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About LinkBacksThe file is great indeed, but have you considered making a version with pictures? Maybee just copy and paste all of JC's articles to word and sell it as a book.
www.culig.hr
The file is great indeed, but have you considered making a version with pictures? Maybee just copy and paste all of JC's articles to word and sell it as a book.
^I will improve the collection indeed. I have justt finished working on the Print@Friends house edition. 82Pages, still a lot.
I uploaded it right now.
yeah, it was just a paste of the text before, now you can actually click on it.
Ok guys, it's updated again. Fixed the last page (Update Page), and added this weeks car, the Renault Vel Satis. Both Documents are updated.
Grab it while it's hot: http://homefree.freewave.no/~s190305/
It will be up in 5 minutes from now.
I recommend all of u who have'nt downloaded it yet, to do so. It is a lot of fun.
I promise to make a version with Pictures and such within the week.
I hope Im not taking this too serious
Thanks!
But I also posted because I wanna have the 500 now...
Buba
Thanks Daniel, excellent work!I can't stop reading the stuff...
@ snars: I know how it is. I couldnt stop reading it either. Im glad u aprecciate it.
I still don't know a place where I can print 150pages
Well, download the Printout edition. That will cut you down 50 pages at least.
I get my regular supply of Clarkson stuff from here
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/jeremyclarkson2000/
It has his articles from the Sun too!
I found uni a good place to print - I printed a 700page document last year....and bound it, for no out of pocket expenses
But when do i print the articles? I mean the only problem is that they get constantly updated....
Try useing one of those ring binders. Then it'll even look like work
Hey haswritten anything new lately?
(sorry for the lame post, just had to try one of my new emoticons that Viper just uploaded)
I thought you guys mght like to read the articles as soon as they come out, so here's the latest one from The Times:
Perfection, with optional nightmare
By Jeremy Clarkson
Mercedes-Benz SLK 55
The first three weeks of Ford GT ownership were not happy. Its alarm went off constantly, the anti-theft tracker cried wolf every five minutes and the satellite navigation system caused the engine to think it might be a dishwasher of some kind. So I sent it away and demanded my money back.
This didn’t go down well with the readership of The Sunday Times. Every day my in-box was choked with more and more missives from angry people saying I’d been too rash, that I’d waited 40 years for this car and shouldn’t have given up because of some small electronic glitches.
You were right, of course, so I’m delighted to say that it’s back, sitting in my drive looking all blue and huge.
They’ve fixed the alarm by winding down the sensitivity of the sensors. Now you could host a showjumping competition in there and the siren would remain mute. They’ve fixed the tracker by turning it off. And I don’t know how they fixed the sat nav, but whatever they did it only lasted a mile before the engine warning light came on again.
Who cares? This sort of thing is bound to happen on a car that’s right out there at the technical limits of what’s possible. The mistake I made before is thinking the big Ford could be an everyday car, and it can’t. It’s for when the sun is shining and the roads are quiet. It’s a car for high days and holy days. For Tuesdays and wet November days and negotiating-mini-roundabout days I needed some back-up. I needed something else.
But what? You’d imagine that in my position the choice would be easy and you’d be wrong. Making an ill-informed decision is easy — you just buy a BMW. But making a decision based on experience is . . . Well, let me put it this way. When I ask AA Gill where we’re going for dinner it usually takes him until three in the morning to decide.
So did I want a Range Rover or a Honda S2000? I like the way the S2000’s engine revs, but could I tell people at parties that I drove a Honda? And similarly I liked the idea of how a Range Rover would irritate the hippies, but the BBC’s underground car park has Berliner-sized spaces. And 4x4s won’t fit.
So, I went on to think about a second-hand Nissan Skyline GTR, an Eagle E-type Jag, a Porsche 911, the Range Rover, again, a Jaguar XJR, a Golf GTI and an Alfa 166 before eventually deciding to buy a Mercedes SL 55, the very car I’d sold to make way for the Ford.
Sadly, I discovered that next year it will be updated and given a new 6.3 litre engine. So on the basis that it’s daft to buy a car that’s going out of production soon I went back to the drawing board and asked a simple question. “In what car have you had the most fun recently?” Ah. That’d be the SL’s baby brother. The SLK 55. I drove it for Top Gear through an army base in Norfolk while members of the Irish Guards’ sniper division tried to shoot me in the face. And I loved it. I loved the jackhammer sound track, the brutal power delivery, the slightly vulgar styling details and, most of all, the air-scarf that blows warm air on the back of your neck when the roof is down. It’s like being massaged by an axe murderer.
Being essentially mean I also liked the fact that the SLK 55 is roughly half the price of an SL 55 and no slower. Sure, its V8 has no supercharger and therefore only 360bhp, but because it’s smaller and lighter it’s just as quick. 0 to 60 is dealt with in 4.7sec. And the top speed is 155.
