Top Gear

I wrote this for the Empire Magazine forum top 100 TV shows http://www.empireonline.com/forum/tm.asp?m=2850596

Before I started watching Top Gear religiously (I am one of those, along with former Star in a Reasonably Priced Car Will Young, who watches the endless repeats on Dave), in my books cars came in colours with a wheel in each corner and one in front of the driver’s seat.

The programme in its current iteration has turned this air headed woman into one who tweets regularly that I could do as good a job as Messers Hammond, Clarkson and May for half the price, who will bite off the hand of the first person to let me play with a Bugatti Veyron, who was insanely jealous of a friend who recently rallied to Mongolia via the Transfagarasan route, who now claims I can fix anything with the judicious application of a hammer and a bag of chips and knows the Gospel of ‘if it’s stuck and shouldn’t be, use WD40 and if it’s moving and shouldn’t be use gaffer tape.

Cars now interest me. It’s thanks to Top Gear that I can maintain a half-decent conversation about them with my father and my car-minded male friends. It’s thanks to Top Gear that for a little over a month a couple of times a year, I am overjoyed and deliriously happy with the state of television programming in this country.

If you can ignore Jeremy Clarkson’s right-wing rhetoric, Richard Hammond’s forays into prime-time presenting (though he is good at it) and James May’s boys’ own nonsense (Man Lab notwithstanding), on any given episode you will find a funny and engaging programme despite a lot of the cars’ prohibitive price tags. And more than occasionally you will find moments of pure comedy genius: Jeremy thrashing round Basingstoke’s Festival Place shopping centre and Jeremy drowning Ross Kemp.

If were Director General

Now where was I? Oh yes. If I were Director General of the BBC. Cuts, cuts, more cuts and cuts. At least for the trash.

For the chop with no opportunity for dispute or appeal (in no particular order)

• Doctor Who (not only would I say goodbye, I would say good riddance, and thank fuck for that) and associated spin-off shows
• Eastenders (I have a Take No Prisoners approach to all kinds of soaps as well as reality TV programming and 'talent' shows. That is not to say the candidates are talentless morons like on such programmes which will not be mentioned here but they are a comparable format and therefore illegal in Sahara Desert Land*.
• Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber audition shows
• Strictly Come Dancing
• Holby Shitty
• Casualty
• Film 2010 (unless the Winkleman can be dispatched and replaced with Mark Kermode). Otherwise, turn it into a show where viewers can tweet in abuse to the Winkleman because she knows shit about films.
• Radio 1 unless it can continue to attract life-time BBC fans to the corporation in much the same way it did to me in my formative years. It needs to dispense, with minimal fuss, with the egos of certain presenters, who shall remain nameless. Said presenters are worthwhile presenters on the station but need to get back to their roots. If it can do this, it will be saved. If not: AXED!

This list is neither exhaustive nor definitive and may be subject to change.

Rebranding (in no particular order)

• Masterchef (any iteration) renamed Mastershout in honour of Sir Terrance of Wogan. If Dave Lamb can be enticed away from Channel 4 for the least amount of munnies he will commentate with Sir Wogan, otherwise the job’s Terry’s, no questions asked. He’s already on contract, y’see.

This list is neither exhaustive nor definitive and may be subject to change.

Saved for Life (in no particular order)

• Mock The Week
• University Challenge
• QI
• Top Gear
• Countryfile
• Something For The Weekend
• Saturday Kitchen
• Cookery shows by Nigella, Delia, Valentine Warner, Anjum Anand, Ching-He Huang, Heston Bloodyhell & Raymond Blanc.
• Shooting Stars
• Never Mind The Buzzcocks
• Have I Got News For You
• I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue
• Question Time
• Newsnight

This list is neither exhaustive nor definitive and may be subject to change.

Recommissioned (in no particular order)

• The Fast Show
• In The Night Garden
• Children of the Sun

This list is neither exhaustive nor definitive and may be subject to change.

Regarding Government interference and attacks on the BBC

David Cameron and his inbred, moneyed, entitled cabal of idiots will be told to fuck off when attempting to interfere with any aspect of the corporation. The same will go for publications which wantonly attack the corporation without just cause. You know who you are. Naughty.

Other stuff

• BBC Bristol will be granted a charter of Never Being Even Threatened With Closure.
• David Attenborough shall be crowned King of BBC Bristol
• The move to Manchester will be scrapped.
• Brian Cox and Jim Al Khalili can each have as many series commissioned as they like.
• Science documentaries in general will be prioritised. Although I don’t have qualifications worth shouting about doesn't mean I don't feel I learn anything from watching such shows. In short: just because I don't have the proof, doesn’t mean I don't understand their content.

*Obligatory Sahara Desert Land Tourism Board Statement

"Visit Sahara Desert Land for apoplexy and soapbox ranting. Fun for all the family!"

You do realise I need to cut costs elsewhere to afford to buy back Mad Men off that thieving, bastard Australian, yes? Good.