I was watching Top Gear on TV last night.
It was reality TV with a vengeance.
Jeremy Clarkson and two colleagues had to each buy a car for $1000 in Florida, and after several trials drive to New Orleans with various tests on the way. One was to camp for the night and eat only what they had found dead at the side of the road.
Then they had to paint things on each other’s cars that would get their colleagues shot or arrested as they crossed Alabama. So one had “Man to man love rules OK” another had “Hillary for President” and the third had some derogatory remarks about country and western music. They stopped for petrol and the garage owner called some thugs to beat them up. It was sound radio for a while, as the thugs also attacked the camera crew.
How’s that for freedom of speech?
When they reached New Orleans they were supposed to sell their cars. But what they showed was unbelievable. More than a year after hurricane Katrina street after street was full of wrecked houses, wrecked vehicles, and the richest country in the world had done nothing to clean up. Far from selling the cars, they couldn’t even give them away.
Their conclusion: don’t go to America.
PS I originally posted this as a comment on Tony Grist’s LiveJournal, and since I hadn’t posted here for a few days, copied it over.
1 Comment
6 June 2007 at 12:20 pm
It was a very good Top Gear (tho the Limo creating was the best) and it did highlight some interesting things about America. I always like Clarksons take on life and his views.
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