Two Repressed Egotists

I am not labouring under the misconception that this is likely to be a well supported argument, either in the sense that many people will agree with it or that my reasons for thinking it will stand up to scrutiny, but I am going to give it a shot. Yep, I'm the anti-hero, stetson tipped, riding out into the sunset with my fingers raised in a v, shiloutted by the sun, astride a big horse, snappily called, 'Richard Hammond is a prick.'

As proven by Alistair McGowan's impressions, insulting Jeremy Clarkson is as lazy as a joke about Hammond's height, and as easy as making the world's most expensive, quickest and coolest cars interesting to watch on TV, so time to make hay, hey.

I like Top Gear, but I have been indoctrinated. It's a habit and after watching the new series I am starting to question why I like it. There are, of course, reasons: the cars, the lavishness of the stupid races that prove only that the BBC can stage such a race, which even if it was real would prove precisely nothing, and occasionally, the presenters, when alone are tolerable. So what don't I like about it?

Clarkson's interviews. He only has two interviewing strategies: for the men, sycophantism almost as transparent as the BBC's use of the star interview to trot out any old tosser currently in one of their shows; and the other style, ageing pervert, reserved usually for the women; apart from the special case of Ellen McArthur, who gets both. The audience are another part of the show that upset me; as they shore up the idea that the trio's banter is funny. The audience are guilty, I am afraid, by colluding in the biggest illusion to ever be staged, or else, its a case of folie à plusieurs, but when put together Clarkson, May and Hammond are not funny. If I am forced to admit they are funny, they are funny in the way that siamese triplets joined at the brain might be when they smell a fart and try to work out which one let it off. They are as painful to watch interact as testicles and blunt garden shears. Hammond wants to be Clarkson, Clarkson thinks God wants to be Clarkson and May, miraculously, is left being the one who's legs you would pull if you happend on the three being hanged.

To make James May seem relatively likable! A feat not even Oz Clark managed in the televised romance, the oenophile and the onanist. When he started out on the show, he was mild, prehaps quietly arrogant, but arrogant because he knew his stuff and not just where cars were concerned. He may have been nerdish and precise, but at least he was different. He added a new dimension to the show, because he wasn't the balls out, leather bomber jacket wearing, ludicrous metaphor yelling, bombast idiot, swigging oil and testosterone. But in the blink of an eye he turned to the dark side, out came the bomber jacket, the nonsense and he started coiffering his hair making him look like a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Yep, to my mind May is a wanker of biblical proportions, but he is no patch on Hammond.

If being a prick was a sport, its regulating body would need to create new rules to reintroduce an element of competition, and unsettle Hammond's dominance. Why do I think this? Simply because it is generally accepted that Clarkson used to hold the title of worst person alive, and Hammond seems to idolise him, and fine, I am sure there are plenty of others out there who also idolise Clarkson, but they don't do it for a living, in front of a massive global audience. He has even started to dress like him. You get the impression on this week's episode, that Clarkson, pre-filming, demanded Hammond untuck his shirt less anyone notice they were wearing identical outfits. As far as I am concerned trying to emulate Clarkson is many degrees worse than being Clarkson, and that is always going to give you an edge in the biggest prick in the world stakes. Why does it annoy me so much? Partly because hanging on Clarkson's every word is enjoying the obvious and unenjoyable and partly because it means Top Gear is presented by one and a half Clarksons, the real one, and a watery and insipid version who only serves to prolong the real one's inane jokes.

You might think this is unfair, and you are right it is. The vitriol of this arguement is directly proportional to the amount of blind and faithful support shown for the best show on British Television. But I do believe that Top Gear is weakening, and I think its weakening because they had found a winning formula, that has now started to tire. The statistics show me to be wrong at the moment, but time will tell. A personality cult without a personality surely isn't self-sustaining.