Watching an old episode of Top Gear<\/i> on BBC as I write this. Currently, James May is racing two twentysomethings, driving a Peueot 207. The twentysomethings are running, jumping over cars, buildings, that sort of thing, while Captain Slow is following the Liverpool roads. Typical Top Gear<\/i>, I’d say.<\/p>\n
Now, my daughter says I’m old. Age-old, in fact, long past the age when I understood even the slightest bit about anyone in her generation. Me watching Top Gear<\/i> is all the proof anyone would ever need, she says. It’s a old man’s show but also a geek’s show, and of no interest whatsoever.<\/p>\n
I was rooting for Captain Slow right from the start. Young kids in funny clothes jumping from roofs? Oh please. Some dignity<\/i>, please. And, for pete’s sake, they are racing a car. Even Captain Slow can’t lose that.<\/p>\n
Right?<\/p>\n
During the challenge (that’s what they call it), it struck me that I may be choosing sides because of my age. It’s a case of identification. May is roughly my age while the kids in funny clothes are probably more than 20 years younger. What if mine really isn’t the only possible vantage point? What if someone, oh, I don’t know, a younger<\/i> person, would quite naturally hope the kids won? What if there was a TV series focussing on the kids and the grumpy old men were there to provide the stars with a challenge, not the other way around?<\/p>\n
The kids won. Thankfully there’s always another episode to look forward to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Watching an old episode of Top Gear on BBC as I write this. Currently, James May is racing two twentysomethings, driving a Peueot 207. The twentysomethings are running, jumping over cars, buildings, that sort of thing, while Captain Slow is following the Liverpool roads. Typical Top Gear, I’d say. Now, my daughter says I’m old. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[68],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sgmlguru.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sgmlguru.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sgmlguru.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sgmlguru.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sgmlguru.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sgmlguru.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sgmlguru.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sgmlguru.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sgmlguru.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}