James May has designed a device that he apparently thinks could be taken on Dragons’ Den.
The Grand Tour and Top Gear star will soon be seen in the Quest series James May And The Dull Men, which explores an array of “conundrums”. And during the show he came up with an idea to stop short pencils from being wasted.
He was quizzed about it on The One Show, where host Alex Jones said she’d heard he thought it could work in the Den, where the likes of Peter Jones and Sara Davies decide whether to invest in businesses and new ideas.
Discussing May’s new series, Jones asked: “In the first episode you design something, you make it, and you think it’s something that Dragons’ Den might be interested in?”
“Are you thinking of the pencil-holder?” he replied. “Yes. Well you see there is a lot of, I didn’t realise this until we did a bit of simple arithmetic, there is a great deal of wasted pencil just in the UK, worldwide it’s hundreds, thousands of miles of pencil that are wasted because you can’t hold onto it anymore when it gets too short.
“So I have made a pencil holder that is a little bit like a cigarette holder from the 1920s in an old film but it holds the end of your pencil in a little spring loaded mouth if you like, so you can continue to use it.”
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“We are not just saving pencils, we are saving the world!” he quipped. “I can tell you are all very convinced!” he joked.
May also talked about the end of The Grand Tour, saying that he has his co-stars had been “braced” for it,
The Amazon Prime Video motoring series started in 2016 but in late 2023 it was confirmed that the programme was set to end. May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond parked the motoring show this year after two final specials.
Between The Grand Tour and Top Gear they had worked together for over 20 years, and May said they had always wanted to “land it gracefully rather than fly it into the sea”.
“We planned it,” he explained. “We always said that we would try and land it gracefully rather than fly it into the sea and I think we just about got away with it. So we were braced and ready and we very manly and grown up about it.”
“But it is the end of something that has occupied actually more than a third of my entire life,” said the 61-year-old.
“It’s certainly the longest I have ever held down one job because the second best result was about a year. So yes, it’s the end of an era, But you know, everything must end at some time and I’ve stopped doing that.”
May went on: “People did still like us, We left them wanting more which I suppose is the trick.”
The One Show airs on weekdays on BBC One at 7pm.
James May and The Dull Men is launching on Quest on Tuesday, 5 November at 9pm and will be available to stream on Discovery+.
