53 replies to this topic

[BRG]

This one is probably more for British members.

Can anyone fill me in on the Top Gear C-type scandal? I gather that there were hostile press stories saying that the Top Gear (a UK motoring magazine TV show) crew had borrowed a Jaguar C-Type from Adrian Hamilton and abused it shamefully. The TV boys just laughed it off on last Sunday's show. So does anyone know what actually happened?

I do not believe everything the press say so I suspect that they have taken a story and blown it out of all proportion. On the other hand, I am not sure that I trust TV types to be honest either. So it may be somewhere between the two. But surely people who like cars (as the Top Gear mob presumably do) would understand and appreciate the importance and value of a historic car like a C-Type and wouldn't treat it the way that they treat a new car - all wheel spin and tyre smoke? Or would they? Anyone know the truth about this?

[Eric McLoughlin]

Drive shaft and clutch were supposed to have been damaged. Adrian Hamilton was interviewed on Radio 5 Live last week and he seemed surprisingly relaxed, if a tad dissapointed that they drove the car in a rather "hooligan" manner) about the whole thing. His mood was based on the fact that the BBC were footing the repair bills. Methinks there was a certain amount of media hype (emanating mainly from the BBC themselves)

[Racer.Demon]

http://news.bbc.co.u...dio/2999634.stm
http://www.timesonli...-717992,00.html

Decide for yourself...

I'd say the blame lies right in the middle. Hamilton Jr could have expected that for television purposes the car would be driven, let's say, briskly. Then again, TG should realize that driving a racing car "hard" involves everything but burnouts and donuts - but then clean lines don't look as much fun on TV, do they?

Anyone know how much a C-type clutch costs - and a fresh set of tyres?

[BRG]

Thanks, guys! Looks a bit of a storm in a tea-cup if it is just a drive shaft, clutch and a pair of tyres. I was assuming it was a rooted engine, box and diff as well, the way it was told to me! But I hope thet BBC do the decent thing and cough up.

I do think that historic racing cars deserve to be DRIVEN not mollycoddled, but they also deserve a decent measure of respect. It is one thing to give a brand-new test car from Mercedes or BMW or whoever a thorough work-out even if it means giving it back with bald tyres - after all, they lent it to you to publicise their product.

But something like the C-Type is someone's treasured possession that is being lent out to you and should be treated accordingly. So it sounds like the Top Gear crew need to grow up a bit (but then, we already knew that, I guess!)

[Peter Morley]

Looks like it was press hype.
They reported that it was an incredibly rare car, only 3 left in the world. Given that is rubbish (maybe only 3 Le-Mans winners left in the world!) what chance the rest of the story is totally accurate.

Seems odd to have enough grip that it would bend the driveshaft, most 50's race cars spin the tyres quite happily from a standing start (on cars with preselector boxes spinning the wheels is the only way to get them moving).

Given that TG presenter Tiffany Dell has driven (raced even) Lister Jags at Goodwood, they could have got him to show them how to drive it (but please don't let him call it a Jag You Are ever again).

As for cost, assume they are using an AP racing clutch these days (2 or 3 sintered plates), cost around 500 quid, but the plates themselves are less - say 100 quid a plate. If they are using an original type friction plate then 100 quid should be plenty!

Tyres Dunlop racing tyres work out about 150 quid a piece.

Driveshaft, presumably these were road car components originally, but no doubt some modern equivalent used now, could cost about 350 quid.

So all the fuss is about a bill of around 1,000 quid, probably less than they had to pay to insure what is apparently a far rarer car than anyone realised.
And the publicity A.H. received is no doubt worth far more than that on its own (why is Stanley Mann always happy to show his Bentleys on Blue Peter!), which might explain the programme's lack of pity.

[ensign14]

Scan to the bottom... you may revise your opinion on the accuracy, Peter!

Young Tiff is no longer with TG but with Fifth Gear, featuring alleged AtlasF1 lurker and ergo top notch racer Vicki Butler-Henderson.

[Racer.Demon]

Originally posted by Peter Morley
Given that TG presenter Tiffany Dell has driven (raced even) Lister Jags at Goodwood, they could have got him to show them how to drive it (but please don't let him call it a Jag You Are ever again).

Well, Mr Dell has left TG some time ago. It was Perry "Show Me The Money" McCarthy driving, ("supposedly", as we are compelled to say with The Stig's identity not officially revealed yet).

So, apart from the Beeb forking out, a good piece of advertising for Duncan Hamilton Ltd. then?

[Racer.Demon]

Beaten to it ;)

[BRG]

Originally posted by ensign14
Scan to the bottom... you may revise your opinion on the accuracy, Peter!

I see that is reported by none other than our very own Doug Nye (so it MUST be true!;) )

You might imagine that someone like Perry McCarthy would understand how to treat a car like that, even if the Top Gear "journos" don't.

[Garagiste]

I was thinking of starting this thread and never got around to it. I missed the show, but the newspaper articles named Perry McCarthy as the driver - so if it was the stig on the show....
I quite like the format and content of the new TG, but I wish they didn't have to be such Laaadddds!! all the time.
And next - it's a Woman! with Breasts! Give it a rest, eh?

[Racer.Demon]

Originally posted by BRG
I see that is reported by none other than our very own Doug Nye (so it MUST be true!;) )

You might imagine that someone like Perry McCarthy would understand how to treat a car like that, even if the Top Gear "journos" don't.

Ah, I see that Doug makes mention of two Stigs too. That would fit with what I heard about Julian Bailey being the other, in case Pel has obligations elsewhere (like being at Le Mans to see his drive of the year ruined by an embarrassing mistake).

[Peter Morley]

Doug's article doesn't say there are only 3 C-types left (or does it? Some stupid advert for a defective 4x4 tried to prevent me from reading the article).

I can easily believe that they were doughnutting the C-type, the new format of Top Gear seems to be based on a 'lads mag' (e.g. mag for blokes too embarassed to buy real porn!) and that is the kind of behaviour you tend to associate with the 'Cosworth' brigade.

Of course I am digging a hole for myself here - being of the target age group, and a Cosworth owner - but my Cosworths have 8 cylinders, over 440 Bhp and only weigh 540 Kg.......

Given the car wasn't designed for such behaviour I'm sure that it would screw up the drivetrain, but I wonder if the amount of damage has been exaggerated.

When any magazine does acceleration tests you can be pretty certain that the clutch will be knackered by the end of the test. Clutch & tyres are disposable items but, twisted driveshafts is surprising (of course if it had Le-Mans gearing that would increase the loading considerably).

You can take it that Perry is a Stig - sometime before it made the papers, I was with a friend when Perry rang him and admitted he was Stig (this would have been before the Stig needed a stand in).

Interesting to see that Vicki B-H has been known to hang out around here, but is she a top notch or a top shelf racing driver??

[Breadmaster]

Originally posted by Peter Morley
Interesting to see that Vicki B-H has been known to hang out around here, but is she a top notch or a top shelf racing driver??

she is certainly top notch.....and has a lovely bottom.

but this is of course OT.

and maybe OTT......

[Evo One]

Or maybe BOTT ;)

[David Beard]

Originally posted by BRG

You might imagine that someone like Perry McCarthy would understand how to treat a car like that, even if the Top Gear "journos" don't.

Is it possible to give a "C" Type a much harder time than did Justin Law at the Revival the year before last?

[TODave2]

I've been wondering about who The Stig was since he arrived...

Does the 'easy listening' music fit either McCarthy or Bailey though...? Or is that just a smokescreen?

How intriguing!

[Doug Nye]

OK - here's what REALLY happened...make your own minds up on rights and wrongs.

I wrote the front page feature for 'The Daily Telegraph' motoring supplement, covering discovery of 40 prints of a discontinued Terence Cuneo painting, which Cuneo produced as a presentation piece for 'Lofty' England upon his retirement in 1974. COINCIDENTALLY the car featured in the painting - the 1953 LM winner - was 'doughnutted' by McCarthy for the BBC 'Top Gear' programme cameras, then burned off the line in standing starts with its rear tyres alight.

Owner Adrian Hamilton had delivered the car to Dunsfold aerodrome in Surrey - 'Top Gear's "secret test track" - and was asked if it was OK for their driver to drive the car hard. Since it has been raced quite often, and is race-prepared - and since Hamilton assumed they intended for McCarthy to put it through its paces against the clock on their standard loop circuit, to compare against modern-car times round same circuit, as seems to be a regular feature of the programme and which would (plainly) be quite interesting - he said "OK - within reason".

The car was then taken off to the circuit on the other side of the aerodrome away from Hamilton's vantage point.

He went home leaving a transport chap to return the car to his establishment in Up Nately, Hampshire.

The first he knew of the use to which the car was actually put was when his company's manager told him about it the morning after transmission, then showed him the video. Examination of the car showed it needed a new clutch, new rear tyres and fresh halfshafts, and a due date at Le Mans was mere days away. Daft of Hammy of course to let the nitwits at 'Top Gear' lay hands on his car - but he did it in response to a Jaguar PR request.

I don't watch ''Top Gear'. But that Sunday night I happened to be channel hopping and suddenly there was the old car spinning round and round in clouds of tyre smoke, then squealing off the line, tyres aflame, for the cameras.

Next day I mentioned it to the boys who run 'The Telegraph' supplement, they'd seen it too and were equally sickened at such uncomprehending misuse. As far as I was concerned the 11 year-olds of 'Top Gear' had missed the point.

Therefore I wrote the following, which was published as a sidebar to my main Cuneo story:

---------------------------

‘TOP GEAR’, LOW BEHAVIOUR
How might you react if on prime-time television you saw the Mona Lisa awash with slops through being used as a tea-tray, or one of those epochal Harrison chronometers from Greenwich being tumbled down a staircase? Pretty much the same, one suspects, as real car lovers reacted when BBC TV’s ‘Top Gear’ saw fit on-screen (June 1) to abuse the 1953 Le Mans-winning ‘Lightweight’ C-Type Jaguar. One of the Beeb’s two professional test drivers whom ‘Top Gear’ disguise as ‘Stig’ (one being Perry McCarthy, useful journeyman racer/failed F1 aspirant/author of an entertainingly frank racer’s autobiography) took the car to the opposite side of Dunsfold aerodrome from its unsuspecting owner, then burned out its rear tyres, twisted its drive-shafts and destroyed its clutch in filmed sequences of over-revving ‘doughnut’ spins and getaways. Absolutely not the use for which the old lady had ever been designed, nor which any modern-day guardian of such an iconic museum piece would have expected…unless he was a regular viewer of ‘Top Gear’ and its customary standards.

Programme production groups and racing teams have much in common. Gelled together in common cause, despite inevitable internal frictions they instinctively unite against outside assault. If they’re together for a while they develop customs, practises and standards uniquely acceptable to themselves. And some unite in mutual, uncomprehending ignorance.

Old ‘053’ – the C-Type Jaguar in which Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton won Le Mans – has been owned and preserved for years by Duncan’s son Adrian, former merchant navy officer-turned purveyor of quality classic cars. His dad’s C-Type holds a special place in motor racing history, it is much sought-after for display and demonstration and it was created for a specific purpose – to win that race. The accomplished engineers who created it would be bouncing off the rev-limiter in their graves if they’d seen ‘The Beeb’ abusing the old lady so. Worse, there’s serious doubt the ‘Top Gear’ team have any appreciation such treatment was at best unacceptable, at worst despicable. That vital part of the chip seems not have been installed. ‘Top Gear’ or low behaviour? Philistines at the gate, indeed…"

-------------------

This piece - which I consider relatively mild - triggered a UK Media feeding frenzy, in which 'The TImes', 'The Mail' and others picked up the story and ran with it, rubbishing the show's personnel as a bunch of 'hooligans' and naturally (fittingly?) including prime presenter Jermy Clarkson in their opprobrium.

The programme producer had a real bleat at the 'D.Tel' editorial chaps, primarily - amazingly - because I had "exposed the identity of 'The Stig" and thereby spoiled it for all the kids who watch. Now I might look like Santa Claus but that doesn't necessarily mean I would split on the truth to every 6-year old...

Perry McCarthy then had the balls to telephone me and gave me a roasting for "blaming him" without considering he might have been "obeying orders" from the BBC director.

I reminded him of another bunch of blokes who tried to use "only obeying orders" as a defence - who found it did not wash.

I also said to him that of all the guys there, he - as a proper racer - should have had some inkling that this was inappropriate treatment - it wasn't a manufacturers' press road test car, it wasn't some hopped-up traffic lights racer, it wasn't a King's Road cruiser.

We agreed to disagree, but parted on pretty good terms....both big boys, and I really did sympathise with his disappointment at Le Mans, the best drive of his career, when he didn't even get a steer during the race after Frank Biela's screw-up ran their car dry out on circuit.

Next instalment - last Saturday (I am told - then found it on their present Online website - 'The Sun Online') 'The Sun' - a Murdoch tabloid in the UK - published a Clarkson column, part of which read as you can see on their website

<http://www.thesun.co...3281776,00.html>

I suppose it's their copyright so I won't intrude on private grief by reproducing it here.

However - for those who care to read it - I would point out the following facts:

NOTE Clarkson's accuracy and truthfulness - "all he did was drive a racing car round our race track" - no he didn't, he pirouetted the old lady on the spot generating more smoke than The Battle of the River Plate.

NOTE: "Only one man objected" - not true, apparently there were many letters and phone calls in protest.

NOTE: He claims to know me - in fact we have never met, never spoken, never corresponded, never contacted one another via any medium. It's another complete untruth.

NOTE ALSO: Last paragraph...which I WILL reproduce here since I am its subject:

"Well, I know the man in question and I know where he lives. And if he’d like to see some real hooliganism he should try objecting again. "

This from a man employed by the British Broadcasting Corporation whose family motto is "Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation"...???? I seldom have a sense of humour failure. This is one.

The courageous Clarkson here makes - in a British national newspaper - an open and explicit threat against yrs trly - which I and my family do not appreciate very much.

I am in touch with 'The Sun' concerning this matter and will happily confront Clarkson if and when we meet. Crusty historian I may be - essentially cheerful cuddly bear I may be - but sometimes events produce a situation up with which I will not put.

He's picked the wrong man this time...and I never even mentioned his name. Considering his apparent ego - perhaps that's the problem?

But it's only a minor media spat...no big deal...OK????

DCN

[Dennis Hockenbury]

Well put Doug.

[Frank S]

Perhaps the reference is to some other "crusty old historian"?

Frank S

[ensign14]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
I am in touch with 'The Sun' concerning this matter and will happily confront Clarkson if and when we meet.

Coming up next...Top Marques...featuring The Doug...

Thanks Mr Nye. Hard driving of a classic is fair enough, but doughnuts...

[Doug Nye]

Zo - Frank - are you calling me "a crusty old historian"...?????

[2F-001]

Yes, well put indeed, Doug.
I didn't see the 'incident' on TG, but did catch one episode (maybe the same one?) in which they gleefully trotted out the 'story' about Hamilton and Rolt winning Le Mans whilst 'drunk in charge' , with a bit more chinese-whispers-type embellishment I hadn't heard before. I thought AH had demolished that as myth more than once? (Even if some of it was based on tales told by his father).
That programme does irritate me - but then I still watch it now and then. A bit like me buying Autosport I suppose...

The identity of their mystery track tester has been common knowledge on a number of car forums in the UK since early in the last series - they can't seriously imagine it's any more 'secret' than the venue is. Having said that, I doubt if the vast majority of the target audience would have heard of Perry McCarthy anyway.

Yeah - for real 'he-man' laddish driving, you should see pics of ''The Doug'' wrestling with the Alfa Bimotore, or riding bareback on a big hillclimb car...

[Frank S]

Am I wrong?

Didn't you answer to that sobriquet just a line or two above?

Hm?

How else would I have known?

Any road, the demand for such personages is much greater among the cognoscenti than for OTTs or BOTTs, or even for 'stigs,' whatever they be.

[Doug Nye]

Frank - I'm perfectly happy with it. Misprint of course - for 'trusty' - ...or maybe 'lusty'???? :

DCN

[Mike Argetsinger]

Doug - much applause from this corner of the world for your handling of the matter. Your article was precisely to the point and excellent journalism. Their response was extremely inappropriate and you are quite correct to take umbrage. Not that you needed me to tell you that but the sentiment is heartfelt.

[Evo One]

When Top Gear was launched again, I liked the new format - at first, what with comparing celebrities times in a normal family car around their circuit and using a professional racing driver to drive fast cars around the same circuit. I started to have doubts though when many of the times could not be compared as some were in the wet.

I also find 2 of the 3 presenters extremely irritating. although I'm afraid to admit I find Clarkson generally very entertaining. What he wrote in the Sun about DCN though was childish beyond words.

Last Sunday I actually fell asleep during the programme - perhaps an indication of its dwindling entertainment value.

Doing doughnuts in a modern high performance car is bad enough, but in a precious piece of motor racing history - come on

[BRG]

So, all in all, a very silly and unnecessary incident, aggravated by further juvenile behaviour by those (ir)responsible. Mind you, Clarkson has made a career out of being an overgrown schoolboy, so perhaps we should not be surprised! I am disappointed more in Perry McCarthy - he at least should know better.

Don't worry Doug - we know where Clarkson lives too (in the Cotswolds). I wonder how he would react to being doorstepped by you supported by the UK Chapter of TNF doing doughnuts on his front lawn!

[Doug Nye]

I am not a worrier - but thank you for your support.

I will always wear it.

DCN

[Ron Scoma]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
I am not a worrier - but thank you for your support.

I will always wear it.

DCN

Doug:

I just spoke with my soon, but not soon enough, to-be-ex-wife who is a lawyer in Geneve and she too offers her support.
But she wants pictures...

Cheers,

Ron

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Ron Scoma
.....I just spoke with my soon, but not soon enough, to-be-ex-wife who is a lawyer in Geneve and she too offers her support.

But she wants pictures.....

One day you won't have to put the 'not soon enough' bit in Ron.

I just hope Doug doesn't post the pictures here...

[TODave2]

Originally posted by 2F-001
...they can't seriously imagine it's any more 'secret' than the venue is.

Well... *I* didn't know

[D-Type]

Originally posted by BRG
I wonder how he would react to being doorstepped by you supported by the UK Chapter of TNF doing doughnuts on his front lawn!

Include me in - but can you do doughnuts with a Hyundai Accent?

[Darren Galpin]

Handbrake turns then........

[Eric McLoughlin]

On one programme last season the words "British Aerospace Dunsfold" could be seen clearly emblazoned across one of the hangars in the background. So much for "Secret Location". Are the audience asked to sign an oath of silence before they leave?

[Ron Scoma]

Originally posted by BRG
Don't worry Doug - we know where Clarkson lives too (in the Cotswolds). I wonder how he would react to being doorstepped by you supported by the UK Chapter of TNF doing doughnuts on his front lawn!

Isn't there an old movie where "they" leave a cylinder head in some movie producers bed....


Ron from Chicago

[Magee]

I can reason out most words in this thread. However, "stig" is one that's got me. Is it an acronym for "stand-in goofball"?

[HarryPotter]

I have a question about the Car itself. Is it the one where the Jag team won with a drunk driver a thte wheel if this is true does anyone have a link to a article of the full story.

On topic, old race cars should be raced, it's like have a painting by Da Vinci and not looking at it...pointless, however what Topgear did was vandalism...no respect to history.

Harry.

[D-Type]

Originally posted by Peter Morley
Looks like it was press hype.
They reported that it was an incredibly rare car, only 3 left in the world. Given that is rubbish (maybe only 3 Le-Mans winners left in the world!) what chance the rest of the story is totally accurate.

So how many Lightweight C-Type Jaguars do exist?

Seems odd to have enough grip that it would bend the driveshaft, most 50's race cars spin the tyres quite happily from a standing start (on cars with preselector boxes spinning the wheels is the only way to get them moving).

But they did bend the driveshafts, which means it wasn't just a standing start.

Given that TG presenter Tiffany Dell has driven (raced even) Lister Jags at Goodwood, they could have got him to show them how to drive it (but please don't let him call it a Jag You Are ever again).

But they didn't did they?

As for cost, assume they are using an AP racing clutch these days (2 or 3 sintered plates), cost around 500 quid, but the plates themselves are less - say 100 quid a plate. If they are using an original type friction plate then 100 quid should be plenty!

Tyres Dunlop racing tyres work out about 150 quid a piece.

Driveshaft, presumably these were road car components originally, but no doubt some modern equivalent used now, could cost about 350 quid.

So all the fuss is about a bill of around 1,000 quid, probably less than they had to pay to insure what is apparently a far rarer car than anyone realised.

Only £1000, does this make it OK then? Whilst the clutch is most probably not original, the drive shafts probably were, so this particular piece of motoring history is now less original than it was.

And the publicity A.H. received is no doubt worth far more than that on its own (why is Stanley Mann always happy to show his Bentleys on Blue Peter!), which might explain the programme's lack of pity.

I won't say anything more as it's all been said better by others

[Ron Scoma]

Originally posted by HarryPotter
I have a question about the Car itself. Is it the one where the Jag team won with a drunk driver a thte wheel if this is true does anyone have a link to a article of the full story.
Harry.

I have to question whether any driver was drunk during that victory in 1953. The story has been repeated SO many times, starting off in Hamilton's "Touch Wood," that it's taken on a life of it's own. Besides, the passage of time occasionally "improves" upon the truth.
I recall an interview, or perhaps a letter, from Tony Rolt's son stating that his father claimed old Duncan was a good story teller but sometimes the truth suffered in the interest of being interesting.
It would be nice and worthwhile if someone got a taped interview with Rolt before the inevitable occurs. I believe he's the oldest LeMans winner still with us.
Kind Regards,

Ron Scoma

[Peter Morley]

So how many Lightweight C-Type Jaguars do exist?

No idea, but my point about the story being inaccurate was that it said only 3 C-types exist, I doubt that 40 have disappeared (did they make 43 or 53?) so that bit was clearly wrong (maybe they meant lightweight but they didn't say so - is there such a thing as a lightweight C-type, is this one?).

But they did bend the driveshafts, which means it wasn't just a standing start.

Hindsight has 20:20 vision, having now learnt that they were doughnutting the car certainly explains how the driveshafts were subjected to loads they weren't designed for.

Only £1000, does this make it OK then? Whilst the clutch is most probably not original, the drive shafts probably were, so this particular piece of motoring history is now less original than it was.

£1,000 is probably a fraction of what it cost them to make the article (is it an article, piece, whatever) so well within their budget - sometime ago £10,000 plus per presenter per show seemed to be the 'standard BBC paycheck'.

And all I was doing was answering the guy's questions about how much would the damage have cost - given the article's implication that they had destroyed a million pound motor car, this does not make such good headlines.

Given the car has been raced & restored by the Pearson's it will have been very well prepared and raced hard so chances are the driveshafts will have been non-original.

I won't say anything more as it's all been said better by others

Perhaps I'll stop answering people's queries

[Garagiste]

Thank you for the story behind the stories, Doug.
As for Clarkson's response, well it was in The Sun

[Alan Lewis]

Originally posted by D-Type

Include me in - but can you do doughnuts with a Hyundai Accent?

I could bring some doughnuts.

Would that help at all?

APL

[David Birchall]

'Ere Doug, tellem we'll send a couple of Candadian, er Caandian, er Hockey Players over to sort the bleeders out!

[TODave2]

Originally posted by Magee
I can reason out most words on this thread. However, "stig" is one that's got me. Is it an acronym for "stand in goofball"?

I think it's to do with the children's book 'Stig of the Dump'. If memory serves (I haven't read it for about 25 years) it was about a boy living at a tip (I don't know if that's an English term - tip = public refuse disposal site).

I just looked it up in my big Oxford Dictionary and there's no entry for 'stig'. Anyone else...?


(if you want an absolutedly useless bit of trivia, the lad who played Stig in the telly series they made in the eighties also played the part of one of the Spocks growing up on the Genesis planet in 'Star Trek III: The Search for Spock')


Somehow I suspect you wish you'd never asked now...

[ensign14]

Originally posted by TODave2


I think it's to do with the children's book 'Stig of the Dump'. If memory serves (I haven't read it for about 25 years) it was about a boy living at a tip (I don't know if that's an English term - tip = public refuse disposal site).

Yeah, from memory he was a Neanderthal of some description. And naturally the scruffiest kid in school was consequently nicknamed 'Stig'.

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by Peter Morley




Perhaps I'll stop answering people's queries

First, appropriate support to DCN. A nice four-wheel drift would have been adequate to demonstrate a C-type.

Peter, having had what I thought were constructive posts abused or ignored (not on TNF of course) I sympathise.

Turning to rubbish dumps, that appeared a few posts ago, I can confirm that "tip" is indeed an English word. There is also a verb: "to tip" present participle: "tipping" as in "no fly tipping" meaning dumping of rubbish in a place other than that defined as a rubbish dump by the power-crazed maniacs in a local authority (not that I am in favour of fly-tipping you understand - a gentleman does NOT "fly-tip").

I am also reminded of a story concerning a notice erected by some self-important local authority. The notice read "Household refuse amenity point" Someone whose hand I would like to shake deleted this nonsense, substuting "rubbish dump" in its place.

Quite right too.

PdeRL

[D-Type]

Originally posted by Peter Morley


~

Perhaps I'll stop answering people's queries

Peter,
Having read your second posting (Doug's article ......) I realise that my posting was rather heavy handed.
Please accept my apologies.

[Peter Morley]

Originally posted by D-Type

Peter,
Having read your second posting (Doug's article ......) I realise that my posting was rather heavy handed.
Please accept my apologies.

No problem, I really don't care, just was surprised when I (like any other reasonable being) agree that doing such damage to a car is totally unjustified.

But my point is that the article implied they had destroyed an incredibly rare motor car which was untrue since:
a) the car isn't as rare as they said (as the LM winner it is of course incredibly important) and
b) the damage was relatively small (and entirely invisible).

If you go to the painting analogy what they did is equivalent to destroying the wire that the painting is hung on - e.g. a totally un-necessary act, but not one that really affects the item's originality or importance and easily rectified.

So the article was certainly hyping the situation in true Max Clifford style, why they did it is beyond comprehension - but isn't it normal behavious for Essex boys to doughnut other people's cars (twocking.....), I really hope there aren't too many members of the Essex TNF!

Meanwhile I'm sure that Perry & Adrian are both happy to have had their names in the papers.

Finally - Doug you have at least been in the same room as Clarkson before now.
You were both in the auction at the first Goodwood hillclimb, of course you were working and Clarkson was poncing around which is presumably his version of working!!

[Doug Nye]

Fair point - I've been in the same room as HM Queen Elizabeth, Phil the Greek, Jon Bon Jovi (???spelling???) Spike Milligan and Neil Armstrong before but none of us know/knew each other. And for those who haven't followed this entire - and surely now rather tedious - thread 'the article' you refer to certainly wasn't mine. Nowhere did I mention anything about cost of repair, nor value of damage inflicted????? Are you talking about the typically hysterical follow-up splash in 'The Daily Mail'. Now that DID refer to cost - and to the woolly-headed infant.

DCN

[David McKinney]

At least we can presume that Top Gear will have considerable difficulty in finding decent cars to use in future programmes