Editorial: APRIL. ICEMAN LANDS TOP GEAR JOB RAYNER WANTED!

In a world where Dave ‘˜Snypa’ created the hashtag #AR4TG meaning Adam Rayner For Top Gear, from the heady days when the public were asked to send in a thirty second video audition to be a TV presenter, we now know what happened to Top Gear after the Clarkson no-steak-but-a-thud incident. The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime is ‘˜Top Gear in Witness Protection’ as Jeremy said, and we are on the second series of the new BBC Top Gear show with the new guys and there is a spin off BBC show called Extra Gear.
Recently, Ian ‘˜Iceman’ Pinder was on my Facebook feed for a change and it seemed he had been found by a BBC researcher and asked if he would supply the spec of his car for possible inclusion on Top Gear. He was unsure they were bothered, so I told him they bloody WERE or they wouldn’t be wanting to spend time looking at his car. And yes, the BBC put him on the telly.
In the event, I know Ian was utterly chuffed to have been asked, had a bloody brilliant time seeing it all being done and found that taking part was a blast. Then he found out his bit was part of ‘˜Extra Gear’ as against the main show and was a bit wistful.
Thing is, if you go look at the report on the BBC iPlayer and know the car at all, you can see that all the audio images, every single shot, was a detail of his mad BMW, filmed to look as if a cruise worth of boom cars had been at the Ace Cafe that night.
It was all Ian.
And in nothing flat, after seeing all the footage and how utterly relaxed Ian is on camera (and using just a bit of Ian’s dialogue on the show) the makers of Extra Gear have decided that he is a perfect fit for the Top Gear spin off show and he has been thrown in at the deep end with his own ‘˜Street Cred Section’ in which he will be interviewing modified and audio cars and their owners.
It’s a job I would have given a testicle for but Ian has the damn charisma, the car to arrive in, the talent and way less ego. Truth is, I am thrilled or him and know he will have enormous fun doing it.
I’m hardly bitter at ALL! GO ICEMAN!
In other news, I have another Volvo factory system to see in a press fleet XC60 and I am on a promise to try out the Bang & Olufsen system in a big Audi SUV, both as pukka pressman items. Also, the possibility of a real exotic which I won’t jinx by mentioning.
I am still finding the new JVC 4k camera-recorder a learning-curve challenge and have added a ‘˜dead kitten’ wind sock for the microphone to kill wind noise, added a fabulously costly LED lamp system after seeing a chap from the BBC Click programme using one and I think I may be getting a decent steady-shooting gimbal system as well for the wibble-wobble in my videos is getting old.
The weather has turned wonderfully. I saw my first butterfly on the 25th of March and the Red Kite explosion has reached Bushey. What was an epic ‘˜life-tick’ for a bird nutter when I was a kid, is now all over the place and it’s a good thing. It is a joy to be out motoring in my car in the tiny lanes and get this. I have rediscovered CD! I had to get another in-car phone holder as the one that used the CD slot to mount had broken again. (Design flaw thin part of the injection moulding) It was removable and the idea was you did so to play a CD. I all but never bothered. Now I use a mad Neo magnetic system which is less well held but I have been playing discs again. They are louder than my phone streaming Bluetooth, louder and more resloved than the files on the iPod and way beefier than the DAB signal.
And did you know that Guardians Of The Galaxy have made cassettes cool again? They are so old as to be retro chic. Go look it up. Meanwhile, drive carefully and do avoid the old Boomph Tinkle
Adam Rayner, OnLine Editor