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Day: 30 November 2016

Review: The Grand Tour, Episode One

Written by Cameron Broome on . Posted in Film.

In March 2015, Jeremy Clarkson punched a BBC producer due to the absence of a hot meal on offer after a day of Top Gear filming. Immediately, debates were opened up as to what the BBC should do next. Take the moral high ground, make a statement and sack Clarkson? Or accept a public apology, acknowledge his popularity and let the incident slide? In essence, the nature of these debates were akin to the “non-dom” taxation debates of the 2015 UK general election campaign: morality vs economics.

Well, despite petitions from fans to keep Clarkson, the BBC decided Clarkson had crossed a line and had to go. And so with him went colleagues James May and Richard Hammond. In an attempt to prove Top Gear was bigger than the trio, another series of Top Gear was filmed. Cast selection made it clear from the offset the BBC were trying to appeal to a wider audience than before. Top Gear had become symbolic of heterogenic masculinity, with its “laddish” style humour. That is not to say women didn’t watch the show but the new Top Gear wanted to feel more inclusive. New presenters included radio host Chris Evans, Friends star Matt LeBlanc, F1’s Eddie Jordan, as well as professional racing driver Sabine Schmitz. The show certainly had crafted a fresh, new image.

Despite the BBC’s efforts, the new Top Gear series went down like a lead balloon. That didn’t stop Evans rather embarrassingly taking to twitter to defend the first episode, tweeting “The new Top Gear is a hit. OFFICIALLY. 23 % audience share. 12 % MORE than the opening episode of the last series. These are the FACTS”. Indeed, people may have watched the first episode out of curiosity but that is not to say they enjoyed the show, as indicated by the plummeting viewing figures of subsequent weeks. The 3rd episode’s overnight viewing figures were 2.4 million: the lowest for the BBC2 show in over a decade. Matt Le Blanc received praise from critics but overall Top Gear flopped. So much so that Evans has since stepped down as host due to the overwhelming volume of criticism received.

And so all eyes turned to Clarkson, Hammond and May. The trio signed a multi-million pound deal with Amazon to host a rival car show, titled  “The Grand Tour”. Fans were brimming with excitement, with the first episode due to go live on the site on the 18th of November from 00:01.

The Grand Tour started off in tongue and cheek style. Clarkson left a building, exchanging glances with the security guard (alluding to his BBC departure) before heading off to the airport to get a flight to Los Angeles. Clarkson then began driving along a picturesque road in America, joined by May and Hammond. The trio then drove along a beach to the opening set to the sound of Johnny Nash’s “I can see clearly now the rain has gone”, played by a live band. Lots of other cars, trucks and Lorries drove alongside Clarkson et al. to illustrate the number of team members that followed the trio to Amazon from BBC.

Amazon had clearly gone over and above to ensure as many fans were at the show’s launch as possible; the size of the crowd illustrated the extent of the global reach of the trio’s popularity. The cinematography of this scene was stunning, as well as being very clever, it was basically a way of sticking two fingers up to the BBC and saying “you need us; we don’t need you” without explicitly saying or doing anything controversial. The beaming trio were upbeat, and their energy infected the crowd.

Once inside the tent, the Grand Tour began with a classic Clarkson Vs Hammond battle over whose car was best, with May eventually joining the duo. The three cars reviewed across the show were hybrid hypercars: McClaren P1 (Clarkson); Porsche 918 (Hammond) and LaFerrari (May). There were some details given about the mechanical features of the cars. But in traditional Top Gear Style, these reviews were light hearted in nature. Clarkson suggested Hammond’s Porsche was like Downton Abbey and his McClaren was like Breaking Bad. The humour was also as politically incorrect as fans have to come expect (and love). Clarkson compared the trio to gypsies due to the fact they will be travelling round in a tent but pointed out the difference is that they will pay insurance tax. In the “I’m offended” political era, Clarkson’s politically incorrect jokes are somewhat refreshing. The trio’s humour is what the fans tune in for. Evans just did not have that presence about him. He might tell a joke but it seemed slightly forced and awkward. With Clarkson et al., the show is embedded with witty jokes and one-liners; the trio bounce off one another and have great chemistry: a complete contrast to the Top Gear presenters who failed to gel as a group.

