I hadn't seen that bonus footage, i will post the final cut of the above in the car and bike racing thread. I also have a Travis Pastrana (freestyle motocross) film to upload which I think you will like, it shows his attempt at the worlds first double backflip on a motorbike.
Jeremy Clarkson faces row over new Gordon Brown slurs Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson risks ire after making more offensive comments about the prime minister Leigh Holmwood and Chris Tryhorn
guardian.co.uk,
24 July 2009
Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson is facing new controversy after making more offensive comments about the prime minister, Gordon Brown, two weeks running in front of the hit BBC2 show's studio audience. Clarkson, who previously had to apologise to the prime minister in February after calling him "a one-eyed Scottish idiot", is understood to have described Brown as a "cunt" in not-for-broadcast comments to the studio audience during the recording of this week's Top Gear programme on Wednesday night.
At the filming of the previous week's Top Gear, on Wednesday 15 July, Clarkson also called Brown a "cunt" as part of a joke he made in front of the studio audience, one person present told MediaGuardian.co.uk. This remark was not included in the transmitted version of the show on Sunday, 19 July. The BBC2 controller, Janice Hadlow, was present at the second recording this Wednesday and is said to have confronted Clarkson about the remark.
A BBC spokeswoman confirmed that the pair had a "conversation", but said the issue was now over. "There was a discussion about the programme," she said. "It is certainly not an ongoing issue." It is understood that Hadlow did not ask Clarkson to apologise for the incident. In a further statement, the BBC said: "Janice went to watch a recording of Top Gear as it is BBC2's top-rated programme, and as controller of BBC2, she holds both the programme and Jeremy in high regard. After the recording, she and Jeremy had a discussion about the programme as controllers and presenters often do." Downing Street declined to comment.
Clarkson is currently in Belfast, where he is filming for Top Gear in the city's new sewer system. His manager had not returned calls before publication.
Top Gear in America's redneck country Of all the hair-raising escapades in the show, being chased by murderous Alabamans was the scariest says presenter in new book
Richard Hammond
6th October 2009
Traditionally, the question asked of me when I meet anyone for the first time has been: “So what’s the best car you’ve ever driven?” Recently there’s been a change, the new question running thus: “Did you really [insert ridiculous moment from Top Gear] or was it made up for the telly?” And for roughly a quarter of a year, maybe more, the new question was: “Were you really chased out of town by those American rednecks, or was it made up for the telly?” In the programme in question, we wanted to know if it was possible to buy a car and drive across a chunk of the USA for less money than the cost of traditional “fly-drive” schemes offered by holiday companies.
It’s a pretty lengthy story, but in the course of our trip, by way of an entertaining diversion to keep up our spirits during an especially lengthy drive, we had devised a plan whereby we would each try to get the others killed.
We would each decorate the others’ vehicles with slogans we felt might stir up the feelings of the locals, cause maximum discomfort to each driver and raise a laugh for the viewer at home. And so, in a broad, dusty lay-by at the side of a road leading to Alabama, we parked up and set to with the paintbrushes, spray cans and stencils.
On the side of Jeremy’s ageing, beaten-up Trans Am I painted the legend, “Country music is rubbish”. Jeremy had adorned the flanks of James’s 1970s Cadillac with “Hillary for president” and “Nascar sucks”. I laughed at the slogans with Jeremy as we stood under the tall, smooth-barked trees and sheltered from the southern sun. James was still finishing the lettering on the side of my white pick-up truck and I didn’t want to spoil the moment by peeking before his work was done. Eventually, with a confident flourish of the brush, and a grin, James indicated that he had completed his masterpiece. We stepped up and surveyed. Along the side of my truck James had painted just four short words: “Man love rules OK”.
Well, fair enough: it was perhaps the strongest of our three examples of automotive artwork, but nevertheless, we all felt that we would cause, at worst, a ripple of offence no deeper than that which might be generated among the residents of Cornwall by three visitors driving their cars through Truro with “Cream teas are rubbish” painted down the sides.
