planetf1.com

Very very sorry to hear. Condolences to you and your family. Very shocking...

I've just read this thread and I was crushed by the news.

As a Brazilian, although I've been posting very little in the last few years, I'd always exchange bits of information with Patrick about the great Brazilian drivers, especially Piquet who, it seems, was one of his favorite drivers from my country.

I am sitting in a hospital chair as we speak while my daughter, who was born on March 1st, is still in the Intensive Care Unit because of being born preterm. She's my first kid.

Needless to say, I've been through some pretty emotional days in the last few weeks and when I saw this post and the title I immediately thought something was not right with Patrick. By the time I read Brendan's post, a stream of tears was rolling down my cheek as I felt each word he wrote as something utterly personal.

I am a father now and although I couldn't even bring my little baby home yet, what Brendan wrote about his dad is exactly what we all want to aspire as father and human beings. I'm so sorry for your loss and I assure you that your father inspired many with his truly great character and how much of a gentleman he was. Even through words written in a screen, he made his mark on many of us.

The picture of him looking at Lloyd Wright's house is absolutely fantastic and it struck a chord with me leading me to an even more emotional reaction which made me want to hug my daughter as soon as possible.

I'm deeply saddened and sorry for your loss which I can say for sure, is our loss as well.

Best regards from Brazil and RIP Mr Patrick O'Brien.

Daniel Gallagher wrote:I've just read this thread and I was crushed by the news.

As a Brazilian, although I've been posting very little in the last few years, I'd always exchange bits of information with Patrick about the great Brazilian drivers, especially Piquet who, it seems, was one of his favorite drivers from my country.

I am sitting in a hospital chair as we speak while my daughter, who was born on March 1st, is still in the Intensive Care Unit because of being born preterm. She's my first kid.

Needless to say, I've been through some pretty emotional days in the last few weeks and when I saw this post and the title I immediately thought something was not right with Patrick. By the time I read Brendan's post, a stream of tears was rolling down my cheek as I felt each word he wrote as something utterly personal.

I am a father now and although I couldn't even bring my little baby home yet, what Brendan wrote about his dad is exactly what we all want to aspire as father and human beings. I'm so sorry for your loss and I assure you that your father inspired many with his truly great character and how much of a gentleman he was. Even through words written in a screen, he made his mark on many of us.

The picture of him looking at Lloyd Wright's house is absolutely fantastic and it struck a chord with me leading me to an even more emotional reaction which made me want to hug my daughter as soon as possible.

I'm deeply saddened and sorry for your loss which I can say for sure, is our loss as well.

Best regards from Brazil and RIP Mr Patrick O'Brien.

Thank you for your heartfelt words. I hope you are able to bring your daughter home soon.
Catherine

He was a great guy who provided both great analysis and historical insight to this forum and i recommend all new readers to review​ his body of posts here* for their high signal to noise content. I felt deeply honoured when we agreed so many times and i wish his spirit well.

* http://tinyurl.com/mj2eq2q

mas wrote:He was a great guy who provided both great analysis and historical insight to this forum and i recommend all new readers to review​ his body of posts here* for their high signal to noise content. I felt deeply honoured when we agreed so many times and i wish his spirit well.

* http://tinyurl.com/mj2eq2q

Thanks mas for capturing my father's posts in the above link. P-F1 Mod has approved my posting the following request:

The first (last) post listed on page 80 is from 2 March 2012: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=148&p=3043#p3043
As my dad joined this form in 2011, I wondered if it would be possible to capture his posts from the beginning? It would be great to read them through from Day 1.

mas response:
-------------
I have captured all the posts this software delivers as the only variable is number of characters displayed. Your father made 3180 posts according to his profile memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=15867 . You can do a verify if the forum software has captured them all by counting how many appear on each scrolled page of the 80 retrieved. Maths suggest that there should be an average of 3180/80 = 39.75 on each page. If there isn't have a word with the forum admins to correct their software.
-------------
P-F1 Mod response:
-------------
I lack the tech skills to do what that member did for you, but I can do what I did with a thread from the old forum before our 2012 upgrade and copy all posts into a text file which I can email to you if that would be alright? Otherwise if you post a thread in the F1 & Motorsport forum asking for someone to do what you're asking in the same style as below, someone I am sure will step up.
-------------

Does anyone have the tech skills to do what "mas" did above so as to create a complete collection of Patrick's posts on this forum, from 2011? Any help would be appreciated!