While the BBC has ownership rights over lots of Top Gear content, the Grand Tour was very similar to the traditional Top Gear set up which the fans know and love. “The Stig” has been replaced by “the American”, who seems to like to make jokes about Communism. The “Star in the reasonably priced car” section has been replaced by “Celebrity Brain Crash”, although details of what this actually entails remain vague as of yet. All that has effectively changed is technicalities and titles: it is basically Top Gear but Clarkson et al. now have more money, as well as greater freedom to do what they want given the show is broadcast online and not on TV.

The Grand Tour’s reception was well and truly brilliant. Over 3,000 people have rated the Amazon episode, averaging 5 stars. In addition, the episodes’s IMDb rating is 9.6. Given Top Gear was one of the BBC’s most exported programme worldwide, the success of The Grand Tour might have them worried. With the loss of so much revenue, further question marks will be added over the BBC’s future. Sacking Clarkson might have been the right thing to do morally but it was bad for business.

Score: 4/5

Revolution Champions League opens in Manchester

Written by Alex Whitcomb on . Posted in Sport.

Team JLT Condor won the opening round of the new Revolution Champions League at the Manchester Velodrome on Saturday.  The duo of Jon Mould and Ed Clancy racked up a sizeable 199 points over 9 races to put them firmly in the lead going into the final round in London.

The newly revised format also proved a success, as British and international teams battled it out over two days.

In spite of the World Tour teams being the new major attraction, the track specialists dominated the standings, with all of Saturday’s races being won by riders for non-World Tour teams.  Elia Viviani arrived as Olympic champion, and was hoping to replicate some of that success at Revolution. However, his immaculate chrome blue and gold bike was not enough to overcome the Revolution regulars, and had to settle for second place in the team elimination as his best result of the weekend.

JLT Condor cemented their place at the top of the standings with three wins and two second places on Saturday.

The nearest placed team to them, Team Pedalsure, notched up a win each for both of their riders — Andy Tennant and 6-day legend Iljo Keisse — and trail JLT by 27 points. They will be hoping to overturn this deficit in London this weekend.

Owain Doull managed to recover from a nasty crash on Friday night to compete on Saturday, and managed a solid third place finish in the scratch race.

Maloja Pushbikers’ Max Beyer won the scratch race after escaping with leading group with five other riders and pipping Clancy on the line in the final.

The women’s elite omnium also gave fans a first look at the new format. The UCI recently changed the omnium from six events over two days to four events over a single day, and removed all of the timed races. Revisions to the rules of one new addition, the tempo race, only came through on Friday night, meaning riders had to be quick to adapt to new regulations.

Team podium ambition finished top of the standings at the end of the weekend, with Voxwomen and Great Britain in second and third respectively.

The men’s sprint omnium also saw plenty of tense racing, with it being dominated by France’s Quentin Lafargue, and Lithuania’s Vasilijus Lendel. Matt Rotherham also managed to revel in the home support, and earned himself a solid fourth place among a tough field.

The riders now go on to London’s Lee Valley Velodrome for the final round of the Champions League, on the 2nd and 3rd of December.

6 day legend Iljo Keisse, Photo: Joseph Laithwaite Photo: Joseph Laithwaite Olympic Omnium champion Elia Viviani, Photo Joseph Laithwaite Photo: Joseph Laithwaite

Champions League Standings after 9 races

JLT Condor p/b Mavic 199

Team Pedalsure 172

Maloja Pushbikers  127

Team Sky 102

Cannondale Drapac 89

Team Wiggins 83

Giant-Alpecin 72

LottoNL-Jumbo 70

France-Alé 58

Trek-Segafredo 53

Orica-BikeExchange 42

Lampre Merida 25

Gigi Hadid, Melania Trump, and the rise of virtue signalling

Written by Romy Biscoe on . Posted in Opinion.