We covered three miles before being placed in genuine fear for our lives. Things started well enough. Our convoy included the three cars being filmed, and, naturally, the cars and jeeps carrying the film crew and their equipment. It was a very hot day and every vehicle travelled with windows down and its occupants’ elbows out — not least James’s, since Jeremy and I had disabled his air-conditioning system with a crowbar at a campsite the previous evening.
After just a mile or two, we spotted a road sign telling us we were in Alabama, and we pulled over to film it. The sign was riddled with bullet holes. And not the pathetic little air-rifle pellet holes you might occasionally see in the UK; this thing was peppered with shotgun blasts and a few larger, gaping wounds inflicted, I could only imagine, by slugs from high-powered hunting rifles. We were definitely not in Cornwall.
A mile or so later, we pulled into what Jeremy seemed keen to call a “gas station”. The crew cars pulled up in a line to one side of us. As I rested a hand on the hot metal of the petrol pump nozzle and readied myself to heave it up and slot it into the car, a movement across the forecourt made me stop. A woman — presumably a local — was walking towards us.
She had a long, rangy frame and looked to be made of wire and gristle underneath the plaid shirt and jeans. Maybe 50 years old with yellowing hair and brown teeth. “Y’all queers trying to see how long you can last in a hick town?” “Ah, er . . .” I looked across at Jeremy, who was staring at her. James was frowning. There was more movement around us on the forecourt now. Trucks were arriving and in the back of them I saw the broad backs and cowboy hats of what I could only imagine were more locals. Where they had sprung from, I had no idea. But I saw they were all carrying guns, propped up against their feet. “No, look, we’re both married. Got kids. Just travelling through.”
I pointed at Jeremy on the other side of a fuel pump. “Yup,” he chimed in. “Got kids, and just travelling through.” An enormous man had come out of the station building now, to stand in the middle of the forecourt. He wore the regulation blue denim overalls, plaid shirt and work boots of a cartoon character and looked like you couldn’t stop him with a train. In an unexpectedly high voice, he started to count. “Ten. Nine . . . ”
The crew cars were actually coming under attack now. A group of locals had assembled in a ragtag line and were throwing rocks at them. I heard them land loudly against the sides of the kit van, and watched as those members of the crew who had decided to brave the heat for the promise of a cool drink in the petrol station ran back to their cars.
“Er, Hammond . . . ” James had come into view, and just as he stepped up, I could see over his shoulder Jeremy’s blue Trans Am fire up and head for the road with a screech of tyres. “I need a jump-start again, I’m afraid.” The battery on James’s gargantuan Caddy had faded over the previous two days and it had become a matter of routine to pull up alongside him in my pick-up, hoist the bonnet, hook up the jump leads and give his car a boost to get the creaky old engine turning.
“Seven . . . ” “Shit! Not now.” But there was no choice, so I said, “Right, you get ready. I’m coming over.” The Caddy was about 20 yards away across the forecourt and James ran back to it. By the time he had reached it, got in and pulled the bonnet release, I was parked alongside.
“Five . . . ” I leapt out of the truck, pulling the bonnet release on the way, and grabbed the jump leads as James thrust them towards me.
“Three . . . ”
The hail of rocks onto the crew vehicles was intensifying as the drivers came to their senses, started up and retreated. “Get in, James. Turn it over.” The old Caddy gave a heave and the engine made a couple of wheezing turns before it caught and fired up.
“Two . . . ”
“Go, go, go!” More rocks landed around us as we pulled away. Grabbing third gear and keeping my boot nailed to the floor to squeeze every last ounce of go from the truck as our retreat gained pace, I saw the trucks from the garage pulling away.
In the back of each, sitting square against the sides of the pick-up bed in sombre lines, the rednecks toted their shotguns, thin black barrels bristling straight up at the sky. Amid the tense squabble of English voices from our team, crackling across the CB, I also heard the slow drawl of a local. “They’re comin’ up past here. We’re at the crossroads.” And: “I can see them here, too.” They were using their CB radios to track us. And I was suddenly very aware that television cameras and business cards would not protect us from guns.
