Jeremy Clarkson Down Under
Friday, February 6, 2009 Jeremy Clarkson has arrived in Australia on the latest leg of Top Gear Live's world tour. Speaking at a press conference he said:
"A lot of people buy Toyota Prius's because of global warming then they can't get to work because it snows. Buy a Range Rover."
On Top Gear Live's motorcycle stuntmen: "They're French, so if they get killed it's not the end of the world."
On Top Gear's climate concerns: "We don't have a carbon footprint. That's because we drive everywhere."
On smoking: "I smoke because I'm not a coward."
Full article HERE.
Simon Clark
This is getting ridiculous ... "Scottish politicians urge BBC to take Clarkson off air over Brown jibes". It's all right for public money to be spent on advertising campaigns with slogans like "If you smoke, you stink", but if you insult the prime minister .... Get a life, you sad gits.
Update: Clarkson apologises. Why??!!!
Reader Comments (40)
I used to think this man was an idiot. Now I am begining to like him on the basis that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I don't always agree with everything that Jeremy says, but I do like him a lot and really respect him for not being afraid to speak out and have an opinion he is not ashamed to share. Let's face it, the government and their bedfellows say and do a lot worse!
I buy the Sun each Saturday, just to read Jeremy's page and I voted in the poll that wanted him for PM - he would be brilliant and at least bring back some common sense!
Well done Jeremy, keep up the good work!
Jeremy Clarkson for PM. He'd get my vote.
Does anyone agree the 'one eyed scottish idiot' epitomises the face of the recession.
As we have bumbling buffoon Boris Johnson as Lord Mayor of London, Jeremy Clarkson as P.M. would be a distinct step up.
At least his first edict in office would not be to ban all alcohol, including that in your shopping, from the London Underground.
Jeremy Clarkson is a likeable man of sound common sense who actually works for a living.
Cue the tired old Tories?
I find it interesting that when people speak their minds, they are then expected to apologise. WHY? Do we not have freedom of speech ?
We have only the freedom to be right-on, John. The only times it's "acceptable" to mock physical afflictions or even to notice physical err... differences is when applied to well-fed English male industrialists, who may be referred to as "fat cats".
Apparently Gordon doesn't like being called "fat" either.
The myopic roly-poly four-chinned lying sociopathic buffoon who happens to be Scottish.
Bloody Hell, what is this country coming to - sorry - it sank a long time ago!
What with Paki, GollyWog and now one eyed Scottish idiots - it seems to me that true Brits (sorry, British - don't want to offend anyone!) are the only ones who can be called anything from white honkey to pommie or any other slang or derogatory name without having any comeback!
I have said it before and I will say it again, surely it is successive governments with idiotic advisers who have created this great divide and any problems that there are with racism! It is successive governments who have bent over backwards to give our hard earned cash and benefits to every Tom, Dick and Harry who says Britain is great and I want to live here, whilst those of us who are truly British have to fight for every penny that we are entitled to when times get tough because of foreigners taking our jobs!
I have absolutely no doubt that none of the above is PC and why should it be?
Jeremy, shame on you for apologising, however you will be forgiven if it means you can maintain your job and continue with your hard hitting facts in your classic way. After all, the truth usually does hurt! If you hadn't hit a home run with that statement, no-one would have batted an eyelid.
Personally, I think Jeremy Clarkson is a mouthy, English prat.
Don't forget Simon that Gordon Brown accuses us smokers as killers
Joyce, I am sure Jeremy would say "Fine, you have the right to your own opinion" which is exactly how it should be!
Love this comment by Tom Harris:
http://www.tomharris.org.uk/2009/02/06/dont-sack-jeremy-clarkson/#comments
Jeremy Clarkson is a true Englishman,not afraid to speak his mind,unlike the p.c.idiots who inhabit this country today.Brown is a scot he also has one eye,as he so generously pointed out to us himself,judging by the mess he has got us into,he is also an idiot.Apologise for what?..
Don't think I've ever heard the sentence, "..that one-eyed, Scottish economics genius, Brown" (please - not the obvious retort!!)
Lyn, you mentioned the term 'gollywog'. I believe Carol Thatcher has just been sacked by the BBC for saying that somebody looked like a gollywog, not on air, in the 'green room'. Someone heard it and didn't like it, reported her, and that was that.
