Let’s call time on the Oz and James double act
The Top Gear presenter and his wine tasting sidekick drinking and bickering for Britain just isn't Antonia Quirke's poison
Some thoughts on the profound dangers of Oz And James Drink to Britain:
1: James May. The man is perverse. Only a true pervert would wear the floral shirt of a Tangerine Dream fan on his way to the planetarium, knowing that all it's going to take is a pedestrian approaching from the side and then glancing casually into his nervously defensive eyes to immediately comprehend that here, infact, is a former sub-editor on Autocar. Who else but a sicko gets off on other people's feelings of confusion and fear? May's shtick is that he doesn't care about his looks. ("Do I strike you as a person who cares about clothes?")
But last week he was caught on camera being very precious about his hair ("no cutting") and complaining that Oz had been so uncool as to go out leaving a pricetag on his shirt, when Oz had clearly had no choice in the matter, the shirt having been forced on him by some wardrobe mistress in the employ of the light entertainment unit of the Stasi, whilst May was off fulfilling his other professional obligations ie being Tristan to some vehicular Isolde on the popular motoring show Top Gear.
2: How people love him! He's even presented a Sky documentary about the great white shark, which is the equivalent of a knighthood. And even more people are going to love him now everyone's unemployed and at home watching the channel Dave (the 'home of witty banter.') A random glance at Dave's schedule: 12pm Top Gear 1pm James May's Top Toys 2pm Top Gear 3pm Top Gear 4pm Top Gear 5pm Extreme Survival 6pm Top Gear 7pm James May's Big Ideas 8pm James May's 20th Century 9pm Hitler's Last Days 10pm Hitler's Last Days 11pm Hitler's Last Days12pm Top Gear
3: 1am Top Gear 2am Top Gear 3am Top Gear 4am Top Gear 5am Top Gear Vietnam Special 6am Top Gear 7am Top Gear 8am Top Gear 9am Top Gear 10am Cooking In The Danger Zone 11am Top Gear 12pm Top Gear 1pm Top Gear 2pm Top Gear 3pm Top Gear 4pm Top Gear 5pm I Am Stuck Up A Fucking Mountain.
4: It is unbelievably boring. Last week they actually kept in the bit when Oz and James drove all the way to one side of a park attached to a stately home, looking for a brewery, and back again, slowly, on a tarmacked thoroughfare featuring not a single bump, dip, crack, pothole or cobblestone.
I am amazed Oz can siphon wine through his fascinatingly unyielding little mouth
5: Of course I know that nobody is actually supposed to believe the show is a spontaneous jolly across the country on the search for the nations favourite beverage, with two chalk-and-cheese eccentrics who can't stop needling each other, but must it so obviously be a programme whose every spat and snap has been green-lit at chino-level? You can practically see the production assistants with clipboards marking each fresh blossoming of the menopausal paunch with a tick.
6: I remember Oz Clarke when he was the wine critic on Food and Drink in the 1980's. Even back then, taking a break, as he was, from his other career as a member of the RSC, to bury his nose inside a wine glass whilst wearing the profoundly inconvenienced expression of someone whose brain has just been flattened against the back of his skull cavity in appreciation, he still managed to convey the impression he was a person with orifices no larger than a pin head. Twenty years later I am freshly amazed that Oz can actually siphon the wine into his body at all through that fascinatingly unyielding little mouth.
7: Yes, of course the two of them are acting all the time, but do they realise 
Filed under: Oz Clarke, James May, Top gear, BBC, Dave, Television, Antonia Quirke
About the author
Antonia Quirke lives in London. Her book Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers was published in the UK in 2007 and... MORE
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Antonia in good form, but I'm worried about her; this programme has obviously started to melt her brain cells, she's lost her apostrophe knowledge and now gives us 'nations favourite beverage' and 'in the 1980's' sure sign the old grey matter is teetering Antonia. Thankfully I've wasted not one second on this appalling series; an indicator of how desperate TV's search for something 'different' has become. What next, Lazytown on acid? Oh yeah, it already is.
Posted by Peter Simmons at 11:08am on February 13, 2009
If you don't like it, watch BBC Four (which is actually quite good). Oz and James is a contrived double-act, but an entertaining one to watch. To be fair I think they've exhausted the format now. The only series they could do now which would be vaguely interesting is travelling across Australia. But I doubt there's enough there to do 4 episodes let alone 10.
Posted by bixbarton at 11:09am on February 13, 2009
I find it hugely entertaining as the ribbing exposes all the manly flaws we see in each other. It's a programme for men. I wont watch Loose Women and you can leave this one alone and then we have done the equality thing. Solved.
Posted by Rob Havard at 11:49am on February 13, 2009
"Even back then, taking a break, as he was, from his other career as a member of the RSC, to bury his nose inside a wine glass whilst wearing the profoundly inconvenienced expression of someone whose brain has just been flattened against the back of his skull cavity in appreciation, he still managed to convey the impression he was a person with orifices no larger than a pin head." Really Antonia!? Did you try reading the above sentence out loud?
Posted by O Ekanem at 12:49pm on February 13, 2009
Call me old-fashioned but what are the defences against libel again, remind me prithee? Fair comment....metro-chic....faux respect? Blistering journalism but May...the force be with you.
Posted by M Hickes at 8:47pm on February 13, 2009
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