In response to my piece on Juan Pablo's departure to NASCAR, I have had an unprecedented mailbox. Everyone who wrote to me direct was broadly in favour of what I wrote and some added more fuel. For some unknown reason, there was a disproportionate response from Canada, but then I did mention a frozen lake and moose. Hey, if I mentioned log rolling and applejack enough, I could be a credible candidate for mayor of Winnipeg. There was not a coherent pattern to the response, but I think I detected what we could call the Howard Beale Syndrome.

Howard Beale was the fictional TV anchorman played by the late Peter Finch in the 1976 hit movie, Network Finch received an Oscar, as did writer, Paddy Chayefsky, never forget the writer. It is the writer who faces the blank sheet of paper or, these days, the blank screen.

In the movie, Howard Beale is told that his contract with the network is to be terminated within two weeks. He has to serve his time and, free from the pressure of having to toe the line in order to keep his job, he deviates from the autocue and delivers a tirade against the media and everything for which it stands. He is a TV anchorman, he is supposed to stand for something, and his life lays in ruins. Howard Beale says, I don't know about the depression and the inflation and the crime on the streets. All I know is that first you have got to get mean. You've got to say: "I'm a human being, god damn it, my life has some value". So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get out of your chairs and go to the window, open it and stick out your head and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more."

Beale urges people to open their windows and shout, I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more. The TV producer is about to pull the plug on him when word comes through that people are raising their windows and they are shouting, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more."

They are not protesting about any specific thing, like nuclear weapons, the rights of women in Iran, or saving the whale, they do it because Beale has empowered them to complain about their bad landlords, their shitty jobs, the poor service they receive, anything which could be better and which is not.

From being a man with no future, Beale becomes a secular prophet and the hottest thing on television. People respond because they are tired of being fed crap.

When it comes to F1, I'm as mad as hell. and I'm not going to take it much longer. There is no point in watching a race when all it does is to interrupt a perfectly good Sunday afternoon.

Juan Pablo has decided he has had enough. The guy has been on pole ten times, he has won seven Grands Prix, he is taking a cut in wages, at least in the short term. Juan Pablo is also that most rare of commodities, he is a star. Look at the man, he has star quality, a star compels you to look at him, or her. If you could define it, and put it in a bottle, you would never worry again about your mortgage.

Montoya was one of the few stars we've had in Formula One, ever. There is always someone who is more successful than the rest, there has to be: someone has to come first, then someone comes second and someone comes third. Someone even signs the cheques to pay Jenson Button's salary. Dear Lord Harry that must be the most depressing job in the world.

Look at Humphrey Bogart. He was a star. His face looked like it had been run over by a tram which then reversed to make sure the job was complete. Bogart was not a handsome man, but women want to shag him and men wanted to buy him a drink, That is a simple, but not unreasonable, definition of what it is to be a male star.

If it's a female, men want to take off their jacket and wrap it around her so she does not get chilly or wet. The protective instinct is always the first. Only then do you want the wild sex. The first thing most men notice is not the lumpy bits, it is the eyes. You have never heard a woman described as 'a mad romantic fool', it is always a man who is a mad, romantic, fool.