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The Name's
the Same
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| How many people are named after a car? Probably
unknowingly our youngest competitor Austin Kimberly shares his
full name with this elegant 6 cylinder 1800 Land Crab based
saloon from British Leyland in Australia, circa 1970. Wonder
if Peter Whitmore or Ollie recognise it? |
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Slightly
missing the point
Some readers may know that the assistant ed exited
the Britcar GP meeting in disgrace, hitting the wall backwards,
breaking his gearbox in two and doing other unmentionables. I related
this story at work to our Sales Director's secretary, who obviously
isn't a motorist because her serious response was "Oh dear.
Didn't you notice it was in reverse?". |
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Book
Review - Big Book of Top Gear
 I
confess to not being a Top Gear fan, mainly because I don't enjoy
watching cars being crashed pointlessly and because it makes people
think that sideways is a quick way to drive cars other than on a
special stage. And because Clarkson is a bullying oaf.
However, I was recently given at the Classic Car Show a copy of
the 3rd annual publishing of The Big Book of Top Gear, which actually
isn't much to do with Messrs Clarkson, May, Hammond and Collins
but is almost entirely the work of their script editor Richard Porter,
the man behind the rather excellent Sniff
Petrol website.It's priced at £12.99 but you
have to work hard to pay that - most places charge under £7.
 |
| Clarkson, unaware of a piano above him. This isn't in
the Big Book. |
Although many of the jokes are based on the above cartoon characters,
they're mostly done without cruelty to anybody. The other car based
stuff - (eg "Things a Camaro Driver is Unlikely to Say","Decoding
Personal Number Plates" "The Football World Cup for Cars"
where Ferrari play Mercedes AMG in the final) - is just plain funny,
and even the picture story versions of the TV specials which I haven't
seen but couldn't avoid the trailers for are well done.There are
also a few semi-serious bits explaining why Range Rovers are really
very good and why Lancias are desirable. (And if you decide to buy
a Lancia, don't forget that the leading source of spares is Omicron
Limited).
So if you have a slightly anarchic sense of humour and like cars,
it's probably as good a non-alcoholic stocking filler as you'll
get for well under a tenner.
By the way, be careful, there's also a Top Gear Annual which is
aimed at children, rather than those of us who just have an adolescent
sense of humour.
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