The Guardian is not where I would expect to find a rave review of Top Gear.
Top Gear fetishises the totally unnecessary consumption of fossil fuels in the name of sport, entertainment and feeling better about your premature ejaculation disorder; it normalises dangerously fast driving; it contributes to the hunger for more and more cars that we neither need nor can sustain; it treats the sheer act of moving a machine as if it’s a display of heroic bravery and skill; and it paid Jeremy Clarkson’s salary for over 25 years.
Sounds great! Of course, with Clarkson and co. off to Amazon Prime, everyone is a bit worried whether the new line-up will be any good.
…the problem with Top Gear isn’t simply the lack of diversity of its presenting line-up, or its wrinkle-kneed wardrobe. It’s not its heritage brand of lazy bigotry and short-term greed, its predilection for petrol-powered laziness dressed up as machismo, its weaker-than-Liptons long-running in-jokes, its “I Am the Stig” USB memory sticks or its endless, jaw-slackening rota of reruns. It’s all of it. It’s the cars, motor industry and mentality on which it’s built. It’s the whole petrol-guzzling, self-interested, short-term, pleasure-seeking, morally indifferent, climate-changing, nature-breaking package. And it’ll take more than a new line-up to change that.
Well that’s a relief, then.
Well, what does it take for Dario Franchitti to go through a crash like this one week, and then this the next, and carry on racing at over 200 mph?
Why does the state make any TV light entertainment?
I like the subtext: “You added a woman to the lineup, which should have been enough to make your show acceptable, but it’s just too terrible to be helped even by such a masterstroke.”
The best thing Top Gear could do would be a new feature during which a prominent eco-freak is beaten up, live on air, every week.
Full diversity–including an equal number of females. Of course.
Top Gear was played even before Clarkson, May and Hammond left. It’s even less likely to work with a new line-up.
‘Played’ should be ‘played out’!
Don’t watch? Just a thought.
Chill. It’s just a show.
“Nell Frizzell is a freelance journalist who has contributed to Guardian music, the Observer, Little White Lies, NME and is assistant editor at IdeasTap.com”
Ah. I see.
To be fair, the new Top Gear does put the commies into a desperate position. If they’d let it fold when Clarkson was sacked, or if they admit it’s a miserable failure in its new form, then they concede that its success was down to Clarkson and chums. And that is too terrible a thing to admit, even in private. It is utterly corrosive of the correct world view.
So have a little sympathy.
Snigger.
Top Gear was played even before Clarkson, May and Hammond left. It’s even less likely to work with a new line-up.
True. Same goes for Two and a Half Men. The show with the Charlie replacement was total c**p. But having watched the original in bits and pieces over the years, I only recently realised that all the c**p episodes in the old show with Charlie Sheen came from the eighth and last series. These things have a lifespan.
hy does the state make any TV light entertainment?
why does the state make any TV?
why have a state?
“why have a state?”
As every Tory (and every OLD Whig) used to know….. the Sword of State is not for making television shows. The clue is in the word “sword”. Civil Society is what a Constitutional State protects – not what it is. Indeed if the state tries to be society (undertake the functions of civil society – or pay for them) the Gates of Hell are opened. Tory folk who put their trust in the monarch and nasty Old Whigs (like me) who believe that the powers of the monarch should be carefully limited by people of property, can at least agree on what the state is (it is organised violence) – what it should do, and what it should NOT do.
As for the Guardian – it is the publication that expresses all that is evil and vile.
As Mr Ed and others have pointed out – the hatred of the Guardian for technology and for the courage and skill of people who operate that technology is a sign of the evil of the Guardian. Truly it is in the totalitarian of Plato’s Guardians (the inspiration of the education of the elite in our own time).
As for Top Gear – the cultural values it represented were indeed in conflict with the funding principle of the BBC. Freedom is in conflict with slavery.
The new “Politically Correct”, “diverse” presenters are a bow to the “Critical Theory” doctrines of Frankfurt School Marxism (the principles of the elite in the Western World) – but a rather pathetic bow.
Not even I can be paranoid about “Chris Evans” and so on – they are no threat to anything.
Unlike Mr David Cameron – who has Prime Minister for five years and has done nothing to end to BBC tax.
Why would a Conservative Prime Minister do nothing about an organisation (the BBC) that is funded by force and fear and it pumps out leftist propaganda every day?
Perhaps the problem can be solved by questioning whether the Prime Minister is actually a Conservative. The assumption is that because someone is the leader of the Conservative Party they are actually a conservative (i.e. dedicated to national independence and traditional principles) – if that assumption is not correct (if Mr Cameron is actually “Progressive Lite” rather than a Conservative) then all becomes clear.
