Those of you who watch Top Gear will be familiar with the section of the show which sees an anonymous chap in a white overall drag a range of cars around the test track in as fast a time as possible. Whilst doing so, he often has music (think Baroque) or language learning courses (Greek recently) playing in whatever high horse powered beast happens to be at his mercy that week.
The last few shows, however, have had the – now cult – figure listening to Morse Code. And yes, we have a translation of it…
The dot dash character encoding which transmits telegraphic information using rhythm, or Morse Code in layman’s terms, is being rather cheapened given that it was a great breakthrough in telecommunications in 1840!
Anyway, I’ll delay no further. The following messages have been surreptitiously piped into our living room…
‘Strictly Come Dancing is crap’
‘I Love cheese’
‘I voted for Ross Perot’ (a tribute to a US politician’s failed bid to become President in the 90s)
‘Too Many gears’ (probably in reference to the 8 in that weeks’ car)
‘I like Mr Sulu’ (the Japanese gent in Star Trek)
‘I Like Gary Numan’ (I assume this in because of Numan’s famous track, ‘Cars’)
Reportedly the messages have been transmitted by a human, rather than a machine, owing to the inconsistencies between dots and dashes.
You will find all this either hilarious, or childish, depending on your views of Clarkson most likely, a man who polarises opinion like no other.
I for one find it amusing. You?
19 December 2008 09:57