I was quite chuffed to see The Express making a proper apology to the McCanns this week.

Not because I think what they said was wrong - I haven’t got a clue what happened to the little girl, but for The Express to make the accusations they did was taking things too far without any evidence.

It’s not the story that got my attention anyway, or indeed the apology itself, rather it was the manner of the apology.

I would imagine the idea for this came about following on the apparent success of the NFL American Football game which was held this year at the new Wembley Stadium in London and seems certain to come back year after year.

American football isn’t very popular here, or in the rest of Europe, despite the introduction of a European competition a few years ago so I could see the point in bringing the game to create interest but is football in the same position?

As if it wasn’t bad enough already, it would appear that ITV’s coverage of Formula 1 is due to get worse instead of better.

No, thankfully Martin Brundle isn’t leaving (as far as I know and hope), and they aren’t officially renaming their programmes The Lewis Hamilton Show - but rather it seems that Ofcom are about to allow commercial television networks the opportunity to show up to 12 minutes of adverts per hour of programme.

Great.

While I’m on the subject of F1 in the media, the written press shouldn’t get off without a mention either.

Newspaper coverage is usually confined to a page at most after each race, but the current situation has allowed them to print a whole lot more - the usual sensationalist stuff which has only a rare semblence to fact.  But they are the tabloids and that’s what they do so we can’t blame them for that.

Given that I like to get the lowdown on the ins and outs of the sport, I always eagerly await the next issue of F1 Racing magazine.  The issue will be read from cover to cover and all devoured in a day or two.

If you are a regular visitor then you have probably grasped the fact that I’m an F1 fan.

I’m not a huge supporter of a particular team, and while it is true that of the current drivers I favour David Coulthard, I’m normally happy enough that the best driver on the day has won - mainly because I know DC has little chance of winning at the moment!

Formula 1 gets a lot of stick from viewers that it is boring, the races are processional with overtaking a rarity and I can see their point - a race without anyone overtaking each other is a bit like a football match without any goals, or a rugby match without any tries.