I didn’t want to wake up tied to a tree, being invited to squeal like a little piggy for the entertainment of a 20-year-old psychopath in giant dungarees, with three teeth in his head and a bitter hatred of anyone who wasn’t also a 30-stone homophobic racist who shot at things he didn’t understand.
A few miles down the road, conscious that we were easily identifiable to the hordes of rednecks being warned of our approach over the CB, we pulled over. We had seen them waiting at crossroads as we passed, and heard them telling people further ahead that we were coming. We had to try to remove the slogans that had caused offence of an intensity way beyond what we had anticipated.
Our wheels had barely stopped turning before key members of the crew threw themselves out of their vehicles and ran over to the three presenters’ cars, tore off their T-shirts, soaked them in water and began wiping frantically at the painted words. I joined them, and when we ran out of bottled water we used soft drinks instead, ripping the tabs off the cans and pouring the contents onto T-shirts before continuing to scrub at the stubborn paint.
The fear slowly subsided as we drove out of Alabama. But we kept going. And months later, the new question is still asked of me: “Did that really happen in America at the petrol station, or did you make it up for the telly?” Well, yes, it really happened. You didn’t even see the half of it. Oh, and if you were wondering about the answer to the question that preceded the new question, the best car I’ve driven is my worthless old Land Rover, across a field, with two dogs, my daughters and my wife in it, all heading for a picnic and a lazy afternoon.
Extracted from Or Is That Just Me?, to be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson tomorrow, priced £18.99. Copies can be ordered for £16.14, including postage, from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0845 271 2135
Next week
‘I saw my crash unfolding again before me. And I died again in my mind and knew again the moment of certainty when all that can come is the end’
Top Gear stunt which saw airship flying over airport exposed as a carefully orchestrated fake
2nd December 2009
A stunt on Top Gear has been revealed as a fake by the people who helped to stage it. On Sunday's episode of the BBC Two programme, host James May took part in a sequence in which he flew a caravan airship across Britain. Millions of fans watched in awe as May, 46, appeared to accidentally stray over Norwich airport, apparently provoking police intervention.
Later in the show he was pictured crashing to the ground in the airship shouting "Mayday Mayday" in panic after the craft was dragged across the ground. But yesterday professionals involved in the segment gave a rather different version of what happened, compared to what viewers saw at home - calling the sequence a "set-up". The caravan has been a foil for hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and May for years on the programme.
Sunday's adventure saw long-haired May travel in one of the mobile homes customised to become a cockpit for a zeppelin-style balloon. Viewers were given the impression the craft was flown solely by the host and it had been a journey done in one complete session - as Hammond had to race him to a camp site in a Lamborghini.
In one part of the film as the caravan strayed over Norwich Airport, May started panicking and a police helicopter was called to circle the airship. But those involved said the whole thing had actually been carefully planned months before. They claimed show producers had got clearance from the airport to stage the scene and a private helicopter firm provided the "police" chopper.
Steve O'Brian, Chief Pilot at Sterling helicopters, who supplied the 999 helicopter even claimed the balloon turned up at the airport on the back of a truck. He said: 'The whole event was set up, it was all arranged more than a month before it was filmed. The programme had been completely scripted, there was no real emergency - we were hired to play along. There would be no way someone would be able to fly over the country unless it was all staged. The balloon turned up at Norwich airport on the back of a truck, it did not fly there - I saw them set it up. They had been doing various filming around the country before the lorry turned up in Norwich.'
A source at the airport, who refused to be named, confirmed the visit by the Top Gear crew had not been quite as spontaneous as viewers may have been led to believe.He said: 'Obviously the whole thing had to be cleared first. There was a lot of work that went in to clearing the operation.'
