Editorial: Apology accepted, Top Gear

Having chased about 90 Mile Beach for several hours on behalf of our readers, it was nice to see Jeremy Clarkson publicly acknowledging his unavailability.

Clarkson and co from BBC's internationally acclaimed Top Gear programme were filming on the Far North beach this week. Goodness knows what they were doing, because local and national media hung about for hours to no avail. No pictures, no interviews.

This is not unusual for the Far North, in the Northern Advocate's experience. Arranging to meet people on 90 Mile Beach is like saying to someone - "You're in Auckland that weekend, too? I'll keep an eye out for you".

In fact, before our staff were dispatched this week, I insisted that a time and place were pre-arranged. Because driving along 90 Mile Beach looking for the Top Gear crew, despite the size of their entourage, was still potentially akin to looking for a needle on, well, 90 Mile Beach.

But despite the pre-arranged time and place, no Top Gear.

One media outlet - the award-winning Northland Age - later found that the best way to get Mr Clarkson's attention was to feature Top Gear on your front page, albeit with a slightly controversial headline.

Clarkson took a liking to the Northland Age's bold page, and tweeted it, with an apology for mucking media and fans about.

Turns out the window of opportunity for filming was small, and the Top Gear crew were only on the beach briefly.

We forgive you Jeremy, particularly given your apology - and therefore the Northland Age front page - was seen by more than 1,000,000 people.

In that sense, the Northland Age has become the story - for one day it was New Zealand's highest-circulating reasonably priced newspaper. That's a record that will last a lot longer than Top Gear's stay in Northland.