Funny how this has not appeared on the Air Trafic Incident site - as it seriously affected take-offs and landings at Norwich - even affecting the police helicopter - I would have thought that a near-miss report at least would have been required.
Or was this just another set up that we're supposed to believe - like TG has hundreds of cameras just perched by the road side waiting for the clowns to drive past - especially in a race - how come the cameramen are always there first - JC &Co can't be as good drivers as they make out!
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It dawned on me quite recently that I have stopped watching TG.
Not a deliberate, positive action you understand. It is simply that my interest and -dare I say - affection for the show has waned; almost imperceptibly to the point that I am not aware that the programme is coming on.
If I am channel hopping and I stumble across it I may watch with the sound turned down for a while, but my enthusiasm has gone.
Perhaps, to coin a phrase "It is past its sell-by date".
Edited by drbe on 30/11/2009 at 07:58
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The same thought applied to me, whilst the balloon was allegedly causing havoc at the airport, the camera helicopter was obviously hovering next to it making sure it got good angles when the police helicopter came in to view.
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The ATC incident was a set up!
And an interesting take on the replica Stratos 'problems'.
www.stratossupersite.com/forum/showthread.php?thre...3
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To my mind, last night's TG was the most boring of the current series or perhaps of ALL the series. Nothing outstanding at all and all that Lancia business was, after a while, pure boredom.
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>>Funny how this has not appeared on the Air Trafic Incident site - as it seriously affected take-offs and landings at Norwich - even affecting the police helicopter - I would have thought that a near-miss report at least would have been required.
It wasn't reported, because it didn't happen.
The balloon was shown leaving the old airship hangars at Cardington, just outside Bedford and came to earth about ten miles away.
The alleged incident at Norwich(?) airport must have been filmed at a different time. Work it out for yourself. Hot air balloon with a top speed of 17MPH plus say a tail wind of 10MPH. Flying distance Bedford to Norwich, say 90 miles. That's at least three hours. What do you think the duration of a hot air balloon large enough to carry a small caravan would be?
Edited by bathtub tom {p} on 30/11/2009 at 10:31
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Oh what a surprise!
tinyurl.com/yzx99wn
I like the comment: "The landing was not a crash. It obviously looked more dramatic on the TV - it was all a controlled accident".
I thought that described most hot-air ballon landings. ;>)
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As a lancia fan and someone who knew the Evo 2 featured I thought it was great. (it isn't mine! ) Richard Hammond's face said it all.
WRC 6 times in a row. Beating Audi with a 2 wheel drive car. Nuff said :-) I'd have a fulvia too.
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The Fulvia Zagato was a very pretty variant on the Fulvia theme.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancia_Fulvia
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I like the way they said its now just part of the FIAT group, well it has been since 1969. So most those cars were actually just 'FIATs'.
As usual dumbed down crap. However I got a few laughs out of it and I had nothing better to do.
Edited by Rattle on 30/11/2009 at 11:20
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I like the way they said its now just part of the FIAT group well it has been since 1969. So most those cars were actually just 'FIATs'.
Well, that is why they are rubbish, isn't it?
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I've almost stopped watching TG too. It used to be a television high-light of the week.
Just a bit too samey each week and too set-up for my liking - a bit like saying a good joke too many times it stops being funny.
I'd like to see interviews with lthe leading Automotive Engineers and project managers when a new model is announced.
Trouble is, I think in its current format, there's no way anything serious/intriguing can be spliced into the program.
I wouldnt mind, but motoring shows are a bit thin on the ground.
It's a laugh to look on Youtube at the dated old Top Gears and see big the big woolly jumpers of Chris Goffy, and the smart jacketed William Woolard, but hey, they told me things I wanted to know about the cars and were very watchable.
The car should be the star, not the presenters - who use the show as a vehicle for themselves - that makes it very boring in my mind.
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OK, so much of it is staged, and it makes you realise how hard it is to fill 58 mins or so of airtime - vis the Lancia thing.
But at the end of the day, it is an entertainment programme and it's one of the few things on telly/anything to do with motoring, that makes me laugh and smile.
Agree that I wander off when SIARPC comes on - last week an actor who I'd never heard of! But then I don't "do" films.
Oh, and the Marina bashing is getting very boring too.
