Of the man, as surely as there are people who embody everything that is wrong with the British Left, embodies everything that is wrong with the British Right, including bizarrely being paid far more than his boss even before he felt entitled to assault him, Hadley Freeman writes:
Jeremy Clarkson, voice of the people/mega-sized tool (delete as appropriate to you, dear reader) has, you might have heard, got himself into a spot of trouble – again! The wee scamp. He’s such a rebel, you know.
It’s really great to have Jeremy fighting in our corner for that under-represented demographic, the self-entitled, middle-aged white man who just wants to beat up on those in a less privileged position than him – from ethnic minorities to a producer who, we are now told, failed to provide Jezza’s din-dins on demand.
Guido Fawkes, a true revolutionary firebrand if there ever was one, has already started a petition to bring back Clarkson, and I personally could not applaud this more.
I think we in Britain can all feel a little bit of pride in the fact that, at the time of writing, nearly 500,000 people have signed a petition demanding the reinstatement of an insanely wealthy man who is alleged to have physically assaulted a junior colleague.
Sure, the world might have laughed at Christian Bale when he lost his temper to a hilarious extent at a director of photography in 2009.
But when a towering mega-talent such as Clarkson gets suspended for throwing a punch at a producer when he doesn’t get fed, well, I think we all have to stand back and say, “Political correctness has just gone too far in this country!”
As many commenters have already pointed out on the Times website – a website where they have to pay to leave such words of wisdom, remember – Top Gear is literally the only show on television for men. The only one!
Honestly, the rest of the TV schedule is just overrun with middle-aged women talking about feminism and vaginas, 24/7.
To get rid of Jeremy is just part and parcel of the feminazi thought-police tactics that are strangling this country, and it’s unacceptable.
I think what Jeremy’s detractors (which probably means you, you pinko Guardian readers) are missing when they run him down is that the man is, in fact, a genius. Granted, he does not talk, act or look like one, but let’s look at this in detail.
Jeremy Clarkson, voice of the people/mega-sized tool (delete as appropriate to you, dear reader) has, you might have heard, got himself into a spot of trouble – again! The wee scamp. He’s such a rebel, you know.
It’s really great to have Jeremy fighting in our corner for that under-represented demographic, the self-entitled, middle-aged white man who just wants to beat up on those in a less privileged position than him – from ethnic minorities to a producer who, we are now told, failed to provide Jezza’s din-dins on demand.
Guido Fawkes, a true revolutionary firebrand if there ever was one, has already started a petition to bring back Clarkson, and I personally could not applaud this more.
I think we in Britain can all feel a little bit of pride in the fact that, at the time of writing, nearly 500,000 people have signed a petition demanding the reinstatement of an insanely wealthy man who is alleged to have physically assaulted a junior colleague.
Sure, the world might have laughed at Christian Bale when he lost his temper to a hilarious extent at a director of photography in 2009.
But when a towering mega-talent such as Clarkson gets suspended for throwing a punch at a producer when he doesn’t get fed, well, I think we all have to stand back and say, “Political correctness has just gone too far in this country!”
As many commenters have already pointed out on the Times website – a website where they have to pay to leave such words of wisdom, remember – Top Gear is literally the only show on television for men. The only one!
Honestly, the rest of the TV schedule is just overrun with middle-aged women talking about feminism and vaginas, 24/7.
To get rid of Jeremy is just part and parcel of the feminazi thought-police tactics that are strangling this country, and it’s unacceptable.
I think what Jeremy’s detractors (which probably means you, you pinko Guardian readers) are missing when they run him down is that the man is, in fact, a genius. Granted, he does not talk, act or look like one, but let’s look at this in detail.
I once assumed
that, like tripe and the appeal of the Gallagher brothers, Clarkson was
something that appealed only to British people.
Like most airy assumptions I
make about the human race, I soon learned that this one was based purely on my
own narcissistic naivety.
But the deeply lucrative global
popularity of Top Gear is not our subject today.
Rather, Clarkson’s
genius lies in his skill at styling himself as the maverick, the
unfairly maligned, say-it-like-it-is outsider, when the only way he could
be more inside is if he gave himself a proctology exam.
He is the
Nigel Farage of TV presenters: just as Farage (public-school educated
former banker married to a German) presents himself as the man of the European Union-loathing
people, so Clarkson styles himself as the decent geezer who has the terrible
misfortune to work for the Thought Police – I mean the BBC –
who keep trying to tamp him down.
And yet I really am struggling to
think of anyone else who has repeatedly used racial slurs on international TV
and still brought home an
estimated £3m annual earnings.
It is absolutely in character that
Clarkson is, judging from his larky Twitter feed, absolutely revelling in his
suspension, because it feeds into this pose of his, just as media attacks on
Ukip feed into that of Nigel Farage.
