This Korn article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2008)

"Need To" is a song written and recorded by American nu metal band Korn for their self-titled debut album. It was released as the album's second single in April 1995.

Music and structure[link]

The song features elements of an older Korn song, "Alive", which was found on their demo tape, Neidermeyer's Mind. "Alive" was eventually reworked and re-recorded for the band's sixth studio album, Take a Look in the Mirror.

Concept[link]

"'Need To' is about being in a relationship with someone you love so much but you are too scared to get close to them because you're paranoid that they may stop loving you.

You pull me closer, I push you away,

You tell me it's okay, I can't help but feel the pain.

I was use to being used by people I loved and any future relationship was going to feel the same. Every time I thought I was getting too close, I would push her away." – Jonathan Davis

Live performance[link]

The song was performed frequently during the band's early shows. After several years of being absent from the setlist, it returned as part of the song "Alive" during the 2003 Back 2 Basics Tour. It was also played during the 2006 See You on the Other Side Tour within a medley. The song was part of the band's 2010 Ballroom Blitz Tour setlist, leading into "Coming Undone".

Cover versions[link]

Staind covered this song during a live performance on the 2000 Sick and Twisted Tour which also featured Korn and Mindless Self Indulgence.

Track listing[link]

US Radio Promo[link]

• CD5" ESK 6981^[1]

1. "Need To" – 4:02

References[link]

See also[link]

	Book: Korn
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

Tom Brokaw
Brokaw in 2007
Born	Thomas John Brokaw (1940-02-06) February 6, 1940 (age 72) Webster, South Dakota, U.S.
Education	Degree in politics and journalism from University of South Dakota
Occupation	Television journalist, author
Years active	1966–present
Notable credit(s)	Today co-anchor (1976–1981) NBC Nightly News anchor (1982–2004) NBC News Special Correspondent (2004–present) Meet the Press moderator (2008)[1]
Spouse	Meredith Lynn Auld (1962–present)
Children	Jennifer Jean Andrea Simon Sara Auld

Thomas John "Tom" Brokaw (/ˈbroʊkɔː/; born February 6, 1940) is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation (1998) and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors. He is the only person to host all three major NBC News programs: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, briefly, Meet the Press. He now serves as a Special Correspondent for NBC News and works on documentaries for other outlets.

Early life[link]

Tom Brokaw (left) greeting the 20,000th visitor to the Gavins Point Dam in 1958. Brokaw was a tour guide there.

Brokaw was born in Webster, South Dakota, the son of Eugenia "Jean" (born Conley), who worked in sales and as a post-office clerk, and Anthony Orville "Red" Brokaw.^[2] He was the eldest of their three sons and was named after his maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Conley. His father was a descendant of Huguenot immigrants Bourgon and Catherine (le Fèvre) Broucard, and his mother was Irish-American.^[3] His paternal great-grandfather, Richard P. Brokaw, founded the town of Bristol, South Dakota, and the Brokaw House, a small hotel and the first structure in Bristol.^[4]

Brokaw's father was a construction foreman for the Army Corps of Engineers. He worked at the Black Hills Ordnance Depot (BHOD) and helped construct Fort Randall Dam; his job often required the family to resettle during Brokaw's early childhood.^[5] The Brokaws lived for short periods in Bristol, Igloo (the small residential community of the BHOD), and Pickstown, before settling in Yankton, where Brokaw attended high school.^[3][5]

As a high school student attending Yankton Senior High School,^[6] Brokaw was governor of South Dakota American Legion Boys State, and in that capacity he accompanied then South Dakota Governor Joe Foss to New York City for a joint appearance on a TV game show. It was to be the beginning of a long relationship with Foss, whom Brokaw would later feature in his book about World War II veterans, The Greatest Generation.

Tom Brokaw dropped out of The University of Iowa, where he says he majored in "beer and co-eds" before receiving his B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion in 1964.^[6]

Broadcasting career[link]

Early years[link]

Brokaw's television career began at KTIV in Sioux City, Iowa, followed by stints at KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska^[7] and WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1966, he joined NBC News, reporting from California and anchoring the 11 p.m. news for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. In 1973, NBC made Brokaw White House correspondent, covering the Watergate scandal, and anchor of the Saturday editions of Nightly News. He became host of NBC's Today Show in 1976 and remained in the job until 1982.

