top gear now starting on bbc1 1800pm

sorry its on bbc2

AAAAHHHH

and 2 hours ago?

anyone want a caravan?? :)

On Top Gear? never.

It's as real as WWF Wrestling...

That Clackson is an idiot. He didn't know what to do with a chip pan fire and the whole caravan went up in flame. Absolutely pathetic. We watched in abject horror the whole sequence from preparing the chips, to panic in front of the fire, to the burnt out shell of the caravan. Or, was that a put up job for the camera?!

I once remember a time...............

A time long ago.................

And it wasn't in a Galaxy far far away.................

When men were real men.................

When women were real women....................

And Top Gear actually gave you useful information you wanted to know, like reviews on the latest offerings from the car manufacturers, what's right and wrong with a particular car. What legal issues would affect you as a driver. This was what people wanted to know...............and it was good.

But the writing was on the wall, when they used a muckspreader on a Vauxhall Sintra. The rot was setting in.

Then some idiot let that p**t Clarkson have editorial control over the content of the show and the disaster that is Top Gear 2000+ was born, with the result that I went off to other offerings (channel 4 did well out of it) in the knowledge that nothing could sink so low as the three idiots fronting that BBC show.

PDH

Perhaps you think the camera just happened to be there...

The message from "Paul Hubbard" contains these words:

And we had Tomorrows World (before they dumbed it down so much that people stopped watching it - then took it off because no one watched it) and Horizon did difficult subjects in depth instead of being a vehicle for ever more glitzy graphics, and we had The Great Egg Race and Scrapheap Challenge and other gems.

Scrapheap Challenge?? now that was a good one.

I fondly remember the first series of The Adventure Game too, which was rapidly dumbed down to Top Gear levels.

I hope you mean that was a good ironic comment from the previous post - scraphead non-challenge was rubbish. You are aware they just shove the odd tested-working engine in a scrapyard and then some geeks design it? It's crap, as are the presenters.

Neither does a large percentage of the country.

The message from "Robert" contains these words:

Oddly, we're not all stupid. However, the early series were good fun. Obviously some stuff was seeded into the dump, but with a modicum of sense you can see that for the game to work that would have to be the case. It doesn't detract from the entertainment of watching people bodge things together. Personally I'd have done without the "Expert advisors", some of whom seemed to hinder more than they helped.

That's entertainment. He's not (quite) like that for real.

Not many people can deal with it.

Pathetic? Despite knowing it's scripted I was still wetting myself with laughter.

Noooo you don't think so, do you?

Of the 800,000 or whatever, caravanners, how come most of the ones I experience are as inept as the Top Gear example?

A properly driven caravan in a car that's capable of towing it doesn't adversely effect the traffic flow. Numpties who tow once a year in something that is not wholly suitable, *that* is pathetic.

Is the truth so close that it hurts?

Having towed aplenty, much of it is down to the technique and knowing how to drive the complete package. Tailgating another caravan, tailgating another, tailgating another over a hilly, twisty road is utterly, utterly pathetic.

Oh and I want one of those funky signs for the back of the car... :)

None of these can outshine the incomparable James Burke's series of alternative history of civilization as seen from the progress of science and technology, ?"Connections", screened in the early 70's. It bettered even the venerated Bronowski's "Ascent of Man", which to me was utter dross.

Hmmmm. James Burke, the man who made his name during the Apollo 13 crisis as a very junior science reporter for the then half decent beeb, who when asked by his bosses if the 13 thing was no big deal put his career on the line and insisted that they cover the story.

And the rest is history as they say.

Connections, and latterly Connections 2, again half decent programs of quality (and for automotive, look up the name Streebeck, and his experiments on ball bearings - fascinating stuff) which the beeb used to specialise in. But no more, Horizon is hit and miss, eve the hit stuff is sensationalised for the shallow end of the gene pool.

So much for highbrow tv.

PDH

Actually I don't drive a caravan. :)

Heh. I'll wager to a good chunk that it is.

I cannot remember laughing so hard at what looked like a set up crunch into a lamp post followed by much sour faces...