I don’t know if this insider-as-faux-outsider is a uniquely British trick, but it is one that is remarkably effective here (see also Russell Brand).
At least in the US, when you come across a self-styled outsider politician he is, for better or worse, genuinely out there, like the loopy libertarian Ron Paul, with his belief that heroin should be decriminalised, not an old Etonian and Oxbridge graduate like Boris Johnson.
Just as a quick reminder– think of this as the York Notes to Jeremy Clarkson, media studies students – Jeremy Clarkson is the highest paid presenter at the BBC, not a corporation known for stinting on the salaries of its star presenters (producers expected to provide food for such well-remunerated presenters get, one suspects, slightly smaller pay cheques).
When the BBC bought out Clarkson’s stake in the production company specifically set up to make more money out of Top Gear’s endless commercial opportunities, he was given so much cash he probably could have built a car out of £100 notes.
And, you know, it would have driven better than a Japanese car – amirite, Jezza?!
The only surprising element to this latest development in the story that I call The Picaresque Adventures of Jeremy is that the BBC finally found the gumption to actually suspend him, its deeply valued cash cow.
Still, at least the Clarkson saga has taught us where the BBC draws its line in the sand: racism, OK; physical violence, not OK.
And then there are Jeremy’s friends.
It must be a source of great sadness to Hieronymus Bosch that he died too soon to include in his 15th century painting Hell the true image of damnation: a 2010 Chipping Norton dinner party with darling David and Samantha Cameron, hilairz Rebekah and Charlie Brooks, fabulous Elisabeth Murdoch and Matthew Freud, crazy Alex James and a block of cheese, and Jeremy Clarkson.
Just imagine the banter!
David: So I was on the phone yesterday with my good mate Barry Obama –
Jeremy: Rebekah, do you think the Sun would have a recording of that? I’d love to listen to it with Elisabeth’s father.
Everyone: Oh Jeremy! Hahaha!
Charlie : More fizz, anybody?
I don’t know if this insider-as-faux-outsider is a uniquely British trick, but it is one that is remarkably effective here (see also Russell Brand).
At least in the US, when you come across a self-styled outsider politician he is, for better or worse, genuinely out there, like the loopy libertarian Ron Paul, with his belief that heroin should be decriminalised, not an old Etonian and Oxbridge graduate like Boris Johnson.
Just as a quick reminder– think of this as the York Notes to Jeremy Clarkson, media studies students – Jeremy Clarkson is the highest paid presenter at the BBC, not a corporation known for stinting on the salaries of its star presenters (producers expected to provide food for such well-remunerated presenters get, one suspects, slightly smaller pay cheques).
When the BBC bought out Clarkson’s stake in the production company specifically set up to make more money out of Top Gear’s endless commercial opportunities, he was given so much cash he probably could have built a car out of £100 notes.
And, you know, it would have driven better than a Japanese car – amirite, Jezza?!
The only surprising element to this latest development in the story that I call The Picaresque Adventures of Jeremy is that the BBC finally found the gumption to actually suspend him, its deeply valued cash cow.
Still, at least the Clarkson saga has taught us where the BBC draws its line in the sand: racism, OK; physical violence, not OK.
And then there are Jeremy’s friends.
It must be a source of great sadness to Hieronymus Bosch that he died too soon to include in his 15th century painting Hell the true image of damnation: a 2010 Chipping Norton dinner party with darling David and Samantha Cameron, hilairz Rebekah and Charlie Brooks, fabulous Elisabeth Murdoch and Matthew Freud, crazy Alex James and a block of cheese, and Jeremy Clarkson.
Just imagine the banter!
David: So I was on the phone yesterday with my good mate Barry Obama –
Jeremy: Rebekah, do you think the Sun would have a recording of that? I’d love to listen to it with Elisabeth’s father.
Everyone: Oh Jeremy! Hahaha!
Charlie : More fizz, anybody?
Alex
: Has anyone tried my cheese yet? It’s made from the milk
of French cows –
Jeremy
: Yes, and like all things French it’s limpwristed
and useless. If a German was here it would immediately surrender itself.
Everyone
: Oh, Jeremy! Hahaha!
Jeremy
: Seriously, that cheese is about as effective as a
Citroën. If the Third Reich took over Chipping Norton … [continues and repeats
joke forever].
So, I come here not to bury
Jeremy Clarkson – such an endeavour would be impossible, for the man is like
Piers Morgan in his Teflon tendencies.
Rather, I come to celebrate him and his
deeply lucrative talent at playing the outsider on the inside.
Do not weep for
his departure, Britain. With his political nous, not to mention his circle of
friends, he’ll probably be the new MP for Kensington and Chelsea now.
Keep it real, Jeremy!
Ho, hum. Rebekah Brooks off to America, and Jeremy Clarkson almost certainly never to appear on British television again. Truly, the Age of David Cameron is drawing to a close.
No comments:
Post a Comment