And you have to admit that some of JC's "rants" are actually spot on.
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I try to watch TG as a light entertainment show loosely based around cars. But this series especially, I have been watching it to spot all the errors, the set ups etc and once you are watching a program from that angle its so difficult to go back to being a normal viewer.
Like last night JM walked to the couch for the "News" section before the others, that didn't seem to flow properly. RH was seen reading his way through the script whilst the chat was supposed to be spontaneous.
And the whole Lancia thing - crap cars, crap feature, could have put the same slant on any car manaufacturer even Rover if they wanted to .
And the caravan site he was heading for was a storage facility, not a site...............
And the standard issue blonde that is always positioned behind them in the studio....
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were they the cardington airship hangers that JM departed from in his caravan? one of them looked very run down, surely a heritage sight?
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zookeeper, one of the Hangers is owned (and cared for) by the Health and Safety Executive and word has it that is has a mock up of a house inside for testing smoke alarms etc.
Not too sure who owns the one that JM departed from but it would explain the contrast in the upkeep.
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I stopped liking TG because, over the last couple of series, each episode consists of fewer but longer items. It's almost lazy on their part because it's easier to just think of one thing and then let it run for 20 minutes, rather than have to think of three things and devote five minutes to each.
Going back a few years there would be half a dozen items in each programme, some would be better than others but it would hold your attention. Now an item starts five minutes into the programme, and you know it is going to last for the next 20 minutes; for the first few minutes it will be ok, then it will start to drag and they will be milking it for every last laugh.
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Top Gear is not a serious car program nor does it pretend to be. If you want serious (and in my opinion, dull) then go and watch endless repeats on Men & Motors where some monotone dullard bleats endlessly on about BMW's or the tappett clearances on a Ferarri 360 or better still, Watchdog.
TG is funny. The 3 presenters clearly have fun, don't taken themselves seriously and I would love to be in their shoes. They've made a popular TV program and made it very successful too. How many shows can command that apart from those wretched celebrity wannabee shows on ITV?
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Indeed :). What do people want? It to be replaced with Bellboy's guide to valve clearences on a Ford Endura engine?
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The format is tired. When tired its over long.
The lancia feature was quite good and worthy of inclusion.
The airship feature was contrived, and frankly there is little that can be said about drifting along at 17mph. It clearly was a load of of cobblers byu saying it drifted over Norwich airport, and the continuity was so bad you could see it was all made up.
SIARPC is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay past its sell by date.
All in all - this is now a 30 minute programe, stretched into an hour.
Sorry to say this, but Top Gear - your time has come. It needs a radical rethink.
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But clearly it doesn't stop you watching it AE?
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But I wont make time for it next week.
I dont care about the motoring or not argument, but it has to stack up as entertainment. Its now failing to meet that benchmark.
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Just as well we're all different then AE otherwise you'd have us watching something akin to the Open University meets Used Car Roadshow!
;-)
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Not at all. If you read back in these fora you will see I have been a staunch defender of Top Gear.
You have a Tele for three reasons.
1/ To be informed,
or
2/ To Be entertained.
or
3/
To make a noise.
TG now only meets 3/
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otherwise you'd have us watching something akin to the Open University meets Used Car Roadshow!
...or TG from a few years ago...
EDIT: (when I used to like it)
Edited by Focus {P} on 30/11/2009 at 13:52
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The Norwich airport stunt was pathetic and having to introduce such a contrived scenario showed how poor the original idea was. I lost interest to such an extent I couldn't tell you anything about the car Hammond was driving!
The M1 "moan" struck a chord as I had been in it a few hours before, but it was busy and I doubt I could have done much more than 50 had there not been cameras.
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Loved the Lancia segment of the latest episode - Lancias have so much character and look wonderful. I always love it when they do a segment about old cars on Top Gear.
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It would be nice if they featured a new feature where each of them had to have a race in a BL classic before the 70's. So we are looking Heralds, Minis, Minors, 1100s etc. However I dare not suggest it because we all know it will end with a Piano falling on top of a lovely Austin 1100.
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try tuning into classic gear on one of the freeview channels then if you want stuff on old cars
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I'll be interested to see how many of you contribute to a new Top Gear thread in a week or so's time. But of course you won't because it's such a dire, contrived hour of TV and you won't be wasting your time eh?