Catherine

If PF1-Mod still has access to/a copy of the database from the old forum, it should be fairly easy to knock something up that will take all of his posts from that database and display them in a readable form like the link mas posted

Alienturnedhuman wrote:I can probably write a Python script quite quickly to extract all of the posts from this forum.

I don't think the database pre 2011 still exists as I remember people manually archiving their favourite threads (such as HOW has bought the Honda Team)

I'm a php man myself, but you probably have the edge (i've not done it in any real capacity for a long time) but even if a manual archive exists of any posts in text form, it should still be possible to strip out the posts en masse. If the database has gone though, anything pre 2011 will be limited to what people have saved in that fashion though, which is a shame.

Flash2k11 wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:I can probably write a Python script quite quickly to extract all of the posts from this forum.

I don't think the database pre 2011 still exists as I remember people manually archiving their favourite threads (such as HOW has bought the Honda Team)

I'm a php man myself, but you probably have the edge (i've not done it in any real capacity for a long time) but even if a manual archive exists of any posts in text form, it should still be possible to strip out the posts en masse. If the database has gone though, anything pre 2011 will be limited to what people have saved in that fashion though, which is a shame.

Well I was planning on writing a python bot to crawl all the threads and extract the text as HTML, rather than interface directly with the database as that would require speaking to the site's techies and given the Error 500s happening at the moment I doubt it would be their top priority!

Sorry for your loss

Thank you for your responses and offers of IT expertise. It is just posts from 2011 that I am looking for, not pre-2011, as my dad only joined in 2011.

Thanks for the kind words Alienturnedhuman and F1Oz. More than 6 months after my dad passed away, all the messages here continue to be a comfort. Alienturnedhuman I will PM you - thanks.

Catherine

Alienturnedhuman wrote:Looking at the dates on the posts I extracted, the forum change must have happened at the beginning of March 2012 as those are the earliest posts that I have (from March 2nd)

I have created a PDF (863 pages long) of all of those posts.

Thanks, I've just PM'd you but there's no evidence of the message in my sent folder or drafts. I was just saying that mas's database http://tinyurl.com/mj2eq2q contains his posts from 2 Mar 2012 until 16 Mar 2017 (the night before he died), and it would be good to have the ones from 25 Apr 2011 when he joined the forum. Now it doesn't seem that anything from 25 Apr 2011 - 2 March 2012 is recoverable.

It would be great to have the PDF you've kindly created - would I be able get it on PM? One of the folders states "POBRatings folder inbox full" - does this mean I need to delete some emails in order to read or send new ones?

Thanks for your help.

As Flash2k11 said, if the database is gone then maybe the only chance of getting any POBRatings 5 Apr 2011 - 2 Mar 2012 posts is if people saved his posts manually. That would be amazing if anyone had done that and could post it here!

Catherine

POBRatings wrote:
It would be great to have the PDF you've kindly created - would I be able get it on PM? One of the folders states "POBRatings folder inbox full" - does this mean I need to delete some emails in order to read or send new ones?

Yes. But you can quickly solve this without losing anything. Go to the PM inbox, then below all the messages there is a button "export this view" and to the left a format selection. I didn't have much luck with the Excel export (looked messy in Excel) but the XML view is fine, so if you select that then press "export this view" your browser will download an XML file with the XML messages on the page you're viewing. After you've done this and secured the file, you can delete all the messages in view. You can do the same for any subsequent messages (e.g. if they were on another page - I only have one page so I don't know whether the export function will export all pages at once).

Be sure to also select the "sent messages" on the left and do the export for your father's sent messages as well.

This way you will empty the inbox and you will be able to receive new messages.

Good luck. I do miss your father around here.

mds wrote:

POBRatings wrote:
It would be great to have the PDF you've kindly created - would I be able get it on PM? One of the folders states "POBRatings folder inbox full" - does this mean I need to delete some emails in order to read or send new ones?

Yes. But you can quickly solve this without losing anything. Go to the PM inbox, then below all the messages there is a button "export this view" and to the left a format selection. I didn't have much luck with the Excel export (looked messy in Excel) but the XML view is fine, so if you select that then press "export this view" your browser will download an XML file with the XML messages on the page you're viewing. After you've done this and secured the file, you can delete all the messages in view. You can do the same for any subsequent messages (e.g. if they were on another page - I only have one page so I don't know whether the export function will export all pages at once).

Be sure to also select the "sent messages" on the left and do the export for your father's sent messages as well.

This way you will empty the inbox and you will be able to receive new messages.

