Earlier this week O’Neill Wetsuits lent the BBC one of their sponsored team riders, Mark ‘Sparky’ Hosegood, to have a stab at teaching Jeremy Clarkson how to windsurf.

As one of the UK’s up and coming windsurfing stars, Sparky’s pedigree was never in doubt, but teaching Clarkson to windsurf was to be a completely different ball game, with gale force winds and driving rain – not the best ingredients for the day.

The whole scenario arose through the Top Gear team striking on the thought that not many people who own the current plague of 4×4 outdoor recreational vehicles choking our urban streets actually tend to do much in the way of outdoor recreation. Hence they decided to conduct an experiment, with Jeremy Clarkson acting as guinea pig and stepping into the shoes of your stereo-typical owner, to see what happened if they did.

Charged with the O’Neill camera, Jeremy Channon grabbed a few shots of what ensued during filming and the results didn’t take much second-guessing. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before Clarkson was back on dry land and indulging in his particular forte of gasing about cars.

Clarkson’s parting shot: “If you’ve got your BMW X5, Land Rover Discovery, Volvo X-C etc? and you’re sat at home with your feet up in front of the box – well, you’re probably better off staying there.”