22 Replies to “On A Dark And Stormy Night…”

  1. 1. Missed the set-up before the drive … so I don’t know any details about those trucks. I imagine all my Canadian friends here KNOW every detail about those two featured pickup trucks
    2. I don’t remember that episode … brilliant romp in the Canadian Rockies.
    3. I find it disturbing that both James and Jeremy are sitting soooo close to their steering wheels, like little old ladies in a retirement community. Just watching that gave me the willies. Is that the way you’re supposed to drive in the snow or something? When I drive … I literally use my toes to push the pedals … much more fine motor control than having to lift my knee to change speeds or brake.
    4. The hardcore leftist BBC fired Clarkson for “violence” against a nobody in the crew? Seriously? You’d cancel the most popular, creative, innovative, WATCHABLE show the BBC has ever broadcast? Wow … nothing says woke quite like that idiocy.
    5. Clarkson simply has … “it” … that intangible “star” quality. A few quarterbacks have “it” and a few actors have “it” … they’re simply watchable … interesting. You can’t take your eyes off them.
    6. Ha! Love the reference to “Castaway” as Hammond makes stick figures of May and Clarkson and then throws knives at his “voodoo dolls” with hilarious results. Laughable writing!
    7. Clarkson’s Top Gear teaches you about automobile capabilities in a totally entertaining way. He doesn’t just list off all the features … he DEMONSTRATES them … in a way you just can’t stop watching. Gawwd the woke BBC are idiots.
    8. Beautiful country … nothing I’d want to be driving in under those conditions … even though THIS Californian believes he knows how to drive in the snow … I admit I know little about 4wd and how to best deploy the tricks of driving in these EXTREME conditions. I’d pretty much have gotten stuck within a mile of their lodging.
    9. The show indicates how you Canadians actually LIVE in that God-forsaken, Fargo-like, foreboding environment. I still find it hard to believe that anyone can actually live in an environment that will kill you dead, if you take out the trash in the wrong clothing.
    10. Thanks Francisco! I’d never seen that fun Canadian episode.

    1. 4. The hardcore leftist BBC fired Clarkson for “violence” against a nobody in the crew? Seriously? You’d cancel the most popular, creative, innovative, WATCHABLE show the BBC has ever broadcast?

      Yes. Because Clarkson is a prima donna pretending to be a working class bloke, and he’s so good at it he’s got soi-disant conservatives defending the fact hat he punched a production assistant because his food wasn’t hot.

      If your criteria for whether people ought to be able to get away with criminal assault on their co-workers is whether you personally find them entertaining, the Alec Baldwin Fan Club would love to hear from you.

      1. He is ultimately a reality tv star. Which means there is nothing real about any of it.

        Top gear and clarksons farm are good.entertainment, as long as you realize it’s all manufactured.

        1. Yes, the entire routes were scoped out by his team ahead of time. It was they that determined whether the rivers were shallow and tame enough to cross and navigate for example.

          They also determined where the best places were to shoot many of the outside-the-vehicle scenes. And probably did more than one take for some.

          Also, there must have been support teams following behind both trucks to help out if anything went wrong.

      2. “Criminal assault” ??

        Uhhh … wouldn’t an actual criminal Court, trial, and due process be required to make such a sloppy statement? Let me guess … you are also begging for “Epstein’s List” of names to be smeared via accusation and innuendo … before any trial with evidence, witnesses, and actual criminal charges are filed? Is that the kind of “true conservative” you are? Oh sorry … you prefer the “highbrow” Francophonics … Vrai conservateur I promise to read more of The New Republic … to earn my conservative cred. Gawwwd.

        Pssst … the Irish git who got into a fracas with Clarkson took his $100k and slinked away into some gay pub. I expect he blew through (so to speak) that cash inside a week. Meanwhile Clarkson has continued to make a bloody fortune due to his creativity and talent. Call him all the names you wish … but it just makes you sound all the smaller and insignificant.

        https://grandtournation.com/car-show-news/the-grand-tour/top-gear-james-may-admits-the-real-reason-behind-jeremy-clarkson-fracas/

        Yes. Anyone with a brain knows that Clarkson is a Rock Star … who at times smash their drum kits and hotel rooms as they let off the pressure cooker steam of constantly performing for an unforgiving public.

