Entertainment For Lively Minds
TOP GEAR
Posted by Formbyman on 4 August 2009 - 3:27pm.
I'm not into cars - but I watch it - I know those races they have aren't real - it makes me laugh. Should I be ashamed of myself?
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Yes.
Hang your head ... or preferably Jeremy Clarkson.
You don't have
any shame do you Mr Formby so why are you asking?
As to TG they seem to have got to the bottom of the barrel last sunday's show was extremely poor.
You watched it then...
Obviously I have no shame (you've sussed me) - but that bit at the end was good (I nearly cried). What was the music - it sounded very familiar (Sigur Ros maybe?).
That bit at the end
was absolutley dreadful.
It's a program that distanced itself from reality a very long time ago. Some of it I find funny. The end of the last program was just a big bunch of clarkson ar*e! Vrooooom!
Fair enough mate...
but do you know what the music was?
An Ending (Ascent) by Brian Eno Collaboration
The advert section was very funny, over the top, silly and so on but the bit tacked on the end of the program gave the whole thing a C.Brooker patented One Show Swing.
Yes it's Eno.
Thanks mate - what a pedant I am for not knowing (and for liking Top Gear!).
that would be
a Peasant a peda.. well that's something else.
Excellent, Chris!!
I deliberately...
put pedant to see if any pedants would correct me - and you did! What I am is a lying pillock!
I don't drive and have no interest in cars
But I'm with Formbyman. I love Top Gear. It's often extremely funny. Simple as that.
I haven't seen last week's show though, and one Top Gear fan I know thought it was a spectacular example of a show jumping the shark.
My wife hates Clarkson...
and if I'm honest, part of me watches it just to annoy her. But it is a very funny, well-made, programme.
Oddly enough, last week (i.e. 10 days ago)
I gave up half-way through the stupid 'classic car rally' package thinking "This is all too forced. I sense a shark being jumped"
The Majorca thing?
Yeah - that was ridiculous and the dwarf jokes weren't good (or even original).
Global warming
Caught Clarkson whinging about the anti-speed lobby at the end of the programme the other day. The idiot obviously doesn't realise that speed kills. Anyway, the time limited nature of fossil fuels should see the end of this aberration in the end...Will they be so keen to play silly buggers in electric cars??
Speed *doesn't* kill
Stopping suddenly does.
Splitting hairs?
Stopping times are greatly increased the slower your speed. As I seem to recall from the Highway Code..
long term use of
Amphetamines can I believe cause both mental and physical harm to regular users.
But greatly improves ones driving,
No?
Driving stupidly kills.
Speed doesn't. It's like saying, "Guns kill:" no they don't, people kill each other. Blaming an inanimate object or a measurement is avoiding the real truth: it's people doing stupid, negligent and/or violent things that kill other people.
"Guns don't kill people, rappers do...
I seen it in a documentary on BBC2"
Get out the car and kill someone
It's not so easy to accidentally kill someone with your bare hands though, is it? Making a mistake doesn't make you stupid, people do it all the time. If you can avoid turning a mistake into a fatal mistake by not carrying a gun/driving too fast you save yourself from ruining everyone's life.
Depends where your priorities lie I suppose.
Excellent point
well made.
Nail on head, Genevieve.
No
But it's probably not something you should boast about in public.
I gotta say
it's a great TV show. However, I'd enjoy it even more without Clarkson. James May is fantastic and even the surf boy-child is better than 'Jezza' [shudder]
It's gas
great craic, long may it continue
And this is why
We won't be satisfied until we've completely ruined the planet.
I recommend "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy - for all Top Gear fans wherever they are...!
But TG
despite what it says on I-player isn't a "factual" programme and judging by last sunday's poor showing it's neither "entertainment" or "comedy" maybe it's "cookery"
I thought it was...
drama - especially that very moving bit at the end which used Brian Eno's music.
Oh I'm going to get pelters for this...
The Aston Martin Vantage V12 is a disaster. Its carbon footprint (manufacture plus running costs) is unjustifiable, it eats petrol and poos CO2 and as Clarkson said in that portentous piece at the end of TG (which I watched earlier this evening in iPlayer), given the situation with economics, ecology and a gathering anti-speed culture, the days of cars such as this are waning...
