Top Gear / The Grand Tour

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flyonthewall2983
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Re: Top Gear

#101 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Mar 10, 2014 11:47 pm

The first half of the Burma special is very good. Whether or not it's as good as the 1st Africa special or Vietnam remains to be seen, but Clarkson was very bold in his statements on Twitter of how he feels about the special as a whole, especially the 2nd half.


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Re: Top Gear

#103 Post by domino harvey » Mon May 05, 2014 3:17 pm

Dear Leader of the Free World,

Please rescind free speech.

Love,
Some Non-profit Looking for Fundraising

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Re: Top Gear

#104 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Sep 21, 2014 12:27 pm

From Clarkson's Facebook
There has been a lot of stuff in the newspapers recently about the future of Top Gear. Some seem to think there isn’t one. But I can assure you, there is. There are also those who think I won't be part of it. Well, sorry, but I am.

Unless I am eaten by a pack of wild dogs before the next series starts early next year.


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Re: Top Gear

#106 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Oct 05, 2014 3:13 pm

Clarkson's reply, in the form of his weekly newspaper article.
A Top Gear film shoot in the wilds of Argentina ended in a dramatic escape. Jeremy Clarkson reveals how he hid under a bed from an armed mob baying for his blood.

It all started to go wrong while we were filming on a mountain in the world’s southernmost ski resort, just outside the city of Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego.

We knew Ushuaia was the port from which the General Belgrano had sailed on its doomed voyage at the start of the Falklands War and we knew that anti-British feelings still run hard and deep, here at the bottom of the world.

As a result we were on our best behaviour. We were posing for all photographs, and happily accepting requests for autographs. The sun was out. All was calm. We were even referring to the slopes as “gradients” Certainly there was no suggestion that we had walked into the middle of a war we thought had ended 32 years ago. But then came word from the bottom of the mountain. Some protesters had arrived and were keen to let everyone know they were unhappy with our visit. Our producers tried to explain that we were there to film at the ski resort and then to host a game of car football in the city. England v Argentina. The Bottom of the World Cup we were going to call it.

They were not listening. They were angry. They said that they were not violent but that a group of men from the local truckers’ trade union were on their way. And that when they arrived things would definitely turn nasty. Our local fixers advised that we stop filming immediately, leave the cars on the gradients and go to a nearby hotel.

“This is a mafia state,” said one onlooker. “Best you do as you’re told.”

So we did, but going to the hotel did not work. A gang of people were waiting there. They said they were war veterans, which seemed unlikely as most were in their twenties and thirties. Bonnets were banged. Abuse was hurled. The police arrived and immediately breathalysed Andy Wilman, our executive producer — we’re not sure why.

Richard Hammond, James May and I bravely hid under the beds in a researcher’s room while protesters went through the hotel looking for us. The car park was filling up. More were arriving. This was starting to get ugly.

Back at home, newspapers were saying I had caused the problem by arriving in this political tinderbox in a Porsche bearing the numberplate H982FKL, which if you turned the H into a 1 and transposed the K and the L, could have been seen as a reference to the 1982 Falklands War.

This, however, was untrue. The car had indeed arrived in Argentina with those plates, but two days into our journey, when we were in Chile, a Twitter user pointed out the problem so we removed them.

When we arrived in Tierra del Fuego the car had no plate at all on the front and a meaningless jumble of letters and numbers on the back. And no, it wasn’ W3WON. Which it would have been if I’d been trying to ruffle feathers.

The numberplate then wasn’t the issue. But something was causing more and more people to arrive at the hotel. Twitter was rammed with messages from locals saying they wanted blood. One said they were going to barbecue us and eat the meat.
“Burn them. Burn their cars,” said another. Mob rule was in the driving seat.

Government officials then stepped in saying we were no longer welcome in the city, that our safety could not be guaranteed and that we needed to leave Argentina immediately. Plainly they had given us permission to visit simply so they could make political capital from ejecting us when we arrived.

The problem was: how do you leave when the streets are filled with mobs with pickaxe handles, paving stones and bricks? No one had an answer to that one.

Chile is a spit away across the Beagle Channel but we weren’t allowed to cross it because Argentina says it owns the land on the other side, too. We therefore gathered up as many possessions as we could, rounded up the girls from our party and made a dash for the airport.

That night we were in Buenos Aires among sensible Argentinians who couldn’t believe what had happened. And the next morning we were back in Britain.

We felt that with us three gone the situation might calm down. It didn’t.

We had left behind 29 people; cameramen, sound recordists, fixers, locals and producers. They had to make their escape overland in a ragtag collection of hired 4x4s, trucks and the three “star” cars that they had been told to remove from the ski resort.

