Top Gear (2002-2015) Phase II (2016-)

Yeah ... as a fan of both TG and U2, I'm well used to the 'eye-roll' response Hilly.

'I probably WOULD like it/them if it wasn't for bloody Clarkson/Bono. What a *insert your own abusive word of choice* that man is'.

Glad to know I'm not alone. She asked me why I liked him bearing in mind how he's against freedom of speech (injunctions), a knobend...

...I said, well, in the 90s I'd watch TV in the afternoons with my Dad and he'd be watching stuff he taped, one of which was Top Gear. Clarkson seemed funny and whatnot, it went from there. I'm not stupid, I know he says stupid things but it feels refreshing in a world where everything has to be grasped and beaten to death.

As for U2, unfortunately it's not my cuppa :) Though my words on U2 are not strong.

I don't deny some of what he's said recently has made me a bit squirmy ... for example, the 'slope' thing was utterly unnecessary. There's practiced tongue-in-cheek wind-uppery, and then there's just being an arse.

Indeed. See what happens after the next Top Gear special. Seems to be the benchmark.

What the Hell. I liked it today. Tonight, whenever. Rooting for James at the end, rocking as Tanner whathisname closed in like a torpedo. "BLOCK HIM!" but...alas.
Got to love the boys winding him up though: "SHUT UP!"

That Jag GT thing, the retro car, what a beast. Think TG needs to take on TGUSA properly, like they did with TGGermany and TGAustralia.

Yesterday TG posted a video of the Stig walloping the Hennessy Velociraptor (from the 'mountain rescue' film the other week) round the track on Facebook yesterday. I commented 'Some say that when he heard it was named after cognac and dinosaurs, there was no stopping him'.

At last count, 58 'likes' .

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Yesterday TG posted a video of the Stig walloping the Hennessy Velociraptor (from the 'mountain rescue' film the other week) round the track on Facebook yesterday. I commented 'Some say that when he heard it was named after cognac and dinosaurs, there was no stopping him'.

At last count, 58 'likes' .  

aha, social media fame!

Funnily enough, the most likes I got on a comment was on a Battlestar Galactia (original) theme video. All I wrote was part of the opening speech: "Some say, that even now, there are brothers of man fighting to survive...somewhere beyond the heavens"

but your comment is the bomb

Hehehe, thank you kind sir.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31824040

Oh Jezza, you bloody idiot. The final straw for the Beeb?

My sentiments exactly, Blunty. Saw it on the bus home. Bloody tit but only the British can use "fracas" in a headline. Can't quite see "Andy Kaufman causes fracas on Letterman".

RMS Clarkson has struck an iceberg, question is how many compartments?

Comments online suggest he hit the producer. Most comments are pro-Clarkson (i.e. "If he punched somebody, he likely deserved it, remember Piers Morgan?")

Well, there goes my Sunday :) Somehow liked the image of Hammond and May introducing the show with this stone-cold silence. Oh, if only James Hunt was still alive.

Of the scheduled remaining 3 shows in this run, the next 2 are cancelled with the 3rd 'in doubt'.

Bloody annoying. I mean I know he's a tit, but the whole thing is muddling in my mind. Maybe I've been too blinkered.

I did like James May's interview on the News channel today (What I still think as BBC News24). Typical May. Faintly indignant and yet cheeky.

"Were you there?"
"No."
"Is he innocent?"
"Of what?"

EDIT: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31834058 (the May interview)

and on and on.

Thing is, the studio bits are done in the week otherwise it's all pre-recorded. So stick on the other bits in one show. Watching it won't incite us.
I can't help but think of Hammond's first show after his accident. How Jezza will do this now.

But, think of Dave. Their scheduling's stuffed until the next ice age

in seriousness, I hope it comes back but somewhat resigned to it all now. The theory is that ITV will come knocking ("Sixth Gear" perhaps?) and they'll be off. But in America they don't see the fuss- some don't anyway. Never mind. It had a good innings what

Let us hope he doesn't take any advice from Jonathon Ross or there'll be no hope of a return.

