Don't know about you, but I've found it difficult coming to terms with enjoying our F1 summer holiday and yet having soccer filling the sports pages once more. I mean, the last over-paid hero has barely got off the floor clutching his injured pride and screaming for a penalty and we're off again. Give us a break - in every sense.
Saying that, I know I'm venturing into dangerous territory here because F1 has its fair share of football fans. Some of them even support West Ham (@CroftyF1, @F1Photographer - only joking!). Certainly, there's enough of them to fill a pub in Budapest, have a pre-season dinner, ponce about in team shirts and start chanting. It's a simple sport.
Before further offence is taken, I'm referring to the relatively uncomplicated process of man/woman kicks ball compared to the mass of technical detail attached to man/woman drives racing car. And yet...
Hidden among the soccer season previews was mention of Nike's annual launch for their official Premier League ball. Not one to miss a trick, Nike's PR division used the unveiling of the 'Ordem 3' ball at £95 a throw (no pun!) to tell a breathless world that this red and white object is actually 'the most advanced football ever' with 'pinnacle proprietary aerodynamic technology, Nike Aerowtrac grooves, fuse-welded synthetic leather' and 'a bold Visual Power Graphic'. I may be wrong here but, roughly translated, that means it's round and you can kick it. Makes clutch bite points and torque settings seem mundane, doesn't it?
The problem for F1 is that it is currently (and largely through necessity, thanks to clever boffins employed by the teams) overburdened with technical detail that is a nightmare for commentators to impart in easily digestible form.
The relevance of this has been highlighted by a recent fan survey that tells us 90 percent of the audience follows F1 on television (although, worryingly but no surprise, a growing number no longer do so since the switch to Pay TV). With a high call for F1 to attract new fans, the onus on David Coulthard, Martin Brundle, Ben Edwards and the aforementioned Crofty to simplify the jargon is hugely important. Better still if half of it either wasn't there at all or irrelevant.
It's heartening to learn that three-quarters of the fan base follow each race from start to finish. This is a fundamental fact that needs to be taken on board on anyone suggesting the races should be shorter; an unsophisticated solution that ought to have been put to bed in any case by the eventful grands prix in Hungary and Britain.
One question I would have like answered is the issue of blue flags. While agreeing that an obstructive back marker should be punished, I feel we have gone too far in the opposite direction with the demand for lapped drivers to almost park in a layby, evacuate the cockpit and salute as the leaders go by. Yes, the faster cars may, from time to time, pick up debris if going off line presents the most direct route to move ahead, but that should be accepted as part and parcel of the challenge.
I can recall Ken Tyrrell taking Derek Daly to one side after a grand prix in 1980, going through the lap times and asking why he had lost 1.5 seconds on a particular lap. When Daly explained he had allowed the leader through, Tyrrell went into orbit, the ensuing so-called "froth job" from the team boss making the point that it was the leader's job to find a way past.
Different times in more ways than one. These days, with social networking and hand-held devices, football scores are instantaneous. Back then, F1 reporters felt duty bound when talking to their respective sports desks in London to jot down the football scores. Never mind all this F1 stuff and telling you how his cars had got on in qualifying, Tyrrell wanted to know the result of the Tottenham game. Woes betide the hack who didn't know the answer.
Thinking about it now, Tyrrell would have loved the current collision of sports. It would have meant he could actually get to a match at White Hart Lane and, for once, we wouldn't have to worry about dealing with the aftermath of Spurs losing. But it still doesn't seem right in the middle of the so-called summer.