paris. Doing that act in Paris is a blog post all of its own, but not one I want to write about now!

Suffice it to say that my fingers are now murdered by acting as a moving man; my morale has been sliced thin by not playing in any open mics for a couple of weeks, and for several days not even being able to play my guitar; but the move is now done, and I’m attending an open mic tonight, and I have lots of blog items that want to be written in the coming days.

So the blog is back on track, and so am I!!!! Wow, I feel so much better now!

Worldwide Open Mic Journey 2014: The Multimedia Consolidation – Paris

December 26, 2014
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Paris Skyline

My worldwide open mic journey began in China in 2008 after the Formula One race in Shanghai, and little did I know that it was a journey that would continue for six more years and cover most of the globe, every continent except Africa (where I once lived and played music in an open mic decades earlier) and Antarctica, and that it would spawn a book, a blog, an album, a documentary film, numerous podcasts, music videos and other multimedia projects.

This year, 2014, I have decided to finish all of the projects and tie them together into a consolidation of multimedia. As part of my personal impetus to gather it all together for myself, but also put it into perspective on this blog, I have decided to create a page for each city I have visited on the journey, tying together samples of the whole multimedia adventure linked to that city.

So here is the page devoted to tying together the pieces of the open mic adventure that I have lived in Paris since I first started.

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Worldwide Open Mic Journey 2014: The Multimedia Consolidation – United States

November 9, 2014
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For my U.S. chapter, I divide it up between the two cities I visited for the adventure, New York City and Austin, Texas.

So here is the page devoted to tying together the pieces of the open mic adventure that I have lived in the United States since I first started. At each subsequent Formula One race that I visit this year, I will add a new such page. Keep posted….

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Worldwide Open Mic Journey 2014: The Multimedia Consolidation – Istanbul

October 16, 2014
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Istanbul

Because the last race that I attended was in Sochi, Russia, and it was the first time that I have been there, I did not have any material aside from my weekend’s experience there there year to constitute a part of the Worldwide open mic multimedia thing. So what I have done instead, is to take a race that used to exist, and where I have a lot of material, and which no longer exists. In that way, I have fit into the multimedia adventure a race location in the place of Sochi, and made use of a major part of the adventure:

So here is the page devoted to tying together the pieces of the open mic adventure that I have lived in Istanbul since I first started. At each subsequent Formula One race that I visit this year, I will add a new such page. Keep posted….

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Worldwide Open Mic Journey 2014: The Multimedia Consolidation – Montreal

June 12, 2014
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Montreal

So here is the page devoted to tying together the pieces of the open mic adventure that I have lived in Montreal since I first started. At each subsequent Formula One race that I visit this year, I will add a new such page. Keep posted….

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Worldwide Open Mic Journey 2014: The Multimedia Consolidation – Shanghai

April 20, 2014
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Shanghai, China

SHANGHAI – My worldwide open mic journey began in China in 2008 after the Formula One race in Shanghai, and little did I know that it was a journey that would continue for six more years and cover most of the globe, every continent except Africa (where I once lived and played music in an open mic decades earlier) and Antarctica, and that it would spawn a book, a blog, an album, a documentary film, numerous podcasts, music videos and other multimedia projects.

So here is the page devoted to tying together the pieces of the open mic adventure that I have lived in Shanghai since I first started. At each subsequent Formula One race that I visit this year, I will add a new such page. Keep posted….

Worldwide Open Mic Journey 2014: The Multimedia Consolidation – Bahrain

April 8, 2014
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MANAMA, Bahrain – My worldwide open mic journey began in China in 2008 after the Formula One race in Shanghai, and little did I know that it was a journey that would continue for six more years and cover most of the globe, every continent except Africa (where I once lived and played music in an open mic decades earlier) and Antarctica, and that it would spawn a book, a blog, an album, a documentary film, numerous podcasts, music videos and other multimedia projects.

So here is the page devoted to tying together the pieces of the open mic adventure that I have lived in Bahrain since I first started. At each subsequent Formula One race that I visit this year, I will add a new such page. Keep posted….

Worldwide Open Mic Journey 2014: The Multimedia Consolidation – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

March 31, 2014
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Kuala Lumpur Skyline

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – My worldwide open mic journey began in China in 2008 after the Formula One race in Shanghai, and little did I know that it was a journey that would continue for six more years and cover most of the globe, every continent except Africa (where I once lived and played music in an open mic decades earlier) and Antarctica, and that it would spawn a book, a blog, an album, a documentary film, numerous podcasts, music videos and other multimedia projects.

So here is the page devoted to tying together the pieces of the open mic adventure that I have lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malasyia since I first started here in 2009. At each subsequent Formula One race that I visit this year, I will add a new such page. Keep posted….