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

Dunno if it's the slicked-down hair, the tone of voice or the vampire-esque features (actually, likely all three), but I've always found that there's something fundamentally dislikeable about Quentin Willson :suspect: .

Last night ... Hammond is driving the new Alfa on the road beside Lake Como, Clarkson is racing him 'as the crow flies' on a quad bike. Clarkson drives the bike out of the undergrowth and into the lake, presses a button ... and the bike converts to a jetski. As he drives on he looks down the camera, says 'There's only one piece of music for this ... *brief bit of Rod Stewart's 'Sailing'* ... 'no no no, cue the Bond!', and he proceeds to barrel across the lake accompanied by the Bond theme (and a little later on, by '007').

I was grinning all over my chops, fantastic stuff   .

Yes, do like that moment with the quadski. Though the pedant in me thought "Ride to Atlantis" for the music.

The John Barry Estate got their share of royalties last night: bit from Thunderball, the 007 Theme and if I'm not mistaken, "Follow, Follow"

not a bad series so far. Part of me hoped for some kind of tie in to the Rush DVD. Hemsworth v Bruhl in the S in a RPC.

Oh, one moment last night was May squeezing up alongside that woman soldier. "I've pulled something off"...must be easier ways of getting a woman.

A bit of Clarkson still on land on the quad bike was soundtracked by some of Serra's Goldeneye music too, I think.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

A bit of Clarkson still on land on the quad bike was soundtracked by some of Serra's Goldeneye music too, I think.

it was. Opening of the film I think.

The Beeb Beeb Ceeb in their infinite wisdom have only today done a preview vid of Series 21



me and somebody at work (more of a petrolhead than I) kept rabbiting about the Xmas special all through Christmas until we heard, yes, it's in March :)

Forget Rambo in Burma, TG in Burma..."More powah!"

More Goldeneye music featured this week, the score may have been divisive in its day but its certainly proving itself to have legs.

A decent episode all round, this series almost feels like a bit of the throw back to the earliest years of this trio. Chenoybl seems to have become the go-to location for psudo-docu-drama's of late, nevertheless it remains an eerie and unsettling place to do anything in.

Goldeneye was more suited to the locale this week than Italy last week. Decent episode, the state of the track for Blunt's lap was something else.

Apparently as I saw on holiday you can get models of certain Top Gear creations



others being the Toyboata II and the Toyota that wouldn't die plus a host of ones for the fastest lap

As Hammond put it - 'A submarine pen underneath a mountain? Pure Bond'.

I'll put it here, looks like the Boys have been herded out of Argentina (not the first time the British will show their heels to the Argentines) over this number plate business. Personally, looks a load of nothing. The Daily Mail/Mirror lot are getting their hot air out but what tosh. Argentine national team fly a banner declaring "Las Malvinas" are forever Argentina's or some such...well, maybe as someone said if you can't take what you give than so be it.

Quote :

Local councillor Juan Manuel Romano said the digits 269 on the number plate of the Ford Mustang Mustang Richard Hammond was driving were close to the 255 Britons killed during the 1982 war.
He added that the numbers 646 on James May's Lotus could be taken as a reference to the 649 Argentinian casualties.

and a veteran:

Quote :

"They said they didn't want to upset anyone but we know the British have lied for the last 200 years. We told them we couldn't guarantee their security if they didn't leave."

We surely can't be the only country to have lied in the past two centuries :)

quotes from the Telegraph, the article has 1287 comments on...utter madness

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/top-gear/11137879/Jeremy-Clarkson-stoned-as-Top-Gear-crew-abandon-cars-and-flee-Argentina.html

Apparently after the 'slope' business in the Burma special, Clarkson's been told to cut out the 'provocative' jokes ... wonder whose idea the number-plate was?

No idea whose idea it was, but the notion that the license plate was a mere "coincidence" is beyond preposterous. The fact that they want us to buy that story beggars belief.

Anyway, you cannot do something that will almost certainly provoke people and then complain when they respond to that provocation.