Rather like the question why does roll-back-the-government Fox News hate Ted Cruz? The question has the built in assumption that Fox News wants to roll-back-the-government – if it does not really want to do this, then all becomes clear.
As for “greed” – does the Guardian mean wasting more than 100 million Pounds in a year and paying its top staff telephone number wages (whilst losing the already mentioned 100 million Pounds a year)?
The Guardian Charitable Trust is being systematically looted by senior staff (if anyone wishes to sue me over this statement I am happy to give my address – they will find that financially I am a “straw man”) – rather like other charitable trusts rather closer to where I am sitting.
But, for some reason, this is not “greed”.
The left put a great deal of effort into capturing comedy. They promoted the “alternative” scene in the 1980s and ruthlessly pushed out people like Bernard Manning, Jim Davidson and Bob Monkhouse. So after all that effort imagine their fury when it turns out that a car show, a car show, is not only the funniest thing on television but also pretty much the biggest. For people who fetishise state violence and normalise censorship this is huge slap in the face.
“fetishise state violence and normalise censorship”
Touché.
Btw, I left this comment on that article, that got up voted 5 times (yay me):
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/12/top-gear-loathe-thee-sabine-schmitz#comment-68555304
Nell Frizzell says that she hates Top Gear because cars are killing people. But the article she links to says that it is PM2.5 and PM10 particles that increase the risk of heart disease and lung cancer, and that this “comes from traffic – mostly diesel fumes – household heating and industry.”
I don’t remember Top Gear being particularly big on diesel powered vehicles.
Time to replace “Top Gear” with “Top Pedal”, maybe? I’m sure it’d be riveting television.
The Guardian’s signature tone – anhedonic and pretentious. It’s like being lectured by one of the Goth Kids in South Park.
The underlying issue with the Guardianistas is that the car gives a person the ultimate expression of individuality, they can go where they want, take whatever route they like in any form of vehicle they choose. The fact is that having individual transportation is, on the whole, far more economical, efficient, and desirable than any soviet style worker transport system the proto-communists can come up with, and as the hidden carbon emission costs of public transportation are never discussed, it is probably less environmentally damaging.
Emphasis mine – tells me all I need to know.
BTW, whoever produces the show now (Bezos?), I hope they paid well for that advert…sorry, article in the Guardian, for it is priceless.
OK, I see it is still the BBC – hmmm… I’ll shut up now.
” it treats the sheer act of moving a machine as if it’s a display of heroic bravery and skill;”
There is an awful lot of skill required in building a machine that moves, let alone one that moves well. I would suspect that few Guardian columnists could do it. As for making them move, a day out driving on the UK roads will tell you that doing that well is a rare skill too.
As for Top Gear, it pisses off all the right people so it must be doing something right.
Sounds like that Grauniad writer has some serious sexual problems.
“why have a state?”
Why have The Guardian?
Would more three-wheeler cars — especially ones painted black –rather than the pale, privileged four-wheeler sort help the diversity issue?
There is an awful lot of skill required in building a machine that moves,
How true, it would be I, Pencil x1000.
“Civil Society is what a Constitutional State protects – not what it is.”
A brilliant line.
Runcie, February 13, 2016 at 10:38 am: Absolutely nails it. This is the very core of the issue, for us who cherish our freedom-of-transportation.
I have the strong suspicion that The Guardian doesn’t like that program.
What is Top Gear without Jeremy being a dick? How difficult is it to see the failure here?
Per Captain Slowly I think the proper term of endearment for the Orangutan is ‘knob’. Given what’s been disclosed about the pay packets for the three I have a hard time seeing this as being a profitable endeavor for Amazon. But I’ll watch while it lasts.
That’s it, you guys. Keep sending your better stuff (Clarkson, Hammond, May) over here, and taking the not so good (Morgan) back.
Meanwhile our vaunted SecState, the redoubtable J F’n Kerry is saying it’s best you stay tangled up with Brussels. Given his track record – – –
My, what makes you think that? 😀
I couldn’t tell! Just a happenstance. LOL
Not “Top Pedal”, “Right Pedal”. That would cause some cognitive dissonance at the BBC.
I read somewhere that one of the names suggested for Clarkson’s new show is “Gear Knobs”. Perfect.
Patrick Crozier nails it. The Left has made a determined push to take over comedy to the point where whenever I see “BBC comedy” channel, I switch to something funnier, like televised snooker.
TG was getting tired and the gags were lame; even so, the Guardian would kill to have its popularity.