A spokesman for Norfolk Constabulary said show makers had told them about their plans to film and confirmed that the police had not been called to deal with May's flight over the airfield. He said: 'We did know the event was going on, we were warned a couple of months prior. No emergency helicopter was sent to the scene by us.'
And May appeared wasn't alone in the flying caravan, but was helped fly the airship by professional pilot Chris Sanger-Davies. He said: 'Much of the sequence of events was scripted, and I was behind the controls for all the tricky manoeuvres. It wouldn't have been safe for James May to have been flying the airship on his own. Let's just say that a lot of the episode was pre-planned.'
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I'm disgusted and quite probably horrified too...
I was one of those 'in awe' as the scenes were shown. Though I think they're mistaking 'mild Sunday night interest' with something more impressive!
I thought this part was set up as I was watching it, it would have been in the paper if they had been in trouble with the police. The other week when James' dacia was hit by the truck, I'm sure that was also set up, doesn't stop the show being good entertainment. I do sometimes wish they would focus more on the cars than the clowning around, last week they had the new Lamborghini Gallardo Valentino Balboni and didn't put it round the test track.
Say it with a bumper sticker Much as we've all come to revile it, I suppose the "I slow down for horses" bumper sticker was of some value when it first appeared.
By James May
11 Jun 2010
Since the vast majority of people have got more sense than to have anything to do with horses, and live in the modern city, it's therefore possible that many of them didn't know how to approach one on the road. You might have thought, before the rear window of a Discovery set you right, that you should sound the horn to warn of your approach, accelerate hard past the brute to minimise the time it is exposed to the trauma of its metal successor, and then fire an athletics starting pistol out of the window to be absolutely on the safe side.
The problem, though, is with the use of the first person. The "I" turns what is otherwise an acceptable and perfectly reasonable appeal on behalf of a cause or special interest group (or however it is these bloody people talk) into a thinly disguised boast about the moral rectitude or social superiority of the stickee. The same is true, come to think of it, of those fatuous stickers that say things like "Glider pilots do it silently" or "I'd rather be surfing". Well off you go then. I'd rather be in the old 911, and your badly driven smog-belching clapped-out VW Transporter is spoiling it for me.
I don't moor a smelly old trawler in the Cornish swell and then display a flag reading "I'd rather be giving it the berries on that windy bit of the old A40 between High Wycombe and Oxford".
Now the other day, I found myself driving along behind a Toyota Previa with a sticker in the back window that read, very largely, "I make room for cyclists". Well done, I thought. We know from the Play of Everyman that only good deeds will accompany us to the grave, but it wasn't much of a legacy. Most people do, I reckon. I ride a bicycle sometimes, and so far people have left me a bit of a gap. But I suppose there must be one or two who either haven't realised that a bicycle must occupy some space in the cosmos or are too rude to accommodate them. In which case this appeal on behalf of cyclists is reasonable. It should read "Please make room for cyclists".
But "I"? I had to follow this car for quite a way, and after a while it really began to annoy me. What is the implication here? That I, because I haven't put a similar sticker in my car, must be one of these people who smears bicyclists along railings? I ended up wondering if drivers these days must automatically be guilty of any wrongdoing they don't actively deny.
So when I got home, I set to work on the computer to make my own sticker. It occurred to me that there are people out there dodging their income tax. But not me. I've always paid up on time, and I thought I'd better make that completely clear to other road users. Eventually I settled on "I have nothing to fear from the Inland Revenue". It looked quite good. But just as I was about to stick it in the Fezza, I hesitated. I might effectively be saying that the police, on the other hand, fill me with dread. There's nothing in my sticker to make it absolutely and unequivocally a matter of record that I haven't murdered anyone.
So I went back to my desk and had a bit of a rethink. I was about to print out "I have nothing to fear from any forces of law and order" when, again, something stayed my hand. What about old girlfriends? What's to say I didn't beat them? Not this sticker, so I probably did. I soon realised that exonerating myself of all possible blame was going to make my car look like a fly-posted telephone exchange box. It simply isn't possible, not when you haven't really done anything very bad.
