Quotulatiousness

December 14, 2023

What Top Gear Really Meant

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Aididan
Published 13 Aug 2023

Top Gear is one of the most bizarre shows to ever exist. Not because of the quality of the show or anything, but rather because of how it evolved over the course of its existence. What exactly is it about Top Gear that makes it so special? Well, watch the video and find out.

Or don’t, I’m not your mother.

December 12, 2023

Rolling a Reliant Robin | Top Gear | BBC

Filed under: Britain, History, Humour — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Top Gear
Published 26 Nov 2010

Jeremy takes the extreme sport of Reliant Robin rolling to the streets of Barnsley, aided by a string of celebrities who just happen to be on hand to help keep the fabled three-wheeler upright.
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September 19, 2023

Jeremy Clarkson’s The Greatest Raid of All

Filed under: Britain, France, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

North One
Published 4 May 2020

Due to copyright restrictions, some music and scenes have been altered or removed in this upload. You can find the original unaltered documentary here: The Story Of The …

Jeremy Clarkson tells the story of the audacious commando raid on the German occupied dry dock at St Nazaire in France on March 28th 1942. Made for the BBC in 2007 by North One.
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January 23, 2023

Jeremy Clarkson and “the swamp of arrogant prejudice and self-gratification which sits at the bottom of the brain”

Filed under: Britain, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Nicholas Harris recounts the story of Jeremy Clarkson’s steady rise and sudden recent fall after a crude reference to someone or other in a newspaper article:

Screencap from Jeremy Clarkson’s banned Hawkstone Lager ad

“Ask Clarkson. Clarkson knows — people like fast cars, they like females with big boobies, and they don’t want the Euro, and that’s all there is to it.” This surmise, from Peep Show, captures the essence of Jeremy Clarkson’s Noughties appeal — approvingly for those who liked him, and scandalously for those who didn’t. The spawn and spokesman of the English male id. Insular, impudent and straightforward in taste. And if that weren’t enough, he was also into cigs, engines and the Second World War.

For the minority of a more severe, moralistic, and joyless disposition, this made him a national-psychological defect to be suppressed, or ideally exposed and exorcised. Before Piers Morgan, Nigel Farage or Donald Trump provided such stern competition, it was a small badge of honour on the Left to publicly hate Clarkson. But for many of us (probably a majority at his peak) he was a vulgar treat to indulge. For the length of a Sunday column or an episode of Top Gear, we could wallow harmlessly in the swamp of arrogant prejudice and self-gratification which sits at the bottom of the brain. At a time of minimal collective loyalty, the nation could reliably divide into those two tribes. Clarkson the monster, or Clarkson the geezer. Wokery vs blokery. A version of the same split is fuelling the current Clarkson row, but with the weight of opinion reversed.

[…]

But his spiritual and popular appointment to the English is a far tougher thing to dismiss. He is, like it or not, quite a lot of us writ ludicrously, satirically large. Like a 21st-century John Bull: to paraphrase Auden, a self-confident, swaggering bully of meaty neck and clumsy jest. Whatever Clarkson’s professional fate, the question of whether our society can tolerate him has implications for the stomach and sensibility of the national character, of which he is a significant avatar and champion. And his rise and fall reads as a history of a changing English firmament, one in which public morality has come to supersede mere entertainment.

Plenty of time and work went into the germination of such a figure. Clarkson’s early life is a whistle-stop tour of the English class system. He was born rural, lower-middle class, Yorkshire. But, in a wonderful twist of fate, the Clarkson family came into money after his parents won the exclusive rights to sell Paddington Bear dolls, based on the ones they had made for him and his sister. With aspirational intent, Clarkson was sent to Repton, one of the North’s oldest private schools. There, he smoked, pranked and failed his way to expulsion, developing the likeable loutishness which is his career mainstay. And then he jumped social tracks again, entering the lowest rungs of the Fourth Estate at the Rotherham Advertiser.

A public schoolboy who can still boast that he crashed out of education with a C and two Us at A Level. The ingredients were in place for a broad, classless appeal. But Clarkson really came of professional age in the new meritocracy of Thatcher and Murdoch, a place where common touch came to supersede common background (something also exploited by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage). It was an England of quick, coarse wit, and quicker, coarser money; of the triumphant red-top, and the unrepentant “lad”. It suited Clarkson perfectly. Flush with entrepreneurial spirit, in Eighties London he had the wheeze of syndicating car news and reviews from his own company to the regional press. It was a money-maker which introduced him to motoring journalism and eventually to the producers of Top Gear.

June 21, 2019

Jeremy Clarkson’s Motorworld UK Special

Filed under: Britain, History, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Matthew Lowry
Published on 19 Nov 2016

This is the last episode of Motorworld (BBC WORLDWIDE), the extremely rare UK Special. All copyrights go to their respective owners.