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Mick
Pee or get off the Pot
Is top gear as good as it was three years ago?
Yes or No.
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I think its better than it was 3 years ago!
The quality of filming is second to none and whilst I agree the scripting and features are contrived, I enjoy it for what it is and no more.
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Anyone else think its better than three years ago?
yes or no please.
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I saw part of one from three years ago on Dave on Friday morning - three car test - TT v RX8 v Alfa Brera.
It was better than the current offerings.
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i think it stopped being believable after the episode where the trio nearly got lynched by the anti gay mob at the gas station when they travelled through the deep south in the good old US of A about 3 years ago
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yes or no please.
No.
It's still the best, there's nothing else quite like it...but you are right, there's slippage and that is disappointing. To some extent contrived is acceptable to me...but...only to a degree and I think it has gone too far.
Last nights episode was the best of the three most recent ones...but for me the litmus paper is 'er indoors'. She used to watch them with me and laugh right through them. Now she's indifferent.
There's so many things the 3 of them could challenge each other on e.g.
- choose a classic racer, explain their choice, have a degree of input in preparing it and have a professional driver race it...to see which one comes first, with a handicap/class points sytem.
- 4x4 off road event, choose a vehicle each and compete with each other. (May would have a Suzuki Vitara, Hammond would have some Yank thing and Clarkson would end up with the biggest V8 he could find).
The format definitely needs tidying IMO.
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Ok Mick, the majority of top gear watchers think the show is not as good as it was three years ago. You, alas are in the minority. Minorities dont get the programmes they want (unless you are a "cultural" or religeous minority).
So my friend, we can assume viewer figures are dropping and BBC audience focus groups are saying what we are saying. This means, unless Top gear bucks up its ideas - its gonna get the boot.
They wont make many more after this series.
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Is top gear as good as it was three years ago?
Yes or No.
Haven't a clue. It was always extremely variable.
I didn't like the Lancia feature. The pile of rusty iron and the Beta Coupe with bits falling off (how much did the latter cost I wonder) were briefly amusing, but then they ruined it by giving too much attention to some models and none at all to others (where was the B20 for example, and why didn't we see some of those marvellous twenties tourers?). The ground-breaking, radical thirties Aprilia was passed over in a trice, thrown away. And one could easily get the impression that the whole point about Lancias was the way they looked - indeed this view was explicitly put forward. Three out of ten, being severe.
I usually enjoy watching complete unknowns (stars indeed!) trying to make a Lacetti go fast, but find that Evans man such a turn-off that I turned off.
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I always watch it on iPlayer so when it gets to the Star in a reasonably priced car segment, I just skip that bit (unless I'm actually interested in the person Clarkson is interviewing).
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AE: No, it's not as good as 3 years ago - it is definitely tired.
But I'll still watch it because its still the best car programme on TV (apart from the Dave re-runs)
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Agreed, still watch it, but it is very tired. Would be interesting to see if HJ has any "insight" into the program ie. does JC think its tired and a radical change on the way, or is TG now a side show for his other commercial spin offs etc?
I suppose at the end of the day, while its successful and being sold all round the world then it will continue.
Its about as genuine as RH's Morrisons Xmas adverts that are filmed in June.....
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Steve Wright was talking to James May on his R2 show today. May insisted that the race results were not staged at all, but that they did go back after the race and take some more shots for to help the film along.
Not sure about that ...
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"Anyone else think its better than three years ago?"
NO!
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No.
Sunday night I had been got up in the night by the kids and then woken up early.
I would normally have wandered off to make a drink during SIARPC, this time I decided to give up and go to bed and read because it was falling below my threshold for entertainment.
The last series was starting to slip in my estimation, I don't think I will bother with the rest of this one.
I.
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Well i thought TG was very good as usual
Im not interested if it was better than 3 years ago.