(That was a terrible segment of the programme since it's hard to switch from 'ho ho let's have tits at a funeral' to 'meaningfulness' in the space of a few minutes)...
However, there is one more thing. The Aston Martin Vantage V12 is an aesthetic joy, an engineering marvel and it's a bucket of fun to drive quite obviously... unlike the mass market cars that most people drive most of the time, it's actually a long way to the right of the bell curve ... i think there's a theme emerging from TG and its spinoffs (especially James May's tv work) that "wow, look what people can do when they set their minds to it ... fly to the bloody moon even!" ... consequently, when well crafted engineering achievements go by the by, even for understandable reasons, it is a bit sad ... the likes of Aston Martin can't endure that much longer ... (peak oil, global warming, hell, even western economies being supplanted by China or whatever) ... and you just get the feeling that whatever comes next simply won't be as much fun ... oh damn, now I've used the F word ... heigh ho
Vitamin 12
I read somewhere that about half of all the Aston Martins ever manufactured are still on the road which, given that a significant part of a car's carbon footprint is created at the factory, makes them the eco choice, no?
I agree about Top Gear's decline (sadly, because it genuinely used to entertain me) - I can no longer suspend my disbelief over the laboriously scripted banter and clumsily staged stunts. Debates may rage over peak oil but we have certainly passed peak cocking-around-in-cars-on-Sunday-nights.
it might ...
... have something to do with the fact that they're a law unto themselves? the shift over the years from motoring programme to larking about with cars took place over a number of years and when they first realised they could just about get away with anything (driving across africa, a car across the channel, blowing up caravans) it was a hoot - now they're trapped ... money-spinning format, lots of expectation and a lack of ideas ... maybe the most radical thing would be to go back to reviewing cars? mind you, most cars on the road are pretty dull though, so no fun there...
Presumably.....
you've got it on ebook - to save the trees.
Not convinced
by ebooks/kindle/whatever...There's probably a thread on it on here somewhere!
I like 'Top Gear'
It's great entertainment, well made and generally high quality. That said, this weeks VW ad feature was poor (it played to some boringly obvious stereotypes and had a total cop out of an ending) but on the whole I consider it an hour well spent. It's an unashamedly petrolheaded, biased, laddish TV. And as Clarkson says, "It's a dictatorship." I'm fed up with TV that tries not to offend and seems designed by focus groups to appeal to certain key demographics. This is a programme made by a petrolhead for petrolheads. Thank heavens for programme makers with opinions and a sense of fun!
Favourite programme
of one Mr Alan Partridge. That's about all you need to know.
Is This Cool?
I like Top Gear but its getting a bit tired. And I hate the serious bits they do about cars - boring!
Bu.. but they missed out the punchline
Chris Morris, sitting at his news desk and in full continuity-announcer fashion "Yes or no? Find out tonight on BBC2."
TG/BBC do want
....their cake and eat it as they have started cashing in on the shows appeal to kids selling top trump cards, annuals etc.
I presuming there’s not a page on how to kill prostitute in there bumper book of top facts etc. I’m not being censorial here just saying they can’t have it both ways i.e. be “edgy” (or selectively offensive as it’s really called) and also make money out of a family/children’s audience.
The BBC makes so much out of the foreign rights from TG that at moment this sort of thing is being over looked. But the moment they pick on people other than greenies or sex workers the game could be up.
I've just signed the Green Sex Workers for Eco Justice Petition
Go to: www.battery_powered_kerbcrawl.org
I think he was...
having a go at lorry drivers more than prostitutes...not that that makes it in anyway right - but Peter Sutcliffe was a lorry driver I believe (when he wasn't killing prostitutes).
29 years ago
- topical satire from old Clarkie.
Viz got away with that gag for years......
before Clarkson went near it....
And, at their height, Viz's circulation probably near on exceeded Top Gear's ratings.
Whither the difference?
also Viz
would attack pretty much anyone including their various audiences ie students, local geordies, well anyone really. TG are very selective who they attack.
To be fair,
students (Oxbridge excepted) can't afford cars, and they haven't got roads yet in Geordie land, so you can hardly blame TG for not targeting those groups for piss taking.
and like kids today
need advice on how to kill prostitutes - there was a Blue Peter 'make' on it last week. 'Time to send your mum and dad out of the room......'
