Top Gear Returns

mike65

Its back for a few more weeks, there is serious talk of the next series being the last. Tonights highlight should be the White Man Van challenge and by the sounds of the preview it'll be a hoot and really annoy all the right types.

It’s a sweltering Friday and Clarkson, Hammond and “the other one from Top Gear”, as May habitually dubs himself, are competing in the White Van Challenge to see who will make the best “white van man”.

Each was given up to £1,000 to spend on the van of their choice and “typical white van man” tests will include tailgating a Ford Mondeo (to see who can drive closest “up its arse”); the loading challenge to see who can load and unload their van the fastest with household junk and “illegal immigrants”; and the decibel challenge to see whose van is the most noisily intimidating to other road users.

Unless you belive didiguide

Motoring magazine presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. After lambasting caravans over the years, the team embark on a caravanning holiday in Dorset. With the help of the Totyota Formula One Team, The Stig and a very large building, the lads try to find out how fast you can drive indoors. Film star Brian Cox is the Star in the Reasonably Priced Car, plus there's test-drives for the Vauxhall VXR, Mazda 6 MPS and Mondeo ST220.

Either way I'll be watching.

BBC2 8 pm as usual.

Mike.

junkyard

Its about time its back, its really annoying the way programmes like this get f**ked around when ever football or darts or snooker is on. Why should regular viewers be treated like this? After all we're all paying our T.V. license. They should put their sports on after 12 at night so whoever wants to watch can stay up or tape them.

mike65

After all we're all paying our T.V. license

yes to RTE!

Mike.

junkyard

But I'm sure people in the U.K. pay their T.V. license too and if you watch it on satellite here I'm sure Sky pay BBC something because you don't get BBC for free on satellite.

John R

junkyard wrote:

But I'm sure people in the U.K. pay their T.V. license too and if you watch it on satellite here I'm sure Sky pay BBC something because you don't get BBC for free on satellite.

Yes, you do get the BBC for free on satellite.

SKY pay the BBC nothing, in fact for years BBC had to pay SKY for the priviledge of being on their platform.

It's not as if the sport has shortened the series of TG, it was just delayed.

mike65

Not sure what the Sky position is but I know some of the NTL sub goes to BBC etc.

Mike.

junkyard

Its not just Top Gear though, loads of other programmes have been canceled over sports of one type or another. My point is that its a bit unfair to upset regular viewers favorite programmes because of sport. If people want sport so much let them pay for it i.e. Sky sports etc., the same should apply for news papers too, there should be a separate supplement at an extra cost for sports, if they want it let them pay for it.

Ernie Ball

Anyone see the Clarkson piss take on Saxondale a couple of weeks ago?

Hilarious.

pburns

mike65 wrote:

...there is serious talk of the next series being the last....

Where has this been reported?

junkyard

Yeah I did and he got it spot on considering they're friends and all that. I've come across Clarkson at a few events in the U.K. over the years and tbh I think he's an a***ole who really thinks he's superior to everyone on the face of the earth.

Ernie Ball

Here's the Saxondale clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-ZnYJsm1GA

skibum

junkyard wrote:

Yeah I did and he got it spot on considering they're friends and all that. I've come across Clarkson at a few events in the U.K. over the years and tbh I think he's an a***ole who really thinks he's superior to everyone on the face of the earth.

I was at the press day for the last motor show at the NEC in Birmingham, Clarkson was recording some clips for the show when the cameras were rolling he was what you see on telly but once they were off it was like watching a jekel and hyde transformation, he struck me as an arrorgant ar$ehole the way he was dealing with people. I was going to ask him for his autograph (for my son not me , i promise ) but after seeing that I couldn't be arsed.

A mate of mine shared a house with Richard Hammomd a few years before he hit the big time with top gear. He said he was sound and a real pretrol head.

deRanged

pburns wrote:

Where has this been reported?

it's hinted at in the driving section of todays Sunday Times.

lostexpectation

ok so they don't do ordinary cars on that show, but surely bbc could do another 30min car show.... like how they present the travel shows with Map man. with stuff in it like the times car supllement... I know they had the northern irish show...

kilasser

The BBC is totally free on sky for any one in Europe to pick up. No card or subscription required same with ITV/UTV. The Uk licence payers pay for BBC and ads pay for ITV/UTV.

mike65

lostexpectation wrote:

I know they had the northern irish show...