I thought the lancia piece was very good and showed all the people in this country and on this forum that cared to watch it that lancia made some dammed fine cars more than a beta that was famous because it was on witchdog
ive seen lancia 4 wheeled integralies do £10,000 and they have been so smashed up you wouldnt value them at 30 bob so stick that in your pipes.Top programme in a world of political correctness
well done jc
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>>Top programme in a world of political correctness
I'd 100% agree with that bit
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Blimey bell boy, would you be happy if they watered your beer down?
you lot should have been at Brooklands for Italian day a few years back. More lancia Delta HF integrales than you could shake a stick at. It was enough to make you weep with joy.
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its still the best car programme on TV
Appart from the Cable/Satalite stuff its the only one that "purports" to be a motoring programme on terestial TV, so its hardly got any competition... having said that I watched it back-to-back with that "Joy of Motoring" prog last night on iplayer... I fast forwarded most of TG, but watched the whole of the other, one was intelligent, plenty of clips of motoring and some useful insights and reminises, the other was childish rubbish...
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Top Gear is what Friday Night with Wossy is to Parkinson. Two different things entirely with just the mildest of common themes.
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witchdog
An even better typo than Rattle's "pishrods"! :-)
FWIW I think TG is doing just fine, I found this week's episode eminently watchable from start to finish and not just because I know the area in question.
It was interesting to see the Lambo round the roundabout outside Marshalls Peugeot in St Neots and head off straight past a "Suffolk" sign...
- - - -
No.1 Shed at Cardington (they are Sheds, not Hangars), the tatty one, is Grade I listed and on the At Risk register. No.2 Shed was restored about 15 years ago and has been used for a variety of purposes since:
bit.ly/9204X9 (link to Airship Heritage Trust site)
bit.ly/7WELqL (link to Wikipedia article on Cardington)
It takes 20 minutes to climb the stairs up to roof level, there was indeed a house inside No.2 Shed, used by the Buildings Research Establishment for fire testing, as were a 6-storey wood-frame apartment block and a couple of aeroplane fuselages.
Given the right temperature and humidity levels, it is possible for it to snow inside the Sheds.
Edited by Dave_TD {P} on 03/12/2009 at 10:55
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It was interesting to see the Lambo round the roundabout outside Marshalls Peugeot in St Neots and head off straight past a "Suffolk" sign...
When they were driving in San Francisco in one series they got the sequences driving across bridges totally wrong. And the direction of travel too in the edit.
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"It takes 20 minutes to climb the stairs up to roof level... "
Are the sheds visitable by the public, does anyone know? Mrs Dipstick, who is much more into things like planes and trains than I am would dearly like to explore Cardington.
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About twenty years ago, when Airship Industries were giving flights to the public I was able to get up close. They're massive. They can be seen from the railway, south of Bedford heading towards Luton.
Before that I was part of a group that were given a guided tour of of the RAF museum's reserve stock that was stored at Cardington. Mainly uniforms and vehicles IIRC that were in high demand for film work. They had a guy there who was building a wing for some old stringbag. The staff were complaining they could never cover it as it was almost french-polished!
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Are the sheds visitable by the public?
Sadly not. I used to make deliveries to two or three different offices there from time to time as a parcel courier and before that as a plant hire driver, hence the access into the buildings. A hard hat used to be necessary inside IIRC, to guard against the risk of falling bolts, small pieces of structure etc.
I could not possibly comment about the apparent absence of any restrictions on entry to the grounds however, and would certainly not suggest that it could be possible to drive through the gates from the A600 unchallenged and make one's way to, around and even between the sheds during working hours when the gates are open and several different organisations are using the site, as that would probably cheese them off no end. Far better IMO to try contacting someone like these people: www.hybridairvehicles.net/ and asking nicely if Mrs D could come and have a look around their factory as she has an interest in its heritage.
Edited by Dave_TD {P} on 03/12/2009 at 13:47
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Will a 'virtual' tour do?
tinyurl.com/yd5wu65
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Both the tour and the hint/link are much appreciated. Thank you.
If I can tear Mrs D away from rushing off to see the No. 60163 every other weekend I'll see if I can't set something up.
Edited by Dipstick on 03/12/2009 at 14:17
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Andy Wilman (TG producer) admits in today's Sun that the incident at Norwich airport was staged. There was a professional baloon pilot in the caravan with James May (off camera), and the Police helicopter was a private one painted up to look real.
Quelle surprise!!
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Oh it is such a suprise. You know, I thought Star Wars was real until my wife told me it wasnt. Innocence lost I tell ya :)
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Tell her Tornado is stashed in cardington sheds.
