Care work – like war (short periods of excitement etc) but with less blood. 😀

Same amount of excrement though, I’d imagine.

I just wish there was a decent motoring programme on regularly.

Ok, so 6, 1 hour episodes, that’s 360 minutes. I’ll give you 6 stars in a…… which is about 60 minutes, so what do you do in your motoring programme for 300 minutes?

The P1 is amazing. I’m too old for posters but this might just make me change my mind

I NEED that quad bike!

AS per usual well filmed and edited,with some funny parts.

Would it be better less scripted. Ie if Hammond didn’t know clarkson was going to turn up and that quad was a jetski

Just hope the 300-odd laptop batteries didn’t come from Solarstorm 😆

I like cars.
I just wish there was a decent motoring programme on regularly.

Try @drive channel on YouTube.

Would it be better less scripted. Ie if Hammond didn’t know clarkson was going to turn up and that quad was a jetski

Yeah be better if it was genuine.

Still enjoyed tonights episode much better.

Well despite the haters I thought that was rather good. Not too much purile humour, not too much contrived bollocks.
The P1 article was well done and a decent commentary. Plus that car looks like a bit of a handful. I don’t think I’d have the balls to drift an 800k+ car in the wet!

The P1 article was well done and a decent commentary. Plus that car looks like a bit of a handful. I don’t think I’d have the balls to drift an 800k+ car in the wet!

Yup! Watching that thing drifting in the wet was giving me that sphincter tightening sensation, and I was only watching it!
I really, really like the Alfa 4C, that is sex on a stick. Gorgeous.
And the quad, shit-loads of fun.
I do like the fact that they had to shoot the whole thing all over again, the Hamster couldn’t have been terribly surprised, could he… 😉

JC certainly went quiet when the back end kicked out. Not sure who that was drifting it but I bet that was great fun pushing it to that limit.

Lot of style to the P1 review but not enough content for my liking. Would it have been better if it was tested in the dry? And why use Spa to test it – dull.
REALLY wanted that to be a stand out review but it wasn’t. Probably sullied by my current opinion of Clarkson.

On a lighter note, I enjoyed the Alfa-Como piece having stayed in the hills off Como a few years back and driven around in a red Alfa Romeo*
The roads around the lake are tricky – very tight with little margin for error in most places and typically confident driving from every Italian going in the opposite direction.

*Mito 8)

Being serious for a while, the Alfa bit (sans race) and the McLaren bit were ok, but as above, not in depth enough.
Half an hour on each would have been a much better programme, surely?

I may have mentioned it elsewhere, but I don’t think Clarkson is fit to be on the telly, so replace him and Hammond with Suzi Perry, VBH, or any one of the many decent motoring journos in the UK.

May is ok. I used to like his Telegraph pieces and he’s a good journo when he keeps his political opnions to himself.
The current three just remind me of a bad episode of Last Of The Summer Wine – they must alienate as many people as they appeal to?

The only people I know who watch TG regularly are dads with small boys – fine, but can we have an intelligent motoring programme for adults?

The Afghanistan piece was a bit odd – no idea what it was supposed to achieve?
Too short to provide any decent insight, it just came across as propoganda.
A proper documentary showing the steps taken to provide decent, safe vehicles for the military would have be interesting and insightful.
This was too short to be either.

Top Gear isn’t a car review programme anymore it’s a light entertainment show that has 3 blokes pissing around in expensive toys.

Which is why we like it.
Who wouldn’t want to trade places for a bit?

Yes I know.
That’s why I don’t like it.

How about if we had a decent, adult motoring show as well?

I guess if there was a need for one then someone would have done one but nope there’s Top Gear and wanna be Top Gear show Fifth Gear.

Because it’s not been tried?
There are lots of things that should be provided by our state broadcaster that aren’t.

You don’t think the demand is there?
Car magazine is a highly respected and hugely successful.
It manages to be funny, informative, insightful and intelligent.

Surely TG would be better suited to a commercial channel?
Popularity is no signifier of worth.

Yes I know.
That’s why I don’t like it.

Yet you still insist on watching it.

Surely TG would be better suited to a commercial channel?