Good luck. I do miss your father around here.

Also, you can create extra folders (up to 3 or 4 I think) and move messages into those folders. It frees up your inbox and new messages can arrive. All I need is your email address,to email you the several hundreds page long PDF I created from his posts... it's like a book by itself.

Thanks for explaining how to clear my PM inbox etc without losing anything. If possible, could you just send it to this email address?: centuryofracing AT gmail.com

I’m sure my dad misses his interchanges with all of you. He was a true Gemini in that he lived and breathed for communicating with people, whether in person or in writing. He often used to say he hoped there was research in the afterlife so that he could continue his Grand Prix studies there. Hopefully he’s doing it now (and chatting to Surtees et al.), without all the interruptions he had in life.

EDIT: On second thoughts, it's probably more private for you to PM it - I will clear the PM folders as soon as work allows and will PM you when I'm able to send and receive PM here again.

Thanks,
Catherine

POBRatings wrote:Thanks for explaining how to clear my PM inbox etc without losing anything. If possible, could you just send it to this email address?: centuryofracing AT gmail.com

I’m sure my dad misses his interchanges with all of you. He was a true Gemini in that he lived and breathed for communicating with people, whether in person or in writing. He often used to say he hoped there was research in the afterlife so that he could continue his Grand Prix studies there. Hopefully he’s doing it now (and chatting to Surtees et al.) without all the interruptions he had in life!

EDIT: On second thoughts, it's probably more private for you to PM it - I will clear the PM folders as soon as work allows and will PM you when I'm able to send and receive PM here again.

Thanks,
Catherine

Hi Catherine, I have emailed you the files (I can't send over PM as I can't send attachments on private message)

You should receive a PDF file and an HTML file. In both files, the word "LINK" can be clicked on to take you to the specific post so you can see it in context - although obviously that will only work for as long as the web forum is operational.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of my dad's death - on St Patrick's Day. Time has flown. My last Christmas present to him was Alain de Botton's 'The Consolations of Philosophy', which he read on Christmas day 2016. He had a great habit of sitting down instantly to use/ read any gifts you gave him - so you could get the satisfaction of hearing his reactions to your gift selection; you never had to wait around or wonder if he'd bothered with it! He also had the great habit of underlining and annotating the books he read with his views and reactions - agreements and disagreements, question marks and exclamation marks. For the following sentiment:

"The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is - to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius!" (p. 234)

... he wrote "What rubbish!" Not sure he could have lived the Grand-Prix driver's life! He very much emphasised stability and predictability. I think he'd have agreed with Flaubert: “Be regular and ordered in your life, so you can be violent and original in your work.”

He underlined the following approvingly: "A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough." (p. 168)

For the chapter on the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) he highlighted: "1860 Increasing ill-health suggests the end is near: 'I can bear the thought that in a short time worms will eat away my body; but the idea of philosophy professors nibbling at my philosophy makes me shudder.' At the end of September, after a walk by the banks of the Main, he returns home, complains of breathlessness and dies, still convinced that 'human existence must be a kind of error.'" (p.182)

POB annotated in the margin "AGE 72" – computing how old Schopenhauer was when he died. Curiously, this was POB's age when he POB died less than 3 months later. Thankfully, a fan of his work, Nuno Moreira, wrote to him a month before he died, and Nuno has taken on the mammoth task of digitally replicating and checking POB's Rating System. My mother was able to meet up with Nuno briefly in Portugal in September 2018 and pass on copies of some of POB’s working documents such as his driver-rating spreadsheets. We are most grateful for Nuno’s incredible work and his willingness to continue POB’s legacy.

I have uploaded images from POB's first motor-racing scrapbook when he was age 12:
http://grandprixratings.blogspot.com/20 ... pbook.html
Amazing that he was doing driver rankings and drawing circuit maps as a child. As POB wrote to Nuno Moreira on 15 February 2017:

"I have been collecting info on car-circuit races in Southern Africa, ie from Cape Town to the Congo and including Mozambique and Angola. We in South Africa had a high regard for those two countries and such good memories of their well-organised races in Beira, Lourenco Marques and Luanda, from 1948-1972. I hope to publish this history soon, for it includes photos going back to the 1920s.
I appreciate your kind words about my work."

Unfortunately this was a book POB did not get to publish before he died, and I will be looking to do this. If anyone knows about this area of motor-racing, I'd appreciate your getting in touch.

Catherine O'Brien (Patrick's daughter), Cambridge, UK.

