News of the World vs Max von Mosley: the latest news

What’s the German for “My god, this is boring as hell”? Most F1 fans, Grid Crasher included, have read and heard enough about Herr von Mosley and his kinky sex games to last several lifetimes.

But with Mosley’s legal action against the News of the World currently being played out in court, this is a story that still has plenty of flogging in it - particularly if you’re the editor of a News International publication.

What have we learned so far from the trial?

* Mosley admitted that he enjoys S&M, and has done from “quite a young age”.

* Mosley believes that S&M “is a perfectly harmless activity provided it is between consenting adults who want to do it, are of sound mind, and it is in private.”

* Nazis don’t turn Max on. “I can think of few things more unerotic than Nazi role-play,” he said.

* Four of the women who took part in the S&M session with Mosley denied there was any Nazi-themed role-play.

* According to the News of the World’s editor, Colin Myler, the tabloid “did not take Mr Mosley kicking and screaming to that apartment, that flat in Chelsea.”

* Neville Thurbeck, the NotW’s chief reporter, claimed that the video of Mosley’s sex games showed “a very cynical Nazi theme running throughout”.

* Thurbeck then stuck the boot in: “I would say the whole video is unmistakably Nazi. This is not a professional performance - this is am dram stuff. The wardrobe department let them down. Their script department let them down.”

So not much more than we knew - or might reasonably have assumed - before the trial began. It’s difficult to take sides, when in one corner there is a sensationalist tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, and in the other there is an odious little man with an S&M fetish and parents who hung out with Hitler.

Let’s hope it costs them both a huge amount in legal fees.