[edit] Nightly News

Brokaw preparing for a live broadcast in the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

On April 5, 1982, Brokaw began co-anchoring NBC Nightly News from New York with Roger Mudd in Washington. After a year, NBC News president Reuven Frank concluded that the dual-anchor program was not working and selected Brokaw to be sole anchor.^[8] The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw commenced on September 5, 1983.

Among other news items, he covered the Challenger disaster, EDSA Revolution, Loma Prieta earthquake, fall of the Berlin Wall and Hurricane Andrew.

As anchor, Brokaw conducted the first one-on-one American television interviews with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was the only network anchor in Berlin when the Berlin Wall fell. He and Katie Couric hosted a prime-time newsmagazine, Now, that aired from 1993–94 before being folded into the multi-night Dateline NBC program.

Brokaw with Vladimir Putin before an interview on 2 June 2000.

On September 11, 2001, Brokaw joined Katie Couric and Matt Lauer around 9:30 a.m., following the live attack on the South Tower of the World Trade Center, and continued to anchor all day, until after midnight. Following collapse of the second tower, Brokaw observed:

He continued to anchor coverage to midnight on the following two days. Later that month, a letter containing anthrax was addressed to him as part of the 2001 anthrax attacks. Brokaw was not harmed, but two NBC News employees were infected. In 2008, he testified before the Commission on Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism about the anthrax attacks, publicly discussing his experiences for the first time in a detailed, day-by-day account.^[11]

In 2002, NBC announced that Brokaw would retire as anchor of the NBC Nightly News following the 2004 Presidential election, to be succeeded by Brian Williams. Brokaw would remain with NBC News in a part-time capacity through 2014, serving as an analyst and anchoring and producing documentary programs.

Brokaw closed his final Nightly News broadcast in front of 15.7 million viewers on NBC on December 1, 2004, by saying:

By the end of his time as Nightly News anchor, Brokaw was regarded as the most popular news personality in the United States. Nightly News had moved into first place in the Nielsen ratings in late 1996^[12] and held onto the spot for the remainder of Brokaw's tenure on the program, placing him ahead of ABC's Peter Jennings and World News Tonight and CBS's Dan Rather and the CBS Evening News

Brokaw in 2006 speaking about the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Along with Jennings and Rather, Brokaw helped usher in the era of the TV news anchor as lavishly compensated, globe-trotting star in the 1980s. The magnitude of a news event could be measured by whether Brokaw and his counterparts on the other two networks showed up on the scene. Brokaw's retirement in December 2004, followed by Rather's ouster from the CBS Evening News in March 2005 and Jennings's death in August 2005, brought that era to a close.

[edit] After Nightly News

After leaving the anchor chair, Brokaw remained at NBC as Special Correspondent, providing periodic reports for Nightly News. He served as an NBC analyst during the 2008 presidential election campaign^[13] and moderated the second presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain at Belmont University. He reported documentaries for the Discovery Channel and the History Channel and in 2006 delivered one of the eulogies during the state funeral of former President Gerald R. Ford.

On June 13, 2008, Brokaw broke into NBC programming to announce the death of NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert. A week later, NBC announced that Brokaw would serve as host of Meet the Press on an interim basis. He was succeeded by David Gregory in December 2008.

Brokaw serves on the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the International Rescue Committee. He is also a member of the Howard University School of Communications Board of Visitors and a trustee of the University of South Dakota, the Norton Simon Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the International Rescue Committee. He also provides the voiceover for a University of Iowa advertisement that airs on television during Iowa Hawkeyes athletic events.^[14]

On May 29, 2011, Brokaw began hosting The Boys in the Hall, a baseball documentary series for Fox Sports Net.^[15]

Personal life[link]

He has been married to Meredith Lynn Auld (a former Miss South Dakota and author) since 1962. They have three daughters, Jennifer Jean, Andrea Brooks and Sarah Auld. Brokaw and his wife spend considerable time at his ranch on the West Boulder River near Livingston that he bought in 1989.^[16][17]

Career timeline[link]

• 1962–1965: KMTV-TV Reporter
• 1965: Anchor of WSB-TV late-evening news^[18]
• 1966–1972: NBC News West Coast correspondent and KNBC anchor^[18]
• 1973–1976: White House correspondent and Saturday anchor of NBC Nightly News^[18]
• 1976–1981: Today Show host^[18]
• 1982–1983: NBC Nightly News co-anchor^[18]
• 1983–2004: NBC Nightly News anchor^[18]
• 2004–present: Special Correspondent for NBC News^[18]
• 2008: Meet the Press moderator (interim)^[18]
• 2012 Vanderbilt University and Arizona State University Commencement Speeches