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"Tell her Tornado is stashed in cardington sheds."
Given that she knows the routes sufficiently that she is able to find the precise point on each run where she can wave her bloomers at the darn thing a la Jenny Agutter to maximum effect I think she'll rumble that one.
I'll tell her the sheds have their own weather. She'll need no other encouragement to measure precipitation.
What she finds very annoying is that I went around Cardington as a small person - was given the tour and all - and my memory is of a "quite big thingy, I expect." This is apparently insufficient detail.
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Tell her the story of the R101. That might provoke sufficient interest
Edited by Altea Ego on 03/12/2009 at 15:29
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i thought tonights episode was one of the best in a long time. Has been slipping of late.
Renault twingo is great!
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Rather surprising to see a new car destroyed in that way (unless the crashing & sinking of the Twingo was magically spoofed..). I think the studio audience were also a bit stunned to see that too. Rather crass in my view.
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I suspect Renault paid for the car :) I liked the review, added a bit of fun but also some how managed to do a proper review while joking.
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Self indulgent rubbish - the super 4x4 test was the only car related thing really - that Twingo wrecking stunt was as silly and pointless as that "race" at the start.
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Cars are self-indulgent, unless you drive something like a 2CV which isnt much of an indulgence on any level.
I actually thought it was refreshing to see JC actually acknowledge the pointlessness of a large engined car over the smaller diesel versions - id say thats progress for him!
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So how does the Twingo thing work between TV company and Renault?
I agree, TG gave it a great review and for the cost to Renault of scrapping the car, they got great PR out of it.
So would this have been determined at the planning stage? TG will give car a great review and in return you will let us scrap it? Or did Renault allow them to do that anyway not knowing what sort of review it would get?
Also,must have taken a lot of co-operation to allow the filming and driving through the docks? And the car was obviously "explosively" sent over the edge into the water, that would have taken a bit of setting up as well I would have thought!
And I take it the Kemp boy is very short of work just now!!
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Even Mrs Dipstick, who cares little about cars and less about computer graphics, looked up from her needlework at the Twingo going off the dock and said "CGI". Looked very unconvincing to me.
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Manufacturers take a calculated risk and look at the cost to them v/s buying commercial airtime. Toyota was laughing all the way to the bank when it donated ten Aygos for a Top Gear car 'football' match. Cost them about £35,000 for 10 minutes of airtime viewed by 6,000,000 just the first showing, and possibly 20,000,000 or more on repeats. No brainer. That's why the pick-up that drove to the North Pole was a Toyota. That's why Toyota supplied the spanners to keep the indestructible pick-up running. Priceless publicity.
HJ
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Trouble is it plays into the hands of anti-car people. What about testing the car in Belfast and handing it to a Belfast family to run for a few months with some updates ?
The oil slick from the car seemed fake. I doubt whether they'd be allowed to dump a car in the sea these days - environmental impact and all that.
I just see deliberate vandalism a bit childish - JC acting like a juvenile delinquent ????
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>>I just see deliberate vandalism a bit childish - JC acting like a juvenile delinquent ????
Yes - that's entirely the 'message' that come across. I understand (as HJ point out..) the actual real cost to TG/Renault/marketing company is a small % of a decimal point in any promotional budget & no doubt the publicity/advertising pays for it many times over & is probably less than the cost of the trip to Dublin for the weekend & mini-bar bills for the team.
- But the point is in deliberate (and gleeful) destruction & dumping rubbish into the sea. .
That disrespect filters down as the country lane fly-tipper, the saturday afternoon high street litter dropper & to the casual vandal at the bus stop. The subliminal message is: it's cool not to care & it doesn't matter anyway.
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I liked the bit where it did a sort of loop-the-loop in the tunnel - I thought it was real at the time but who knows. Didn't like the jump into the sea, real or otherwise, could see it coming a mile off as well.
I don't do many miles so I've put my order in for the Range Rover :-)
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There was some joking here about popping to the BMW dealer today to buy that manic X5 thing, I have to say the British car was far better looking and performed better and the joking soon turned to popping to the local Landie dealer and buying a diesel Rangie.......