They faced a long, bumpy and gruelling six-hour trek to the Chilean border and safety. But in the first town the locals were ready. A lorry was blocking the road and as our convoy approached, it reversed at speed towards them, forcing our guys onto the verges, which were filled with people who made it plain they wanted blood. Bricks were hurled, windscreens were smashed and two of the party were cut by flying glass. But they made it through.

And then they had a problem. The next city was Rio Grande. And the word from there was that 300 cars and thousands of locals were setting up an ambush. This turned out to be true.

The British embassies in Chile and Argentina were doing their best to get a police escort. And the nine of us who had escaped were in a hotel room in Buenos Aires working through the night to find a plane and an airfield from which they could get out because, make no mistake, lives were at stake.

Meanwhile, a chase had begun. Our guys were being herded towards the ambush. So they abandoned the star cars, which were filled with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of camera equipment — and my new hat — at the side of the road. And took off across the frozen wilderness to a remote border post where there isn’t even a road. You get into Chile by fording a river.

We had to get a tractor there to pull them across. And it had to be a fast tractor because we knew our convoy was being chased by the thugs. And you try finding a fast tractor at 2am, in the middle of nowhere. All credit to producer Al Renton that he did it.

With the batteries dying in the convoy’s satellite phone, we lost contact and for six hours had no clue whether they had been caught. Whether our friends were alive or dead. That was a long night. I still haven’t had a chance to speak to any of them but I know they were held at the Argentine border from 3am, when they arrived, until 11am. Why? To allow the thugs to catch up? Who knows? All I really care about is that they are now in Chile and safe.

Tierra del Fuego is not listed as a problem for visitors by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office but there is no question in my mind that we walked into a trap.

I know mischievous newspapers in Britain have said it was all my fault because of the numberplate. But that wasn’t even mentioned down there because the plate in question had been replaced.

No. We were English (apart from one Aussie camera guy and a Scottish doctor) and that was a good enough reason for the state government to send 29 people into a night filled with rage and flying bricks.

“Look what we’ve done,” they will say at the next elections. “Sent the English packing.”

That is true. We got our arses kicked. But there is a glimmer of a silver lining in the whole sorry affair. The game of football would have been a good ending for our Christmas special. But we’ve been gifted something even better by the region’s politicians and their rent-a-mob cohorts.

I’d like to say “gotcha” at this point. But I won’t.

Argentinians denounce '200 years of lies'

Argentine officials and newspapers seized the opportunity of the row over Top Gear’s visit to bash the British in general and the BBC in particular. One official even used it to restate Argentina’s claim to the Falklands, writes Clare Pennington and George Arbuthnott.

Jeremy Clarkson insisted he was unaware that his Porsche’s H982 FKL numberplate could be taken as an allusion to the 1982 conflict and had it removed as soon as he was alerted by Twitter protests.

But Mariano Plecity, the regional government minister in Tierra del Fuego where the incident happened, demanded a written apology from Clarkson and the Top Gear production team, stressing the importance to the region of the Malvinas, as the Falklands are known in Argentina.

“You have to take into account that the Malvinas belong to Tierra del Fuego and the city of Ushuaia is the capital of the Malvinas,” he said. “The licence plate number on the car was a provocation and a very big offence in all of Tierra del Fuego.”

Plecity said the most important thing for the local government had been that Clarkson “leave without his life being threatened, because had he stayed longer, the response from society would have been much bigger” Clarin, the top-selling newspaper in Argentina, rejected Clarkson’s explanation that the use of the numberplate had not been deliberate.

It quoted a member of the war veterans’ association as saying the British had a long-running habit of being dishonest.

“They say that they did not want to hurt our feelings but they have been lying to us for 200 years,” said Osvaldo Hilliar.

The strength of anti-British feeling in Tierra del Fuego is illustrated by the twinning earlier this year of Rio Grande, the province’s industrial capital, with Algeciras, a Spanish city near the British territory of Gibraltar, to which Spain has long maintained a claim.

Diario Popular, a Buenos Aires newspaper, said Top Gear had a record of offending foreign countries. It claimed Clarkson had “taunted Asians” with a reference to a “slope” on a bridge in Burma, for which an apology was later made.

The Top Gear presenters also previously risked a riot by driving into redneck country in the Deep South of America with cars including a pick-up truck with the words “man-love rules OK” on it.
And quite typically, James May has a classier response.

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Re: Top Gear

#107 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Oct 12, 2014 1:14 pm

Andy Wilman on what happened. When broken down like that I can see how it's not a case of TG stirring something up for publicity and that it really was all one huge misunderstanding.

