top gear goes global

If you don't know the phenomenon that is Top Gear, then read on, otherwise skip the ff paras.

Take three blokes, as British as they can get, two whom qualify for crusty old man syndrome: butter should be evenly spread on toast, NOT pasted, and then place them alongside some of the hottest cars on the planet amid some of the best TV-film makers for that genre and let them act as spoilt teenagers and away you go.

Notice also that there should be no scantily clad or half decently attractive women in sight.

Sounds all too wierd for high success, but that's what this programme has consistently done over the years winning itself global gings from New Yorks TV film awards.

Jeremy, Hamster and May are a sitcom with a script that sometimes isn't far off from the cringe of "The Office". Hamster (on account of his size) nearly met his car maker with a horrific accident last year. Jeremy parks jets in front of his house - his poor wife- and Mays is the ant-Christ of optomism: "It'll never work... it'll never work... see I told you it won't work" as his car sinks to the bottom of the river.

And now for the news: Top Gear in on the verge of American stardom, not the stars they're already on BBC World etc, but the US wants its own Jeremy, Hamster and Mays.

So what is it with this prog, for on the other channels are Channel 5's Fifth Gear - an O-lectric set of the old Top Gear. Yep BBC bosses actually scraped the programme, and the old team more or less went to Channel 5 sans Jeremy.

And then ITV had Pulling Power, where the very lovely Katy Haswell worked ( We were at journalism school together and occupied a shared student digs) and my mate Kevin Haggarthy plied his own mellifluous banter.

Kevin, ITV will tell you was a favourite on the show, much loved also by viewers in a top gear anti way.

Kevin was the epitome of cool, without being cold or arrogant; leather jackets, racing gloves and the like,

We made a car feature last year and now it looks like we could be testing some other super cars.

Not anywhere near top gears budget, but how you make a car feature with spit and polish and one guy that would be me who doesn't have a clue - makes for some interesting moments.

I'll deconstruct that item in a jiffy