Modern Vespa

I'm The Stig.

Some Say that he secretly owns a fleet of Vespa MotorScooters and that he once gave Margaret Thatcher driving lessons. All we really know is that he's call The Stig.

I'll be flying into Tampa on Jan the 21st by British Airways.
I'll come and say Hello.
Billy-no-scoot

Only taking his word for it. He could have been lying. It was on the podcast for the Top Gear Live stunt show.

As you fly in look for me on the road you fly over directly north of Runway 1- I drive that road all the time- Thinking of gettting some earplugs for the bone-shattering noise of the airplane engines as they fly 10feet overhead!

Well, Jeremy did his bit to improve relations between our two nations on last Sunday's programme. When asked where she came from, one of the audience said "America" to which Jeremy Clarkson replied "you can't do, you're not fat" Oops!

Wouldn't be the first time. Ever meet the Stig's American cousin? Or his African Cousin?

It's Ben Collins.

Hampster's crash:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PImmWh827xI

Top Gear--Scooters- & Drunks!!!
http://www.chicagoscooterclub.com/2008/09/top-gear-scooters-and-drunks/

Brilliant! Hamster has to be the luckiest S.O.B. to start out of the gates with two cuties!

Do you take pissed girly's home often? LOL!

Yeah, but not the way I usually hope - as the Designated Driver while they're snogging some wanker in the back.

I have a history of being like the p$#@k in a glass case : "In case of Emergency, Break Glass."

I've been watching Top Gear for a couple of years on BBCAmerica and love it. Change any of the hosts and it would not be the same.

i don't know how good the Aussie version is, but get ready for the US to F it up.

Gear, the US version premiers in March. Jay Leno was asked to host, but declined when he saw what they had in mind, and felt it could not be as good as the UK version, so now Adam Carolla is hosting. He's funny, but should stick to dancing and DJ'n. Of course, I'll check it out, though!

http://www.finalgear.com/news/category/top-gear-america/

We were watching the episode where Jeremy and James each bought old luxury cars, and then had various tasks to prove which car was better. The best part was when they were comparing famous people who owned each car. Jeremy's Mercedes had generally been owned by dictators such as Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, whereas James' Rolls Royce had been owned by gay entertainers, such as Elton John and Liberace. Anyway, I noticed something strange:
Jeremy measures speed in miles per hour. Why does he do that? Do people in Great Britain generally use miles per hour instead of kilometers per hour? Does this differ depending on the age of the person? Jeremy seems to be comfortable using kilometers, yet time and again he says miles per hour.

UK is mph.

We use imperial and metric systems - subject to a weird anomoly where the EU tried to insist that everyone in the EU used the metric system but we carried on using miles, pounds, ounces, bushels, pecks and pints. There used to be busts of traders with scales marked in pounds and ounces... yes, very silly.

Generally for transport people here talk about miles, not kilometers. I can only imagine the carnage if they changed all the speed limit signs to kph. It is quite irritating that Vespa comes marked in the UK with kph as the dominant measurement for the speedo, but the Italians do use the metric system*

*Excepting holidays, where a new, infinite measure of time is used, which has never been scientifically asssessed

I am surprised none of the poms have commented on this - maybe they just don't care.

In the Mother Country and colonies, they are called "chips".

Except in crappy fast food joints and restuarants trying to be all Haute Cuisine!

That's because we don't call em chips anymore, rather FREEDOM FRIES!

Is that like the Imperial Hour that has been used in Canada? See 5:36 in this YouTube for an example.

Of course holiday time is based on the prevailing theory that Time is Simply an Illusion caused by the Passage of History (Hitchhiker's Guide). Thus, if you are on holiday, you create no history and thus time is irrelevant.

Al

Is nothing sacred any more!

Why TF "freedom frys"

I spose they are now fried in some unnatural "healthy" oil, instead of lard!

Are you not aware that certain Yanks refused to call "French Fries" by that name when France elected not to join them in a recent Middle-East adventure? Thus, they were renamed "Freedom Fries" by these astute and intellectually admirable (?) persons.

Al

Thanks Al

how petty and stupid!

Good on the French for standing up!

But "chips" are not "french fries" - chips are fat and chunky, the pathetic little stick things sold at crappy fast food joints are thin - hence the difference.

I'll be in London in a month, and if I see "freedom fries" in liew of chips, I think I will just have to chuck a big tantie

Be assured I was taking the piss. Our chips remain the soggy pieces of fat they always were.

I think the best chips I have ever had were at a chippie in Nottingham. Garlic Naan bread buttered inside filled with chips. Then there's alway my other favourite; chips topped with cheese and then topped with baked beans. Lush...

Thanks for the advise. You've saved me a tantie

Can look forward to a decent artery clogging chip!

Know any good chippers in or around Kensington?

Be honest around there you are looking at kebabs and expensive ones... a good chippy is on Lisson Grove, Marylebone, and the fish is top notch.

Chilli, Chips'n'Cheese at the Ace café is a favourite of mine!

For those in the states who aren't watching the series via BitTorrent, you may be interest to know that Top Gear just did a Vietnam special.

I won't spoil it, but it involves the trio riding 1000 miles from south Vietnam to the north in eight days. Richard Hammond rode a Russian Minsk, James May was on a Honda Cub, and Jeremy Clarkson rode a Vespa.

You sure about that?

Link courtesy of RitchJ

On December 3rd, in this thread:

I think even before that, there was speculation it was Lewis Hamilton. The previously mentioned link just adds more support to the case that Collins is "it."

The BBC hasn't made official statements yet.

Every guy can say they're well endowed, but you have to prove it out right to be believed.

It's Ben Collins.

All confirmed now http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/4298841/Top-Gear-Rumours-that-Ben-Collins-was-The-Stig-started-on-YouTube-more-than-a-year-ago.html

I posted the 'Ben Collins' thing on Wikipedia 18 months ago after a visiting F3/A1GP team manager spouted it on NZ television. He said everyone in the racing scene was in the know and it was a miracle the secret had lasted so long. My post on Wikipedia was pulled in under 30 minutes
The TVNZ footage is also 'not available' via their archives.

Now The Stig II has been officially revealed they will have to kill him off in spectacular fachion like Stig I....but how do you top firing him off an Aircraft Carrier in an old Jag!
Brilliant.

Clarkson and Co. arrive in NZ in February for four sold out Top Gear Live shows, sadly I do not have a ticket

DEAR GOD, NO! Not again . . . Why do they have to kill-off such a great Stig? Not like his identity HAS to be secret. He's a driver and that's what he does.

Absolutely love that show!

As I say it's Ben Collins.