Clarkson's Farm

[arsenal]

Funny, inspiring, educational, poignant and great TV. Top Gear with a tractor. If you like JC you'll love this.

[StevieWonders]

My favourite line, when measuring the circumference of a ram’s testicles, “The advantage of a public school education”.

[goji]

Funny, inspiring, educational, poignant and great TV. Top Gear with a tractor. If you like JC you'll love this.

Yes it's a good show. Free for all those on Amazon Prime.

[arsenal]

As is usual with all Clarkson's shows there's a strong supporting cast. Cheerful Charlie with his long list of pesky govt rules and financial nous reminds me of Jellybean.. Kaylib, the farmboy with a vast knowledge of farming brings Matt to mind. Gerald, who first appears in episode 2 is how I've always imagined Latin to be.

[StevieWonders]

And the great incidental one-liners - one about “getting lubed up” for example. I note also he’s separated from his missus and now has a (much younger) “girlfriend” - no politically correct “partner” nonsense. His “pulling power” or “star quality” was shown forcefully in the episode on his “Diddly Squat Farm Shop” where a single tweet brought a queue of visitors and a one-thousand-quid-plus turnover on the first day.

[arsenal]

And the two rams, Wayne Rooney and Leonardo DiCaprio fair reminded me of a447 and NIrish as they hurtled at full speed towards the waiting sexual shenanigans with 74 offs. Wayne out performed Leo by 2 to 1 so I don't know which is which.
Hahahahaha.

[StevieWonders]

And the two rams, Wayne Rooney and Leonardo DiCaprio fair reminded me of a447 and NIrish as they hurtled at full speed towards the waiting sexual shenanigans with 74 offs. Wayne out performed Leo by 2 to 1 so I don't know which is which.Indeed - I had to provide chapter and verse when a447 claimed he had never had public sex.

[Jellybean]

Funny, inspiring, educational, poignant and great TV. Top Gear with a tractor. If you like JC you'll love this.

Thanks for the recommendation, arsenal. I have seen the trailers to the show and read a couple of reviews, but, unfortunately, I don’t have Amazon. If I did have it, I would certainly watch it as I do like Jeremy Clarkson. I do however watch him as the host/quizmaster on the TV quiz show, Who wants to be a Millionaire? In my opinion he is a worthy successor to Chris Tarrant.

YouTube clips from both shows are copied below:


https://youtu.be/VksZx3xIgFI


https://youtu.be/Zp6YQyLHhW8

[goji]

Thanks for the recommendation, arsenal. I have seen the trailers to the show and read a couple of reviews, but, unfortunately, I don’t have Amazon. If I did have it, I would certainly watch it as I do like Jeremy Clarkson.

Amazon Prime is about £8.99 per month and can very easily be cancelled after 1 month via the Amazon website menus (last time I looked).
Series such as The Grand Tour and Clarkson's Farm might justify 1~2 months subscriptions.

[StevieWonders]

Thanks for the recommendation, arsenal. I have seen the trailers to the show and read a couple of reviews, but, unfortunately, I don’t have Amazon. If I did have it, I would certainly watch it as I do like Jeremy Clarkson. A friend of mine watches it via YouTube. I’m not sure if they’re complete episodes but there are plenty of references if you search YouTube for “Clarkson Farm”

[Jellybean]

Thanks for the recommendation, arsenal. I have seen the trailers to the show and read a couple of reviews, but, unfortunately, I don’t have Amazon. If I did have it, I would certainly watch it as I do like Jeremy Clarkson.

Amazon Prime is about £8.99 per month and can very easily be cancelled after 1 month via the Amazon website menus (last time I looked).
Series such as The Grand Tour and Clarkson's Farm might justify 1~2 months subscriptions.

Thanks goji. I did check up on the cost of Amazon after first reading arsenal’s post, but in addition to my Sky subscription, I already pay £9.99 per month for Netflix and I rarely find the time to watch it as much as I want. But I saw that Amazon is offering a 30 day free trial and, as you say, I could cancel after one or two months. Hmmm . . .?

[gerefan2]

Every time I buy something from Amazon they give me a free subscription to Amazon Prime for a month. I get free next day delivery.

After 1 month I have to pay.

As soon as it arrives I cancel it. No charge.

[arsenal]

Finished the series in about 2 days and I can't believe how much I'm missing It, so much so that I've started the whole thing again.

