Coming soon to Amazon it’s … er … Cary McCarface

So the votes are in, democracy has spoken and, with a crushing majority, the public has decided that Britain’s new polar research vessel should be called the RRS Boaty McBoatface.

Organizers of the poll had hoped the winning suggestion would be the name of a famous explorer or naturalist. They had suggested the Scott of the Antarctic or the David Attenborough. But the public was having none of it. And in the end Boaty McBoatface gained more than 124,000 votes. Almost 90,000 more than its nearest rival.

I can’t remember – ever – feeling so proud to be British, because nothing sums us up quite so well as this result. It simply wouldn’t happen in Germany. Or America. But here it would. And it did. And if they roll out the idea to the Royal Navy, I’d like to suggest HMS Vulnerable. That’s a brilliant name for a warship. Or HMS Weak – that’s even better.

But there’s a problem. The Natural Environment Research Council, which runs the new polar ship, is plainly worried that the name will cheapen the important work it does down there among the penguins. So now it is trying to wriggle out of its obligation.

The organization has looked closely at the rules of the poll and has found, to its relief, that a clause says the final decision rests with its chief executive. And it has pointed out that the former BBC radio presenter who first suggested the Boaty McBoatface handle is mortified by the fact that people took him seriously. So now the council is back to the drawing board, trying to think of a name by itself, and I feel its pain …

When I first signed up with Amazon Prime to make a new motoring show, I knew all sorts of problems lay ahead. I’d have to start a production company and find potted plants and an office to put them in. I’d have to deal, too, with insurance and health and safety and accountancy and all sorts of other stuff I either don’t understand or hate. There was one problem, however, that I hadn’t even considered. And it has turned out to be the biggest of the lot: choosing a name.

I spend at least six hours a day in my office – which is insured and smoke-free and resplendent with potted plants – sucking creatively on a corporate Biro as I wait for the daily 3 p.m. ‘Anything yet?’ phone call from Amazon in Los Angeles.

My original idea was brilliant. The show would be called Speedbird and the logo would be a Seychelles white tern, graceful and beautiful. It would be an image completely at odds with the hour of television that was to follow – and I liked that.

But it wasn’t to be. Speedbird had already been bagged as a trademark by someone else in the media, so that was that. There was a similar issue with Speedwolf and Ironbird and Wolfbird and everything else I thought of.

Every morning, I’d make a £7,000 call to the lawyer with an idea, and every afternoon I’d get a £7,000 reply saying the name was already in use by someone in New Zealand or France or Ukraine. Prime Torque. Autonation. Skid Mark. Everything was a no-no.

To make matters worse, I was told the name didn’t have to exactly match an existing trademark. It only had to sound or look similar in some way to become an infringement. This means every single combination of letters in the English language carries with it some risk of legal action down the line.

At the end of one lengthy – and almost completely silent – ideas meeting with senior staff, our lead director piped up with Three C**** Driving Along. This, it turned out, was available. But we felt we’d probably lose the family audience, so it was back to staring out of the window and trying not to throw my plant pot at James May whenever he spoke.

We tried to sound interested as he suggested The Pink Helmet or The James May Show, but then one day he struck gold with Gear Knobs. We all liked it. We thought it was amusing and hurriedly we put in another £7,000 call to the lawyer.

She said the trademark was available, but it would be an unwise idea, owing to the laws surrounding intellectual property. In short, the BBC not only owns the rights to the Stig and the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car and the Cool Wall, but also to any name that is remotely similar to Top Gear. We tried explaining there’s a show called Fifth Gear that doesn’t belong to the BBC but it was no good. Arguing with a lawyer costs more money than we had, so we hurriedly put the phone down and went back to the drawing board.

Amazon was starting to find our hopelessness funny and put out a video of James, Richard Hammond and me trying to decide on a name. But behind the scenes it isn’t funny. Because we need a name that isn’t in use by any business anywhere in the world and doesn’t even sound or look like any name that’s in use by any business anywhere in the world. And it can’t even be a minor play on the words Top or Gear. Oh, and it has to be a name that’s liked by me, our producer, Hammond, Eeyore and a billionaire in Seattle.

By this stage, Twitter has become involved, and every day my account is full of bright ideas from @M3man45790 and @Zpowerdude45889 and the like. One was good – Two and a Half Pillocks – but that fell by the wayside, partly because Hammond, for some reason, didn’t like it and partly because ‘pillock’ isn’t a word in America, which is where most of our audience live.

We’ve even had to drop the working title of Currently Unnamed TV Show because, as someone pointed out on the internet, this could be turned into an unfortunate acronym.

And now, after this polar research ship malarkey, we’ve even had to shelve our plans to put the whole thing to a public vote. Because everyone would vote for Cary McCarface, and then we’d have to wriggle out of the whole thing by handing over the decision to our chief executive, who’s German and would therefore go for something like A Car Programme. Because that’s vot it is, ja?

Or maybe I’m wrong. The Germans are actually quite good at names. I know this because I’m there now, in the small resort of Wank.

24 April 2016