Another week, another escalation in the political warfare about which Formula 1 racing is ostensibly the focus.
Ferrari are pulling out, Red Bull are pulling out, Toyota are pulling out, all unless the FIA backs down on its budget cap proposals.
We watch with weary impotence and collude in another of their tiresome charades by indulging the ageing emperors with airtime and column inches, seeing it play out with monotonous predictability from terse statement through angry recrimination to the eventual backslapping smiling handshakes of resolution, however temporary. They hate each really but they can't do without each other.
There was a time when there was a vaguely respectable interval between skirmishes but the faster pace of life, the media revolution, the curse of the internet, whatever it may be means that there is now rarely more than a few days between each vocal strafe from the powerbrokers, the movers, the shakers, the unconscionably self important.
The games old men play.
We should not delude ourselves that Formula One racing is provided for the entertainment of sports fans. In the minds of those who opinions have been accorded monetary value, F1 is a battleground on which to act out the war games they frankly should have grown out of along with their short trousers.
The only thing new and fresh about these scandals and crises are the creases on the crisp tailored shirts worn by the sunken eyed, whisky nosed, liver spotted main protagonists. I well remember the FISA/FOCA war of 1981 and in my youthful innocence thought it unique and dreadful. I know now it was neither. It was just playtime.
Frankly I found it all quite confusing back then and the endless morrasse of Lancet-style political bilge given over to it the international news pages of Autosport at the time almost certainly led to a lifelong habit of beginning my weekly read of that august publication from the back, where the motor racing was and working towards the front where the politics tends to reside.
Confusing as these endless political spats are, the one thing that gives them meaning is to remember that they're all about money. For money read power, ownership, having more marbles than the next kid in the schoolyard.
I predict that in a year from now Ferrari, Red Bull and maybe even Toyota will all be racing on the same grid under an agreement called Concorde Three or the New Treaty of Versailles or something equally triumphant and self important. And just starting to gather dust in my shed will be a copy of Autosport containing a photograph of a bunch of old man smiling and shaking hands...
Oh, and Sebastian Vettel will be on his way to winning the world championship.