Worst car show evarrrr!*

Mike

*open to challange

testicle

Sunday Times wrote:

Despite its success, Top Gear is an endangered species. Clarkson is convinced its days are numbered because, like any show, it will eventually run out of plot lines and gags. Wilman hopes he will have the courage to kill it off before it flags. There is at least one more series in the pipeline, which is due to start on October 8 and run until Christmas.

left testicle

testicle

mike65 wrote:

Its back for a few more weeks, there is serious talk of the next series being the last. Tonights highlight should be the White Man Van challenge and by the sounds of the preview it'll be a hoot and really annoy all the right types.



Unless you belive didiguide



Either way I'll be watching.

BBC2 8 pm as usual.

Mike.

You never read the last line....

"The White Van Man episode will be shown at 8pm on Sunday, July 30, on BBC2"

mike65

Doh!

Mike.

lostexpectation

You know the Stig. The all-white racing driver we use on Top Gear. Well, we were filming him walking through the Mojave desert when lo and behold a lorry full of soldiers rocked up and arrested him. He was unusual. He wasn’t fat. He must therefore be a Muslim.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2261609,00.html

John R

Sunday Times wrote:

Despite its success, Top Gear is an endangered species. Clarkson is convinced its days are numbered because, like any show, it will eventually run out of plot lines and gags. Wilman hopes he will have the courage to kill it off before it flags. There is at least one more series in the pipeline, which is due to start on October 8 and run until Christmas.

Neither Clarkson or Wilman (another grade 1 tosser) own the show or name. It is not theirs to cancel, as one of the highest rated programmes on the channel I'd be amazed if BBC2 didn't re-format it with new presenters.

Clarkson quit Top Gear before and the programme continued without him, who knows what the other two presenters would do if he quit again. Hammond spent years presenting very low rent drivel on the likes of Men and Motors, he may not be as eager as Clarkson to give up TG.

mike65

I doubt any are eager, thinking about it the comment may have been a way of getting the BBC2 controller to give them more money!

Mike.

muletide

same time as pokerface aaahhhhhh,

Diamondmaker

Hey see that LED display that they had at the back of the caravan!!

Any one know where to get one? Halfords or the like??

lostexpectation

Scripted To Death

1huge1

John R wrote:

Neither Clarkson or Wilman (another grade 1 tosser) own the show or name. It is not theirs to cancel, as one of the highest rated programmes on the channel I'd be amazed if BBC2 didn't re-format it with new presenters.

Clarkson quit Top Gear before and the programme continued without him, who knows what the other two presenters would do if he quit again. Hammond spent years presenting very low rent drivel on the likes of Men and Motors, he may not be as eager as Clarkson to give up TG.

well hammond is actually doing a lot from the programme brainiac science abuse which just happened to have its new season start tonight at 8 the same time as tonights top gear sadly i was unable to view top gear and i found brainiac rather funny good show

anyone hear the back story on james may and how he got fired in 1992 its fair funny


here it is

During the early nineties, James May worked as a sub-editor for Autocar magazine. During an interview with Richard Allinson on BBC Radio 2 (6th January 2006) he confessed that he was fired in 1992 from the magazine after putting together a "hidden message" in one issue. At the end of the year the magazine's "Road Test Year Book" supplement was published. Each spread featured four car reviews and each review started with a large, red, drop-capital letter. May's role was to put the whole supplement together, which "was extremely boring and took several months". He went on to say:

