Top Gear is for Neanderthals

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION: TOP GEAR Live comes to Dublin this week so that the Irish public may pay homage to Jeremy Clarkson, Richard…

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION:TOP GEAR Live comes to Dublin this week so that the Irish public may pay homage to Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, ogle cars only white-collar criminals and successful drug dealers can afford.

It seems likely the trio of presenters will be more warmly welcomed than on the auspicious occasion when, while filming in Alabama, a group of “angry rednecks” hurled rocks at them.

They had been motivated to do so by the boys (hilariously) scrawling slogans designed to offend locals across their vehicles.

And therein lies the problem. Top Gearseems to have slept right through many of the major intellectual movements of the past few centuries – feminism, environmentalism, large swathes of the Enlightenment. It's Neanderthal fare.

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Its unfunny laddishness attracts around 350 million global viewers, a monumentally dispiriting figure. The portions of Top GearI have been able to watch prior to falling to the floor in a foaming rage made me want to resign from the male gender and from the whole human race.

Just how unwaveringly inane is it possible for three adult males to be? How many double entendres can a supposedly sentient being make about a co-presenter’s genitalia? Was ever a human head so profoundly satisfied at merely being itself as the block atop Jeremy Clarkson’s shoulders?

What must the pre-production meetings be like? “Millions of morons will be watching this; how can we possibly keep them entertained?”

“How about we fashion improvised vehicles from rubbish skips, fit them with 450 bhp engines and race them downhill on to a motorway?

“Or we could scoop out our brains then insert propellers and have a helicopter dodgem competition.”

Knock yourselves out, boys.