Top Gear is the new Last of the Summer Wine

I have been known to complain about the BBC's habit of describing the ageing presenters of Top Gear as "boys".

The week after I last did so the programme's trailer ludicrously implied that they are "the kids on the street" who "never miss a beat".

I was having my hair cut this morning and the barber's shop had TVs showing the Dave channel. As I gather is usual, it was running an old episode of Top Gear.

And it suddenly struck me where I had seen the characters before.

Three ageing men who, unencumbered by women or families, and with lots of time on their hands, get involved in increasingly contrived adventures. It's Last of the Summer Wine.

Even the characters from that programme's heyday fit:

• The tall one who likes telling the others what to do - Jeremy Clarkson/Foggy Dewhurst
• The quiet, sensible one - James May/Clegg
• The small one who is made to risk his life in dangerous contraptions - Richard Hammond/Compo

There is only one way in which the parallel breaks down: Top Gear sometimes makes you laugh.