I would have to cover every damaging assumption made about me by the driver of the Previa, should he end up behind me – except the one about not nicking any sweets from the village shop in 1975, because I did. The only solution would be a single sticker that covered everything that he or anyone else might claim in their rear window, even if it becomes fashionable to proclaim "I pull over for ambulances" or "I wave at train drivers".
It took a while, but I think I've got it. If enough of you are interested, I'll put my new car sticker into mass production.
Wildebeest, tortoise, hamster and The Stag... Hyundai pokes fun at Jeremy Clarkson & co with 'Top Deer' adverts
By Carol Driver
18th June 2010
It’s the Top Gear presenters as they have never been seen before. In two new Hyundai adverts poking fun at the BBC2 programme, Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond appear as a wildebeest, a tortoise and, rather fittingly given his nickname, a hamster.
‘Top Deer’ pulls out all the stops, echoing the show’s videography, theme music and test drives for its Tucson Lx35 commercials.
Top Gear Australia hosts (Source: Herald Sun)The Nine Network has announced the new presenters who will front a revamped series of Top Gear Australia specials, the Herald Sun reports. The network managed to snare the rights to the highly successful British series along with the local remake late last year, which were both previously owned by SBS.
Australian comedian and actor, Shane Jacobson, best known for his performance in the movie Kenny, will host Nine’s version of the show produced by Freehand. “As a boy from the western suburbs of Melbourne, I’ve always had a passion for cars. I wasn’t the guy at the set of lights whistling out of the car and doing burnouts, I wasn’t the guy at the illegal street drags, but I am the guy who’s always been keen on cars.”
Jacobson is a keen motoring enthusiast, who has competed in several Dutton Car Rallies and the celebrity race curtain-raiser to the Australian Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne. “I like to drive cars and I like to drive them fast under controlled circumstances so this, for me, is just the ultimate gig,” Jacobson added.
Also new to the team is the editor-in-chief of the Top Gear Australia magazine, Ewen Page. They will join journalist and racing driver, Steve Pizzatti, who returns after presenting the series when it was back on the public broadcaster.
After the first two series struggled to perform to the same standards of the original, Nine will play it safe by only committing to a number of specials.
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That guy Kenny will be good I reckon - you can watch the series 'Kenny's World' by clicking HERE
James May with Sir Christian Bonington, Lancaster University's Chancellor James May left 'very emotional' after being awarded an honorary degree
16th July 2010
Top Gear co-presenter James May has been awarded an honorary degree by Lancaster University. May, who studied music at the university from 1982 to 1985, confessed to feeling 'very emotional' at being given the accolade. He toured the campus before being handed his scroll, and went back to see his former room in the university halls. He said: 'Memories came flooding back, like a big wall covered in posters. I remember it with great fondness and nostalgia.'
May was a member of Pendle College and said he honed his skills in piano and flute playing while studying for his first degree. Known as Captain Slow for his cautious driving style on the BBC2 show, he has become an honorary doctor of letters. Addressing graduates, he said he appreciated what university taught him, such as 'independent thought and questioning things'.
'It was a time of untroubled love,' he said. 'It is only later on in life that you realise that you really expanded your mind.'
Meanwhile, it has been announced that May is undertaking a TV quest to turn him into more of a 'real man'. May, who has confessed to a love of toys and floral shirts, will enlist other lost souls for a new BBC2 series to test their manliness and brush up on traditional skills.
James May's Man Lab is part of the channel's autumn and winter season, and will see him embark on a course of tests designed to teach men the skills and knowledge possessed by their male ancestors. Among the skills he will learn will be how to 'woo a lady' and how to defuse a bomb.
May said: 'Modern Man is in crisis. He has degenerated from the redoubtable pillar he became through centuries of refinement and slipped resignedly into the popular depiction of himself as a witless under-achiever, incapable of looking after himself or those around him. Man Lab is designed to reverse the rot.'
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The picture looks like the winners in the 'look like a medieval lutist' competition...
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