June 17, 2019

How does RADAR work? | James May Q&A | Head Squeeze

Filed under: History, Military, Science, Technology, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

BBC Earth Lab
Published on 29 Nov 2013

How does RADAR work? It’s a bit like shouting very loudly at a cliff and waiting for the echo to come back to you. Whether you use rude words or not is completely up to you.

RADAR is emitting a sound wave and waiting for the echo to come back to you. By timing the returning echo you can work out where exactly another object is.

The really interesting thing about radar is if you use multiple angled receivers you can work out the position and height of a target. This technology was essential in winning the Battle of Britain in 1940.

But that was 1940, what about radar now? Is it as defunct as the 3 ½ inch floppy disk? Well, no actually. Radar is still pretty important in the military but the technology is a lot more advanced. In fact each time you connect to a sat nav to figure out where you are, you are using the network of satellites that calculate your position using the same principles of radar.

Thanks to Alyssa Ann for her portrait of Jeremy Clarkson: http://alyssamenold.com/

April 30, 2019

James May explains the time he nearly killed Jeremy Clarkson

Filed under: Americas, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

DRIVETRIBE
Published on 31 Mar 2019

With the Grand Tour trio having been on camera together for over 16 years now, you can forgive them for getting annoyed at each other every once in a while. James May tells us the story of a night in Argentina that put his friendship with Jeremy Clarkson to the test. One piece of advice for everyone out there – don’t let the fire go out.

December 15, 2018

Season 3 of The Grand Tour to be the final one

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

The TV trio of James May, Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson are giving up the show after the third season, due to begin in January, and will instead move on to “Hollywood budget” specials on Amazon Prime:

An emotional Jeremy Clarkson has revealed he will walk away from the studio car shows that helped turn him into a household name following the third series of The Grand Tour.

The outspoken presenter, 58, will give up on the traditional format employed by the hugely popular Amazon show and long-running BBC flagship Top Gear after more than 17 years.

However, fans needn’t be alarmed since Clarkson – joined by co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May – has inked a new deal with Amazon Prime for a fourth series of the show in a brand new format.

[…]

‘It’s a really sad day,’ Clarkson later told The Sun. ‘I will miss the banter with each other and with the audience. But we’ve been doing that show for effectively 17 years — sitting around in studios, watching cars race around the track.’

He added: ‘We all agreed that we’ve been doing it a long time and everything eventually runs its course. Besides, I’m 58 and I’m too fat to be climbing on to the stage.’

Clarkson, Hammond and May will now focus on a series of extravagant, big-budget specials over the next two years that will take them away from their usual studio environment.

I’m far from a petrol-head, but I’ve been a fan of Clarkson/Hammond/May for several years, and I still barely know anything about cars…

July 23, 2018

Jeremy Clarkson is a maniac

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Ove Bakken
Published on 19 Oct 2017

March 23, 2018

The Grand Tour James May Running

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Grand Tour Fans
Published on 16 Mar 2018

Do you think James May never ran on TV and during the episode of The Grand Tour where Jeremy Clarkson drove the Ford GT was the first time ever?

Well you’re wrong. In the third season of James May Man Lab he ran on public TV. Check out this video and see James Running (twice !!)

February 13, 2018

The Grand Tour: Legally Tesla

Filed under: Business, Humour, Law, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Grand Tour
Published on 12 Feb 2018

In a test of the Tesla Model X, Jeremy Clarkson is joined by lawyers in this legally perilous task.

****These observations about the Tesla Model X are made in Clarkson’s personal capacity and should not be regarded as any statement or opinion by any other person or entity about the general safety, road worthiness, mechanical effectiveness, or any other standards of the vehicle about this specific model or any other Tesla vehicle.

January 23, 2018

Top Gear – lost in translation

Filed under: Britain, France, Humour, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Jean Girard
Published on 26 Feb 2009

James May and Jeremy Clarkson discover the perils of a literal translation.

December 19, 2017

James May and Jeremy Clarkson on cycle safety – Top Gear: Series 21 Episode 5 – BBC Two

Filed under: Britain, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

BBC
Published on 19 Mar 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear Jeremy Clarkson and James May cycle around the streets of London after shooting a public information film to promote safer cycling.

October 1, 2017

The Grand Tour Cast on Amazon vs the BBC, cars, and being recognized in Syria

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

British GQ
Published on 19 Sep 2017

Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond discuss how they feel waking up as cultural icons, where they have (and haven’t) been spotted across the world and what to expect from The Grand Tour season 2. The Grand Tour are GQ’s TV Personalities of the year at the 2017 Men of the Year awards.

July 19, 2017

What is the best British sports car? Clarkson’s Car Years – BBC

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Published on 14 Apr 2008

Jeremy Clarkson has all the answers in this clip from Clarkson’s Car Years. His conclusion is typical Clarkson!

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