Or maybe it's the Mail on Sunday's fault - after all, nobody had really noticed the offending prank until they told Middle England about it and Middle England got upset.The fallout, which caused Jonathan Ross's salary to become widely known, left a shadow hanging over Rossy and probably ultimately caused him to quit the licence-payer funded Auntie Beeb in these austere Coalition times.
This meant no more Friday Night With Jonathan Ross.
This meant four poofs putting their piano on E-Bay.
It also meant nowhere obvious for Hollywood A-Listers to publicise their new films on release in the UK.
This meant that the Hollywood promoters had to look elsewhere in the UK TV ratings lists.
This will be why Andy Garcia was on Top Gear last week and now we've had Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise this week struggling with being sat on the right-hand side of a stick-shift - and when I say "struggling" - I mean "doing brilliantly". The extended interview was very entertaining and the film, Night & Day, looked promising and much more suited to promotion to Top Gear's audience than that of Friday Night with Rossy.
They showed Cameron's lap first then Cruise's - his being particularly spectacular for getting the car up on two wheels near the end - a bit more momentum and it would have rolled. The Diaz time was then announced and she looked genuinely ecstatic at coming top. Then Cruise's lap-time was announced and this was nearly a second faster than hers.
The two of them are clearly very proficient drivers, they've been taught by Hollywood stuntmen and learned well. I believe they could also be classed as "petrol-heads" judging by their stories when interviewed.
I do prefer it, though, when the celebrity appearing in the Star-in-a-Reasonably-Priced-Car segment doesn't have anything to plug - whether it be non-petrol-heads like Harry Enfield and Terry Wogan or it be proper petrol-heads like Steve Coogan, Jay Leno, Jay Kay and Jodie Kidd.
Now Rossy has agreed to do a new show for ITV, so maybe we'll get some Britishers back up the leader-board again.
It was a great episode of Top Gear - although I never had Cameron Diaz down as such a potty mouth.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem with the Star-in-a-Reasonably-Priced-Car feature is that the Kia they use now is actually a half decent car in it's own right.