Craig Sawyers

^ Let's hope he doesn't want to get anything in the boot (trunk)

It was absolutely clear that all the filmed stuff - like the road trips - was staged and scripted when you can do lots of takes and then edit. But the studio sections with the audience (for which there was an 8 year waiting list) were too - and since none of them are actors it remains exceptionally clever. The appearance of spontaneity in front of cameras and an audience to a basic script with non-actors is very difficult to get right, and not seem like the worst sort of ham acting. May has a music degree and is a performance grade pianist. Hammond and Clarkson are journalists and writers.

This is all being really well stage managed. They meet at Clarkson's for a couple of hours and pow! a posse of the media magically arrive and follow them to the pub. Really? Who tipped them off - Clarkson or his school buddy Wilman? Even May and Hammond's Twitter feeds are very, very carefully pitched, May with his cookery lessons on YouTube and hang-dog wine swilling demeanour, Hammond on a road trip to pick up some sheep (Herdwick - I come from that end of the country) in the Lake district, very carefully and professionally edited. And Clarkson saying - well nothing at all, other than a single tweet to advertise his article in the Sunday Times. So yes - very very carefully managed. But since they are clearly off to do something somewhere else, I think that any attempt by the BBC to reinvent Top Gear as-was with an entirely new trio is a dead duck. I read today that all the banter and personas is scripted; it looks spontaneous (Clarksonian pause) but it isn't: the old Top Gear was basically a sitcom about three middle aged blokes with an interest in cars.

Proud to be a brit! Defy you not to laugh out loud

Just about every useful piece of audio silicon is obsolete. Low noise bipolar (at lease those with sensible noise specs like contours and rbb' spec) are dead, such as 2SB737. Low noise FETs - although LSK170 are now easily available LSJ74 are only sporadically available. Original 2SK170 and 2SJ74 are like hen's teeth. A shed load of silicon for the T2 is now obsolete, as with original Blue Hawaii. Low noise dual FETs 2SK389 and 2SJ109 long dead, although at least LSK389 is now available. This often happens when companies merge or are acquired, and product ranges are "rationalised". A prime example is one of the lowest phase noise SC-cut ovenised clocks on the planet was made by Oscilloquartz - the BVA. Lower phase noise than rubidium and deployed in space missions. Also used by high end digital audio nuts with deep pockets. Taken over 2014 by ADVA a year after the highest spec ever BVA-C was introduced. The BVA has now been discontinued. http://www.oscilloquartz.com/textes-history-563. For the comfort and convenience of - er - the shareholders or private equity piranhas. Boy oh boy does this grind my gears.

Yeah - that is the way to do it. I have a box of different size centre drills depending on the final hole size. But since I don't have any NC malarky and only have a precision drill press it is important to mark the hole centres accurately. I use a digital height gauge with hardened spur to scribe lines in precisely the right place. I then use a magnifying glass to get a centrepunch right on the scribe marks. Then the centre drill and final drill size. Time consuming, but it sure is nice when everything fits together just right.

You need to watch this right to the end https://www.youtube.com/embed/_CwHrJt8Oz8?rel=0

Sting and Paul Simon in concert. 3h10m with no interval. Basically think of anything either of them have done from the year dot, and they played it - greatest hits writ large. A whole boxful of treats.

I just caught this. Yes - my reading is that he is running scared of the beasting he would get by Ian Hislop and Paul Merton.

I expect much more than mere sly comments - the panel were responsible for dealing the coup de grace to the long term host Angus Deaton. I think it will be quite a test for JC, and will be a must-watch.

Saw Death of a Salesman, RSC Stratford on Avon, today; Athony Sher and Harriet Walter, actors of the highest calibre. Awesome. http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/death-of-a-salesman/ And while I'm on the actor thing, daughter has just nailed a three month tour as Titania and Helena in Midsummer Night's Dream and also as Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. http://www.chapterhouse.org/

And here was me thinking far right

Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well Horatio - he was a man of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Some sort of allegory on Hamlet, with Yorick's skull?

You're one stop shop in the UK is One Thing Audio. The One Thing they do is repair parts, including rebuilt panels, for Quad ESL's. http://www.onethingaudio.org/products.htmlnear Coventry.

http://www.derek-hasted.co.uk/assets/audio/derek-hasted/ten-tone.mp3

Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday!

I'm not sure the facts are out here. I've heard that the copter landed at the hotel; May had drunk a bottle of wine on the flight, but Hammond and Clarkson drank water only. They supposedly landed at 9:30pm, and checking the menus on the hotel website it looks like the restaurants close at 9:45. So it could well be that he was stone cold sober, and thew his toys out the pram. Mind you if I had been Oisin, had been verbally abused and then thumped, and told I was fired - I'd have grabbed a hold of Clarkson and laid into him. Actually if that had happened, Clarkson would probably have respected it and both of them would have ended up in the bar. But speculation is futile - he's gone.

Yeah - it was kind of inevitable alas. Clarkson does have something of a history of thumping people. In fairness he comes from Doncaster, where there is a good history of violence http://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/news/crime/town-named-hotspot-for-domestic-violence-1-5087311 But it will be interesting for sure to see what happens next. May is bemoaning on twitter that his house is surrounded by journalists.

Re-reading after many years The World According to Garp by John Irving (one of my all time favourite authors)

Excellent article on Sunday by Piers Morgan, a journalist and TV presenter, and another person Clarkson punched (3 times, hard - so hard he broke his finger and permanently scarred Morgan) http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/home/event/article-3002568/PIERS-MORGAN-Jeremy-Clarkson-like-50-angst-ridden-damaged-relationships-grieving-loved-ones-irritated-work-related-issues-battling-inner-demons.html

The pics of Le Mont St Michel off the Normandy coast reminded me of the Bayeux Tapestry (as it does - welcome to my weird brain). William (the conqueror) bogged down in the quicksand surrounding Le Mont St Michel (monte Michaelis) nearly 1000 years ago

Ha ha ha! Brilliant. On a more serious note, the Top Gear roadshows in Norway (3-off) which are sold out and paid for, have been postponed. The mess that is a mess gets messier.

Yeah - sorry: Rugby 7's is amazing to watch. First time I watched it was in the last Olympics, and I was totally won over.

At the moment they are both "Bring out your dead", so not so different