"So I had this idea that if I re-edited the beginnings of all the little tests, I could make these red letters spell out a message through the magazine — which I thought was brilliant. I can't remember exactly what it said but it was to the effect that "You might think this is a really great thing but if you were sitting here making it up you'd realise it's a real pain in the arse." It took me about two months to do it and on the day that it came out I'd actually forgotten that I'd done it because there's a bit of a gap between it being "put to bed" and coming out on the shelves. When I arrived at work that morning everybody was looking at their shoes and I was summoned to the managing director of the company's office. The thing had come out and nobody at work had spotted what I'd done because I'd made the words work around the pages so you never saw a whole word. But all the readers had seen it and they'd written in thinking they'd won a prize or a car or something

heres the link for it on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_May

you should also try looking at stuff like top gear and the presenters on wikipedia it has everything

unklerosco

Just watched the show.. good god its gone down will.. started watching it half way through n saw nothing about cars.. Just a load of rubbish about a caravan... If i was English paid my tv licence i'd be sick.. Its becoming a waste of tv time........

mike65

Scripted To Death

Whos cares how scripted that was I had tears in my eyes!

Mike.

deRanged

mike65 wrote:

Whos cares how scripted that was I had tears in my eyes!

Mike.

I couldn't agree more.

redman

Not just scripted , but S*&T
As funny as Two pints of larger and a packet of crisps.

Thats the end of TG for me, it's gone too far away from being a car show into general entertainment....

SoBe

im with mike on that one.good entertainment

mike65

It summed up all that I have always thought about caravans and the type who think they serve a leisure purpose. They are fit for burning down and thats it. Anyone spot the way James May dropped in a couple of Nazi bon-mots?

Mike.

TCP/IP

what i great show really was one of the best ones ever pure classic keep it up lads

el rabitos

that particular episode was rather muck

PauloMN

junkyard wrote:

Its not just Top Gear though, loads of other programmes have been canceled over sports of one type or another. My point is that its a bit unfair to upset regular viewers favorite programmes because of sport. If people want sport so much let them pay for it i.e. Sky sports etc., the same should apply for news papers too, there should be a separate supplement at an extra cost for sports, if they want it let them pay for it.

Yeah, they should reschedule hugely popular sports events so that they can show Top Gear instead, even though there's not nearly enough Top Gear shows made to fill 52 weekly slots in a year.

Yeah, they should actually charge people for a separate supplement for say... political news... 'cause I don't like politics.

Tongue firmly in cheek in case you hadn't guessed.

Diamondmaker

PauloMN wrote:

Yeah, they should reschedule hugely popular sports events so that they can show Top Gear instead, even though there's not nearly enough Top Gear shows made to fill 52 weekly slots in a year.

Yeah, they should actually charge people for a separate supplement for say... political news... 'cause I don't like politics.

Tongue firmly in cheek in case you hadn't guessed.

Yeah and the motoring section should be via special order or from the very top shelf behind brown paper.

I know its way off the topic but what are you on about Junkyard? Thats mad what you are saying, absolutely!

On the topic however I thought the TG was hilarious too. It is TV entaertainement after all. A show purely on the techical stats of a Hyundai sonata and the fuel efficiencies of a Prius would not get any ratings. The only way for shows like this to get TV time is to draw on more than a petrol head audience, this TG does well. My GF and many other girls I kow can enjoy the show.
I personally would have no interest in watching the show if it was all Mondeos and astras, Fuel economy and handling!

junkyard

PauloMN wrote:

Yeah, they should reschedule hugely popular sports events so that they can show Top Gear instead, even though there's not nearly enough Top Gear shows made to fill 52 weekly slots in a year.

Yeah, they should actually charge people for a separate supplement for say... political news... 'cause I don't like politics.

Tongue firmly in cheek in case you hadn't guessed.

I'm not a sports fanatic as you can probably guess and the same goes for politics and I'm not alone. I just don't see why people who like sports think the world revolves around sports.

Blitzkrieger

lostexpectation wrote:

with stuff in it like the times car supllement.

Who would watch it? The vast majority of cars are very, very boring. Who wants to see a test drive of a Kia Rio? Or even a BMW 3-series? If I want to know what that handles like, I'll go down the dealer and test drive it myself. I don't think they'd give me the keys to a CCX.