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I did like the Range Rover with the wooden interior and fridge. Not much room in the boot left with the gun cabinet and booze cabinet though I thought.
The window licker's X5 and Volvo will probably plummet in value from new so as 3 or 4 year old cars they'll be madness on a shoestring :-)
TG is just entertainment with a slight hint of cars. It's like Last of the Summer wine with denim.
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FIAT did the tunnel looping thing in a commercial back in the 1980s. It was real.
HJ
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There was something dome in Belfst's sewers quite recently (car related of course)
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I seem to recall it was during the construction of those sewers in Belfast that they filmed the sewer scenes for the original Italian Job film. So JC was just recreating that for that part of the show.
In fact I bet the idea was the sewer scene and they did all the rest around that idea as an excuse.
Edit: No it was Coventry for the movie... but there was a new section being built in Belfast. Knew I'd read it somewhere though:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8163272.stm
And to quote: "A NI Water spokesperson said the company put forward a number of proposals to the BBC last year and the idea to film a Top Gear episode at the Belfast Sewers Project was developed from there."
Edited by rtj70 on 07/12/2009 at 11:57
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I find myself in agreement with bell boy. It never ceases to amaze me how so many people get so wound up by this programme.
Clarkson himself has been quoted as saying that TG is just "fluff and entertainment", and that he cannot believe anyone would take it seriously. Yet so many people try to, and when it proves to be completely unsuited to being taken remotely seriously at all, proceed to rant about it. Watch it, and accept it for the fluff and entertainment that it was designed to be, or don't watch it. It's really very simple.
Speaking personally, I get much more entertainment from these three looning around, crashing airships, abusing the PC lobby, and generally doing the kind of things I would pay good money to be able to get away with, than I ever got from watching William Woolard explain how Vauxhall achieved the impressively low drag coefficient of a mk3 Cavalier. If I want humdrum information about humdrum cars, I will go and buy a car mag, or take a trip to a dealership. Top Gear used to do this, and it died a slow death, just as it would do now if it were to revert to that format.
This programme is one of a handful ever to exist on TV that is still capable of making me cry with laughter.
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Well done DP for a post I agree 100% with.
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I appreciate what you're saying, but don't see how deliberately smashing up what appears to be a sound car passes for entertainment though - I just don't get it. I accept it's no longer a motoring magazine. Dumbed down stuff and has become a vehicle for big egos.
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I find it diverting. It's just a comedy show with a motoring theme. Not perfect in its format but a welcome change from the "strictly come ice factors in the jungle" rubbish. It is not, in my view anyway, meant to be a motoring documentary. It's just lighthearted fun. There are quite a lot of other channels available now for those who don't like it.
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As I watched the twingo flying into the sea last night, I could almost key the keyboards rattling as the wittering old women plumped up their complaint glands in readiness.
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I see - you can't harbour a contrary view without being insulted - how grown up.
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And you can't recognise a tongue in cheek comment ....
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PU, Formula 1 is supposed to be entertaining yet they sometimes manage to smash up millions of pounds worth of cars on the first bend. Will you write in and complain about that to the BBC?
Edited by Mick Snutz on 07/12/2009 at 12:48
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PU Formula 1 is supposed to be entertaining yet they sometimes manage to smash up millions of pounds worth of cars on the first bend. Will you write in and complain about that to the BBC?
I was going to say that Formula 1 drivers don't go out of their way to crash deliberately, but then I remembered Renault and Nelson Piquet Junior ;-)
With regards to the crash, I thought that the Twingo bobbing up and down in the sea in the aftermath looked like a fake. I was sitting quite far away from the TV at the time, so I could be wrong about that.
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Uh oh! Just as I anticipated - the TG-Police are out in force at the merest hint of criticism of their beloved trio and/or TG content & any contravention of the rules is met by a chorus 'don't watch it then'. How boring life would be if we were all cajoled into having the same opinion!
What the TG-Police like to criticise in others as PC-ness & of not having a sense of humour is rapidly becoming their trademark. Irony or what!
I didn't think the concept of review/critical appraisal was difficult to grasp, but perhaps I misjudged that.
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any contravention of the rules is met by a chorus 'don't watch it then'.
