Everything I Touch Is Homoerotic Subtext - Even Top Gear

I am not ashamed to say that I have always loved Top Gear. My family will very happily settle in front of the telly whenever it's on, slowly falling asleep during any bits that are actually about cars, and then instantly perking up whenever an adventure is started. I'm pretty sure we're not the only one's like this. I don't know a single person who watches Top Gear for the cars. I know about three people who know what the words 'traction', 'horsepower' and 'torque' mean in context, and I'm not one of them. However, I know about a million billion people (roughly) who can cheerfully jump start a conversation with "Remember when Clarkson crossed the channel in a flat bed truck? Ahh, I thought they were gonners that time."

Despite the general Top Gear-y love most people in England seem to share, almost every conversation about the show goes one of two ways. A) "I liked the time they raced a train through France." or B) "Clarkson's a prick, and they're just a group of offensive old men dicking* about." The second one seems to come up rather a lot these days, usually on Radio 4 - or more accurately The News Quiz, a show so daringly middle class it makes me laugh and wince at the same time. And fair enough, there's a possibility that James May and Richard Hammond do actually know what it's like living in the actual world, but the majority of the time anything either of them may have to say is drowned out by the dulcet tones of Clarkson, spouting rubbish about anyone who has a vagina, a copy of the Guardian, a different skin tone, appearance or opinion to him. 

However, after a while, and a fair bit of squinting, it does slowly become apparent that Clarkson may be a troll - spouting total and utter nonsense just to get a rise out of anyone and anything he can. But once you've squinted at him for that long, it becomes quite hard to stop. And then you squint some more, and it suddenly becomes remarkably clear that Top Gear is possibly the most remarkably homoerotic program that can be put on in front of a UKIP supporter without them noticing.  

At the end of the day, it boils down to being a show about three grown men giggling together in sheds. The go on holiday together, and buy each other presents. They drive around lovely scenery together, and if placed in one car  they usually end up in each others laps. Most of the show is seeing how many times they can say the word 'penis' without getting told off by the BBC, and if The Stig (a man not allowed to talk, move of his own accord or take off his dark mask) isn't a little but kinky, I don't know what is. 

When the show first started, it was an actual car show. Viewers wanted to know about motoring, how good the new VW was, and how quickly can that chap from Mock The Week go around a race track. Not so much any more. Where the three boys used to bicker about anything going, and be needlessly cruel, the majority of the joy from Top Gear now comes from watching them cheekily grin at each other when they make silly little jokes, or nudge each other when they get something wrong, and over react to the full extent of the script. 

So you go Top Gear. I'm proud of you. Over the years you've managed to tone down Clarkson, make James May cool, and slowly drip feed the gayest friendship after Holmes and Watson to some of the most hardcore right-wingers in the UK. I'm proud.

Point made.

*According to my spell check, 'dicking' isn't a word. I don't care spell check, it's three am and I just had to silently make a sandwich in  dark room. I'll improvise with my swearing if I want to.

All I Want Is A Female Brian Cox

I love Brian Cox. I think he’s great. Properly, honestly great. He sort of vaguely wondered into our lives with the force of a Sherman tank, and then refused to leave. He sat down on the living room sofa of England and said “You need some science. Here, here is some science, delivered from the top of a gorgeous mountain which you too will want to stand on, but only after I’ve finished with it. And trust me; you’ll be able to, because after I’ve finished with it, this mountain won’t be able to walk for three weeks. Stand on my mountain, and love science.” And all of England immediately made him a cup of tea and cried “Of course we shall stand on this lovely mountain, you insanely beautiful man! What fools we have been, to believe in homeopathy and the apocalypse before we gazed upon your lovely face.” And then Brian Cox nodded, and wondered off to drink his tea, and play a bit of dodgy piano. 
I’m really glad we have Brian Cox. He’s bought science to the normal people, made physics cool, and worn an All Saints polo shirt while doing it. Really, very cool. 
But I’m greedy, and now I want a female version. As a raging feminist, I think women need a female Brian Cox. The closest thing we have is Mary Beard, lovely, quirky and interesting, but still not science, and still not shaggable. I don’t mean that in a way that want Scarlett Johnson running around in a lab coat, pointing at the sky and screaming “Wow! Gravity!”, but more in the way that I want a woman who you can fancy, and is still really, profoundly clever. 
Watching any program at the moment that has a bit of a science-y segment, and that has a female presenter, it is guaranteed that she will end up in a lab, looking a little bit lost, asking an actual scientist what the hell is going on, before turning to look doe-eyed into the camera, and announcing it’s time to go back to the studio. 
Nope. Defo not what’s needed. No seems to have yet managed to bridge the divide between ‘female scientist’, and ‘female presenter’. I want someone who a ten year old girl will look at and go “Wow! I bet loads of boys fancy her, and she knows the theory of relativity inside out. I wish I could be like her when I grow up.” I want a bird who throws on a McQueen sports bra to go inside an anti-gravity chamber – which she helped build. If she climbs up a mountain to observe the Northern Hemisphere in winter, I want her to snow board back down, without first having to get a bloke to strap her into her ski boots, and give her a push. 
Is that too much to ask? I like to think it isn’t. If a bloke can do it, why can’t we? Maybe, out there somewhere, there are thousands of women with PhDs and big hair, jostling to host their own physics show, on prime time BBC. Maybe the media think that no one would watch it, it would be a novelty for all of five seconds, before burning out like an asteroid entering the atmosphere. And of course it wouldn’t. Loads of people would watch it, and it would be wonderful. A wonderful new role model to sit our daughters down and say “You can be feminine, and love science, and you should, because you’ll be able to actually work out which face creams will work just by reading the ingredients.”  A lovely, big haired chick in walking boots and kaftan climbing up hills, and knowing stuff, and wanting to tell everyone about it, because science is just so incredibly wonderful that the only rational thing to do is to scream it from the top of a mountain. 
And if she just so happened to play keyboard in a series of truly alarming bands in the 80s, well, that would just be a bonus. 

Contemplating The Idea Of Home

At the beginning of the last episode of Wonders Of Life, Brian Cox said something rather... well, wonderful. He said;

"Home is such an evocative word, it will mean something to you. The place you went to school, they place you live, the place your kids had their first Christmas."

And it got me thinking. Home means a lot to me, and it always has. Home is where I am safe, ready and prepared. My home is like my base, it's clean, and settled. It's the place where I want to return to after a long day, or a night out. Time away from home makes me appreciate it all the more. 

So, I asked myself, what do I class as home? I have at least two actual buildings which I could class as home - where I live. I love school, but I wouldn't say it was the place where I was safe, ready and prepared. And obviously it's not going to be where my kids had their first Christmas. I don't have any. That's just Brian Cox rubbing it my face that I'm not part of his target demographic. 

After a lot of long, intense thinking (it was literally about three minutes), I came up with only one solution. 

Home is where your knickers are.

What If Merlin Was A TV Cook?

In a time of cake, the destiny of a great bakery rests on the shoulders of a young chef. 

I am so, so not sorry for that.

(Background: James Morton from GBBO @ replied JW on twitter, and she made a joke that it was a sign. Then this happened.)