And on that Bombshell...Top Gear

Rev up those supercars and cover your caravans - the boys have arrived...

Excellent thread, Sid!

Although I've taken issue with some of Clarkson's findings on my choice of automobile, the more I get to watch of this show on BBC-America, the more I love it. And everyone I've pointed in the direction of the show has had similar reactions. Shown Monday evenings over here, they're currently re-showing the 2006 series. Last night, it was the amphibious boat challenge.

Excellent stuff. And, as I've just recently put in an email the US State Department, highly entertaining.

Top Gear is completely and utterly BRILLIANT.

It is the second best thing on television. I hope it goes on for years and years and years.

As will be revealed when I start up my Outpost Wrinkly Aladdin thread, Top Gear is very close to my heart. One of the very best programmes of the noughties.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:As will be revealed when I start up my Outpost Wrinkly Aladdin thread, Top Gear is very close to my heart.

Quite right too.

Just love this show - I want to do this as my job.

Well, if you want to be Jeremy, start out as an auto journalist shortly after conception and learn to mock whatsisface Nedell.

Dave Webb wrote:Well, if you want to be Jeremy, start out as an auto journalist shortly after conception and learn to mock whatsisface Nedell.

Tiff Needell and Quentin Wilson....
Bless.....

Some say....
The reason the original TG was taken off air was because it was...well, boring and not a great show, a bit stale....at least untill James May got a slot in the original series and was utterly brilliant.. I think Fifth gear shows exactly wher the original format was lacking...not wrong, just lacking.......Tomm Ford is great though as is Vicky BH.
Then it restarted with Hammond , Jezza and Jason Dawes....not great cameradierie it has to be said.... I certainly think that Dawes didnt get on with either of the other two and it shows.

Then Captain slow took over in Series 2...and what a great start he had....
The reason it works is beacuse we LOVE to see 3 different overgrown schoolboys tackle schoolyard" wouldnt it be great" type challenges and usually get it wrong....
May is the old school gent, britian, brown ale, aston martin, Rolls Royle and fastidious
Hammond is the over enthusiast puppy who just wants to get on with it, feck preparation, lets go....
and Jezza is the gang leader, opinionated, arrogant,
and the thing they all share is they all usually get it wrong.....
and its great fun to watch....
I watch because I wish I was part of that gang. I think we all secretly do.
Cant wait to see them live..I have tickets for them in the RDS in Dublin for the live roadshow...
and on that bombshell.....good night...

72lf wrote:

Dave Webb wrote:Well, if you want to be Jeremy, start out as an auto journalist shortly after conception and learn to mock whatsisface Nedell.

Tiff Needell and Quentin Wilson....
Bless.....

Some say....
The reason the original TG was taken off air was because it was...well, boring and not a great show, a bit stale....at least untill James May got a slot in the original series and was utterly brilliant.. I think Fifth gear shows exactly wher the original format was lacking...not wrong, just lacking.......Tomm Ford is great though as is Vicky BH.
Then it restarted with Hammond , Jezza and Jason Dawes....not great cameradierie it has to be said.... I certainly think that Dawes didnt get on with either of the other two and it shows.

Then Captain slow took over in Series 2...and what a great start he had....
The reason it works is beacuse we LOVE to see 3 different overgrown schoolboys tackle schoolyard" wouldnt it be great" type challenges and usually get it wrong....
May is the old school gent, britian, brown ale, aston martin, Rolls Royle and fastidious
Hammond is the over enthusiast puppy who just wants to get on with it, feck preparation, lets go....
and Jezza is the gang leader, opinionated, arrogant,
and the thing they all share is they all usually get it wrong.....
and its great fun to watch....
I watch because I wish I was part of that gang. I think we all secretly do.
Cant wait to see them live..I have tickets for them in the RDS in Dublin for the live roadshow...
and on that bombshell.....good night...

It's really just vintage Last of the Summer Wine...but with really, really cool cars in some ways.

Fifth Gear is Top Gear's amiable old uncle, stylistically - you know the one who wears the naffest jumpers and falls asleep after the Queen's Speech at Christmas.

"Vintage last of the summer wine but with cool cars"?

Are you sure? Either you're watching too much Summer Wine (or possibly drinking too much of it) or you aren't watching enough Top Gear.

