Top Gear at The Cenotaph.

[The Albion Roar]

As long as the car did not smash into the Cenotaph I can see no problem with this.
Fed up with pathetic yogurt knitting complainers.

Which yoghurt knitters did you have in mind?

 

[Lincoln Imp]

I am depressed by many of the posts on this thread.

Surely it is all about kindness? You can think that people who revere this monument are stuffy old fools, backward-lookers, sentimentalists; you can think of them what you like but you know they exist so why be unkind to them? It costs nothing to be nice.

 

[mothy]

I suspect you are right, on the same basis maybe they should do it at Auschwitz next time...........

Is that a public highway used by anyone & everyone 24hours a day 364 days a year?

 

[smeg]

I'm the same to be honest.

Fed up of everyone being so sensitive over anything and everything.
I genuinely think people get a kick out of complaining/screaming for a policeman.

Yeah totally agree, the worlds gone mad

 

[SAC]

We all have different outrage levels and it seems to be very fashionable to be think-skinned about certain things.

I have no problem with someone driving at speed down Whitehall, and if they had used cabinet members as obstacles I may have watched TG again.

 

[Lincoln Imp]

I think Cunning Fergus - how lovely it is to be in agreement with him - was making the wider point that Auschwitz has a spiritual significance to many of the hundreds of thousands of people who walk through it, just as the Cenotaph has an importance to many of those who drive past it. So why be unkind? If you want to stand naked at the top of a mountain don't choose a mountain that local people worship. If you want to do asinine donuts in a city street choose another one.

 

[glasfryn]

I think Cunning Fergus - how lovely it is to be in agreement with him - was making the wider point that Auschwitz has a spiritual significance to many of the hundreds of thousands of people who walk through it, just as the Cenotaph has an importance to many of those who drive past it. So why be unkind? If you want to stand naked at the top of a mountain don't choose a mountain that local people worship. If you want to do asinine donuts in a city street choose another one.

total agreement
and its not just the old, many children go and march in memory of their fathers who died not so long ago in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Falklands and many recent wars ..........................
or have we already forgotten them

 

[DTES]

Irrespective of the rights or wrongs of what they do, doesn't Top Gear earn the Beeb more than it costs?

Correct; it earns the BBC a bloody fortune. Scrapping Top Gear would cost the BBC, and hence licence payers, a shed-load.

On this case though - I'm with those that don't see the issue with a stunt 40 metres down the road that is always very busy anyway.. It wouldn't have been done deliberately, and they can't allow for every single way the press could mis-represent everything they do. If the press had wanted they could have spun exactly the same type of story about the stunt being near Downing Street, or Big Ben, or Trafalgar Square (at a push); they're all within eye-shot from there. A shot from a camera that makes it look like they've done it next to the Cenotaph will do nicely to get people offended though...

 

[Hastings gull]

Correct; it earns the BBC a bloody fortune. Scrapping Top Gear would cost the BBC, and hence licence payers, a shed-load.

On this case though - I'm with those that don't see the issue with a stunt 40 metres down the road that is always very busy anyway.. It wouldn't have been done deliberately, and they can't allow for every single way the press could mis-represent everything they do. If the press had wanted they could have spun exactly the same type of story about the stunt being near Downing Street, or Big Ben, or Trafalgar Square (at a push); they're all within eye-shot from there. A shot from a camera that makes it look like they've done it next to the Cenotaph will do nicely to get people offended though...

I can only presume you are joking when you say that it was not done deliberately, and that the press must have got it all wrong, as the footage was a fake.

 

[Hastings gull]

I am depressed by many of the posts on this thread.

Surely it is all about kindness? You can think that people who revere this monument are stuffy old fools, backward-lookers, sentimentalists; you can think of them what you like but you know they exist so why be unkind to them? It costs nothing to be nice.

Exactly -as a general rule, surely if you know that something would annoy others, then you refrain from doing it.

 

[DTES]

I can only presume you are joking when you say that it was not done deliberately, and that the press must have got it all wrong, as the footage was a fake.

I must have missed something here. Where's the news about the footage being a fake?

 

[Lincoln Imp]

I must have missed something here. Where's the news about the footage being a fake?

I think the point being made was that if the press were, as you implied, misrepresenting what had actually happened then, given that there was footage apparently showing the dreadful old banger doing donuts near the Cenotaph the footage in question must by definition have been a fake.

 

[Albumen]

How have we got to a point where an edit on Top Gear is news? I hate Top Gear but this isn't news.

 

[Triggaaar]

I think Cunning Fergus - how lovely it is to be in agreement with him - was making the wider point that Auschwitz has a spiritual significance to many of the hundreds of thousands of people who walk through it, just as the Cenotaph has an importance to many of those who drive past it. So why be unkind? If you want to stand naked at the top of a mountain don't choose a mountain that local people worship. If you want to do asinine donuts in a city street choose another one.

Fair point, it would be better to steer clear of the monument, but let's not over-egg the outrage that they didn't. The monument isn't to be shown in the footage, and very few people would have seen it happen.

 

[DTES]

I think the point being made was that if the press were, as you implied, misrepresenting what had actually happened then, given that there was footage apparently showing the dreadful old banger doing donuts near the Cenotaph the footage in question must by definition have been a fake.

That's a strange leap of logic.

It was done on a busy main road, reasonably near (but not next to) the Cenotaph, reasonably near (but not next to) Downing Street, and reasonably near (but not next to) the Houses of Parliament etc.

The Daily Mail described the act as "Matt LeBlanc's 'gravely disrespectful' wheelspins around the Cenotaph". This, to me, is massively misleading... and doesn't involve any faked footage.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Clarkson must be ecstatic about this. The show is in danger of becoming nothing more than a desperate shambles.

 

[StonehamPark]

Cars, lorries and buses drive past the memorial 24/7.
What's the difference between commuters passing by it 24/7, and staging part of a TV show fairly close-by to it?

Why the outrage and/or upset?
Is it because tyre marks were left 40m-50m away from the memorial?
Is it because a stunt was performed 40m-50m away from the memorial?

Were you as offended when you saw Spectre?
Did the media and newspapers slam Daniel Craig, Ben Whishaw and 20th Century Fox for the stunt performed near the memorial during the filming?
- Or is this simply a slow news week and a great opportunity to sell some papers at the BBC and Top Gear's expense?

Either way, no such thing as bad press.
Top Gear's newest season will bring in a record number of viewers to the show.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Need a poll? Naughty or not?

And the producer that planned this needs a(nother) biff on the nose .....

 

[drew]

Clarkson must be ecstatic about this. The show is in danger of becoming nothing more than a desperate shambles.

It was a desparate shambles with Clarkson at the helm, staged events etc. the Argentinian insults for example.

 

[Lincoln Imp]

That's a strange leap of logic.

It was done on a busy main road, reasonably near (but not next to) the Cenotaph, reasonably near (but not next to) Downing Street, and reasonably near (but not next to) the Houses of Parliament etc.

The Daily Mail described the act as "Matt LeBlanc's 'gravely disrespectful' wheelspins around the Cenotaph". This, to me, is massively misleading... and doesn't involve any faked footage.

Ah, the Daily Mail. If the Mail said that wheelspins were being done 'around the cenotaph' when they were actually being done a few metres down the road, then you're right, that is in itself an exaggeration. I know a man who worked on the Mail subs desk and he explained that the editor liked headlines that either infuriated or frightened the reader and that explains an awful lot of their headlines. (Having said that, the video clip I saw, even allowing for telephoto effects, still makes me think the stunt was too close for kindness - they didn't have to do it there as they now seem to agree.)