Nope, because then it wouldn’t bring in any money for the beeb, enabling our state broadcaster (your words) to do other things as well.

I’ve covered both those points above.

Live executions would bring in lots of cash for the BBC.
As would a BBC porn channel.
Happy with those?

Yep.

I don’t have to watch them, but others can if they wish. Especially if the bbc makes cash hand over fist showing it.

Fair enough. 😀

I don’t believe money should be the only driver behind programming.

Our views obviously differ quite considerably.

I guess it comes down to whether you’d want to spend time in the company of these sort of blokes.
Personally, if I heard someone talking the way they do in the pub, at work, wherever, I’d avoid them like the plague.

Three Colin Hunts.

Or something that rhymes with that at least.

No sunglasses or goggles on that quadbike/jet-ski… ouch

Top Gear tried to be a serious motoring show once.

Got axed.

Clarkson fought to bring it back as the new format that has morphed into this, purely due to it being popular with viewers.

What would you prefer? Antiques Roadshow?

No-ones said what a ‘serious’ motoring show will be about.
1 hour review of a Ford Focus? Car vs bike debate?

The BBC are between a rock and a hard place. Too popular and it should be on a commercial channel, no viewers, and it’s too elite.

Exactly Milky.

Then along come fith gear which tried to be a serious show and struggled so became faux Top Gear but fails there too now it just doesn’t know what it is.

LOL at all the haters.

Simple figures, it has an audience of 5 million – pretty much the most watched programme at that slot on a sunday AND makes the beeb a boat load of money. It is a successful show, whether you like it or not!

RS, the BBC needs to make money as well as do good stuff. It doesn’t necessarily need to do both with the same programme though.

Its an entertainment show first and foremost.
Different sorts of things entertain different sorts of people.
If Top Gear as a source of entertainment doesn’t entertain you, then watch something else.
Its pretty simple really.
Or you could just go on and on and on and on about how you dont like it. Or are you hoping if you complain long and hard enough on a bike forum thread about it that the BBC will notice it and go “fair enough, we’ll axe it immediately”?

Lets be honest here. Those slagging off Top Gear are just mourning the loss of the days when Sunday evening was the very pinnacle of weekly televisual entertainment. I too, long for those halcyon days. Where you could pour yourself a sweet sherry, maybe get yourself a nice piece of cake, and settle back on the sofa for…..

It’s light hearted Sunday entertainment with cars and blokes with jobs that, let’s face it, we’d all kill to have.

I’d rather watch this to take my mind off the drudgery of work for a bit than some twonk going on about the size of a Renault Clio’s wing mirror for 20 minutes.

Don’t like it? Couldn’t give a shit

no other programme polarizes opinion about whether it is ok to criticise a tele programme on a bicycle forum or not.
maybe there should be two threads each week – one for the Clarkson fanbois and one for adults.

LOL at all the haters.

Thing is though, I don’t think that people are saying they hate it in a (to quote Clarkson) beardy-sandal way, I reckon the “haters” just want it to be better.

I’d like to watch a program about cars presented by people who are funny, and obviously having a laugh. I don’t want to watch reviews about fuel efficiency and that crap, I want bonkers cars going sideways.

The problem with TG now though is that it’s just not that funny any more, and seems to have run out of ideas.

I want bonkers cars going sideways.

To me that gets old very quickly.

The best TG stuff (and there have been some good ones) are the proper adventures they go on, and some of the challenges. Possibly because they aren’t in the same room and hence are less twatty.

and seems to have run out of ideas.

… about 4 years ago.

It generates a lot of hate on here because the aforementioned popularity of the show means that clarksons public attacks on cyclists makes the roads less safe for all us lycra louts

I like it. I think it could be better but as said above faced with top gear or any if the other shite that’s on a Sunday evening top gear wins everyday of the week. Yes it’s a bit tired now but every now and again they throw up something good. I just filter out the crap. I do not and never have taken anything they have ever said seriously. But then I don’t take dad’s army as a serious representation of the home guard during the Second World War.

This weeks episode was a lot better than last weeks, which was complete dirge.

If you want something a bit more in-depth without going full pub bore, Chris Harris on the Drive channel on YouTube is worth a watch.