James May hopes the invention of the pencil can ‘save the world’

What did you miss?

James May developed a device that he thought could be used Dragons’ Den.

Grand Tour And Top Gear the star will soon be seen in the TV series “Quest” James May and the boring peoplewhich explores many “mysteries”. And during the show, he came up with the idea to prevent short pencils from being wasted.

He was questioned about this One showand presenter Alex Jones said she heard he thought it could work in the Den, where people like Peter Jones and Sarah Davies decide whether to invest in businesses and new ideas.

What, how and why?

Discussing May’s new series, Jones asked: “In the first episode, you design something and you make it and you think it might be of interest to Dragons’ Den?”

“Are you thinking about a pencil holder?” – he answered. “Yes. You see there are a lot of them, I didn’t realize this until we did some simple arithmetic, in the UK alone there are a lot of lost pencils, worldwide it’s hundreds, thousands of miles of pencils that are wasted because you can’t hold it anymore, when it gets too short.

“So I made a pencil holder that looks a little like the 1920s mouthpiece in the old movie, but it holds the end of the pencil in a little spring-loaded mouth, if you like, so you can keep using it. “

Read more: James May

“We don’t just save pencils, we save the world!” – he joked. “I can tell you are all very convinced!” he joked.

James May was ‘preparing’ for the end of the Grand Tour

May also spoke about the end of the Grand Tour, saying he and his colleagues were “preparing” for it.

The Amazon Prime Video car series launched in 2016, but the program was confirmed to be coming to an end in late 2023. Maybe, Jeremy Clarkson And Richard Hammond parked the car show this year after the last two editions.

Between The Grand Tour and Top Gear they worked together for more than 20 years and May said they always wanted to “do it gracefully”.

“We planned this,” he explained. “We always said we would try to land it gracefully rather than fly into the sea, and I think we almost got away with it. So we were prepared and ready, we were very courageous and mature about it.”

“But this is the end of something that has taken up more than a third of my life,” the 61-year-old said.

“Certainly this is the longest I’ve ever stayed in one job because the second best was about a year. So yes, it’s the end of an era. But you know, everything has to end someday, and I stopped doing it.” “

May continued: “People still liked us, but we left them wanting more, and that’s the trick, I guess.”

The One Show airs weekdays on BBC One at 7pm.

James May and the Boring Men premieres on Quest on Tuesday, November 5th at 9pm and will be available to stream on Discovery+.