Having made the decision I toddled off to my local Mercedes dealership to buy one. Simple. Walk in. Ask for SLK 55. Hand over cheque. Go home with it. Sadly, though, it wasn’t quite that simple.
I presume that most people who walk into a car showroom have pretty much made up their mind what model they want. They’ve spotted one in town, seen the ads or maybe read a report in a car magazine. And what they want to know is precisely how much this choice will cost and exactly what options it will have.
So why, then, is the brochure you’re given full of such tosh? Let me give you a nugget from the bumf on the SLK. “Did you know that emotions — like pleasure — actually originate in the brain and not, as used to be thought, in the heart? Sense impressions like seeing, hearing and touching create an overall ‘picture’ which is relayed by the midbrain to other brain regions where emotions are produced.”
I’m sorry. I thought this was a car dealership. Not some Robert Winston seminar.
Soon, however, I was with a charming salesman and a colour chart . . . well, when I say a colour chart it’s actually no such thing. Dulux gives you more clarity when trying to sell you a fiver’s worth of paint. All you get from Mercedes is some samples that “may differ slightly” from those that actually appear on the car.
This is ridiculous. Why can’t each dealership have big pieces of steel in all the available shades so we can see what a colour looks like for real? And why is blue an optional extra? I chose black and moved on to the interior. I wanted bright red seats but these are only available in a two-tone combo with black. “I don’t want that. It will look like I’m sitting in an advertisement for Lynx aftershave.” But it was no good. The only single-tone red was the same colour as a placenta. And there were only four other choices, German Shoe Grey, Hearing Aid Beige, Mrs Thatcher Twinset Blue, or Albert Speer Black. I went for the placenta.
And then we started on the options, which I figured wouldn’t take very long since I was buying the most expensive, most powerful model in the range.
Hmm. On a £50,000 Mercedes SLK 55 everything is an option except the bodywork, and if you want different wheels that’s £4,000. And you don’t even get to keep the set it would have come with anyway so you can sell them on eBay. James May, my ferociously unreliable co-presenter on Top Gear, recently ordered a Porsche Boxster. This is the main reason, actually, why I wanted the 55. To annoy him by having a better, faster car. Anyway, he specified a brown interior but said he wanted the original black steering wheel. This, for some unfathomable reason, would be an extra £400. What? For leaving something alone? James and I don’t understand this. We simply don’t know why it all has to be so complicated, why there are so many questions. Mind you, he doesn’t have broadband because he says it’s all too baffling.
Eventually, though, I’d selected all my options, including a roof that can be opened remotely on the key — how cool is that? — and then had to haggle the price up. Being a motoring journalist means being offered big discounts. But being a motoring journalist means I can’t accept. And then I was quoted a delivery date of “when the Iraq war is over”.
Luckily I have an internet, because I know a man who could install one while I was at the pub, so I came home and looked on the worldwide web, where there were many SLK 55s. One of these, which has a specification close to the one I wanted, is available “when hell freezes over”. And since that’s likely to be sooner, this is the one I’m going for.
I’ve learnt a valuable lesson, then, these past few weeks. Testing a car is easy. Writing about a car is easy. But buying one is bloody hard work.
Vital statistics
Model Mercedes-Benz SLK 55 AMG
Engine 5439cc, V8
Power 360bhp @ 5750rpm
Torque 376 lb ft @ 4000rpm
Transmission Seven-speed automatic
Fuel 23.5mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 288g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 4.9sec
Top speed 155mph
Price £50,530
Rating 4/5
Verdict Almost perfect, just don’t try buying one
And his latest from The Sun, although not car-related, but bloody funny!
DON’T WORRY 007..I’LL SAVE THE DAY
THERE’S intense speculation at the moment about who will play James Bond in the next film.
Who cares? So long as he’s not gay, or disabled, or an American, it doesn’t really matter.
So far we’ve had a Scot, an Aussie, an Englander, a Welshist and an Irishman and they’ve all been fine in my book. Although, that said, the Englander’s safari suit was a bit dodgy in Octopussy.
No, all I’m bothered about is the story. We’re told that next time round it’ll stick more closely to the Ian Fleming books, because this meets with current Hollywood demands for spy thrillers to be chilling rather than full of gadgets and explosions.
We’ve even been told that for only the second time, there’ll be no Q, no watches that turn into lasers, no explosive toothpaste and no invisible cars.
This is silly.
Bond has lasted for 43 years because there’s a tried and tested formula which fans like. And since I’m the biggest Bond fan of them all, I’ve written a plot for the next movie, which is to be called Casino Royale.
It starts with Bond rescuing a millionaire’s daughter form a Burmese jail in the jungle. Lots of soldiers explode, and on the way out of the warden’s office, Bond eats a grape.
Then he has some light sex with the daughter and the music starts.
This must be written by John Barry, not The Libertines or Franz Ferdinand. It’s no good going to the big star of the moment because by the time it gets released on a Bond Greatest Hits Album, it’ll be a joke.