Books[link]

Brokaw signing a book in Seattle in 2007

• 1998 The Greatest Generation ISBN 0-375-50202-5 (hardback) ISBN 0-385-33462-1 (paperback) Depicts the Americans who came of age during the Great Depression and fought World War II.
• 1999 The Greatest Generation Speaks ISBN 0-375-50394-3 (hardback) ISBN 0-385-33538-5 (paperback)
• 2001 An Album of Memories ISBN 0-375-50581-4 (hardback) ISBN 0-375-76041-5 (paperback)
• 2002 A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland ISBN 0-375-50763-9 (hardback) ISBN 0-375-75935-2 (paperback)
• 2006 Galen Rowell: A Retrospective ISBN 1-57805-115-0 (hardback) Foreword by Tom Brokaw
• 2007 Boom!: Voices of the Sixties Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today ISBN 1-4000-6457-0 (hardback)
• 2011 The Time of Our Lives: A conversation about America ISBN 978-1-4000-6458-8 (hardback)

Awards[link]

Public and industry awards[link]

• Peabody Award for a report called To Be An American
• Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism for Dateline NBC documentary special, Why Can't We Live Together on hidden realities of racial separation in suburban America
• Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for excellence in broadcast journalism for his interview with Mikhail Gorbachev
• seven Emmy Awards including one for China in Crisis special report
• 1990 National Headliner Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews for advancing the understanding of religion, race and ethnicity.
• 1992 Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media presented by the Freedom Forum
• 1993 Emmy award for reporting on floods in the Midwest
• 1995 Dennis Kauff Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism from Boston University
• 1995 Lowell Thomas Award from Marist College.
• 1997 University of Missouri School of Journalism Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism
• 1997 inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame
• 1998 Fred Friendly First Amendment Award, a tribute to those "individuals whose broadcast career reflects a consistent devotion to freedom of speech and the principles embodied in the First Amendment."
• 1998 American Legion award for distinguished public service in the field of communication.
• 1998 Citizens' Scholarship Foundation of America's President's Award recognizing "devotion to helping young people through scholarships."
• 1999 Congressional Medal of Honor Society's "Tex" McCrary Excellence in Journalism Award
• 1999 Emmy award for international coverage of the Kosovo conflict
• 2005 Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2005 Four Freedoms Medal: Freedom of Speech And Expression
• 2006 Washington State University Edward R. Murrow School of Communications Lifetime Achievement in Broadcasting Award
• 2006 Sylvanus Thayer Award: United States Military Academy at West Point
• 2006 Walter Cronkite Award for Journalism Excellence at Arizona State University
• 2007 Horatio Alger Award for overcoming adversity to achieve success through the American free enterprise system from the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans Inc.
• 2011 Charles Osgood Lifetime Achievement Award in Broadcast Journalism from WFUV (90.7 FM).
• 2012 The Nichols-Chancellor's Medal awarded by Vanderbilt University ^[19]

Honorary degrees[link]

• Air University (United States Air Force)
• Arizona State University
• Boston College
• Brandeis University
• California Institute of Technology
• The College of William & Mary
• Dartmouth College
• Duke University
• Emory University
• Fairfield University
• Fordham University^[20]
• Florida State University
• John Carroll University
• Johns Hopkins University
• Montana State University ^[21]
• Northwestern University
• Providence College
• Saint Anselm College
• Seton Hall University
• Skidmore College
• St. Lawrence University
• University of Iowa
• University of Montana
• University of Notre Dame
• University of Oklahoma
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of South Dakota
• University of South Carolina
• Washington University in St. Louis

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tom Brokaw

• Biography at NBC News
• Biography from the Museum of Broadcast Communications
• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • Booknotes interview with Brokaw on The Greatest Generation, March 7, 1999.
  • In Depth interview with Brokaw, May 6, 2012
• Tom Brokaw on Charlie Rose
• Tom Brokaw at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Tom Brokaw in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Tom Brokaw collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Tom Brokaw at the Notable Names Database
• Greatest Generation online ebook read by Tom Brokaw (2 chapters)
• Tom Brokaw's commencement speech at Stanford University video, transcript
• “Long-Overdue Brokaw/Bragaw Additions & Corrections: The European Origins of Bourgon¹ Broucard and Catherine le Fevre” from New Netherland Connections (October, November, December 2010; Volume 15; Number 4) by Perry Streeter

Bryan Stevenson
Born	1959
Nationality	United States
Fields	Capital Punishment Law and Litigation
Institutions	New York University School of Law
Alma mater	Eastern University (United States) and Harvard Law School

Bryan A. Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a private, non-profit organization headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, and is a professor at New York University School of Law. He has gained national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of color in the criminal justice system. Stevenson has assisted in securing relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, advocated for poor people and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice.