I tell myself
That Clarkson says most of the things he does because (a) it gets a laugh (b) it upsets people who are over-serious and (c) it makes him lots of money. And that Top Gear is entertaining and not to be taken seriously.
But deep down, I know he really means it.
I like cars and Top Gear but they only occasionally meet..
I have watched TG since Noel Edmonds used to present it in the 70s and it has clearly moved on from the old days of "this is the new Austin Allegro, it is beige, does 27mpg and had a square steering wheel". type commentary.
The current programme is very entertaining and one of my few appointment TV moments if I am at home.
That said, their coverage of motoring for everyday drivers is better served by Fifth Gear on channel 5 or the Autocar website at www.autocar.co.uk
I don't like it so I don't watch it
(I still think Clarkson's a tedious c*nt though)
It's Ment to be Entertainment,
and it's not bad entertainment at that too. Yes the things they do might be a bit daft/unrealistic, and not bear much relevance to to us normal people. It makes us laugh and is a million times better than most of the dross we are given to watch, especially reality TV (I'd rather see a test card).
My pleasure, Matt:
And I'd rather watch that
than anything with Clarkson involved.
Mid-life crisis writ large
Any men of that age with perms/long hair wearing jeans deserve to be shot. In 20 years people are going to look back at this programme and say "did they really make that?" in the same way people look back at chocolate cigarettes for kids (remember them? fab!!)
somethings are surprisingly
persistent http://www.handycandy.co.uk/chocolate-cigarettes-p-156.html
Also available for budding cowpokes to chew 'n' spit
Hang on..
...Is that not a tad ageist. I mean, I don't like what they wear but would defend their right to wear it.
Besides, what does a gentleman of a certain age wear if not jeans - slacks?!?
Some might say that only
somebody actively coralling mustangs and steers should wear trousers made of Cotton de Nimes.
Some might say that...
...but they'd be wrong. Surely jeans transcended their specific origins about half a century ago?
some might say that
but i doubt they'd be described as a gentlemen or in indeed a decent chap.
5th gear
is so boring apart from tiff & jason. Anyway, what else is on at 20h30 on a sunday night that is better to watch than Topgear?
"What else is on...?"
Life's been so much better since I realised that watching TV isn't compulsory.
Heroin
taken intravenously, and an unplugged TV screen, makes for a vastly more entertaining night in front of the telly than an hour of Clarkson's tedious egowank.
Jeremy Clarkson is capable of making good telly
His programme about winners of the Victoria Cross was excellent and particularly poignant. As was the one he did about the St Nazaire raid.
I do wish, though, that he'd stop trying to be a piss-poor P. J. O'Rourke imitator. PJ did it all twenty years ago, with far more wit and a lot more drugs.
Perhaps if Clarkson tried to be the New Hunter S. Thompson.. Now that could be fun..
'We were somewhere around Chipping Norton...
on the edge of the ring road when the drugs began to take hold.'
Yes, I'd read that.
Superb.
Doffs cap.
It shouldn't work...
but it just does. Compare the programme now to the way it was in the late 80s - the current incarnation is smarter, sharper, more knowing and with hugely better production values. It's another counter to the 'narratives of decline' currently prevalent everywhere, as David Aaronovitch perceptively points out today: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/ar...
Everything bad truly is good for you.
It's a lot better ...
than most of the c**p that's on the box and it does make me laugh.
Eco Choice Pt2
(in reply to Vitamin-12 above - http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/top-gear#comment-154298 - can I not move this or delete it?)
I've heard something similar about 911s. A sizeable proportion of the 40 year run is still running (80-90%, since they're maintained by enthusiasts) and they tend to do very few miles per annum. Compare/contract with your average hatchback/rep-mobile etc. which will do 12k/annum and is landfill-bound after 10 years (or thereabouts)
The same is also true of Land-Rovers.
Land-Rover claim that over 70% of all Land-Rovers ever produced are still on the road. (The Land-Rover is, I believe, the only vehicle to have been sold into every single country on the planet.)
I seem to remember reading that a very high percentage of Rolls-Royce motor cars are also still extant.
Does the pope have an landy
is his pontiff "gripped".
also if a vehicle is not in active use it's a waste of the material and energy it took to make it.