Seems to me they more or less reaped what they sowed.

Come on, Oppers. In the UK, you can burn the national flag and hardly anyone will complain. In Argentina, someone makes a joke with a car numberplate and the population riots with intent.

In the early 1900s, the Argentine was the seventh richest country in the world. Now it regularly defaults on it national debts. I'd say the fascist militaristic twats reaped what they sowed.

Why, it's great publicity, isn't it? Couldn't have worked out better if it was scripted. Not sure who's the greater twat in this. If you can burn the national flag in the UK without starting riots, whose problem is that anyway? Hardly the Argies, can't blame them. If Clarkson thinks his joke was so funny he should have stayed, shouldn't he? I mean, where is the perspective here, an old provocator gets some fire back up his bum. So what? Meanwhile guys who surely had less reason to suspect evil get carved up on the Internet. While Clarkson's ratings will skyrocket.

I watched quite a bit of Top Gear on BBC America last winter. Don't know what that really says about my life, but I really enjoy it.

It's a lot better than the American version, which runs on the History channel. Actually, I'm not even sure if it's still on.

Is Jeremy Clarkson regarded as one of the UK's national badasses or something?

He's a pompous, manchild, cunt, but he has many fans.

He's a good jobbing journalist, one of the hardest jobs imaginable, and realises that engineering is a damn sight more important than the arts. Any culture that places Tracy Emin above Alec Issigonis is doomed.

I don't think any sane human would. And choosing Tracy Emin as the face of British art is a bit daft (next to a pioneer of his field like Issigonis), although I'm sure Saatchi and his media lickspittles would disagree. Not to mention Issigonis is approaching his centenary.

Largo's Shark wrote:

Choosing Tracy Emin as the face of British art is a bit daft.

I agree, but in the Daily Telegraph's poll of the most important British women in arts and entertainment Ms Emin placed first. Now find me a poll in any national newspaper that ranks the most important engineers in Britain.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Largo's Shark wrote:

Choosing Tracy Emin as the face of British art is a bit daft.

I agree, but in the Daily Telegraph's poll of the most important British women in arts and entertainment Ms Emin placed first. Now find me a poll in any national newspaper that ranks the most important engineers in Britain.

Fair enough, I don't disagree there.

Rather him than some in the media.

Still, as he points out, most of these veterans were in their twenties. Maybe they meant the veterans of the next conflict. The one where we push our navy across the Atlantic.

I'd rather him than Piers Morgan, Professor Brian Cox or Michael Mcintyre, but that's about it.

Control wrote:

I watched quite a bit of Top Gear on BBC America last winter. Don't know what that really says about my life, but I really enjoy it.

It's a lot better than the American version, which runs on the History channel. Actually, I'm not even sure if it's still on.

Is Jeremy Clarkson regarded as one of the UK's national badasses or something?

Well he once punched Piers Morgan, but I'm not sure that qualifies you for badassdom.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Come on, Oppers. In the UK, you can burn the national flag and hardly anyone will complain. In Argentina, someone makes a joke with a car numberplate and the population riots with intent.

In the early 1900s, the Argentine was the seventh richest country in the world. Now it regularly defaults on it national debts. I'd say the fascist militaristic twats reaped what they sowed.

I am not defending the extreme reaction, I just find the notion that the plate was a "coincidence" insulting. Do they really expect anyone to believe that?

Salomé wrote:

Control wrote:

I watched quite a bit of Top Gear on BBC America last winter. Don't know what that really says about my life, but I really enjoy it.

It's a lot better than the American version, which runs on the History channel. Actually, I'm not even sure if it's still on.

Is Jeremy Clarkson regarded as one of the UK's national badasses or something?

Well he once punched Piers Morgan, but I'm not sure that qualifies you for badassdom.

Which I personally find makes up for a great deal of his 'assholery'.

That reminds me, has Morgan made good on his promise to return to the US if Scotland voted No to independence?