As a musician, I always have a chuckle to myself about a delightful little piano piece by Debussy called "Gollywog's Cakewalk". It seems to have escaped the net - I wonder if that is anything to do with the fact that the copyright estate is French.
Lyn said -
"What with Paki, GollyWog and now one eyed Scottish idiots - it seems to me that true Brits (sorry, British - don't want to offend anyone!) are the only ones who can be called anything from white honkey to pommie or any other slang or derogatory name without having any comeback"
You what,Lyn? what's this 'true Brits' thing? Are Scots not 'true' Brits (or British - I wouldn't want anyone to be offended)?
According to Old Holborn's blog he also said this, he's a good lad:
"I'll reverse all legislation made by Brown and Blair since '97 – “transport, health, the war, the treatment of our soldiers, the EU, the bloody environment, the hunting ban, the smoking ban, the endless tax demands on motorists . . .then I'll break for lunch and have a snooze before going on holiday."
http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2009/02/one-eyed-scottish-idiot-go-on-bbc.html
Amidst all the Moral Outrage over Clarkson's remark, I see that 'chief executive' of the RNIB - one Lesley-Anne Alexander - offers the tiresomely predictable comment that:
"Any suggestion that equates disability with incompetence is totally unacceptable....."
Golly !
Well, Lesley - it all rather depends, doesn't it ?
It's all very well citing Douglas Bader and Horatio Nelson (once referred to as a 'One-eyed, one-armed cripple' by one of those 'compassionate' Socialist London Boroughs) - but would you REALLY want to see a one-legged kick-boxing competition, or have your kids ferried to school by a blind minibus driver................... ?
Clearly, neither a Sense of Proportion nor a Sense of Humour has any role in the life of today's busy-busy, opinion-forming Executive Class.
How sad.
At least we ARE kind enough as a society to allow Mental Retards into government positions.................for which we are ALL immensely grateful.
No matter that Jeremy Clarkson apologised, he got his point across and I for one never knew that gordy had only one eye so his comment was educational. Maybe thats why gordy has an impaired vision on the economy!!
At least he didnt call him a golliwog, if he had he might have been assasinated.
God bewith the days when you could call a cripple a cripple without ending up in the high court.
There's far more cripple's about these days only they're not visible to the eye,
I'm talking about the mental cripples in the labour party and the jack booters in health agencies and the green cultists.
Timbone, you are quite correct and that is why I also mentioned the term GollyWog.
Joyce, I really didn't stop to think about the divided Great Britain as when I was at school we were all British, whether we came from England, N Ireland, Wales or Scotland. As I am sure you realise, I was trying to get across that the True Brits are basically those who were not only born here, but have their heritage here in terms of ancestors.
I was reading the paper today and could not believe the way Adrian Chiles (think I got that right) was going on about Carol Thatcher - for goodness sake, the best way to deal with these kind of gaffs, which is what hers was, I believe, is to ignore them. No-one would have been any the wiser, however with all this hullabaloo, we will not doubt start hearing from some about how offended they are. They probably had never heard the term before or even know what it refers to, but again, the powers that be are creating that racist divide that didn't exist before they stuck their noses in!
With regard to Brown, again, he would actually have garnered some respect for once if he had stood up and said 'So what! What does it matter what Clarkson thinks, I am sure he is not bothered if I think or call him a fool.'
If the man in power cannot ride something as trivial as this then he should never have aspired to government, local or national, never mind the position he held or the one he now holds!
Finally, considering that he is OUR SERVANT, supposedly with our best interests in his hands, then in order to prove Jeremy and others wrong he should start living in the real world and make the appropriate changes that will actually help the majority of us who do live in the real world and not this ivory tower that politicians inhabit. If he is supposedly big enough to run the country then he should also be big enough to brush off any criticism or, if he accepts it, to own up to it and rectify it.
All you folk airing your views here are living dangerously and taking terrible risks. Don't you realise that from the time G.B. SIGNED THE LISBON TREATY, we ceased to be BRITISH, let alone an adjectively orientated sub-division into Scots, Irish, Welsh or English. We are all EUROPEANS; regardless of colour, creed and preference.
Once the Irish and one or two others have been persuaded to sign the Treaty, it will be a ciminal offence to state otherwise. In certain respects, it already is.