And Lastly there's some irony in the car lobby defending sports cars for their low environmental impact when they spend the rest of the time claiming humans/cars have no impact of global warming etc.
Of course he does...
The Vatican ran a fleet of Land-Rovers in the 60s and 70s.
well it is all hills in
Rome.
Top Gear
I don't watch Top Gear - it's daft. Mr Clarkson behaves like an idiot and talks a load of tosh but he seems to have made a handsome living out of it, so good luck to him. I suspect he's really a pipe and slippers man on the quiet.
As for whether speed and/or guns kill, I accept that technically it's people who do the damage but guns and/or speed make the damage a lot worse.
Personally,
whenever I am killed, I'm not particularly worried about the level of 'damage' caused, it's the being fatal part that bothers me.
Running out of ideas
James May looks faintly embarrassed to be there, Hammond is an embarrassment and Clarkson is just irrelevant. How many more variations of 'what would win between...' are there?
Oooh. Lots.
Lets have JC hitchhike, accepting lifts only from lorry drivers, from Lands End to John O'Groats dressed as a hooker, while James May drives the same route 24 hours later in a Humber Super Snipe Police car, complete with ringing bell, while dressed as DI Jordan from 'Special Branch' and with RH in tow dressed as Penfold from 'Danger Mouse'.
Actually...
I'd deposit the three of them at Waverley Bridge, Edinburgh, mid morning (say 11am) then tell them they had to get to the steps of the British Museum in Russell Square as fast as they could. By budget travel means.
Clarkson would have to go to the airport, then jump an Easyjet. Hammond would have to drive in an average price car. May could get the train.
Handily, Waverley Bridge is at Waverley Station and the 11.30am London train takes around 4hr 20min. Once at King's Cross, Russell Sq is one stop on the tube. I'd estimate May's arrival time as 4.15pm. He would have spent the time reading a book or doing something useful, while enjoying a few glasses of the wine he learned about in that other series, while not cocking about in cars...
Clarkson would take 30 mins to get out to Edinburgh Airport on the Airlink bus. He'd have missed the morning easyjet flight to Stansted and would have to wait until 4.20pm for the next one. The train into town would then rumble into Liverpool Street in 40 mins, then there are five stops on the tube to Russ Sq, His arrival time? Maybe 6.45pm. He would have spent over 4 hours going insane at Edinburgh Airport, another twitchy hour with no legroom on the flight, he would have attempted suicide on the Stansted "Express" and finally suffered cardiac arrest when the tube stopped inexplicably between St Paul's and Chancery Lane
Hammond would be last heard of on the A1 somewhere near Pontefract and never seen again.
This proves that trains are ace. Obviously, And wasn't fixed at all.
But, for budget travel, May would have to have booked
his ticket weeks in advance.
same would go for everything else
the simple fact is train travel for all it's annoyances is the most restful way to get around. The car isn't restful and for most people who live towns not that convenient the car lobby always go on about it and sure a few people need them countryside but very few. To try to justify cars for any other reason than you like driving them is nonsense. Clarkson likes cars he's made a fortune from promoting them. A few people in remote areas need them everyone else just likes them there's no justification for them just people like them. The sad thing is we have a rubbish transport system including cars in britain but our love of cars gets in the way of even sorting out even road transport,
There's no justification for music either
'people just like it'
The world would be a poorer place if we couldn't do things just becuase we liked them.
putting aside
the fact nobody ever ended up hospital after being hit by a speeding version of "mama mia" if more people admitted they just like driving maybe we could address the downsides.
Not sure I understand your point
What's wrong with wanting to travel in comfort, at a time of one's choosing, without needing to tolerate the general public in the process?
You make this seem like a *bad* thing.
oh come on most car journeys aren't
that great, look how far Top Gear have to travel find a "great driving road"!
"Time of choosing" how many times have you had conversations about when to set off to avoid "the traffic".
I do understand the thing about "fellow travellers", that being said you've never been tailgated, cut up, beaten to a parking space, or travelled with 2 under 10's in a July traffic jam?
Oh and that wasn't my leg going to sleep cramped up in the back of my mate's Beemer the other day.
Cars aren't the perfect solution to transport they just constrain your life in different ways.
