Top Gear Christamas Special – Middle East Special 3 Kings in sports cars

Some of you may or may not know the new Stig…I do and showed him this thread. Heres what Stig said about it

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I totally agree with the post above.

Apols to Moggy, it wasn’t a dig…..well no more than a spoonful 🙂

As for popular TV, I must confess I watch the semi’s and the Final of X factor. I actually believe the winners have actually got a modicum of talent. Oh, I also drool at Cheryl…until she speaks LoL.
And for no apparent reason whatsoever, I was sort of hooked on that Essex “Real” soap. I could not believe the people on it were not a joke. I thought it was the next spoof, following Pineapple Dance Studios!

Come on chaps – we’re not supposed to discuss members only the subjects…..

But here’s an intriguing question, picking up on a previous point. I watch very little TV – good drama and documentaries and the occasional film are my staple. Anything with the word celebrity attached is an immediate turn-off as are all reality, life-style and game show programmes. So if TG is counted as popular TV, which, with average viewing figures of around 7 million, it must be, I wonder why it appeals to me so much…….??

Someone nudge the Moggygram, the needles stuck…….

😉

Hmm, I’ve noticed that Mr Moggy C always puts on the superiority complex when it comes to discussion about popular TV. As for the recycling the same old stuff………..just about all success stories do this. Even Morecambe and Wise!

The lady doth protest too much, methinks……

Well that’a all a bit pedantic but, no, I had indeed “remembered” exactly what you wrote and further, oddly enough, do understand the difference in meaning between the two words – I’m sure your remarks were not intended to be as patronising as they appeared to be.:)

The conclusion drawn in your last paragraph illustrates how poor your retention span must be, unless of course you choose to categorise all non-fictional programmes in the same way, since they are all, by definition, formulaic.

😀

You have, of course, just answered the question as to why some people enjoy the programme and others don’t.

I am guessing that you were trying to say something about my attention span, but managed in some way to conclude that retention means the same thing as they sound a little bit alike.

Now, a dictionary will give you

re·ten·tion    [ri-ten-shuhn] – noun

1.
the act of retaining.
2.
the state of being retained.
3.
the power to retain; capacity for retaining.
4.
the act or power of remembering things; memory.

If you care to look at definition 4 you will see it actually relates to memory.

And there in lies the answer. If your memory is so poor that you cannot recall that each suceeding programme merely recycles the same tired old stuff, repetitively, then indeed each episode will come to you fresh and exciting, just like it was when the new format started.

Q.E.D

Moggy

20p minutes per series would suggest just that……;):diablo:

I gave up watching TG regularly some five or six series back when the decline into tedious and repetitive boredom really set in. I do try and watch one episode a series, just to see if they have woken up, but I can seldom stand more than 15 – 20 minutes.

For those with a limited retention span.

Moggy

Tomorrows headlines…

Moggy is outed as a closet Top Gear fan

Since, by your own admission, you find TG boring, so presumably do not watch it, how would you know at what “level” it is at?;)

They’ve tried to match TG and failed.

Too true.

Even adding the lightweight presenters mentioned above hasn’t dragged it down to TG level.

Moggy

Tiff, Jason. Vicki, Ben

Drivers who can present. Not journo / ‘personalities’ who can’t drive.

Moggy

Tiff? Yes
Jason, Vicki and Ben? No

TG is what 5th Gear producers have wet dreams about. They’ve tried to match TG and failed.

“Skilled drivers”?

Tom Ford?
Jonny Smith?
Tim (Really Annoying Tosspot) Shaw?

And don’t forget that highly annoying Quentin Smarmbox Wilson.

Ignoring the fact that Quentin hasn’t been on 5th Gear within living memory, one had always assumed that the characters you mention had always been added at the behest of the media sales guys looking to add the lowest common denominator to attract the bovine mass audience to whom TG appeals.

Tiff, Jason. Vicki, Ben

Drivers who can present. Not journo / ‘personalities’ who can’t drive.

Moggy

Interesting to have some first-hand comment………most of us here have only 2nd, 3rd and 4th hand reports to rely on.

Iraqi airforce heli?

Meanwhile, back at an aviation-related forum somewhere near you……

Yes – it’s an Ulan-Ude built Mi-171 :- http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2010/11/19/iraq-receives-156m-russian-helicopters/

Oh! – and the TG thing, I for one loved it.

Having been to some of the areas they visited – Erbil in Kurdistan (or more correctly, the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq), I can confirm what they said….. the scenery is awesome and the people friendly and welcoming.

We (me, my daughter and my half-Kurdish 5 year old grandson) felt perfectly safe visiting the in-laws in Sulaymaniyah and when travelling to Erbil (Arbil/Howlear).

In fact we went into a huge, modern, air-conditioned shopping mall in Erbil – that’s how dangerous it is 😎

The nearest we came to anything like a warzone was at the checkpoint as we skirted Kirkuk – that place looked awful with its blackened skies from the oil wells…

The Iraqi/Kurdish guards – and the menacing-looking MRAP vehicles – were a bit disconcerting…. 😮

Ken

Oh, dear – there’s a man who needs to use the off button.:p

Just to drop a flare down everyone’s festive Chimney

Daily Heil

However, do let’s get a grip, it’s all staged, so much so they are a parody of their own TG Characters that have evolved over the series. Let us not read too much into their on screen antics.

I quite enjoy TG, long may it continue

As a great man once said-

there is always the off button for non-approvers 😉

If I want a car programme I go over to Discovery Shed or similar and watch the “Reborn” type programmes.
TG is my kind of entertainment. Fast cars, trains (Sometimes), planes, caravan bashing.
5th G, it doesn’t cut it for me although I watch it if nowt else is on.

As for PC, it is imposed, it started as a joke experiment in US universities. If I want to tell a joke about a black/cripple/limbless/aids/Irish/Arab…whatever then I do. I laugh at the jokes about the honkey white fella or anything else degrading to white christians. These so-called oppressed minorities can equally tell a joke about me or anybody, and amongst themselves they are racist to each other and degrading. Humour is humour, sometimes sick, sometimes outrageous….it’s always been like that. Within 20 mins of a worldly disaster there are text jokes about it.