Top Gear flap

London

The BBC has come under fire for its daredevil TV show Top Gear, after one of the hosts suffered brain injuries in a crash while filming. The show started out years ago as an auto critics’ forum, but in recent years it morphed into a reality show in which host Richard Hammond tests radically souped-up vehicles at extreme speeds. Last week, Hammond shot down an airstrip in a jet-powered dragster at about 300 mph and flipped over. He had to be cut out of the wreckage. Hammond’s co-host Jeremy Clarkson is now battling calls by newspapers and politicians for the show to be banned. “People with beards and dirty fingernails are now saying he should never have been in that car doing that kind of speed,” Clarkson wrote in the London Sun. “Rubbish. A hamster could do it.” Hammond, who insisted on performing the stunt himself, is expected to recover.

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