Yebbut when TG want to find a 'great driving road'
they come here to mid-Wales. It's all about where you live; we might not have any public transport round here but we have cracking roads to make up for it :-)
I did enjoy being driven for the 1st time
through the Breacons earlier this year (we saw at least 3 buzzards). It was a good sweeping road it must be a shame it's occasionally ruined by JC in some pimped up Jag beetling all the otherway chasing a people carrier full of film crew in puffa jackets while our licence fee flies over him trying not to catch his bald patch through the sun roof.
Not after getting rid of all cars just a few more park and rides, more street cars schemes, more nipper buses for my dad's village , showers in more office, bike racks with covers at sainsbury's,....
You are having a laugh, aren't you?
"A few people in remote areas need them". Kindly define the terms 'few' and 'remote'. I live about 10 miles out of Bath. It's 3 miles to the nearest petrol station from here, and when the village shop is shut, it's 3 miles to the next one. The doctor's surgery is 4 miles away, and there are 3 buses a day. Get a grip. We don't all live in towns and cities.
Mid Wales...
Stimpy, you haven't bought Bron-Yr-Aur have you? Very near Aberystwyth...
Oh, I wish :-)
I didn't know it was being sold, to be honest.
I haven't heard that it is...
I was just wondering if it was you that lived there! :) It would be the perfect place for your huge collection of Zep bootlegs!
I've always meant to go, actually... but apparently the owners are somewhat fed up of all these gawping loons turning up on their doorstep so I decided against it. It would be nice to see the environment that gave rise to Stairway to Heaven's poetic majesty, however...
Sorry Chris, that's utter tosh
"To try to justify cars for any other reason than you like driving them is nonsense."
I don't live in a remote area but I live 40 miles from where I work, and going by public transport just isn't an option. Nor is it for my GLW. Neither of us want this sort of commute but we have to go where the work is. I would love to be able to walk or even bike to work, but real life isn't that simple.
And trains "restful" ?? Well, you must travel on a very different line to the ones I use - at least in my car I can guarantee a seat, it will have leg room for more than a not very big midget. There will be no-one within earshot droneing into a mobile, and I'll be spared the aural discharge of 3 different iPods just loud enough to keep me awake. I commuted to London by train for around 15 years and I never ever want to do that again.
We do have a poor transport system but until a halfway viable alternative is possible the car is always going to win
Seconded.
First Great Western? It's like Ryanair on rails. Try commuting to Paddington from Chippenham every day, as I did for a year recently. It was better than driving a car, I'll grant you, as it's just too damn far to do daily by road (though some fools do), but the term 'restful' cannot be associated in any way with my experience of train travel. It's dirty, noisy and unreliable for a start, but most of all it's shockingly expensive. It would be cheaper to drive to London and stay the week in a hotel, which is what I'll do if I have to work there again.
Apparently, the rail system we have now costs us three times as much as British Rail once did. Progress.
I did about 10 years on First Great Western
That may sound like a prison sentence, and it felt like it was. I've also had the misfortune to have to use Virgin Trains, Chiltern Railways and South West Trains. You pay a fortune and are treated little better than cattle. I started my commuting days under British Rail and I thought they were a shambles. Little did I know just how much worse it could get.
I live roughly 60 miles from London. Train fare is c.£66 return plus £7 to rent a square of tarmac to leave the car on for the day. Outstanding value.
Do you know what fine
If you happy with the way things are for everyone so be it. I hope you all have safe and pleasent journeys today (i do mean this) it's hot day so keep cool.
I think we're saying we're NOT happy at all,
but that the car is often the least of several grades of evil when it comes to travel options.
In which case
what you suggest we do I just wanted to point out that if we assume the car is only way forward we ironically aren't going to get anyway.
I know rural/nonurban areas have special issues but people tend to use the fact that rural communities need cars (and probably always will) to justify the use of them in large urban areas.
I personally think many people in towns would benefit from street car systems where you hire a car by the hour when you need to use it.I walked past tens of cars on the way to the station most people in London in partiuclar probably only use their car for a few hours a week. I have friends who have children who use streetcar all the time and seem not find too much of a problem.
Ultimately transport in the uk won't be improved without the sort of changes in planning, education and work policy that we in Uk don't like i fear it will have to get even worse than it is now before the changes will seem acceptable.
