One trick ponies

Why is Dire Straits not regarded as one of the best rock bands ever? I reckon it is because Mark Knopfler is a one trick pony. Once you've heard 'Sultans of Swing' you've heard 'Tunnel of Love' and also 'Brothers in Arms' which has the same guitar solos as 'Romeo and Juliet'. Eric Clapton or David Gilmour could do many fings with a guitar and thus Pink Floyd, Cream, Derek and the Dominoes, Blind Faith still have 5 star ratings in the iTunes Playlists whereas poor old Mark never climbs out of the 4 star morass. It is very easy to be good at one thing but to have lasting impact in more than, say, being able to fit four golf balls in your mouth you have to be good at lots of things. The world long driving champion ain't never going to make it on the PGA tour. Nor for that matter is the World Putting Champion (there is such a beast). In fact in the latter tourney there is a bloke who consistently finishes in the top ten who putts in bare feet - with his feet. Woods T. however is the all round package. He is O for awesome at everything wot a round of golf throws at you including, and indeed especially, thinking.

I have recognised before that when this blog was spitting out five posts a week that it was a one trick pony. Poor scorn and vitriol on anything left wing, touchy feely (politically correct if you must) and the bollocks that is anthropogenic global warming and there you go, another five hundred words. I bored of it and I reached that point bout a year ago. This coincided with the change in government so all was good. The wastrels that were wrecking our country didn't need daily outpourings of my opprobrium any more. I was happy to retreat into occasional comments on large fish, lawn mowers and the decline of country that coloured the global map pink.

It therefore gave me great pleasure to read in yesterday's Sunday paper that I am not alone in thinking that one of the global success stories of TV is a one trick pony. I watch Top Gear every week but I am tiring of it. I have bought two of Jeremy Clarkson's books. Both at airports (I mean where else would you do this - hardly the stuff to read anywhere else but on a long plane journey) and I didn't finish the second. Read Clarkson on anything and you've read him on everything. Don't get me wrong he is amusing and some of his lines are very funny. The idea of a Roller having a wood burning stove and a chimney as a heater is droll in the extreme. But that is about it. Thus it is with his TV show. The challenges are getting more contrived and are boring. I am fed up with watching Clarkson putting three years tyre wear on Italian sports cars in ten minutes. The Hamster is a (small) meaningless distraction. James May can still amuse but even he is getting a bit ho hum.

It was therefore with a sense of duty that I sat down to watch Top Gear last night. A sense of relief, perhaps that this was to be the last of the series. I can do something more productive with my Sunday evenings for the rest of the summer (if it ever arrives). Same old, same old. Jay Leno was a bit different from a lead singer in a boy band I suppose and I knew he owned loadsa cars, but 150?

Oh well another series of Top Gear over. And then the last five minutes. Disregard all the above. I can forgive Clarkson's bullying of everyone around him. I can forgive his belittling James May at every turn. All his oafishness is nothing if he can give me the last five minutes of last night's show. Him driving the V12 Vantage around Scotland with virtually no commentary was just sensational. 'You put 510hp in Aston Martin's smallest body shell. Well what do you expect'. The softly delivered (for a change) lament on the predicted demise of automotive excess was right on the money. Absolutely fabulous.

However even if similarly engined and equipped with ceramic brakes as standard it is still not as pretty as a proper Aston

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