Clever? or not?

[Scott Liggett]

I kind of liked his quirkiness, but recently I've changed my mind to "he's an annoying prima donna who really needs to stfu"

He was whining recently that he didn't like the people who were hanging around watching them film.... really? you have fans and you complain about them taking time out of their schedule to see someone they identify with? Maybe he needs to go to writing magazine articles for Harper on the best way to please his man.

Before it seemed that two of the three were genuinely surprised and pleased that people watched them. Now it seems like 2 of 3 think the the plebs really better get back to doing their serf-like things and leave their highnesses alone..... no worries, they'll get their wish.

In my job, I see the people hanging around trying to get a pic of a celeb; or them to sign something. It's the same 12 people at every damn event. They are not taking time out of their schedule. They have no life and no job. Many don't have teeth and don't know what a shower is. They give the paparazzi a run for the title of scummy.

[38P]

The "Paper Lion" . . .

How about a "Paper Racer" (not to be confused with Brock Yates' Sunday Driver( http://www.amazon.com/Sunday-Driver-.../dp/1560255412 ))

[pdub]

It shows that somebody in the world was bored enough to find that statement within the story.

Reminds me of many years ago, a George Plimpton piece in SI:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidd_Finch

[38P]

I kind of liked his quirkiness, but recently I've changed my mind to "he's an annoying prima donna who really needs to stfu"

He was whining recently that he didn't like the people who were hanging around watching them film....

Yeah, but it's hard to be "from the best band [we've] ever heard" . . . . (fast forward to 9:30 for the clip)

May plays to a scripted stereotype, just as Clarkson and Hammond. It's what ~ 300 million "petrolheads" across the globe expect.


In a vague sense, May, Clarkson and Hammond each play elements of Freud's structure of the human psyche. May plays the personification of "super-ego" (critical, moralizing) to Clarkson's "id" (uncoordinated, instinctual impulses) and Hammond's "ego" (organized, realistic).

(And to think you could have taken out huge student loans to learn how to dissemble pap such as that!)

[tedly]

I thought it was funny as hell!

[SuperBuickGuy]

I kind of liked his quirkiness, but recently I've changed my mind to "he's an annoying prima donna who really needs to stfu"

He was whining recently that he didn't like the people who were hanging around watching them film.... really? you have fans and you complain about them taking time out of their schedule to see someone they identify with? Maybe he needs to go to writing magazine articles for Harper on the best way to please his man.

Before it seemed that two of the three were genuinely surprised and pleased that people watched them. Now it seems like 2 of 3 think the the plebs really better get back to doing their serf-like things and leave their highnesses alone..... no worries, they'll get their wish.

[oletrux4evr]

I vote moron. He should write for Letterman, if he'd have him.

[Barry Donovan]

I vote clever. To be editing long enough is like programming.
ignore what goes backwards to go forward.
tricks inevitable.

[LORENSWIFE]

5. Autocar Magazine -- James May Sends a Message to the Readers

Getty

Staying in the realm of contradictions, up next we have an editor putting an incredible amount of planning into hiding a message that he apparently wrote while drunk (and 10 years old). Fans of the BBC's Top Gear might know James May as one of the three guest hosts of the quirky show. He's also an award-winning journalist and a stunt driver. But back in 1992, he was just a lowly editor for Autocar magazine, and wasn't the least bit happy about that fact. Standard protocol would have suggested that he put his head down, kiss a few asses, and wait for his shot at a job in the magazine industry that he didn't actively hate. That's how you keep your job, and it's not like the magazine industry was going anywhere.
Like the show he would go on to host, May wasn't a huge fan of standard protocol. So when he was given the opportunity to put out the magazine's special Road Test Yearbook issue -- which is apparently the Autocar equivalent of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue -- he did not take this as an opportunity to show off the ol' work ethic, and instead saw it as a chance to do this:

Top Gear Wikia via minerva.moon

The editors' suspicions were raised when May tried to turn in an entry starting with a drop cap apostrophe.

With punctuation added, that reads: "So you think it's really good, yeah? You should try making the bloody thing up; it's a real pain in the arse." May was in charge of putting the whole supplement together, which took several months and was "incredibly boring." So he looked over his shoulder a couple times, snickered to himself, and went about the painstaking process of re-editing the first sentence of each paragraph to hide a secret message that reads as though it was written in 15 seconds.
Instead of moving up to the big leagues of Autocar magazine, May was promptly fired, which is probably for the better, since magazine editors are typically expected to write more carefully than that and not find the job of putting a magazine together "incredibly boring." May went on to a career test driving incredibly fast cars on Britain's Top Gear, co-hosting shows about drinking, and being told "well done" and "Good show, old chap" by everyone in England.

Getty

He budgets at least two hours a day for monocle adjustment.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_20213...#ixzz2Ipe0zeEa