Regarding those who feel Jeremy Clarkson, Russell Brandt and [the other chap] are beneath their dignity, let he who can earn the salaries they earn, cast the first stone.
A good labourer is worth his hire and nobody forces anybody to watch them. Last night, [Channel 4], Brandt played to a packed theatre - could have been The Palladium. Tier upon tier of laughing, cheering, devoted audience.
I love Top Gear and don't even drive. I watched Russell Brandt and [the other chap] on TV last night and was thoroughly entertained. I like their cheeky impish humour and [what's-his-name] is a very good interviewer. For me, Brandt is also sex-on-legs. He can be a bit of a genius with his sharp observant eye, rapid delivery and killer attacks on pomposity and misrepresentation. He dealt, in particular, with quotes from newspaper articles. The man is no fool.
I'd rather have Clarkson & Brandt as our leaders than the mealy-mouthed lying parodies of humanity we have heading our top three political parties at present.
.
I think that we're witnessing the beginning of the backlash to 'pc'. Clarkson's remark seems to have met with universal approval. I suspect there are those who thought it was crass (as I do) but who are just glad that Someone Has Said Something He Shouldn't. It's childish but only to be expected when the powers that be are treating adults as five year olds to be admonished by Nanny for using naughty words.
As for golliwogs, someone told me recently that Ebay's doing a roaring trade in them because they're becoming a collector's item. Ebay's apparently uber-pc (perhaps the golliwog as a liberal Icon Of Colonial Oppression And Disregard For The Dignity Of Africans is lost on them). Better snap them up now before Dolly Draper leads a campaign to have them banned!
I was 36 when a beloved symbol of my childhood became politicised - I hadn't realised 'Golly' was supposed to represent anything or anyone and I've managed to grow up without racially stereotyping African people. Have the golliwog-bashers got it wrong or was I just thick?
Joyce said:
"I think that we're witnessing the beginning of the backlash to 'pc'. Clarkson's remark seems to have met with universal approval"
I agree and note that the treatment of Carol Thatcher seems to have met with equal universal DISapproval. There are signs of rebellion against the "establishment" cropping up all over the place - and even on that most controlled of all media, Aunty BBC. Note the many discussion panels recently which now openly criticise the government's conduct.
Regarding "Golly", I too thought it was a joke when first I heard the name was banned as being racist. In my day, every child should have a Teddy Bear and a Golliwog. My son's golliwog sits under the stairs as I write, He keeps us company. Next to him is Rupert Bear. We've never thought of them as people. They are just well loved traditional toys.
If a golliwog is racist, then a white faced doll must also be racist. Where does it stop? I really do believe the present obsession with racism is a political ploy to further disenfranchise and disorientate us. I have never been racist and actually don't know anybody who is.
The only feelings I have had about black people are shame and disgust that we historically abused them as slaves, and subsequently treated them as second class citizens in the USA and South Africa, etc.
To me, the election of an African-American President in my own lifetime is a wonderful thing. It's giving such hope for a brave new world and for all black people, it is justice at last.. As it was a democratic election voted by people of all colours and creeds, surely it must finally have knocked on the head any vestige that old fashioned "racism" still exists? .
Who are these dreadful people who make a living dictating to us what is or isn't politically correct? I see them as frustrated middle-class busybodies with timid unsatisfactory hushands. In the olden days they would be safely confined within the Parish Church Council or the Women's Institute. Now I imagine them trotting importantly out of their immaculate little houses in dressed in a smart skirted business suit with elegantly knotted silk scarf at the throat. They climb into shiny small cars and drive to their well ordered offices. A nervous school-leaver, who's just managed to get her first job, will bring in the important lady's coffee.
The sickeningly destructive scenario will roll on from there.
They are a law unto themselves and are empowered to make new laws. Their only remit is to create further governmental control of the public.
And we are paying for it all with our taxes.
Do Gordon Brown and the other two political leaders really believe that we don't KNOW what is going on? Can't our MPs see the signs of justified rebellion all around them and start to fear for their own careers? THEY are the ones who can do something about it - like deflecting from their unscrupulous out-of-date corrupt political parties, for a start.