It ends with the instrumental, Classical Gas. Play it, it's the most poignant piece of music ever.

[Nirish guy]

Dont worry weirdly its been such a smash hit on Prime that Season two is already well underway in the planning apparently.

So, ironically for a show that was based around just how hard it is to farm and make a living, Jeremy it seems, unlike many REAL farmers out there, no longer needs to concern himself with "actually" turning a profit ( not that he ever did anyway of course) as his commissioning cheque from Amazon will MORE than cover any (for TV) losses he makes I'm guessing.

It's actually the one part of the show where I wish they would keep it even half real in terms of any TRUE profit and loss results as to his efforts as obviously his end of year £140 "profit" could be and was no doubt massaged for TV effect.

It would be interesting to see the TRUE figures - as obviously in a normal business all the equipment he bought would then be amortised over the next few years etc - none of which I assume was done for season one of course.

Mind you for all the talk of how bad farming is for providing a decent income I don't know about the rest of you but I've YET to meet a POOR farmer here where I ilive as the most of them i know all driver top fo the range Merc's along with the wives always having their latest new 4x 4 model to hand too !

[goji]

#1 I think Clarkson's £144 profit was before subsidies.

#2 From what I see, farmers who know how to farm seem to make good money at it and buy up adjacent farms as the owners retire. Of course, they have to work at it and I expect that if they subtracted hours worked, the ROCE (Return On Capital Employed) for the business would be terrible.

#3 In the UK, offspring of farmers do anything from carrying on the farm to going off to university, starting a tech company and making millions.

#4 As with everything Clarkson does, there is a lot of cocking things up according to a script. However, he's very good at it and the show makes great entertainment.

[arsenal]

Yes. Take away the capital outlay on farm equipment (It's been a working farm for years) , the shop, the pond and the 'cast' and there's a profit of about £300'000 +.

Clarkson's tv shows are always very sympathetic towards the subject and his Grand Tour shows are basically tourist adverts for the countries featured. The Colombia one in particular is above wonderful but the most recent, Madagascar still hits the heights.

[Brad the Impala]

The fans will be pleased to know that a second series follows.


Filming has commenced on series two of Clarkson’s Farm from Expectation and Con Dao Productions, as the Grand Tour host spends another year in the world of agriculture. Clarkson’s fellow farmhands from series one will remain, including tractor driver Kaleb, advisor ‘cheerful’ Charlie and farm shopkeeper and girlfriend Lisa.

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/amazon/clarksons-farm-digs-up-second-run/5161809.article?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Daily%20News&utm_content=Daily%20Daily%20News+CID_e6168456ad696 344a6b78bfae0b3370a&utm_source=Newsletter

[Nirish guy]

There must be some weird PR / Money game going on there between Clarkson and Netflix perhaps as just last week Clarkson issued a statement saying that contrary to rumours Netflix hadn't commissioned a 2nd series (yet) and if fans wanted to see one they should write to Netflix to tell THEM that ! I'm guessing this was him trying to load his hand in negotiations with Netflix perhaps when going in to ask for his chunk of money for a second series.

You'd assume it was and would be a no brainer for both parties to get on with a second series based on how popular the first one was so I can only assume that was all just smoke and mirrors PR perhaps - especially if they are LITERALLY on site filming season two THAT decision wouldn't have been made just today or yesterday of course, which make Jeremys statement last week all the stranger perhaps. I guess we'll never know the truth as to what really was going on there.

[goji]

Yes. Take away the capital outlay on farm equipment (It's been a working farm for years) , the shop, the pond and the 'cast' and there's a profit of about £300'000 +.

I think it depends on how they are accounting and since it's scripted, we shall never know. I don't think Amazon got the auditors to check the figure quoted.

If done properly, I suspect the capex would be capitalized and only the depreciation shown on the P&L account.
I'm not sure what rate of depreciation is appropriate on farm equipment, but a life of 10~20 years is perfectly reasonable. Longer for some items.

[Nirish guy]

Clarkson must read this forum as I see he's just posted a video update this morning confirming there WILL be a second series - his ploy of getting people to write in to Netflix to demand one ( and hence ask for more money no doubt) must have paid off !

[goji]

Clarkson must read this forum as I see he's just posted a video update this morning confirming there WILL be a second series - his ploy of getting people to write in to Netflix to demand one ( and hence ask for more money no doubt) must have paid off !

Clarkson's farm is on Amazon.

