Clarissa Tan experiences the greatest show on earth, and laughs

I watched Top Gear (BBC2, Sunday) for the first time in my life last week (the rock under which I’ve been living is pretty large, practically a boulder). I thought I’d better plug this knowledge gap before it got too embarrassing, seeing that Top Gear is the greatest show on earth, the travelling Big Top de nos jours, a daredevil combo of acrobatic stunts, mechanical wizardry and freakery.

Fakery too, apparently, as it’s emerged that in a recent episode scenes that looked spontaneous were actually staged. These involved flashes of watery chaos, upturned tables and angry diners shaking their fists as an amphibious vehicle hastily built and even more hastily driven by Jeremy Clarkson & co. blasted past a bucolic restaurant by the River Avon, spraying all and sundry. It seems that the diners were actors, and their anger at Clarkson’s ‘Hovervan’ was faux fury.

Well, you could knock me down with a feather.