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Re: Top Gear

#108 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Nov 02, 2014 9:04 pm


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Re: Top Gear

#109 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Mar 25, 2015 10:41 am

Last edited by flyonthewall2983 on Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Top Gear

#110 Post by Drucker » Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:11 pm

Very nice to see a surprisingly non-full of shit statement in a matter like this. Seems way more direct than, say, when a major athlete is suspended for abuse/drugs of some kind.

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Re: Top Gear

#111 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:15 pm

I honestly hope this means that James May can do more shows on his own now. I've not really watched much of the other two's programs they've done solo but whether it's his wine series with Oz Clarke or Toy Stories, he's put together some utterly watchable TV.

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Re: Top Gear

#112 Post by Minkin » Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:16 pm

It is somewhat sad to see Clarkson go, as he was the backbone of the show and it will be difficult to find a replacement which can bring similar life to the program (although I do like the petition suggesting Alan Partridge replace him, Clarkson was as much a character as Partridge). All said, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner (I thought their comments about Mexico would have gotten the show pulled immediately). I'm sure he will find some new home at ITV or SKY (just like Fox is the go-to destination for all the variety of gaffe-filled pundits in the US).

James May certainly has the best shows outside of Top Gear (I can't stand Hammond's or Clarkson's single works). He is certainly the most level headed and knowledgeable of the three presenters. Perhaps check out Man Lab as one of his best programs (although Toy Stories is similarly superb). It is a great show, focusing on individual small projects or challenges (building a pizza oven, memorizing/presenting a horse race, finding out if an old manor is haunted (wish he would've brought Oz in for that one))- all with great humor to it. My old avatar was from Man Lab (Christmas special - Fan Dabi Dozy) - and that is one of the best episodes of the series.

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Re: Top Gear

#113 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Mar 26, 2015 7:33 pm

I'm hearing that Clarkson won't do a car show on either of those networks because they are beholden to advertising where the BBC isn't. I'd love to read more about the relationship between the show's producers and the major manufacturers, I'd have to imagine it's a love/hate thing because they can be quite damning if a car isn't up to their standards but these companies have almost always delivered to them.

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Re: Top Gear

#114 Post by TMDaines » Fri Mar 27, 2015 3:16 am

A) No press is bad press, especially coverage that has global reach.

B) It's not as if the cars featured on Top Gear are the kind that sink or swim on the basis of reviews. They sell on name if the badge alone to the super rich.

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Re: Top Gear

#115 Post by Minkin » Thu Jun 18, 2015 6:35 pm

Chris Evans chosen as Clarkson replacement.

Is there word about them keeping Hammond + May? There's some headlines about auditions for co-presenters. I suppose the others might have quit in solidarity, or that the BBC wanted to start completely new, but I'm a bit worried by the development.

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Re: Top Gear

#116 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Jun 18, 2015 6:51 pm

It's a package deal, and right now they're doing live shows billed as the three of them as opposed to using the Top Gear name which they obviously can't anymore. I'm hearing rumors that they are in talks with Netflix for something, but nothing very official at the moment. That would be the perfect solution to Clarkson's antipathy towards advertising.

Meanwhile, the final episode featuring them is set to air soon.


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Re: Top Gear

#118 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Jul 02, 2015 12:11 am

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Meanwhile, the final episode featuring them is set to air soon.
An okay episode. Mostly bittersweet to watch, knowing that it's the end of something special. Sad to see the set rather empty (not nearly as sad as Hammond's attempt at facial hair). But that's not all as I've always enjoyed in varying degrees, the chemistry of the three hosts. For all it's globe-trotting through the years, it felt fitting that both films were exclusively English as there's always been a kind of honest patriotism (particularly from Clarkson) about the show. Unsurprisingly, there was little in the terms of an over-emotional sendoff. Just a simple goodbye from Hamster and Cpt. Slow.



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Re: Top Gear

#121 Post by Minkin » Thu Feb 04, 2016 11:41 pm

I get the distinct impression that this will be worse than Top Gear USA. I assume it will last a season and then be canceled, as everyone will have moved on to Amazon.

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Re: Top Gear

#122 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue May 31, 2016 3:51 pm

The new show has gotten mixed to mostly negative reviews, unsurprisingly.

The Amazon series now has a title, The Grand Tour, and will premiere in the Fall.
Last edited by flyonthewall2983 on Tue May 31, 2016 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Top Gear

#123 Post by tenia » Tue May 31, 2016 4:27 pm

It seems that Matt Le Blanc is well received, though.

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Re: Top Gear

#124 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue May 31, 2016 5:26 pm

I'm not surprised, he was good when he was on the show before as a guest. I wonder how long they can keep him though because I believe he has a show in America that was picked up.

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Re: Top Gear

#125 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Jul 04, 2016 1:45 pm

Chris Evans stepped down as presenter today.

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