A graduate of Eastern College (now Eastern University), Harvard Law School (J.D.), and the Harvard School of Government, he has won the American Bar Association's Wisdom Award for public service, the ACLU's National Medal of Liberty (1991), a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Award, the Reebok Human Rights Award (1989), the Thurgood Marshall Medal of Justice (1993), the Gleitsman Foundation Citizen Activist Award (2000), the Olof Palme Prize (2000), Stanford Law School's National Public Service Award (2010),^[1] and the National Association of Public Interest Lawyers named him the Public Interest Lawyer of the Year (1996). He has received honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law and Georgetown University Law School. In addition to directing the Equal Justice Initiative, he has been a visiting professor of law at the University of Michigan School of Law and lecturer at Harvard and Yale Law Schools.

He is a co-recipient of the 2009 Gruber Prize for Justice. The Gruber Foundation Justice Prize is presented to individuals or organizations for contributions that have advanced the cause of justice as delivered through the legal system. The award is intended to acknowledge individual efforts, as well as to encourage further advancements in the field and progress toward bringing about a fundamentally just world. In 2010, the NAACP honored Stevenson by awarding him the William Robert Ming Advocacy Award for the spirit of financial and personal sacrifice displayed in his legal work.^[2]

He spoke at TED2012 in Long Beach, California and received the strongest standing ovation ever seen at TED.^[3] Following his presentation, over $1 million was raised by attendees to fund a campaign run by Stevenson to end the practice of putting children in adult jails and prisons. ^[4]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Walt Harrington, "How Can Anyone Do Anything Else?" The Washington Post Magazine (January 6, 1991)
• http://www.law.uidaho.edu/default.aspx?pid=65492
• http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week344/profile.html
• http://www.aclu-sc.org/News/Releases/2001/100355/
• http://www.eji.org
• http://jjie.org/founder-of-equal-justice-initiative-greeted-standing-ovation-at-ted/76755

James May
James May in 2006
Born	James Daniel May (1963-01-16) 16 January 1963 (age 49)[1] Bristol, England
Residence	Hammersmith, West London, England
Nationality	British
Other names	Captain Slow
Education	Caerleon Endowed Junior School Oakwood Comprehensive School
Alma mater	Pendle College, Lancaster University
Occupation	Broadcaster, journalist, author, pianist, media personality
Years active	1998 (1998)–present (present)
Employer	BBC, The Daily Telegraph, (prev. Channel 4, ITV & Sky)
Known for	Presenting: Driven, Top Gear, Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure, Oz and James Drink to Britain, James May's Top Toys, James May's Toy Stories, James May's 20th Century, James May's Big Ideas, James May's Man Lab
Home town	Bristol, England
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Partner	Sarah Frater (2000–present)
Website
http://www.topgear.com/uk/james-may

This article may contain too much repetition or redundant language. Please help improve it by merging similar text or removing repeated statements. (May 2011)

James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is an English television presenter, journalist and writer. He is best known for his role as co-presenter of the award-winning motoring program Top Gear alongside Jeremy Clarkson , and Richard Hammond.

On Top Gear, May has the nickname "Captain Slow" for his careful driving style, a love of small underpowered cars and habit of getting lost and distracted while driving. However, in a July 2010 episode of Top Gear he drove a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, reaching a speed of 417.6 kilometres per hour (259.5 mph).^[2] After his attempt the Bugatti test driver Pierre-Henri Raphanel took the car to 430 kilometers per hour (267.5 mph).

May has presented a variety of other programs on themes including science and technology, toys, cars, wine culture, and the plight of manliness in modern times. In addition he has released a variety of DVDs and books with similar themes, and wrote a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph's motoring section.