The American Music Awards (AMAs) has never been short of controversy. In 2009 its public voting system was criticised for posthumously nominating Michael Jackson for awards such as Artist of the Year — it also received complaints concerning Adam Lambert’s ‘racy’ performance at the ceremony.

This year was no different. This time it was one of the hosts, Gigi Hadid, who drew unwanted attention. It was to be expected that a joke about President-elect Donald Trump was going to be made, given his momentous victory over Hillary Clinton earlier in November, and the plethora of material he has handed to the media to satirise.

Gigi Hadid’s impression of Melania Trump at the awards ceremony on Sunday highlighted a few things, and there are many questions that could be debated: was it racist? Should she have had to apologise? The stunt involved her imitating Melania’s facial expressions and Slovenian accent, and saying “I love my husband, President Barack Obama,” playing on Melania’s plagiarising of Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in 2008. In that case, the lack of foresight of both Melania and her speechwriter was dumbfounding, particularly in an internet age where nothing can be fully erased or forgotten.

Regarding Hadid’s impression, initially, I felt that it was an unnecessarily personal and spiteful attack on someone who has remained relatively removed from the political sphere. Reflecting on my initial thoughts about the incident, though, it seems clear that she should not have felt compelled to apologise. The impression was based on something Melania had done, and was rightly criticised for. While imitating her facial expression seemed particularly spiteful, and did not add any humour to the segment, double standards of the ‘acceptability’ of mocking others must not be tolerated.

To me, this event illuminated something about the way in which people engaged with the US election and Donald Trump. The process exposed the prominence of ‘virtue signalling’ in our society. Virtue signalling, a phrase coined by author James Bartholomew, is defined by Mark Judge in an article for Acculturated as, “the popular modern habit of indicating that one has virtue merely by expressing disgust or favor for certain political ideas, cultural happenings, or even the weather”.

I noticed that throughout the UK’s European Union referendum campaign, and more acutely during the US presidential election campaign, a competition arose to see who could denounce certain ideas the most. This was particularly the case on social media, irrespective of whether claims were backed up with evidence.

Political discussion and debate on social media platforms have too often become what Bartholomew notes as “indicating” that you share “the right, approved, liberal media-elite opinions” and that you are of a “kind, decent, and virtuous” sort . In no way did I support Trump in the election — I found the election to be demoralising. It seemed, however, that  any allegiance to Trump was deemed completely unacceptable and unfathomable — any and every supporter was immediately branded a racist, ignorant bigot. This labelling does not encourage the challenging debate that is so needed in the current political climate — this is a whole other discussion to be had.

The link between Gigi Hadid’s impression and virtue signalling may not be immediately clear. However, for me, it drew into focus the ‘group think’ mentality that goes hand-in-hand with virtue signalling. It highlighted the connection between celebrity culture and politics, and how this perpetuated the sense of ‘moral superiority’ that Ben Shapiro talks of — which undoubtedly contributed to Trump’s victory. The very overt presentation of morality and decency portrayed by celebrities and others reflects how most of the time it is for their personal ‘aggrandisement’ — for an ego-trip. People are able to place themselves in the camp of virtue and “enjoy a sense of community” and “feel confirmed” in their viewpoint. All of this has been exasperated by celebrity culture and liberal mainstream media.

Some people I spoke to about Trump knew as much as possible about his policy aims. However, the majority seemed to rely upon vague popular discourse and lacked concrete backing to their arguments against him. This is one reason why ‘virtue signalling’ became so prevalent during his campaign, it seemed as though it was a fight for who could shout the loudest in denouncement of him.

There is plenty to say in attempting to reason with Trump’s victory, though it is not the focus of this article. Last Sunday’s incident, however, highlighted a growing problem in society. There is too much concern with appearing in a certain way and conforming to the “right” way of thinking. It is exactly this “group think” and fear of diverging from popular rhetoric that lets someone like Trump gain traction and build support. Instead of concentrating on solutions, we are stuck in denouncing him and failing to fully address the issues behind his discourse. It also brings in the focus the American public’s rejection of the intertwining  of celebrity culture with political strategy, despite Hillary Clinton’s best efforts.