Like many, I spent the whole of yesterday huffing and puffing that the football coverage didn’t start early enough. I wanted it to start at 8am and continue ’til midnight. I know that this would’ve irritated other people to angry, jaded salty tears, but I don’t care. Watch a different channel. I suppose it doesn’t really matter because the the coverage of the Euros didn’t start ’til 6.55pm, so all that huffing just served to annoy anyone listening in on my thoughts (I wish they’d stop doing that).

So, as I couldn’t really muster up the energy to invest in anything (or that advance copy of Dexter Series 2 that I got… lucky me) I stuck Dave on (the channel, not some mate) and sat down for nearly a full day of motoring programmes. In essence, this meant Top Gear and Fifth Gear. Now, for someone who doesn’t like cars… or even drive… I’ve seen an awful lot of motoring shows. I’ve always watched ‘em… even though I didn’t like ‘em until recently. So… what did I learn this weekend?

As we all know, Top Gear is a car programme second. The main reason most of us tune in is to watch Clarkson, May and Hammond having a laugh. They smash things up, slag off the BBC, drive things really really fast, are blunt to the point of obnoxious and sometimes, create TV so staggeringly good that you wonder why anyone would ever question the TV license fee. I’m thinking of that epic trek across the channel in a homemade boatmobile.

So Fifth Gear is the only competition right? Well, not really. Even though the show has two ex-Top Gear presenters and a load of car reviews, the two programmes couldn’t be more unlike each other. Mainly, this is because one is loads of fun to watch and the other one feels like reading a Haynes manual.

If each show has an elder statesman, then for Top Gear, it’s clearly Clarkson. Fifth Gear? Well, the decidedly pedestrian Quentin Wilson seems to have claimed the title for himself. So, while Clarkson tears along spouting bizarre similies and hooting at the sheer bloody fun he’s having, Wilson prefers to talk about gears. Or smug toots about ‘satnav’ or some rubbish.

Y’see, watching Top Gear is like joining a band of brothers who have a huge laugh with each other and quibble over almost everything… and it’s utterly endearing and compelling viewing. Watching Fifth Gear feels like watching a video about health and safety at work. That’s quite a pertinent point actually. The Top Gear team set fire to a Nissan Sunny for no reason, while Fifth Gear showed us that tired drivers don’t drive well. From a dragster spurting huge flames out of its arse toward a caravan, to Tiff Needell driving after having 3 pints. Hmmm.

This doesn’t mean that the Fifth Gear team haven’t tried to address this. They’ve employed some tubby bloke who looks like he once had a Fat Willy’s Surf Shack sticker in his car, to be all wacky. Wacky in this case means tittering at things like “a frog’s bottom”. Suffice to say, I wanted to bully him on sight.

Fact is, Top Gear is to motoring what Attenborough is to nature shows. They bring their own personality and fun to proceedings… while Fifth Gear is more like a slow image of a tern covered in oil – dying. Or, for a literal reference, one of these shows is like being razzed in a sports car with the stereo on full tilt and the other is like a tense drive home from a holiday.

For all your Top Gear posts, including reviews, go here.