Early life[link]

James May was born in Bristol, one of four children; he has two sisters and a brother.^[3] May attended Caerleon Endowed Junior School in Newport, then in Monmouthshire. He spent his teenage years in South Yorkshire where he attended Oakwood Comprehensive School in Rotherham and was a choirboy at Whiston Parish Church.^[4] He was also at school with Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes star Dean Andrews.^[5] A keen flautist and pianist, he later studied music at Pendle College, Lancaster University. After graduating, May briefly worked at a hospital in Chelsea as a records officer, and had a short stint in Her Majesty's Civil Service.^[6]

Personal life[link]

May lives in Hammersmith, London with dance critic Sarah Frater, whom he has dated since 2000.^[7][8]

May has owned a number of cars: Bentley T2, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Triumph 2000, Rover P6, Alfa Romeo 164, 1971 Rolls-Royce Corniche, Jaguar XJS, Range Rover, Fiat Panda, Datsun 120Y, Vauxhall Cavalier Mk1, Ferrari F430, 1984 Porsche 911,^[9] 2005 Porsche Boxster S (which he claims is the first car he has ever purchased new),^[10] Mini Cooper, Citroën Ami, Mazda MX-5 and several classic motorcycles including a Yamaha XJR1300, Moto Guzzi V11 Sport, a Triumph Daytona 675R and a 1978 Guzzi California. He has a penchant for prestige cars like Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, simple and basic cars such as the Fiat Panda, and motorcycles. He often uses a Brompton folding bicycle for commuting.^[11] He passed his driving test on his second attempt and justified this by saying "All the best people pass the second time".^[12]

May obtained a light aircraft pilot's licence in October 2006 having trained at White Waltham Airfield. He has owned a Luscombe 8A 'Silvaire' and an American Champion 8KCAB Super Decathlon.

May received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Lancaster University on 15 July 2010. ^[13]

Journalism[link]

During the early 1980s, May worked as a sub-editor for The Engineer and later Autocar magazine, from which he was dismissed. He has since written for several publications, including a regular column called England Made Me in Car Magazine, articles for Top Gear magazine, and a weekly column in The Daily Telegraph.

He has written a book titled May On Motors, which is a collection of his published articles, and co-authored Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure, based on the TV series of the same name.

He has also written the afterword to Long Lane with Turnings, published in September 2006, the final book by motoring writer L. J. K. Setright. In the same month he co-presented a tribute to Raymond Baxter. His book, Notes From The Hard Shoulder, was published on 26 April 2007. James May's 20th Century, a book to accompany the television series of the same name, was published on 6 September 2007.

[edit] Dismissal from Autocar

In an interview with Richard Allinson on BBC Radio 2,^[14] May confessed that he was fired in 1992 from Autocar magazine after putting together a hidden message or acrostic in one issue. At the end of the year, the magazine's "Road Test Year Book" supplement was published. Each spread featured four reviews and each review started with a large red letter (known in typography as an initial). May's role was to put the entire supplement together, which "was extremely boring and took several months". He went on to say:

So I had this idea that if I re-edited the beginnings of all the little texts, I could make these red letters spell out a message through the magazine, which I thought was brilliant. I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was to the effect that "You might think this is a really great thing, but if you were sitting here making it up you'd realise it's a real pain in the arse". It took me about two months to do it and on the day that it came out I'd actually forgotten that I'd done it because there's a bit of a gap between it being "put to bed" and coming out on the shelves. When I arrived at work that morning everybody was looking at their shoes and I was summoned to the managing director of the company's office. The thing had come out and nobody at work had spotted what I'd done because I'd made the words work around the pages so you never saw a whole word. But all the readers had seen it and they'd written in thinking they'd won a prize or a car or something.

May's original message, punctuated appropriately, reads: "So you think it's really good, yeah? You should try making the bloody thing up; it's a real pain in the arse."^[15]

This was referenced by Jeremy Clarkson during episode 2 of series 17 (in the course of the "hot hatch"-challenge in Italy) when May was noting Autocar's opinion on the Renault Clio Cup he had chosen for the challenge, to which Clarkson replied "Autocar.... The magazine that sacked you...?"