Let’s not forget that for The Living Daylights, they went to A-Ha. And how much do they regret that now? Anyway, after the underwater title sequence, which should feature lots of naked girls and some guns, the movie starts.
Bond is having some sex when his shoes ring. He clicks open the heel with a whirring noise, and a satisfying “clunk” and its Moneypenny telling him to “come” round to the office.
He finishes having sex, and drives his Aston Martin to Whitehall. And it must be an Aston Martin, no matter how much General Motors are offering for him to be in a Vauxhall or a Chevrolet.
In M’s office, Judi Dench tells him that a baddy is trying to take over the world, and Bond shows off, telling various government ministers who are lolling around in big wingback chairs everything there is to know about the baddy’s business interests.
He goes to the see the baddy – played by Anthony Hopkins – who keeps tropical fish. Bond knows the Latin name for all of them, and then a very beautiful girl who can’t act comes into the room. Sienna Miller would be ideal.
She spurns Bond who is then thrown into a tank full of sharks. He kills them with a sonic shark killer hidden in his cufflinks and drives away very fast in his Aston Martin while the baddy’s house explodes.
He is chased by some helicopters and snowmobiles, all of which blow up when they hit some trees and then he goes to see Felix Leiter, his CIA opposite number who is thick and doesn’t know anything.
In recent Bond outings, there’s been a tendency for Americans to appear bright and helpful, but this is completely unrealistic. Let’s not forget the CIA never knew the Berlin Wall was going to come down until they saw it on BBC World. Also, there’s been another even more worrying trend for Bond to be joined by another agent who’s a girl. It happened in Tomorrow Never Dies, with Michelle Yeoh, and it happened again in Die Another Day with Halle Berry.
This must stop. In Bond films, girls are there to lounge around swimming pools and not to run up and down walls with gadgets of their own.
Another thing that must stop is giving up the sense that Bond is vulnerable. He bled profusely in Licence to Kill, was tortured in Die Another Die and broke some ribs in The World Is Not Enough.
That’s stupid. Bond doesn’t break and he never gets captured.
As any 007 fan knows, if there were to be a fight between Robocop, the Terminator and Superman, Bond would win and then, on his way out of the door, have another grape.
And afterwards, some sex with Mrs Superman.
Anyway, Bond retrieves something the CIA has lost, M makes some snide remarks about American inefficiency and a Russian space rocket blows up.
Bond goes to Kazakhstan where he spends half an hour teasing Robbie Coltrane, abseiling off tall buildings, reprogramming the entire Russian defence computer network and making love.
Then he gets into a submarine and goes to the baddy’s underwater lair where there is a huge man who demonstrates his massive strength by eating an entire billiard table. Bond kills him and has a grape.
Then a siren starts and Bond realises that the countdown has begun and unless he can get to the South Pole very quickly, a space laser will blast Tenerife to bits, causing a tsunami that’ll destroy America’s east coast.
Luckily, it turns out 007 is fully qualified to fly the new Eurofighter which he finds on the baddy’s aircraft carrier.
So he takes off, wearing a black tie, and has some dogfights with a vastly superior force of Migs.
One of these blows up and the pilot’s testicles smash into Bond’s cockpit canopy. “He had some balls” says Bond, who straightens his tie and lights the afterburners.
He lands in Antarctica and turns up at the cooling plant, which causes a siren to start. A computerised voice starts to say “You have three minutes to reach minimum safe distance.” And Anthony Hopkins melts.
Bond finds the controls for the space laser which he hits with an ingot until, with the timer reading 007, they break.
Then, as the building blows up, he burrows through the ice, using a tool in his wallet and makes his escape in a frogman outfit.
On the sea bed, he makes love to Sienna Miller without realising a US nuclear submarine is nearby and M is watching them through the periscope.
She says something about “sea men” and the credits roll.
Yeh thanks but the SLK55 one has already got a thread for itself. Once these articles are released, someone like me or someone else usually makes a thread about it as it makes good discussion. So no need to post it here.
Okay.. I just saw the thread about the SLK. Do you want me to send you the articles to keep uptodate?
It might even be worth making a new version of the .doc with his articles. What do you think?
No need to send them to me. I just go to the Times website and get his new articles on Mondays usually. I dont see the point of adding to the .doc because those articles consisted of articles you had to pay for on the website. Stuff has changed since then so I dont know what the deal is.Originally Posted by transtek
anyways... I decided to make a nicer print-out version of Daniels article for my own use and share it with you guys.
Added: BMW M5
Aston V8 Vantage
Audi RS4
Lexus Gs430
New Merc. S-class
Maserati MC12
thats all I think and I made a cover page
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PHQOGQIL
And Aussie's... if you want a copy, I'll be happy to print it out and mail it to you if I have spare cash
how on earth do u dl from that site?
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