Sad if this is the end for the series though, it might have passed its prime but Top Gear is still one of the most consistently entertaining programs on British TV (not to mention repeatable), and I really was digging the return of some actual motoring focus.

lachesis wrote:

Let us hope he doesn't take any advice from Jonathon Ross or there'll be no hope of a return.

Sad if this is the end for the series though, it might have passed its prime but Top Gear is still one of the most consistently entertaining programs on British TV (not to mention repeatable), and I really was digging the return of some actual motoring focus.

Ditto on all counts.

Just looking at the Telegraph and there's suggestions that he's ready to quit TG whatever the outcome. What a way for the show to end though. Like they joked, I always figured it'd be something physically happening to one of them. Last shot on camera being two of them standing by the hospital bed: "And on that bombshell..."

There's now talk that this is all Clarkson's way of wriggling out of his TG contract renewal, which was due at month's end - supposedly it was him that informed Beeb brass about the 'fracas'.

Indeed Blunty. Mirror writes it up as him trying to wriggle out of trouble, probably though the Mirror have a bug about him much like the Guardian and Mail.
From what I heard it's his show anyway, he literally put it together with Wilman way back when. And as May said Thursday, we know he's a knob but we like him.

He supposedly hinted in the Sun today he might quit  but the others have said (also up for contract renewal this month) that they'll come back and most in the know seem to expect Top Gear to come back.

Someone in the Times yesterday almost nailed it. The Beeb have shot themselves in the foot. So keen to look to be doing teh right thing they overeacted by postponing the series rather than sort of letting it air tomorrow. The "North London sect that runs the Beeb" hate Clarkson but the public love him and the show. The petition embarasses and amuses in equal measure (I've not signed it). On one hand it was started as a joke and on the other it has amassed more signatures than that for pardoning gay men wrongly convicted in the past (the Alan Turing bill/law/pardon).

Personally, I want the show back with the gang, it peter out in a year or two. If anything just one more show to see what happens at the start :)

EDIT

this is via the Portsmouth Blue Army page:

If Clarkson actually did call Oisin Tymon a 'lazy Irish' and punch him just because he didn't get a steak, that's diva-ish twattery at an unacceptable level.

Tis true.

Apparently the Beeb lost 4 million viewers for what would've been Top Gear's slot. Telegraph cites 1.3m tuned in for the Red Arrows repeat.

Interestingly, what would've been the repeat's slot (7pm, Monday) they re-showed the Graham Hill Racing Legends episode.

And are still repeating TG on BBC3.

http://m.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31820253
Clarkson: Just off to the job center.



His "I don't give a fuck" attitude is pretty amusing. Not sure if the show would be as good without Clarkson, although I really do like May and Hammond. Who knows when we'll have new episodes here in the US. I've yet to spot one on BBC America.

A lot of fucking Gordon Ramsay, though...

Don't envy the deluge of Gordon Ramsay. Seen the man in public twice, he was the landlord of the local near where I lived in Northwest London. Shot past our table on St. Patrick's Day like a greased shit.

I think the show without Clarkson will...certainly feel different but who knows, if Hammond and May are there it might make something, maybe if they got the German girl from the German version. Forget her name but she did TG a couple of times, once going round the Nurgburgring in a Transit.

We forget that the first series of Top Gear was sans Hammond. Who was that man? God knows. But they had a bit at the end where he went through Auto Trader discussing the best deals.

Quentin Wilson's agent is probably having a sugar rush......

Ah, Quentin.

As long as it's not Tiff. I heard Chris Evans touted as a replacement.

Suspended from TG he may currently be, but Clarkson is apparently going to host HIGNFY once again when it returns in April.

Indeedy, and the report into the fracas (I recall the other day the Morecambe & Wise show where they joke about "can we say fracas on the TV?") is due next week.

I saw someplace the guy he thumped said it's been overblown and Jezza's a true gent.

Well...maybe. I look forward to this HIGNFY for Ian Hislop's comments.

Something today about Clarkson saying while at a charity auction offering a lap of the TG track as his 'lot' that he fully expects to be sacked, and calling his Beeb bosses 'fucking bastards'.