Dear Catherine, I very much appreciate your post, and rest assured that your honorable father Patrick is not forgotten. I hope you find someone to help you with the book. Thank you for sharing these precious vignettes of his life with us and scrapbook. He was indeed gifted in making drawings. I actually just realized now that the drawing of Fangio was actually his work.

That's a fast 2 years

Happy St Patrick's Day. Today is the 4th anniversary of POB's death. Continuing POB's self-published book series of F1 analyses, Nuno Moreira is working on the 2017-2019 volume, applying POB's Grand Prix Rating System. Here are his latest thoughts on it:

'I don't think we will see a system that even remotely resembles what Patrick accomplished. And believe me, I know this, I spent around 30 years trying to do something like it. I can't get enough of it, honestly. I will give you an example from today: I was thinking "Leclerc driver-rating in 2019 of 100.2 wasn't accurate, it was most likely 100.3. I need to look into it!" And then I did look into it and I saw that his driver-rating was exactly... 100.3! I smiled at the figure and thought "this system is really awesome, it doesn't let me down!". '

Great to here from you and glad someone is keeping it going.

Can't actually believe it's been 4 years already. I do miss Patrick's presence here. He was so attentive and insightful but also the supreme gentleman.

Good to see that his work is being continued.

Thanks mikeyg123. Your kind comment from 4 years ago today has not been forgotten:

"He probably pushed F1 metrics forward further than anybody else has ever done and his contribution will not be forgotten."
~ mikeyg123, Fri Mar 17, 2017 3:44 pm, http://forum.planet-f1.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14138

It has pride of place in the heading of POB's Grand Prix blog.

Invade wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 17, 2021 8:18 am

Can't actually believe it's been 4 years already. I do miss Patrick's presence here. He was so attentive and insightful but also the supreme gentleman.

Good to see that his work is being continued.

Thank you for your kind words about POB. Yes, unbelievable that it's been 4 years already.

mikeyg123 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 17, 2021 8:09 am

Great to here from you and glad someone is keeping it going.

Agreed! I'm also quite happy to hear that someone is continuing Patrick's work.

I bought his Explanatory Chapters only a week before his death, and it's still a major regret of mine that I never had a chance to discuss the system with him in greater depth. I think for all of us on the forum who try to do teammate comparisons to strip away the car and determine the true speed of the drivers, he will always be a huge inspiration to us.

Every forumer who was there to benefit of POB's kind-hearted presence and deep knowledge misses him.

4 years, oh my. It only seems yesterday... I am happy that you are continuing his work, I could only admire how he did it. I am still struggling to understand it!

The biggest testament to his character was that he had the patience to sit down and try to explain (well, to a degree, to the few people who could get it!) his thinking behind the system he developed and try to discuss it with people not agreeing with him in the forum, instead of losing interest and giving up. Of course we didn't always agree on everything, how could we?

But his system was well thought of, he did have a method and did not just crunch numbers out of thin air. I am glad you are continuing his work, I'm sure he would be proud

May I echo the sentiments expressed above, to this day I miss his contributions to our understanding.

It's sobering for me to realise that all three of my grandchildren have been born since he passed...

So sorry to hear this news. Wishing you and your family all the best at this very hard time.
RIP

Thank you for the lovely words and sentiments about POB. I shared the link to this thread with some (non GP-following) relatives and they responded:

'Those tributes to your dad and his work are remarkable. He clearly made a huge contribution to the motor racing historiography. Let's hope that the international body responsible for the sport has recognised it too.'

'Some very kind words said and so nice to see Patrick remembered fondly by so many. That he was a "true gentleman" seems to be a strong impression, which is spot on of course.
Lovely to have these recorded. Love always Patrick - we miss you.'

It means so much to us that the F1 fans and experts here are keen for his rating system to continue.

Through encountering POB's Grand Prix writings online, Nuno Moreira reached out to POB via email one month (Feb 2017) before he died (March 2017). POB responded once, Nuno replied, and that was it. The next correspondence was condolences. The number of times Nuno and I have said since making contact online in 2017 - "If only you could be having these conversations with POB... if only you could speak to POB about this". Sadly I know nothing about GP other than proofreading my dad's GP volumes.

