C4's First Car question reveals Ramsey mind blockChannel 4 is currently showing a series of idents (the snippet of video they run just before each programme starts, to identify what station you're watching) that feature a whole bunch of the actors and actresses from its most popular programmes, all answering the same question. The question itself isn't stated explicitly until the last couple of answers, so there's a little game to play for the viewer: what exactly do all these answers add up to? Memorable ones have included: What's your favourite invention? Your favourite swearword? Your happiest moment? The first single you bought? How old were you when you lost your virginity? And so on; many of them are available to watch online at http://idents.tv/blog/2006/10/29/channel-four-and-twenty-questions/.
The "Twenty Questions" series has been running for a little while now, but the best one as far as I'm concerned was one of the first they did. "What was your first car?" dug up some fairly uninspiring answers (Parminder Nagra's Renault Clio, for instance), but in amongst them were gems like Felicity Huffman's "shaped like a running shoe" Honda CR-X (imagine trying to find a young driver car insurance policy for that one), Marianne Jean-Baptiste's Datsun Sunny called 'Maude', and Gordon Ramsey's Ford Princess. Now, the Datsun I knew well enough, the Honda I knew of (a next door neighbour of mine once owned one) and the Ford, I assumed, was before my time. Ramsey is 40, after all, and I'm only 25. But in the interests of writing this article I thought I should check it out, just in case there was something particularly interesting or ironic to say about the TV chef's first set of wheels. Funnily enough, the Ford Princess is both interesting and ironic - because it doesn't exist. I've had a thorough look, and about the only thing it could be is the 'Princess' model made by British Leyland in the late seventies. That means Gordon James Ramsey; three Michelin starred celebrity chef; television presenter; sometime footballer; Officer of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, is incapable of remembering the make and model of his first car. I must admit, finding out unnerved me slightly. Everybody remembers the name of their first car, even if it was Maude. That question remains one of the best icebreakers ever simply because of that fact: that everyone's got something to say, and, no matter how long ago it was, it's always right there on the tip of your tongue. But not for Gordon. Dismissing the idea that Ford may have made a 'Princess' on the quiet and especially for him, we can assume that it's actually passed him by, as inconsequential now as a Tuesday night's takings in one of the many restaurants he owns. Saving up for your first car, for road tax and for the cheapest car insurance you could find; failing your first MOT (or scraping through); your first flat tyre, broken bulb, oil change - these things for me at least are all brought to mind simply by repeating the name of my own first car. It's a chapter of my life I know I'll never forget - not because saving up for young driver car insurance was a particularly exciting experience for me, but because nobody else ever does. Your first car is a watershed moment, the transition between dependence and independence - it's surely pretty significant in every young life. Every life, it seems, except Gordon's. I wonder if I'll ever get the chance to ask him why.
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