Remote Control - Saturday 13 July 2013

Perfect Sunday tv.

Wimbledon, a Grand Prix and a new series of Top Gear.

Perfect for reading in the garden in the sun.

And while reading I 
discovered there’s a velvet 
spider that lives underground named after Lou Reed – the Loureedia.

I learned that pot pork, 
popular in Seattle, is flesh from pigs fed on marijuana.

And that anyone going to uni and pushing for a first reading Thucydides – a Greek historian and Athenian 
general whose history of the Peloponnesian War recounted the war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC – while parties offer sex, drink and drugs is “weird”.

That’s the opinion of no less than Rory Sutherland, the vice president of the Ogilvy Group UK – one of the nation’s ‘most influential businessmen’ 
apparently.

To give me inspiration for not watching telly I turned to Red Bull Soapbox Race (Channel Dave) showing nutters who build carts for tomorrow’s big event at Alexander Palace, in London.

But the testcard said “some bright spark has pulled the plug on our generator”.

So Red Bull can help 
Felix Baumgartner jump from space then call for “moderate fascism” on earth but can’t broadcast a half hour 
documentary.

Moderate fascism!?! Maybe Felix is on the pot pork.

Channel Dave was forced to scurry through the archives to throw on some garbage from the cupboard.

So we got woolsack racing, once used by “young drovers to impress young maidens”.

After just 10 minutes it was ‘Fast’ EddyMcDonald a “yo yo maestro” (strewth) doing 30 tricks in one minute.

Enough to get me outside.

Still I was interested to watch the go-karts so I tuned in on the station’s hour-later channel Dave Ja Vu – and it was deja vu.

And what would Felix Baumgartner’s ideal regime autocrat make of the broadcast failures?

Anyhow, I eventually got to see a couple of the teams.

The first, three City boys, put me right off.

But the second, a family racing a Piece of Cake, gives me hope for the big day, which is broadcast live at 4pm tomorrow. And Team Thunderbird will try to break the world record for ice lolly eating.

Alan Burrows