@Exediron that's amazing that you bought POB's keystone volume 'Explanatory Chapters' a week before he died. How he raced against time to get that book written - as if he had a premonition he wouldn't have the luxury of more fully rolling it out and engaging over time with discussions and critiques about it. The purpose of 'Explanatory Chapters' was to make his Rating System replicable - I had a terror of his method dying with him. The only missing step is his race-by-race working tables which he did by hand - I have been scanning these and sending them to Nuno Moreira. POB just missed the computer era and had little aptitude for computers, so did everything by hand, and re-computed the entire field if any little blip affected results. A staggering amount to hold in his head at one time - I used to liken it to 'shovelling ten tons of coal' mentally. Nuno has been expertly digitalising these - a task I was going to do in the fullness of time with my dad, but seeing Nuno's output makes me glad I gave up.

I do think anyone who attempts to 'separate car and driver' will need to grapple with the issues POB's Rating System identified and responded to. He did not believe that the problem could be solved by 'pressing a button' (i.e., running a statistical test only); Nuno made the astute observation during a video call we had in December 2020 that POB's rating system cannot be 'read' on 'autopilot'; your brain does need to be engaged with interpreting the figures at all times.

If anyone could advise how I can upload a photo on here, I'd love to post a picture of one of POB's intricate, hand-written race-by-race working tables, Tippex, highlighters and all. I see the image button but would I be able to link to an image on my harddrive?

It's been a while since I've logged onto this forum and was surprised to see the format had changed. It seems the old links don't work. Is it correct that the old links are lost? e.g.,

http://forum.planet-f1.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14138 (thread titled ‘Sad news’)
This site can’t be reachedCheck if there is a typo in forum.planet-f1.com.
If spelling is correct, try running Windows Network Diagnostics.
DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN

Would there be something to change to get them back? Or would they need to be re-traced on this new-format forum? I pasted the old links in his GP blog and if they all don't work, what would be the best way of updating them? Any advice would be appreciated.

Kind regards
Catherine (POB's daughter)

The only way to post photos here is to upload them to an image hosting site, and then copy the link across here. As for the old site links, if you take the hyphen out of "planet-f1" that might fix it, but I'm not certain.

It's amazing that such a complex method could be maintained without technology. POB might have missed the computer age, but it clearly didn't hold him back.

Thanks for the tips!

POBRatings wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:08 pm

Thank you for the lovely words and sentiments about POB. I shared the link to this thread with some (non GP-following) relatives and they responded:

'Those tributes to your dad and his work are remarkable. He clearly made a huge contribution to the motor racing historiography. Let's hope that the international body responsible for the sport has recognised it too.'

'Some very kind words said and so nice to see Patrick remembered fondly by so many. That he was a "true gentleman" seems to be a strong impression, which is spot on of course.
Lovely to have these recorded. Love always Patrick - we miss you.'

It means so much to us that the F1 fans and experts here are keen for his rating system to continue.

Through encountering POB's Grand Prix writings online, Nuno Moreira reached out to POB via email one month (Feb 2017) before he died (March 2017). POB responded once, Nuno replied, and that was it. The next correspondence was condolences. The number of times Nuno and I have said since making contact online in 2017 - "If only you could be having these conversations with POB... if only you could speak to POB about this". Sadly I know nothing about GP other than proofreading my dad's GP volumes.

@Exediron that's amazing that you bought POB's keystone volume 'Explanatory Chapters' a week before he died. How he raced against time to get that book written - as if he had a premonition he wouldn't have the luxury of more fully rolling it out and engaging over time with discussions and critiques about it. The purpose of 'Explanatory Chapters' was to make his Rating System replicable - I had a terror of his method dying with him. The only missing step is his race-by-race working tables which he did by hand - I have been scanning these and sending them to Nuno Moreira. POB just missed the computer era and had little aptitude for computers, so did everything by hand, and re-computed the entire field if any little blip affected results. A staggering amount to hold in his head at one time - I used to liken it to 'shovelling ten tons of coal' mentally. Nuno has been expertly digitalising these - a task I was going to do in the fullness of time with my dad, but seeing Nuno's output makes me glad I gave up.

I do think anyone who attempts to 'separate car and driver' will need to grapple with the issues POB's Rating System identified and responded to. He did not believe that the problem could be solved by 'pressing a button' (i.e., running a statistical test only); Nuno made the astute observation during a video call we had in December 2020 that POB's rating system cannot be 'read' on 'autopilot'; your brain does need to be engaged with interpreting the figures at all times.

If anyone could advise how I can upload a photo on here, I'd love to post a picture of one of POB's intricate, hand-written race-by-race working tables, Tippex, highlighters and all. I see the image button but would I be able to link to an image on my harddrive?

