Ben Collins interview

TomCat said:
Did you read about some of the things he had to do to maintain the stupid gimmick of a secret identity? He went to great lengths to keep it secret and I imagine it was extremely annoying at times.
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Ben Collins said:
I vowed to take the Stig in the white suit to a new level of secrecy. I made my own rules: never park in the same place twice, never talk to anyone outside the ?circle? and keep a balaclava on until I was eight miles clear of the location and certain that no one was following. My golden rule was never to appear in the white suit without my helmet on.
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To me it sounds like he fully embraced the anonymity deal, and even took it further by making his own rules to follow.
 
Like I said, he did a damn fine job. If that's not faithful devotion, then what is?
 
ladyblue said:
just thought I'd share this
http://www.5fm.co.za/djs/sasha-martinengo/podcasts/the-stig-ben-collins
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you have to wait until about 15:00 for the tough questions... They must've rehearsed the "why you decided now you had enough" one since the interviewer pretty much put the answer in his mouth.

He seems like a nice guy. I'm sure it was tough to be in that role for so long. I still don't think it excuses leaving in this way, but that's just me. He seems to think it's very easy (and "fair") to pass the torch to a new driver, but wants recognition at the same time. That kind of kills the idea, doesn't it?
 
zthomasz said:
Sorry, but this is just nonsense. James May may well have been a 'respected motoring journalist', thats a matter of opinion, but he was not a successful motoring journalist. SO I suppose you could say that he was a failure.
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Um, no.

I'm only going to cover James, as I know more of his history than I do Richards. James started on television in 1998 with "Driven". He then moved on to (old) Top Gear, and then to the new Top Gear. Not to mention all of his other TV shows.. And the guy even managed to go into (almost) space. :) Not too shabby for a failure. ;)

zthomasz said:
Would top gear still exist without James May?

Undoubtedly

Would top gear still exist without Richard Hammnond?

Absolutely

Would top gear still exist without Jeremy Clarkson?

Unlikely
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Again...no. Top Gear works as it does because of the dynamics between all 3 presenters. I doubt it would ever be the same if any of them were replaced.

zthomasz said:
Both of them have ridden on Jeremy clarkson's coat-tails from the gutter, where their careers were, to the top and they have made millions in the process.
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Neither were in the 'gutters'. Yes, the new Top Gear did give them a better launching point than they had before...but if they weren't so good at what they do, they'd have been gone long before now.
 
First I've lived in England all my life I've watch Topgear from 1987 when I was a nipper.

Pre Topgear May and Hammond were unknowns. Topgear was their vehicle for success to stop another member of the cast from doing the same is hypocritical at best.
 
GreenBullet said:
He seems to think it's very easy (and "fair") to pass the torch to a new driver, but wants recognition at the same time. That kind of kills the idea, doesn't it?
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I don't think so. There was another driver before him that played the Stig and went public, it didn't ruin "the idea" for the past 9 years. Did it?

It's also a good opportunity for another driver because it allows them to show off their abilities to a massive audience, while being totally anonymous, which makes it impossible for anyone to unfairly judge them based on gender, race, religion, etc. It would be easy to replace the Stig too, since you cant ever see the actual person. They probably replaced Ben a dozen times over the years and no one knew.
 
I think you and I had a debate about this before... in one of the million Stig threads. :D It didn't really "ruin" it in the beginning since TG was relatively new, and the concept hasn't really caught on. Give it the 7 years for the current Stig and it's a bit different. I never thought about the anonymity in terms of discrimination though.

I think I'm reaching Stig-overdose. I'm curious as to what they do with it in the next series. Otherwise, what's done is done...
 
If you really want to become a presenter and have your own show - is pissing off the country's main broadcaster really a good idea? I also think that he might find that the world of TV Motoring is a fairly close knit community....

The crew and backroom people of TG appear (from the show credits) to have been pretty stable over its 8 year run. That really doesn't tie in with his opinion of Clarkson not respecting their contributions.
 
This is all a bit juvenile, but it does happen in any walk of life. You get on like a house on fire with your colleagues for years, then you fall out over one thing and suddenly they've always been idiots who have never shown you any respect and you always knew they'd piss on you in the end...etc etc. Which seems to be what's happened here.
 
I think Ben will find that Fifth Gear has already tried to rival Top Gear and failed.

Not really sure what he meant by his dig at Jeremy, it seems more than a little bitchy.
 
I'd be surprised if anyone other than Sky would be willing to give BC his own show, and even then that's only because Sky is part of the Murdoch empire, and Rupert and his minions have a deep seated hatred of the Beeb.
 
tone76 said:
I'd be surprised if anyone other than Sky would be willing to give BC his own show, and even then that's only because Sky is part of the Murdoch empire, and Rupert and his minions have a deep seated hatred of the Beeb.
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Sky have tried a few times to to a car show, so why not try again. Any Murdoch has bank rolled the book and the media campaign, so another dig at the Beeb wouldn't be a surprise.
 
tone76 said:
I'd be surprised if anyone other than Sky would be willing to give BC his own show, and even then that's only because Sky is part of the Murdoch empire, and Rupert and his minions have a deep seated hatred of the Beeb.
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Isn't the times Murdoch owned, and Jeremy works there?
 
I don't know who to believe when it comes to all of this. Yes, there was a court case and there has obviously been a spat between TG and Collins, I don't really think that one should hate or dislike Collins for this. Honestly, for how long haven't we on FG known that it was Collins? It wasn't like it was a secret for anyone with the least of googleing abilities.

It is sad that it got so blown out of proportion. I do understand Collins' frustration. He has not ignored the whole secrecy policy and has lived his life in secret for seven years. Honestly, that's quite admirable. If he in the end felt that a) he wasn't paid enough, especially considering the presenters salary and the way he had to live his life, b) it wasn't really a secret anyway and c) he wanted to go racing again, I can understand that he did this the way he did. That is the core of it in my world, whether Clarkson said he drove gay or Wilman calling him a darlek doesn't really matter. That's just media bull.

I can see TG's frustration as well, but according to the court Collins didn't do anything wrong. Personally, I like that this gave me another viewpoint on the world of TG, through Collins' new book (which I'm about to order). The sad part though is that I would like to see Wilman, Clarkson, Hammond, May and Collins going for a pint and talking about those good old times when TG is all over. That probably won't happen now.
 
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