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Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

The final tour

The Grand Tour (this iteration, anyways) has come to an end. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May have done their final motoring program after two decades of collaboration. An absolute end of a glorious era. Their final episode - aptly titled One for the Road - is up to the usual standards: spectacular cinematography, mixed in with many pre-planned ridiculousness.

It’s a firm reminder that things change, and things come to an end. Nothing is static, good or bad. In a (fake) ideal world, car enthusiasts would love to see Clarkson, Hammond, and May continue on making car videos. Like your favorite pint of beer, you don’t want it to end ever. Every February there has to be a Super Bowl. But even with the NFL’s immensely enormous popularity, who can say for certain American football will still be around in a few decades?

Father Time is undefeated, of course. No one wants to see an obese Clarkson on these prolonged road trips in third world countries. He himself probably can’t handle the stress any longer. People age out of their profession (like NFL players), it is what it is.

Clarkson did remarked in One for the Road that one of the reason he is retiring from the job is that he cannot get excited about electric cars. And those are the future, isn’t it? I very much agree with Clarkson. I think electric vehicles are fantastic for urban driving duties. The fact they don’t emit any greenhouse gas in our city environment is a huge win.

However, there’s no romance in electric cars.There’s no quirks to give them flavor, unique mechanical layouts to bring about varying dynamics. They all sound the same, too. The whirl of an electric motor doesn’t exactly tingle the spine. A crescendo that never arrives.

Clarkson and co can’t do an epic road trip in used EVs. Soon as one breaks down, you have to call a tow truck, and that is the end of the program. There’s no fixing it on the side of the road like an internal combustion car. The fire risk with batteries is too huge to perform stunts with EVs. The amount of water to put out an electrical fire is apparently way too much.

Never mind that plenty of countries and locales don’t have the infrastructure to support vehicle charging.

With these two headwinds of advancing age and lack of enthusiasm for modern new cars, it’s no wonder Clarkson, Hammond, and May are hanging up their proverbial hats. Hang their jerseys up on the rafters; these three (and their entire crew) have provided us with many tremendous hours of motoring entertainment. Cheers.

Modern disease.

Art for art's sake

Amazon’s The Grand Tour - a car show featuring the intrepid trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May - released its latest episode a few weeks back. Named Sand Job, the premise is same as ever: take three used cars and drive them over a very long distance. Insert some manufactured shenanigans along the way. It’s been the same recipe since the trio was with BBC’s Top Gear, and yet we still watch every time a new episodes drops.

I tune in because the cinematography remains as beautiful as ever. The Grand Tour’s production value is immense. It’s turned into a sort of Planet Earth documentary, but with cars. Each episode is a showcase of an exotic locale that I would likely never step foot upon. Sand Job takes viewers to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. A country that I have to admit I cannot pin on a map of Africa before watching. The drone shots of the Sahara desert is spectacular. And not once can you see the drone’s (or helicopter?) casted shadow. The attention to detail is to the maximum.

The car shenanigans is almost secondary to the motion-picture technicality, at least for me. There’s the usual explosions, cars breaking down, a drag race, and pranking James May. It’s all been done before, and I hope the trio continues to do so for at least a few more years. (Looks like this is the second to last episode in the series. Kind of sad!) They are getting up there in age, and none of them seem to care much in the taking care of their body department. What’s with guys getting to middle age and growing a large pot belly? (They are otherwise skinny without it.) A prolonged lack of a clean diet and exercising, surely.

In a world of Youtube car content - of which there is plenty - is there still room for The Grand Tour? I hope so, simply on the count of its splendid cinematography. Art for art’s sake! Let’s see if Amazon is willing to continue subsidizing such a series. Especially after it has reportedly lost a ton of millions on The Lord of the Rings…

Going home to god.