[Nirish guy]

Sorry my bad - you're right - it's on PRIME / Amazon. I just jumped at Netflix with it being the more usual contender these days for such shows.

[arsenal]

Just watched episode 3 of series 4 of The Grand Tour, also on Amazon Prime.
Ep 1 went to Cambodia and Ep 2 went to Madagascar. Both were brilliant telly.

Ep 3 is in Scotland and to be honest was disappointing for a number of reasons. Partly the weather which rained for most of the time. But mainly because Scotland doesn't lend itself very well to The Grand Tour's premise. It's not particularly big and the roads are very good so the 'japes' felt forced and manufactured. Of course they're the same in every country but more believable. Perhaps because of the weather we didn't get as many helicopter aerial shots as we would have liked. Scotland deserved a better travelogue than this.

[Nirish guy]

Totally agree re the Scotland jaunt - but I think it was more a case of them knocking "something" together out of nothing, but as you say it was all a bit contrived and felt like even they weren't buying it this time. It was interesting to read the other day how they said they found it tough as they kept bumping into just about every other UK "world roving" TV Show that exists and their film crews while filming and in every town they stopped at they kept bumping into more, to the point where it became funny / annoying. I'm sure the Scottish TV production economy must be doing very well out of this world "lockdown" and english TV show making needing "somewhere" to go and Scotland seemingly being "it".

Mind you after seeing all those various shows it did put Scotland in my head somewhat and in fact I've just booked myself and a few friends to head off to Edinburgh this very weekend no less, see, who says advertising doesn't work eh !

[goji]

All of their material is contrived and scripted, but it's still often amusing.
I quite enjoyed Lochdown.

If the BBC have any better current output to justify the tax on my TV, I'd like to know what it is.

[Nirish guy]

All of their material is contrived and scripted, but it's still often amusing..

It is of course and you're right that that's what almost makes it funny sometimes you just KNOW that caravan is going to go off a cliff or the boat is going to sink, which is all part of the fun. I actually had to sit and explain that to my asian bf here as he didn't / doesn't get that and kept coming out with statements like "but they can't drive that caravan up that road, they're going to damage it!" - and didn't get that THAT was the ultimately the whole point ! :)

PS Diverging a little - I thought it hilarious on Clarksons Farm when he needed a small area of land, which happened to be owned by the Camping and Caravan Club, that they ( allegedly) only agreed to give it to him after he made a "nice" promo video about the joys of caravanning - which considering he's spent his entire career cursing them and blowing the damned things up I thought so funny and it was the best "price" ever that they could ever come up with for him to pay. nice to see they have a good sense of humour :-)

[goji]

Top Gear caravanning.
Those with a short attention span can skip to 6 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgRXi2svWPU

[arsenal]

The Colombia two parter is two hours if the best armchair telly ever made and with a surprising twist if you didn't already know. If you do know there's no need to say here.

[arsenal]

Gordon, Gino and Fred's Road Trip.

The idea is 3 chefs travelling together collecting ingredients for some wedding in Italy.

This is ITVs attempt at a buddy buddy buddy style show a la Clarkson, May and Hammond. And it stinks. More forced than a foie gras goose, more laboured than a stone quarry, it comes complete with camper van, terrible driving and 'comedy' set ups that wouldn't be out of place in a 1970s sitcom. Unwatchable, I gave up after 20 minutes such was the cringe worthy embarrassment of the show.

ITV have a history of trying to copy successful formats usually with very poor results but this is in a league of its own. Gruesome.

[Nirish guy]

Gordon, Gino and Fred's Road Trip..... it stinks....... Gruesome.

Aww we actually quite like it, it is a bit contrived for sure and Gino ( as usual) plays it up for the camera just a little too much ( as per every other programme he does when on other TV shows too with his fake Italian mispronounciations from a guy who's lived in the UK for over 20 years now).

Apparently Gordon and Gino are actually good friends in real life so I think that side of things isn't so fake perhaps and in fact it seems Gino's son is banging .....sorry dating...Gordons daughter even it seems.

So while it's not ground breaking TV when sitting with a glass ( bottle ) of wine of an evening relaxing we're not averse to sticking it on for a laugh or two.

[arsenal]

Secrets of the SAS: In Their Own Words.

A BBC series from 2016 that passed me by. Full of daring do adventures as told by actual ex SAS soldier. It's touching, thrilling and full of characters you'd love to go to the pub with. If you like your humour bone dry and black this is for you..