I'm sorry, but what other sensible response is there to the people who, week after week, watch it and then complain about it? There's loads of stuff on TV that makes me froth at the mouth with rage, but it's not going to change because I hate it. Big Brother being one - it makes me incandescent with rage, so I don't watch it. I fail to see any scenario where watching it and ranting about it would achieve anything except my early demise from this life through high blood pressure.
I can only conclude that a lot of people on this forum, and in the wider world in general must enjoy making themselves angry, or simply crave repeated disappointment ;-) Why else would you watch something you don't like?
Edited by DP on 07/12/2009 at 13:36
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I agree with DP.
Hence my previous comment. As soon as I saw the twingo being trashed I knew people would be desperate to complain about it. And then complain if anyone counters their complaint. And so on!
I hate Eastenders. I don't watch it. I don't go on forums to complain about it after watching it!
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DP,
It's a vain hope that it might contain something of interest (i.e. cars/bikes) - It doesn't cause me high blood pressure, I have had plenty of things that have though - it's just a real shame that the original (JC version) of TG has degenerated into one stunt after another. JC was at the cutting edge of motor journalism when he wrote for Performance Car and when he first started in TG - but what's happened ?
Maybe you're right I should watch or do something else though, I have genuinely tried to enjoy it - that's all. The Twingo test appeared to be sensible if showy test and actually made me want to go to NI on a holiday to experience it's excellent roads. But seeing a grown, professional journalist descend to smashing up what appeared to be a decent motor is daft. Not my sense of humour - That might make me a saddo but there's enough on the telly that does appeal to my sense of humour though
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I agree with PU about the schoolboy destructiveness, even more perhaps when it involves caravans or Marinas than the new small cars which (HJ reminds us) are supplied free by the manufacturers for a bit of bargain advertising.
It doesn't really upset me though, any more than the rather forced big set-piece races (Lamborghini beaten through rush-hour traffic by man on unicycle, that sort of thing) or the succession of usually completely unknown people abusing an oriental shoebox.
What does get on my nerves sometimes is the dumbed-down approach to actual motoring history, like the Lancia feature last week. There's no need for that, and the presenters should correct the stuff written for them when, as must often be the case, they know better.
I will still watch it at least for a few minutes when I happen to notice it's on though. It may not really be about motoring but it has cars in it. And Jeremy Clarkson is agreeably offensive. Can't help thinking he must be a pussycat in the flesh though.
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>>I appreciate what you're saying, but don't see how deliberately smashing up what appears to be a sound car passes for entertainment though <<
Clearly never watched Smokey and the Bandit or The Blues Brothers then :-)
Infact, show me an action film where there isnt some sort of vehicle that gets smashed up.
I have to confess, the figures for the Q7 V12 diesel are impressive - I wonder what the mpg is, anyone know? I clean a Q7 and frankly, I much prefer the interior to a RR which feels cramped by comparison. Totally in awe of that cabinet making.
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Perhaps if Top Gear drove the BMW, Range Rover and Q7 to destruction in order to find the 'best luxury off-roader' that would be very enteraining.
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I have to confess the figures for the Q7 V12 diesel are impressive - I wonder what the mpg is anyone know?
I THINK that it's 25mpg combined.
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I know the BBC is renowned for its repeats, and Top Gear last night continued that trend.
Launch a Twingo into the sea - er, Stig did that with a Jag from an aircraft carrier a few years ago.
Airport vehicles racing around the track while also having a banger race. Hampster's done this before with mobile homes, and countless other vehicles.
I had to check last night whether I actually tuned into BBC2 or another repeat of TG on Dave.
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From my own perspective, I think it has fallen from its hugely entertaining peak. The decline started in the last series and has continued in this.
The fact is that top gear used to be a "dont miss" sunday evening TV fest for all my family, and my son and I used to cry painful laughter at some of the items, with even Nicole happy to sit and laugh with us.
Its fallen from that pinicle, and still falling fast. The format is tired, and they are running out of ideas. Its not fresh and exicting any more. This is just natural life cyle of TV.
I missed it last night because i forgot it was on. Thats because it does not register as "must watch" any more.
I may zip through it on Iplayer in HD at some stage this week.
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Wholeheartedly agree AE - my thoughts exactly - it's like seeing a favourite uncle's slow decline.
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