This is a bit off topic, but hey it’s the weekend! I’ve just had a really horrible week with a throat so sore I could scarcely swallow. On Friday last, I broke my own rules and stayed far too long in indoor places surrounded by non-smoking ‘health conscious’ people. [Well, they too had no choice in the matter, did they?]
On Saturday, I awoke with this dreadful throat. I am never ill, so it probably hit me harder than most. I did all I could with paracetamol, throat lozenges and dedicated staying in bed. It got worse and worse. I’d had this before, some years ago and for the same reason. That time I was incarcerated for 11 hours in ‘smoke-free’ places. First in Naples airport departure lounge [delayed flight] then in the aeroplane, then in Gatwick airport, [baggage handling breakdown]. Phoning a doctor and getting a Penicillin prescription cured it. But that time, it was a dangerous virus going round and took about a month. After that, I cancelled all tour work in Italy and haven't been on a plane since.
On Monday, I looked in the telephone directory and found the number of the surgery I registered with many years ago but have rarely used. It had moved. I phoned them. In agony, I managed to croak and request I speak to a doctor. They said one would phone me late afternoon. One did. He sounded young, confident and very nice. He had my medical records in front of him.
He said, “I see you don’t visit us often, Mrs Johnson, what can I do for you? I croaked my situation and requested a prescription for penicillin. He sharply asked, “Do you smoke?” “Yes”, I painfully uttered, “but I don’t want to go down that road. I believe it is what has kept me healthy all these years.”
“How many do you smoke a day? He asked.
“I don’t count”, I weakly squeaked, “I just smoke when I want to.”
“How many?” he insisted sternly, “20 a day? 30 to 40 a day?”
“More like 40 to 60,” I said, “I’ve always been a heavy smoker.” My voice was beginning to take on a choking death rumble. “I am 74, as you can see from my records. This is a germ I have picked up by staying too long in a place where I couldn’t smoke.” By now, I envisaged the coffin lid being lowered over my lifeless body if I had to talk any more. “Is there a problem with your giving me a prescription?”
His voice became friendlier. Perhaps he was a secret smoker, […all phonecalls are recorded…]
“No problem,” he said, “I will write you a prescription for Penicillin. But how will you collect it? “
“My daughter will collect it for me after she finishes work.”
She did. I had a really rotten week, sleeping, sweating, washing nightdresses, trying to force liquid down my tortuous blocked up throat. I’m fine now, thanks, and happily puffing away again.
I am, however, anticipating a heavy NHS "Let us help you stop smoking" pack to thud through my letterbox any day now.
"I see them as frustrated middle-class busybodies with timid unsatisfactory hushands" (Margot)
ROFL
Glad you're on the mend after a horrible week, Margot!
When the programme controller of the One Show was interviewed on Breakfast the other morning (I can't remember her name) after the very predictable cliche including the over-use of the word "inappropriate" which the PC brigade have latched onto she gave us the dictionary definition of the word "Gollywog" describing it as a "grotesque" black doll. When I looked up the word in the Oxford dictionary it is described as "a black faced brightly dressed soft doll with fuzzy hair", which could hardly be deemed offensive. The word "grotesque" does not appear so I wonder which dictionary she used or have the BBC compiled their own dictionary?
As to Jeremy Clarkson who should he apologise for telling the truth. It is a fact that Gordon Brown is one-eyed and Scottish and judging how he has run the economy for the past 11 years, an idiot.
Also us English (I don't know about the Scots, Joyce) are renowned for our sick sense of humour, so deal with it!
I've always thought, Sylvia, that the English were renowned for a gentle, self-deprecating humour or biting wit, not crassness. It's disingenuous to say that JC shouldn't apologise for telling the truth because GB IS one-eyed and a Scot (and an idiot). The very reason that people have found the remark so side-splitting is because the adjectives were intended as insults ("We have this two-legged, brown haired, idiot" just doesn't seem to have the same ring to it).
So, should he have apologised? I think that it was the right thing to do in this instance. It acknowledges that there is a line between humour and the oafishness of public personal insult. Without that line, we might as well just all hurl insults at each other.
Any one catch the repeat of top gear on saturday night BBC3...puffing away on their pipes...not sure how that escaped the thought police
Oh and by the way, etymologically speaking Paki is correct NOT Pakistani.