"Rural areas have special issues"
It would be more accurate to say that urban areas have special issues.
The rural areas will do just fine as they are, so long as the townies stop trying to impose their beliefs and lifestyle choices on us.
whatever!
I think cars are becoming to Uk what guns are to some americans any discussion of it gets out of hand almost immediately. Like I say if everyone is happy with things as they are so be it, just maybe don't whinge about tail backs or the lack or parking next time or having to drive miles to waitrose etc. I going to talk about music.
Most of the land area of the UK isn't urban/built-up
and hence doesn't suffer from tailbacks or a lack of parking; these are special problems unique to urban areas.
Bikes and Buses.
I lived in the middle of Bristol from 1978 to 1988, and found that I could get around fine with either or both of those options. Out in the sticks, the 3 buses a day that are trying to serve half a dozen communities inevitably take the best part of 2 hours on the scenic route before arriving in the middle of the city. So I have a car. Cars are chronic in cities, but out here, they are essential, as there are NO other options. I think we're violently agreeing on some things here.
What?
"To try to justify cars for any other reason than you like driving them is nonsense."
I live in Whitby. I work in Scarborough. I have to commute to work each day (only about 20-25 miles as the crow files, but across the moors) by bus, as there isn't even a train service unless you want to spend 5 hours going via Middlesbrough and York. And the bus service is best described as 'erratic'. Yes, they are supposed to run regularly but the reality is oh so slightly different when dealing with the wonders of Arriva.
Do you know how good the service is? I'm learning to drive: that's how good. I've had enough of waiting for buses and hoping, not expecting, they will arrive.
In fact, outside of the major cities, public transport is a national disgrace. A major plank of national infrastructure and economic well-being is left to providence and the whims of the private monopolies that replaced the public ones that la Thatch did her utmost to get rid of. At least in the past, towns ran their own buses, trams etc. Now we are left to the tender mercies of Arriva and Stagecoach (how very aptly named they are: transported by cowboys)
Bargepole mentions
the fine city of Sheffield:
best bus service in the land until it was privatised - now, surprise surprise, fewer buses, higher fares.
train to London - still best part of three hours to cover 180 miles, stopping at virtually every station en route.
city tram system, constructed at cost of millions upon millions, but covers only a few areas of the city, and usually 75% empty other than at peak times.
car - roads choked, getting worse by the year, parking a rip off.
No obvious solutions or easy answers .
Hmmm...
It's a bit like who are the best - The Beatles or The Stones?
It's
the Stones
and
cars.
Except sleeper trains which are the most wonderful things ever in the history of mankind
That's a helluva claim...
I think I prefer cars and the Stones - although the Beatles are better.
strange most people
don't prefer "The Cars"
Sleeper trains
As a boy of about 8, I remember going on a trip to Switzerland by train with my parents. I had my own sleeping carriage for one part of the journey and felt impossibly grown-up.
It had a small wardrobe that opened to reveal a washbasin and mirror with tiny soaps and toothglass. A little fold-down table and cabinet.
A wake-up call from the guard in the morning and breakfast brought in on a tray - having woken up to find that towns had given way to lakes and mountains while I had slept. Magical.
we went from paris to florence
overnight on the sleeper which was really good, you leave Paris at 6ish have a few drinks in the Bar carriage, read a few pages in the light of you little curtained bunk and wake up to watch northern Italy drift by and arrive to have some decent coffee and a bun in an impossibly old piazza.
I initially read that as:
"some decent coffee and a bun and an impossibly old pizza."
"There's only one way to find out..."
guess what comes next :)
A knitting contest?
Now look here
says Bargepole in his annoying third person style. TG is a damn fine programme, although like all others there are good and bad editions.
And any man who flies the flag for Camel and Gentle Giant is alright by me.
Shouldn't that be
alright by him?!
Don't encourage him
to encourage him!
Shark Jump
I'm not quite sure what moment the shark jump occurred - I might have missed it - but it's happened. All good things die and this formula has definitely ceased to bear fruit. I just don't find it funny any more and only watch it if (as is frequently the case) there is nothing but mind-sapping 'talent' shows and reality TV on the other non-Dave channels.