Radio and television[link]

His past television credits include presenting Driven on Channel 4 in 1998-99, narrating an eight-part BBC One series called Road Rage School,^[16] and co-hosting the ITV1 coverage of the 2006 London Boat Show.^[17] He also wrote and presented a Christmas special called James May's Top Toys (for BBC One) exploring the toys of his childhood.^[18] This list was followed up the next year by a sequel of sorts, broadcast on BBC Two, entitled James May: My Sister's Top Toys, this time attempting to investigate the gender divide of toy appeal.^[19] In series 3, episode 3^[20] of Gordon Ramsay's The F Word, May managed to beat Ramsay in eating animal penises and rotten shark (which Ramsay himself couldn't keep down)^[21] and with his fish pie recipe.^[22][23]

[edit] Top Gear

May first co-presented Top Gear in 1999, before it was axed by the BBC because of poor viewing figures. He rejoined the show in the second series of the present Top Gear format in 2003, where he earned the nickname "Captain Slow" owing to his careful driving style. Despite this sobriquet, he has done some especially high-speed driving, including in Top Gear Series 9, taking a Bugatti Veyron to its top speed of 253 mph (407 km/h) which is nearly one-third of the speed of sound at sea level and later on taking a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport edition to 260 mph (417 km/h). In an earlier episode he also tested the original version of the Bugatti Veyron against the new Pagani Zonda F. On the show he claimed that it was 'a piece of cake' driving those cars, but seconds later Jeremy Clarkson played a tape showing him spinning wildly over the test track in the Zonda. Originally he did not want to do this test, but Clarkson had hurt his neck in the previous episode while driving a truck through a brick wall and Richard Hammond claimed that he was busy selling fish at Morrisons. He is often mocked for a poor sense of direction, shown getting lost many times throughout the course of the series, including race tracks and even being mocked once by Jeremy and Hammond for mistaking a normal Range Rover as the camera crew. He also flew in a Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon at a speed of around 1320 mph for his television programme, James May's 20th Century. He also became one of the first people – with co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson and an Icelandic support crew – to travel by car to the magnetic North Pole, using a modified Toyota Hilux. He claims to be the first person on the north pole who didn't want to go there. He was also one of the first people to drive across the Makgadikgadi salt plains in Botswana.^[24] He has driven a 1.3 litre Suzuki SJ413 through the Bolivian jungle and along Death Road and over the Andes to the Pacific Ocean in Chile. He also drove a modified Toyota Hilux (also used as a crew car during the North Pole expedition) up the side of the erupting volcano Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland.

Science[link]

May has also presented a documentary for Sky about sharks called Inside Killer Sharks and a series looking at inventions and discoveries during the twentieth century, entitled James May's 20th Century.^[25] In late 2008, the BBC broadcast James May's Big Ideas, a three-part series in which May travelled around the globe in search of implementations for concepts widely considered science fiction.^[26]

[edit] James May on the Moon

In June 2009 May presented a documentary on BBC Two called James May on the Moon commemorating 40 years since man first landed on the moon.^[27] This was followed by another documentary on BBC Four called James May at the Edge of Space, where May was flown to the edge of space (70,000 ft) in a U.S. Air Force Lockheed U-2 spy plane. Highlights of the footage from the training for the flight, and the flight itself was used in James May on the Moon, but was shown fully in this programme.^[28] This made him one of the highest flying persons, along with the pilot, at that time, after the crew of the International Space Station.^[28]

[edit] James May's Toy Stories

Beginning in October 2009, May presented a 6-part TV series showing favourite toys of the past era and whether they can be applied in the modern day. The toys featured were Airfix, Plasticine, Meccano, Scalextric, Lego and Hornby. In each show, May attempts to take each toy to its limits, also fulfilling several of his boyhood dreams in the process. For example, in August 2009, May built a full-sized house out of Lego at Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey.^[29] Plans for Legoland to move it to their theme park fell through in September 2009 because costs to deconstruct, move and then rebuild were too high^[30] and despite a final Facebook appeal for someone to take it, it was demolished on 22 September, with the plastic bricks planned to be donated to charity.^[31] Also for the series, he recreated the banked track at Brooklands using Scalextric track,^[32] and an attempt at the world's longest working model railway along the Tarka Trail between Barnstaple and Bideford in North Devon, although the attempt was foiled due to stolen batteries and vandals placing coins on the track, causing a short circuit.^[33]

Drink[link]

In late 2006, the BBC broadcast Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure, a series in which May, a committed bitter drinker, travelled around France with wine expert Oz Clarke.^[34] A second series was broadcast in late 2007, this time with May and Clarke in the Californian wine country,^[35] and was followed by a third series in 2009 called Oz and James Drink to Britain.

Career[link]

Television[link]

DVD[link]

Books[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Telegraph Motoring - James May's weekly column
• James May at the Internet Movie Database
• James May on Top Gear
• Daily Mail article on May