What does it say about me that the only TV shows I can say that I regularly watch are Top Gear, SBS World News (Late Edition) and Lateline?
Oh, sure, I see other things - At the Movies is one, and some of the medical and cop dramas I watch sometimes by default (because they happen to be on, not through any deliberate action on my part), but those three listed are the only ones I actually go and seek out. Top Gear because it's the best car show around, SBS World News because it's actually a really good news programme and it's on at a time that suits me, and Lateline becuase it's typically the last thing I will haev on the TV before I go to bed at night (to the point where if it's been a long day, I fall asleep in the middle of it) and because I think Tony Jones is probably the best serious journalist on TV these days and I like it when he gets irritated with guests who won't answer the question properly.
(I wonder if Tony Jones finds it a little disturbing that the majority of the viewers of his serious nightly wrap of news and current affairs with a heavy political focus are in bed?)
So yes, from a marketing point of view, how do you sell to that demographic? I suppose someone needs to build a car with a radio that only tunes to ABC stations and then try and sell it to me...
Showing posts with label Top Gear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Top Gear. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
Thursday, 19 April 2007
Sometimes I'd rather be...elsewhere
From time to time, I find myself thinking that on the whole, on any given day, I’d rather be in one of the cities I visited on my honeymoon trip to Europe and Japan last year. It’s usually a different city each time – Rome one day, Paris another day, Bologna once in a while.
Actually, let’s stop that right there. The main reason I liked Bologna is that they have a café called La Nutelleria. As the name suggests, it’s a Nutella-themed café, so everything – crepes, ice cream, biscuity things etc all have Nutella in them. We went there, just to see what it was all about, and while I think we pretty clearly understood what the idea was, the guy in front of us in the queue clearly didn’t:
“I’d like an ice cream, thanks. What flavours do they come in other than nutella?”
“They only come in nutella”.
“Only in nutella?!”
But I digress. Sometimes Tokyo, sometimes Dublin, and so on.
One place I have to admit I didn’t think too much of was London, but I’m starting to wonder if I didn’t really give it a fair go. For one thing, we went directly from Paris to London, and in terms of aesthetics at least, that’s right up there with looking at a Rembrandt first and then wondering why you’re not overly impressed with a crayon drawing immediately afterwards, or with driving a Ferrari F430 and then finding your Kia a little below par. London is not a particularly attractive city, and I think the problem is all the brown brick. But then, maybe that’s the charm of the place which I missed because I’d just had my mind blown by Paris. But apart from that, I also found London hideously expensive when travelling on the Aussie dollar, the hotel we stayed in was crap, they wouldn’t let me in to the Houses of Parliament (I’m a sad case who visits Parliament pretty well anywhere that has a Westminster system, so so far I’ve been to Parliament House in Canberra - Federal and ACT Legislative Assembly - Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Wellington, and only didn’t go to the ones in Paris and Rome when I walked past them because both of those cities have better things to do), and the shower made a pretty good attempt at killing me. Let’s digress again on to that one.
So there I was, having a shower in one of those awful showers-in-a-bath that are just an accident waiting to happen. The hotel was pretty dodgy – the fire extinguishers were missing, the windows wouldn’t shut properly, many of the lightbulbs didn’t work, that sort of thing. I slipped, dropped the soap which made a loud noise, and did that whole trying-to-get-grip-shuffle that you do when you’re on something with no traction at all like ice. In one of those slow-motion moments, I decided the only thing I could do was grab the folding shower screen and hope that I didn’t rip it out of the wall, as that would surely end with my being killed.
Fortunately, it held up and I was able to steady myself. But that sort of thing coloured my experience of London, and I don’t think I gave it a fair go.
I liked the rest of England, though – well, at least the parts we saw, which were basically Bath and York. But I couldn’t help but think there was probably no real reason to visit, because all of the good things about British culture – good music, good TV shows of the type that the BBC produces, Jaguars, Aston Martins, tea, and so on – are all readily available here in Australia. Admittedly the whole English Gentleman thing that I do also quite like isn’t really available here, but it’s not as though you can visit the country and just converse with some polite chaps for a few weeks.