God, I think I'm beginning to understand what immigrants feel (and etymologically correct as Paki might be, it's still a term of abuse).
When Antis call you filthy/smelly/stinking/selfish smokers don't expect sympathy from me (even though I'm one of you).
Why can't anyone see that JC's remark is as unacceptable? Have we really sunk so low in our society that no-one can see beyond their own nose?
John. There was a bit of press about the three of them smoking pipes indoors. JC waited until he had shocked everyone before stating that it was herbal tobacco!!
Joyce, just why is Paki a term of abuse? Brit, Iti, Jock, Paddy, Yank, Pommie, and any other abbreviations you can think of, are not deemed abusive or racist, so why Paki?
filthy/smelly/stinking/selfish smokers, however is abusive as it is labelling all smokers as people who do not wash, are foul smelling and consider noboby else, which is just not true of the majority of smokers. In all walks of life there are the exceptions!
I cannot understand how or why JC's comment should offend - after all, anyone in the public eye tends to be fair game to some derogatory remarks, especially politicians who are supposed to represent the people of this country who pay their wages and their exhorbitant expenses. If they can't take such comments, then they should definitely not be in the positions they are.
With regard to JC's remarks being offensive to people who are Scottish and/or visually impaired, I cannot see this and I think the fuss made by a blind charity is actually more offensive to those who are blind. I have worked with blind people and they have a great sense of humour, have no problem with any fun that is made of them in the right spirit and can certainly give as good as they get! The people I worked with who are blind or visually impaired are extremely clever and talented people and have too much self esteem as to let such a comment that JC made affect them adversely - they probably had a good laugh!
I believe the Scottish can be a bit tetchy at times, but surely to be offended by JC's statement that was directed at Gordon Brown makes them appear very insecure.
If JC had been making a remark about all Scottish people and/or all Blind people, then you would have a point. However, as others have said, to call him Scottish should not be taken as offensive as he is a Scot; to call him one eyed, although perhaps a little crass, is a true statement, so where is the offence in that? To call him an idiot I would have said was a little on the mild side, but in the opinion of a vast number of the UK population, also a true statement. Apart from that, it was JC's opinion and whilst we are still clinging, precariously, to the right to free speech, something he is perfectly entitled to say!
Lyn, I don't know why 'Paki' is a term of abuse, but it certainly is although context plays a part.
It seems to me that while the pc brigade mistakenly believes that by outlawing language it can engineer respect, actually we nowadays have less real respect for other people. I would have been equally disappointed had I heard someone on air refer to Margaret Thatcher as a blue-rinsed, English bitch. I don't think that anyone would have said this because even only a few years ago, people had clear ideas about what is and isn't acceptable. JC's remark about GB was framed deliberately to be derogatory - if it hadn't been it wouldn't have had the intended effect. Would JC have sat opposite GB and made it? It was a cheap shot aimed at an individual and, while I don't think that JC deserves to be strung up from the nearest lamp post, I think it was right that he apologised. JC's built a successful career out of being crass and, in these stultifying times, people think it's refreshing (in fact if times weren't as they are with people terrified to express themselves he might not enjoy the fan base that he has - he might well just be thought of as an oaf). I don't consider jokes about one-eyed Scotsmen offensive, what I found worthy of apology is that he publicly made a deliberately insulting remark about an individual and I think that if we consider that to be acceptable then we accept that we want to live in a brutish society in which our personal opinions are reason enough to hurl abuse at each other and if others share our opinion we descend into mob rule. I see little difference between everyone applauding JC's remark and people applauding someone who sneers at a disabled smoker outside the pub by calling him a legless, filthy smoker
Right, having more than said my piece this two-eyed Scot is now shutting up about the issue!!!
Joyce, I am more than sure that JC would have said the same thing to GB's face, had he the opportunity.
At the end of the day, the best way to diffuse this whole situation would have been for GB and the spin doctors, etc, to have made no fuss over it at all, or to come out with a statement that people are entitled to their own views. As someone else said, it is certain GB gets called a lot worse at PM's question time in the House and this is usually broadcast, so there is no difference in my book.
If you want public office and you make the rules that make or break many people, then you should expect to be slagged off every now and then!
I applaud JC for saying what many, many ordinary people think and feel, but don't have the public exposure that he does.