It's been a while since I've logged onto this forum and was surprised to see the format had changed. It seems the old links don't work. Is it correct that the old links are lost? e.g.,

http://forum.planet-f1.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14138 (thread titled ‘Sad news’)
This site can’t be reachedCheck if there is a typo in forum.planet-f1.com.
If spelling is correct, try running Windows Network Diagnostics.
DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN

Would there be something to change to get them back? Or would they need to be re-traced on this new-format forum? I pasted the old links in his GP blog and if they all don't work, what would be the best way of updating them? Any advice would be appreciated.

Kind regards
Catherine (POB's daughter)

Hi Catherine - first off, my condolences yet again to you and Brendan and the rest of the O'Brien family. As I said 4 years ago - the anecdote that Brendan shared about his Porsche 911 trip was heart-warming, and the picture of him at Falling water is something that's etched in my memory. Hopefully my time is far away, but when it comes I would consider myself lucky to be remembered with half as much fondness as POB was around here.

Secondly, I can help with some of the things you're looking for - for all old links, just remove the hyphen between planet and f1 to get the current URL (so in your example, it becomes http://forum.planetf1.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14138 )

For hosting pictures/albums - the easiest way is to use a service such as imgur and share the URL here (you can also embed it, but that's another post). Try this and let me know if it helps: https://imgur.com/upload

Hi Catherine - first off, my condolences yet again to you and Brendan and the rest of the O'Brien family. As I said 4 years ago - the anecdote that Brendan shared about his Porsche 911 trip was heart-warming, and the picture of him at Falling water is something that's etched in my memory. Hopefully my time is far away, but when it comes I would consider myself lucky to be remembered with half as much fondness as POB was around here.

Secondly, I can help with some of the things you're looking for - for all old links, just remove the hyphen between planet and f1 to get the current URL (so in your example, it becomes http://forum.planetf1.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14138 )

For hosting pictures/albums - the easiest way is to use a service such as imgur and share the URL here (you can also embed it, but that's another post). Try this and let me know if it helps: https://imgur.com/upload

Thank you A.J. That's nice that that anecdote and picture of POB have stayed with you. Amazing what stays with us over the years (as well as what we forget).

Thanks for recommending a photo hosting service - I'll try the one you suggest.

I tried in the following blog post remove the hyphens between planet and f1 but it doesn't seem to take you to this new-format forum:
https://grandprixratings.blogspot.com/2 ... -2017.html
.. unless it's because it's this very thread I'm trying to link to?

POBRatings wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 31, 2021 1:43 pm

Hi Catherine - first off, my condolences yet again to you and Brendan and the rest of the O'Brien family. As I said 4 years ago - the anecdote that Brendan shared about his Porsche 911 trip was heart-warming, and the picture of him at Falling water is something that's etched in my memory. Hopefully my time is far away, but when it comes I would consider myself lucky to be remembered with half as much fondness as POB was around here.

Secondly, I can help with some of the things you're looking for - for all old links, just remove the hyphen between planet and f1 to get the current URL (so in your example, it becomes http://forum.planetf1.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14138 )

For hosting pictures/albums - the easiest way is to use a service such as imgur and share the URL here (you can also embed it, but that's another post). Try this and let me know if it helps: https://imgur.com/upload

Thank you A.J. That's nice that that anecdote and picture of POB have stayed with you. Amazing what stays with us over the years (as well as what we forget).

Thanks for recommending a photo hosting service - I'll try the one you suggest.

I tried in the following blog post remove the hyphens between planet and f1 but it doesn't seem to take you to this new-format forum:
https://grandprixratings.blogspot.com/2 ... -2017.html
.. unless it's because it's this very thread I'm trying to link to?

I followed the link and I can see that while you have removed the hyphen from the text, the underlying hyperlink still has that (you can see it when you hover over the link). What you need to do is edit the hyperlink itself, not just the text that's displayed for the hyperlink.

Also in the first link remove the "&sid=c78b467f7314bb9885c9e8432e50387e" part, as that's your session ID token and has nothing to do with the link. PM me if you'd like more help with this stuff.

Any chance that this thread could get sticked on the front page? I think Patrick deserves the honour and should.be memorialised here in some.way for his contributions

FormulaFun wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 30, 2021 10:56 pm

Any chance that this thread could get sticked on the front page? I think Patrick deserves the honour and should.be memorialised here in some.way for his contributions

2nd that.

The forum has a lot of stickies at the moment, but I do like that idea.