Anybody fan of Top Gear (British Version)?

[Ollie1981]

Top Gear is, officially, the best show on British telly. It's a shame the BBC don't realise this and spend proper money on it, making it 13 episodes per series again, instead of cutting it to 6. They're obviously more interested on making crap sitcoms and period dramas.

I think the BBC has spent all it's money on "Media City" in Salford, despite having the perfectly serviceable building on Oxford Road (that is amusingly now "For Let" ...because there are tons of businesses in Manchester just crying out to rent expensive purpose built television studios in a city-centre location aren't there?)

For that matter they are closing the iconic Television Centre in London and moving the staff to Salford also....

.....as Brits who have to pay for a "Licence" to have television sets, I haven't heard anyone yet say that any of this is money well spent. It may bring jobs to Salford, I doubt it though, it's more likely going to bring a deluge of whiney displaced London media types to working class Salford where they are going to be about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. (For a Stateside analogue, imagine a truckload of pampered Beverley Hills T.V Network execs descending on Detroit or even just moving down the road to Compton, Long Beach or Inglewood and setting up shop.... )

As for Top Gear, I think Jeremy Clarkson especially makes a sport of just how much he can get away with without getting fired (the BBC is perhaps excepting only The Guardian newspaper, the most fawningly politically correct institution in the U.K). I think he deliberately says things that are going to court controversy, both to promote the show (no publicity is bad publicity) and possibly just because he is a wind-up merchant and relishes getting reactions like this:-

Jeremy Clarkson must be destroyed | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

I've been working on the copier in school staff rooms (practically guaranteed to have at least one well thumbed copy of The Guardian on the table at all times) where I've heard Clarkson being talked about like he's some kind of crass, boorish, middle aged, pube-haired incarnation of Satan himself.... which seems to me the very reaction he's looking for.

[jmaister]

big fan.

I like TopGear for the jokes, and FifthGear for the dog fights.(Tiff VS Jason).

[prntrfxr]

I don't watch it for political commentary. Besides it's British, what do I know about British politics anyway, I'm American. I think it's funny. I've learned things about the history of cars and my feelings about American cars are getting put into words.

[CanonSco]

Enjoyed the first one of the new season.

Tough choice between the Lambo, MC12-4 and the Noble. Apart from the Noble killing its clutch in the first 30 miles. Although if its a demo car it will have had a hard life.

Think I would still take the Lambo.

Saw a white Avantador in my village 2 weeks ago. Even better in the flesh. Awesome. Guy let me have a little look round it.