Lyn, as Joyce says, context is important but there is no question that the word "Paki" is used by a lot of people quite deliberately as a term of abuse. If the use of that word upsets people (and I have read and heard enough to know that it does), I don't think it should be used. Isn't that just common sense and good manners?
Ditto the use of the word "golliwog" by Carol Thatcher. I'm sure she didn't mean to give offence, and I think the BBC over-reacted in sacking her, but if it true that she used the words "froggy golliwog" to describe a black French tennis player it was both stupid and insensitive.
PS. Please don't let this thread become a vehicle for discussing potentially racist language. That's not how it started out!
I do agree with you Simon, but I stand by my original point which was that successive governments are the one to blame for any racist intent in much of the language, purely because they have shown favour to people from other countries seeking to live here over and above those of us who have always lived here. The other point too is these same governments pandering to the slightest idea of what people of a different race or creed from our own have deemed to be racist or abusive.
We have all lived with some kind of verbal abuse, be it through bullying at school or just out of control youths in the street, but there is no point getting upset about it as that just fuels the fire.
I am not racist and do have many friends and acquaintences who are of Asian decent and they feel the same way I do - it is not so much them or other nationalities that have caused the problem, but our own governments over the years.
This said, I still applaud JC for standing up and saying what many of us think and if some people take offence at that, then I am sorry for them, as cannot see how the truth can be offensive.
Sorry, Lyn, but I had to respond.
It isn't that the words he used in themselves were offensive (if he'd said, "we have a PM who I think's made a real mess of everything", no-one would be offended - nor would it have raised even a titter). His words were intended to insult and deride. In the pub no-one would have been offended but to deliberately insult someone on air - no matter who - is what has offended. Actually JC himself realised that he'd overstepped the mark as soon as he'd said it - he's no fool and gauges his 'oafishness' pretty accurately.
The 'truth' can be offensive, Lyn. Someone calling a disabled smoker a legless smoker is telling 'the truth' but add 'filthy' and the phrase 'legless, filthy smoker becomes an insult intended to hurt and deride. Calling GB a one-eyed Scot is telling 'the truth' but add 'idiot' and the phrase 'one-eyed, Scottish idiot' is intended to deride. In both cases the deliberate addition of one word which is not factual but a matter of opinion changes the entire expression from being neutral to being offensive.
If I may just make a few points.
Firstly - thanks to those of you who corrected my mispelling of 'golliwog'. I had a feeling I had got it wrong, I should have checked it before putting the post on.
Secondly - I genuinly did not know that Brown only had one eye, I thought it was just a mannerism, like what he does with his bottom lip at the end of a sentence.
Thirdly - I read recently about a Liverpudlian who went into a bar with an Asian barman. Thoughtlessly, the Liverpudlian asked for a drink using the term 'paki'. The Asian barman quite rightly would not serve him. The Liverpudlian apologised, but said in that cheeky, persuasive Liverpudlian way, that if the Asian came in and said "a pint of bitter please scouser", he would accept it and serve him. To prove a point, he managed to persuade the Asian to swap places for a moment. The Liverpudlian went behind the bar, and the Asian barman went outside, had a cigarette, then went back in to test the argument. When he got back in, the scouser had gone and so had the till!
Sorry Simon, I couldn't resist that one. I just think it is nice to have a laugh now and again in this increasingly dismal country of ours.
Agreed, Timbone. Here is a rather anciant racist joke:-
An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman went into an hotel har. "We hear you have a swimming pool," they said to the barman. "Can we use it?"
"We have, and you can," said the barman. "Did you know it was a magic pool? As you slide down the shute, the water changes to whatever you wish for."
The Englishman went first. "Beer!" he shouted as he slid down the shute. He had a lovely drunken time.
Next came the Scotsman. "Whiskeeee", he shouted as he slid down the shoot. It was the finest Malt and he beamed in a legless fashion as he staggered out of the pool.
The Irishman slid down next and shouted, "Wheeeeeee!.
[This joke was told to me by an Irishman.]
Great joke Margot. I would be careful what you say about the Scots though. We don't want to stereo-type them as legless whisky addicts! One particular person might start throwing her toys out of the pram again!
Never was one for throwing toys around, Sylvia.
Perhaps we do need legislation in the face of the apparent absence of good manners these days...