      3. The British government’s culture minister, Maria Miller, called the TV personality a “legend” and said the BBC “needs to be better at managing its talent.”

        “There are other organisations that have to deal with larger-than-life characters,” she said.

        350 million viewers per week. Name the number of stars capable of drawing 350 million viewers per week, worldwide.

        Mobland… the WILDLY successful Paramount series starring Tom Hardy (my personal favorite), Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren posted a MASSIVE 2.2 Million viewers per week.

        THAT should give you some sense of what the woke BBC idiocy flushed down the toilet. Hey!! BBC !! here’s an idea! Get Jeremy a bloody fkcuing STEAK!! at the end of a long day of writing and performing!! Three Hundred Fifty Million viewers per week!! Get a proper food service for the show you bloody communists!

  3. Hammond was on Lone Wolf mountain (according to the Top Gear description).
    It’s Series 22 episode 6 which aired in March 2015.

    “If you get there first, you don’t have to rescue him.”

    1. Good knowledge, thanks. I had no idea mountains on Vancouver Island got THAT much snow. I expected they were in and around Whistler

  4. I’m perhaps showing my age, but I couldn’t stop shaking my head watching this. Watching those two challenge back-country mountain roads in the winter in the way they did was not something that made me respect them at all, especially the way Clarkson treated that gem of a truck. Hammond scoring the “nut-shot” was pretty cool though.

    For the interested on the truck: https://www.motortrend.com/news/hennessey-launches-600-hp-velociraptor-upgrade-for-2015-ford-f-150

    1. You’re not familiar with the show as they ALWAYS treat their test cars as though they were airport rentals upon which they bought the extra insurance …

      The entire schtick was Jeremy driving the FAST truck and the much older May drove the TECHNICAL off-road truck. It was a race … a RACE … between the two different approaches to truck set ups.

      1. Oh, I’m familiar, but it was never my thing. I’ve done this type of driving…in an “off-road truck” with more lift (and fewer safety features) than either of those…and I would never drive places like that in conditions like that unless my life or my family’s lives were in immediate peril, and I certainly wouldn’t start such a trip without the snow chains on as soon as I left pavement. I’ve white-knuckled roads like that–not as steep maybe–more times than I care to remember. It is NOT fun. You do not eff around with winter driving, especially not alone where there is no way to call for help.

        I’ve slid off the road into a ditch at night and ended up high-centered in the middle of nowhere waiting for a truck big enough to pull me out to happen by (one did, and it cost me a front-end alignment after). I did it alongside a main highway, too, years later. Black ice at night in both cases, and in neither case was I over-speed. Not even close. I missed getting caught in an avalanche on the Trans-Canada Highway near Revelstoke, BC, by mere minutes a different time (I was the 3rd vehicle to find a wall of snow blocking the road, and I could see the second slowing down in front of me)…that one made the national news for cutting the highway for a day. Watching these two numb-nuts do this shizz for a lark really grinds my gears.

        Speaking of snow chains, did you know that residents of BC are required by law to carry chains between October 1 and April 30 and to have proper winter tires as well? Because if you didn’t tell people, they wouldn’t have enough of a sense of self-preservation to do it on their own. Clarkson did his best to destroy a US$75,000 truck (2015 dollars) in conditions that normal people avoid if at all possible. For fun and ratings. I had no strong opinion on him one way or another before this, but now I wouldn’t cross the street to urinate on him if he were on fire.

        /rant

    2. Driving like Clarkson did, without a backup crew to change your tires and yank your rig off the mountainside will get you killed.

      1. Of course he had a backup crew, and an advance team checked out the routes, among other things.

        It’s TV, afterall.

      2. And you know what? … the show didn’t even post the Lawyerly WARNING … “This driving took place on a closed track, by professional drivers, PLEASE do not try this at home.”

        How irresponsible of Top Gear. Next thing you know, some $rich$ asshole from CA will be trying this in Canada.

        1. Well, to try this at home, they’d have to live on Vancouver Island, so the risk is minimal. They could be asked to put up a warning, “Please do not go to some distant godforsaken backwater and try this”, but I expect it is not legally required.

          1. There are several mountains in California tall enough to permit them to f/up at home.

          2. I suppose you could argue that it’s reasonable to have them say, “Please don’t behave like this kind of jackass on your own turf”, but I think it will always necessarily come with an implicit condition, “unless you really must”.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation