Top Gear

I see Top Gear are in trouble again. This time a car manufacturer, Tesla, are pissed off with how their car got treated on the show. Feeling it was made to look deliberately bad.

First up, I like Top Gear, it's good fun, Sunday night entertainment. But that's exactly what it is entertainment. It may get nominated in best factual program categories every year, but its basis in fact is a tricky one. The cars they test are generally done for comedic value, or to demonstrate models that let's face it, watching them on the program is the closest many people will actually ever get to one.

Top Gear is entertaining, and that's the main issue, I don't know all that many people who use it to help judge their next purchase, infact I can't think of one. People watch the program to see fast cars driven well and the presenters take on stupid challenges and take the piss out of anything and anyone they can, particularly themselves and each other.

One of Teslas main issues is that their electric car was depicted to only have a range of about 55 miles, They say this is as it was driven 'aggressivley'. Aggressively? On Top Gear? In a race? Round the test track? You say? The bastards. If they'd driven it like grandmas and got 250+ miles out of it, 1) nobody would have watched it and b) they would have complained they're misrepresenting the car as slow, when it was capable of keeping up with the Lotus it was racing against.

I'm not saying the presenters are warm to electric cars such as the tesla, they are generally old school petrol head types, but looking at it, the tesla was driven like any other car they are given, and they found a weakness. Not a weakness the everyday person would find, but one right up their street! I'd imagine they look the piss quite badly out of it, but that's top gear.

Personally I'd forgotten about the episode, no doubt I would have seen it on Dave at some point, but thank you tesla for bringing it into sharp focus once again!

I've noticed many electric car enthusiasts can be quite defensive and critical of any negative press or criticism their vehicles get. But sorry, that's life. People are not to like what you do, some people will cling on to what they know and struggle to accept you. Taking each one of these people with enough public profile to court wont but you respect, make a car they can't argue with, that impresses them... then you'll start winning them over.

Now I'm awaiting the next series,maybe Clarkson and May will have to make a flying car out of a mid 90s corsa with only £675 to spend in total, then drive it off a something to prove it flys. That'd be funny to watch, but tragic too.

Also please mind my spelling, the spell check on here appears to be buggered!

Collapse into Now, Mrs Browns Boys and pointless HD

Collapse into Now... what a stupid name for an album. No doubt it's clever on a level that I don't get, but to
be, it sounds a bit stupid. But a stupid name does not a bad album make.

Of what I heard prior to the release of new the REM album I wasn't overly excited, but they are my favourite band by a distance ,so I clicked buy on iTunes (no CD sniff sniff) and got ready. I had an approx 45 min car journey out of Cardiff back home so it seemed destiny.

It began, with discoverer, which I'd heard before and didn't overly like. Nothing really changed there, I still don't really like it, maybe it's a grower. But it gets better, much better! By the 3rd song, Uberlin it's going well, the acoustic guitar on this riff is excellent, Oh My Heart lacks a little in the chorus but nips along nice and generally the same can be said for the whole album. There's allot of repeated simple chorus' but.. it's REM. That Someone is You and Blue are outstanding.

Thinking about it a few of the songs have... expressive titles, but they hold together well enough.

I'd heartily recommend the album to anyone, it's not their best, it's maybe not as good as accelerate, but good. Though I am a little biased.

I also quite fancy Elbows album, also out today, but funds say no I'm afraid. If anyone from the band reads this (what??) and wants to send me a copy I'd happily take it! Oh and 2 tickets for the CIA gig would be cool. But this is a blog not a review centre, so other things:

On an unrelated topic, I just saw Mrs Browns Boys on BBC HD on my sisters recommendation. Well I can say, 100% honestly, what a piece of shit. That's among the worst programs I've had the misfortune to sit through in a while, and I've seen Dancing on Ice.

Some Irish bloke dressed as an old woman, reeling off predictable one liners and witty responses to a cast of stereotypes. I felt like it'd feel dated on Dave. I watched it in HD as mentioned above, but it's one of the vast majority of programs that gains absolutely nothing from the upgrade. It feels quite heavily that HD is quite gimmicky at the moment, yes the potential is there and I may as well use it, but I can't say it's 'redefining television' or any of that kind of crap that PR people spout to make themselves sound more interesting.

No doubt programs will adapt and grow into new technology, but at the moment I don't feel I'm gaining an awful lot by watching Richard Hammond grin and present awfully on total wipeout in HD.