I think I need to go again, and do Britain properly, because after watching far too much Top Gear over the past few months, there do seem to be a lot more interesting places than just the ones I went and saw. I almost certainly need to spend more than four days trying to see the entire country, I think.
(Incidentally, Top Gear is the only thing that has ever made me think that living in England might be a good idea – for the sole reason that, if you start in London and drive for a few hours, you could for instance spend your weekend in Paris, or any one of a number of interesting places in Europe, with no real effort. If I start here and drive all day, I’ll just end up in Adelaide or Brisbane, which are not that different to here).
Actually, let’s stop that right there. The main reason I liked Bologna is that they have a café called La Nutelleria. As the name suggests, it’s a Nutella-themed café, so everything – crepes, ice cream, biscuity things etc all have Nutella in them. We went there, just to see what it was all about, and while I think we pretty clearly understood what the idea was, the guy in front of us in the queue clearly didn’t:
“I’d like an ice cream, thanks. What flavours do they come in other than nutella?”
“They only come in nutella”.
“Only in nutella?!”
But I digress. Sometimes Tokyo, sometimes Dublin, and so on.
One place I have to admit I didn’t think too much of was London, but I’m starting to wonder if I didn’t really give it a fair go. For one thing, we went directly from Paris to London, and in terms of aesthetics at least, that’s right up there with looking at a Rembrandt first and then wondering why you’re not overly impressed with a crayon drawing immediately afterwards, or with driving a Ferrari F430 and then finding your Kia a little below par. London is not a particularly attractive city, and I think the problem is all the brown brick. But then, maybe that’s the charm of the place which I missed because I’d just had my mind blown by Paris. But apart from that, I also found London hideously expensive when travelling on the Aussie dollar, the hotel we stayed in was crap, they wouldn’t let me in to the Houses of Parliament (I’m a sad case who visits Parliament pretty well anywhere that has a Westminster system, so so far I’ve been to Parliament House in Canberra - Federal and ACT Legislative Assembly - Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Wellington, and only didn’t go to the ones in Paris and Rome when I walked past them because both of those cities have better things to do), and the shower made a pretty good attempt at killing me. Let’s digress again on to that one.
So there I was, having a shower in one of those awful showers-in-a-bath that are just an accident waiting to happen. The hotel was pretty dodgy – the fire extinguishers were missing, the windows wouldn’t shut properly, many of the lightbulbs didn’t work, that sort of thing. I slipped, dropped the soap which made a loud noise, and did that whole trying-to-get-grip-shuffle that you do when you’re on something with no traction at all like ice. In one of those slow-motion moments, I decided the only thing I could do was grab the folding shower screen and hope that I didn’t rip it out of the wall, as that would surely end with my being killed.
Fortunately, it held up and I was able to steady myself. But that sort of thing coloured my experience of London, and I don’t think I gave it a fair go.
I liked the rest of England, though – well, at least the parts we saw, which were basically Bath and York. But I couldn’t help but think there was probably no real reason to visit, because all of the good things about British culture – good music, good TV shows of the type that the BBC produces, Jaguars, Aston Martins, tea, and so on – are all readily available here in Australia. Admittedly the whole English Gentleman thing that I do also quite like isn’t really available here, but it’s not as though you can visit the country and just converse with some polite chaps for a few weeks.
I think I need to go again, and do Britain properly, because after watching far too much Top Gear over the past few months, there do seem to be a lot more interesting places than just the ones I went and saw. I almost certainly need to spend more than four days trying to see the entire country, I think.
(Incidentally, Top Gear is the only thing that has ever made me think that living in England might be a good idea – for the sole reason that, if you start in London and drive for a few hours, you could for instance spend your weekend in Paris, or any one of a number of interesting places in Europe, with no real effort. If I start here and drive all day, I’ll just end up in Adelaide or Brisbane, which are not that different to here).
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