The fun thing about the show is that whilst Jeremy is politically incorrect, he has managed to be so in a way that encourages some very positive behaviour; to whit, yelling and throwing things at the TV (not heavy things, of course). May and Hammond are the same, they have that same ability to encourage the sort of interactivity you don't get with any amount of red buttons. They promote conversation, they give people areas of commonality (even if it's being a part of a "Jezza is a Twit" forum online) and it is very, very pleasant to see someone on the BBC disagreeing with the Green movement.

There's nothing wrong with the green movement, it's just nice to see someone disagree.

We love it here at Casa Arisia. BBC America looks like they're catching up with recent series now on Monday nights. We're getting the 'burning caravan' episode coming up on the 17th. And these days they're showing series that are a couple years old on weekday afternoons (5 pm for me). So I get my Hamster fix several times each week, yay!
I'll continue to watch the OnDemand versions as they come up because those will have extra bits that the broadcast eps can't fit in.

Arisia wrote:We love it here at Casa Arisia. BBC America looks like they're catching up with recent series now on Monday nights.

Me too.

And, welcome!

Great to see "The Vicar" (as Ginger Ninja 7 I have called him for at least the past decade), with James May.

Thoroughly enjoyed all of last night's episode. Lovely balance, it worked on all levels.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:Thoroughly enjoyed all of last night's episode. Lovely balance, it worked on all levels.

Absolutely. From the race to Blackpool shenanigans to Captain Slow blasting around the test track it was top class entertainment.

Oh, and is it possible for The Stig to become any more iconic? His (non)reactions to the delights of The Golden Mile, were laugh-out-loud funny.

I wonder if that was why Bugatti wouldn't let them have the Veyron for the test track? It doesn't do much for their reputation when it can only come fifth on the board.

Nick Barlow wrote:I wonder if that was why Bugatti wouldn't let them have the Veyron for the test track? It doesn't do much for their reputation when it can only come fifth on the board.

I think you're pretty much spot-on there, Nick. I suspect Bugatti found themselves in a Catch22 situation: Continue refusing the car for the test run and open yourself up to the risk of being thought of as not having quite as much faith in it as you've been leading people to believe - or allow it to run and take the risk of losing face if it doesn't perform to expectations.

The latter happened - I imagine there's some very unhappy people in the Bugatti camp today.

I think the new season has made it to our shores. Last night on BBC-America, they featured an episode where Clarkson, Hammond and May had to build their own Police vehicles, and Jeremy apparently couldn't decide whether he wanted to be Don Johnson in Miami Vice, or a member of the Polizia Nazionale d'Italia. It was actually quite amusing- I thoroughly enjoyed May having the rear-spraying paint jets to stop the criminal, only to have the Stig use his windshield wipers and clean it off.

We are two episodes into the new season. (The third episode airs tomorrow night). I rather liked listening to Hammond's butchered French in his race with the skiers, although I was slightly disappointed that he didn't say "allons-y" to start the race.

On the subject of the Mercedes CLK Black that Jeremy drove to "the end of the British Isles," maybe it was just me, but I wasn't impressed with the looks of the car. Performance-wise, it was amazing, but the appearance of the car didn't do much for me.

Ohhhhhh Patrick dear fellow, wait until you see the 75 minutes of blissful comedic genius which is the Top Gear Vietnam Challenge.

In one special, the boys effortlessly succeed in being funnier than just about every modern situation comedy series from both sides of the Atlantic combined.

It had Kate and I literally gasping for breath from laughing so hard.

Sid Seadevil wrote:Ohhhhhh Patrick dear fellow, wait until you see the 75 minutes of blissful comedic genius which is the Top Gear Vietnam Challenge.

In one special, the boys effortlessly succeed in being funnier than just about every modern situation comedy series from both sides of the Atlantic combined.

It had Kate and I literally gasping for breath from laughing so hard.

I'll be eagerly looking forward to it. Tonight's episode is the bullet train race across Japan. I'll post my reactions this evening.

Patrick wrote:I'll be eagerly looking forward to it. Tonight's episode is the bullet train race across Japan. I'll post my reactions this evening.

The Bullet train race...oh, you're definitely going to enjoy it.

Jeremy Clarkeson is following me on Twitter.

sheringham wrote:Jeremy Clarkeson is following me on Twitter.

And on that bombshell...

Having seen last night's race across Japan, I can honestly say that I seriously rooting for Hammond and May to be the GTR. For some reason, that Datsun Nissan just didn't capture my appeal. Although it did have quite a dramatic finish.

Kamikaze Clarkson.