The Clarkson guy describing the gear set up on the Porsche was interesting as the real Clarkson has described that gear set up as well.
The Aussie gave a technical description. Clarkson’s description was “It’s like having a butler waiting with your next gear”
The important question for me is this: is the Australian version going to actually displace the English version? Am I going to miss out on the good version because the bad local version (assuming it remains bad) has pushed it out? Or are they going to show both?
I’ll keep watching, if I remember to look out for it. New episodes of Top Gear ain’t on right now and though Dave shows about 20 repeat episodes a day, that does get tiresome.
Thats it for this week, we’ll see you next sunday, or, if you are watching this on Dave, in about 5 minutes
Classic Clarkson
Si
Is it as bad as UK Dragon’s Den? The camerawork in that is probably supposed to create a modern, thrusting impression, but once you notice it, it completely distracts from the show. Awful!
Well, the AWD Sand-to-Snow challenge from Top Gear Oz was up on YouTube (actually for a few days), and…it was alright, I guess. Not particular funny in the TopGear UK way, but it had its moments. I had to root for Charlie, as he drove a Toyota Rav4, a descendant of my own 2000 Rav… 
I had a bit of difficulty distiguishing between between the James May (Warren?) and Richard Hammond (Steve?) analogs - they look kinda the same to me. (The Clarkson analog is clearly Charlie, of course).
On TopGear UK, May is always getting his butt kicked racing in urban areas against teenage boys on things like BMX bikes or Skate boards or whatever (or even men in rubber suits crossing rivers)…then utters his trademark ‘Cock’ :dubious: - not sure how much creepier than that Warren could be.
The coolest part was hearing, on a native English language program…er programme, the use of ‘Kilowatts’ when referring to engine power - there’s hope for humanity yet 
I watched James May’s Big Ideas the other night, and was entertained to see that the registration on his aeroplane is G-OCOK.
This is my thread.
You can pit Clarkson.
You can pit Hammond, if you must.
But no pitting James because James is perfect.
I agree. Clarkson is a bumptious, overbearing prat. He can be a bit funny, but his jokes and his banter get old and formulaic. He is (as Mangetout once put it) a professional troll. To be fair, I guess the formula works in part because of the drama created by this, but that doesn’t mean I like the guy.
Hammond I see as a bit dull, really. He can be amusing but not very. I think he’s a bit personality deficient.
May is thoughtful, interesting and shows real and original wit. Even though one of the premises of the show is that May’s very purpose is to provide a butt for the other two’s jokes, it’s May himself who is the best at taking the piss out of May, and you’ve got to admire that. He makes these little asides that sometimes get lost in the other two’s loudness but which are actually often the funniest lines in the show. OK, he’s eccentric, but I’d rather watch and listen to an eccentric than a smooth and dull TV personality any day.
Firstly, the rubber suit guy raced against May. Most of the other of those silly race things were against Clarkson or Hammond.
Secondly, where are you from? “Cock” as a mild expletive is not that uncommon in the UK IME and I’ve never before heard any suggestion that it’s creepy.
No cite, but I get the feeling some of this is due to the brain trauma he suffered in his 300mph crash.
Nah, he was like that before. I mean he’s pleasant and chirpy, but really I just don’t find him interesting.
Kilowatts? What the fuck? Kilowatts are what you use to measure the power of… I dunno, an electric kettle or maybe a hairdryer.
Horsepower: conjures images of wild mustangs straining at a fraying lasso rope as they thunder across the desert.
Kilowatts: suggests browsing through the Argos catalogue for kitchen appliances.
Cars should not be measured in kilowatts, unless they’re battery-powered and designed for arthritic pensioners. :mad:
Not necessarily - looking over the topgear youtube entries, I remember May losing to the teens in Budapest, the Parcour? runners in Liverpool, the bmx rider in Lisbon, and a few others I can’t remember (of course). Hammond did lose to that skater in the downhill challenge, until he got a bigger truck :p. Since ‘Dave’ isn’t available here, I only watch Top Gear via the web (YouTube or the TopGear site itself), and naturally those clips tend to showcase the various challenges (like the Italian Supercar challenge, which was indeed amongst the TopGear presenters ‘Scattered around Southern England’), but the funky races (human-powered vs car) do seem to feature May more often than not (and always losing - even when it was him in a car vs Hammond in a Olympic bobsled).
The Mid-Atlantic US, so it’s somewhat rare around these parts except for sexual/curse connotations; cock-s*ck, cock-block - therefore it usually gets a chuckle out of me when Captain Slow utters it.
In the US the frigging Vaccum cleaners are rated in Horsepower, along with many other power tools which should more reasonably be rated in kWs, so HP conjures up images of crappy shop vacs and 3rd-rate Harbor-Freight bandsaws…wait, how do wild mustangs thunder across the desert while straining at a lasso anyway?
Agreed 100%. Kilowatts are for vacuum cleaners and dryers and Laser Death Rays and other things which plug into a wall and run on electricity.
I’m certainly not put in mind of the manliness of a V8 ute full of hot women and beer when I see the engine power measured in kilowatts, that’s for sure.
There’s a wiki page (ain’t there always?): Top Gear races - Wikipedia
The score for silly races of presenter against some other third party is 10 for Hammond, 6 for May and 5 for Clarkson.
I still can’t believe there’s a TV channel called ‘Dave’. Things weren’t so frivolous in my day. We were lucky if we could get ITV South and ITV London on the same TV.
Anyway, I agree that James May is the best Top Gear sidekick, but I fear that he’s more of your thinking bloke’s bloke, so support for him on SDMB may not be representative of mainstream opinion. With Richard Hammond, too often you feel that he is just speaking Jeremy Clarkson’s lines. Xenopohobic rants about the French or whatever just don’t sound right coming out of his mouth. I bet that if he were doing some travel show he’d say whatever the producer wanted about how great Citroen rental cars are, etc. Clarkson gets away with it because he’s funny and you know that he actually wrote it. That, and the fact that he patently loves France, the USA, and most of the countries he slags off.
When I lived in New Zealand, they had a channel called “Orange”. It was a pretty cool channel, too. They renamed it after I moved away.
I had really hoped, when they were talking last week about doing the ‘Ford v Holden’ thing, that it was the beginning of a rudimentary sense of humour.
Nope. They really are that devoid of ideas, on the second week.
