The BBC has finally done it. The Director General of the BBC
has announced that the contract of Jeremy Clarkson, allegedly the highest paid
‘star’ of the BBC (a middle aged man with a beer-gut and—let’s face it—without
much of a face, will not neatly fit into your idea of a ‘star’, if your idea of
a ‘star’ is someone with stunning good looks), will not be renewed after it
expires at the end of this month. In other words ‘beebs’ has sacked Clarkson.
Clarkson was suspended following a fracas in a hotel in
Yorkshire. This involved Clarkson (allegedly) subjecting a man (one Oisin
Tymon)—allegedly the producer of a show, allegedly about cars, which Clarkson
allegedly fronts along with two other blokes (one of whom bears a striking
resemblance to a chipmunk while the other looks like a reluctant receiver of
Care in the Community who has missed his appointments with the care-workers for
a month, and urgently in need of a bath and a hefty dose of Thorazin)—to
physical attack which lasted allegedly for 30 seconds, and which was allegedly
brought to an end by the alleged intervention of a nearby man. After the alleged
attack the said producer allegedly took himself to an institution which was allegedly
a hospital, where he was allegedly treated for a cut and swollen lip. The
alleged physical attack was allegedly preceded by sustained verbal abuse by
Clarkson, which allegedly lasted much longer, during which Clarkson allegedly
called the producer a lazy Irish C**t. Clarkson allegedly also threatened to have the alleged producer sacked. (That’s irony for you.) The
reason for Clarkson’s ire? After a day-long shooting Clarkson wanted steak and
chips, and got, instead, a cold platter. Naturally, the only reasonable course
of action available to Clarkson was to use gutter language, threaten the
producer, and sock him in the jaw. Would this have got Clarkson what he
desired? He must have thought so. Clarkson is an intelligent man. He is also a
reasonable man. (If you don’t believe me, ask Boris Johnson, the mayor of
London, who declared that his, Boris’s, natural instinct, whenever he heard
that Clarkson has been involved in (yet another) fracas, was to side with
Clarkson. Why? Because Clarkson, in his political views, is so good at getting
under the skin of the lefties—like a maggot boring its way through a long
forgotten potato— that he has won life-long admiration and support of the fat
Tory.)
The show (Top Gear) allegedly has a massive
fan following, and Clarkson, allegedly, is its main attraction (doesn’t say
much, does it, for the other two blokes—the chipmunk and the other bloke who, I
am sure, has nicotine-stained fingers and a passion for fried sausages). He
obviously brings the much desired star quality to the programme about cars
which, from what little I have seen of the show (and it’s very little), are
beyond the means of the likes of me. The show is viewed by more than 350
million viewers across the world and brings the BBC in excess of £ 50 million
revenue every year.
Clarkson is allegedly the highest paid employee of the BBC
(let’s do away with the controversial ‘star’). He is also allegedly a racist, a
homophobe, a mocker of disabled people, a hater of other European nations, and
a baiter of Pierce Morgan. Clarkson once described Gordon Brown, the former
British prime-minister, as a ‘one-eyed Scottish idiot’. (Clarkson was
indubitably right on two counts: Brown, regrettably, has only one functioning
eye, and even he would be hard pressed to deny that he is not Scottish. Is
Brown an idiot? I don’t think so. You don’t get to become the country’s
prime-minister if you are, in the current-day parlance, a learning-disabled
person. When Clarkson described Brown as an idiot, he was probably giving vent
to his strong feelings about the financial policies of the Scot which (and I
guess Clarkson was not alone in thinking this) brought the financial ruin of
the country.)
Clarkson did seem to rather revel in his bad boy image and
antics in the past few years. He has managed to insult quite a few nations
including Mexico (he described the Mexicans as lazy and quite a few other
things) and the Argentines (I think Clarkson and his crew were chased by irate
crowd when they were shooting in Argentina because of some confusion over the
number-plate of the car they were using). Last year, in one of the programmes,
he deliberately used a derogatory word to describe Asians. He was
seen to be using the N word to describe black people in a video clip of another
programme, which was edited from the broadcast, but which was leaked. If you
read Clarkson’s columns, brimming with spiteful, vinegar-doused (and, I hate to say this, witty)
prose, you will be left in no doubts that he is not a fan of the Americans,
Russians, French, Germans and Indians. He caused a furore a couple of
years ago by declaring that he would have the public sector workers, striking for higher pay,
shot, or something to that effect. (If some of my acquaintances working in
public sector in Britain are anything to go by, these guys are not exactly
breaking their backs by overwork, and they all seem to have yearly incomes
above the average per annum income in Britain, and their sense of entitlement
is breathtaking. However, when someone who collects a pay-cheque in excess of £
3 millions from BBC, which is partly funded by tax-payer’s money, dares to
question public sector employees, none of whom—thank God!—earns anywhere near
him, using language that is (calculatingly) provocative, it is going to send
the tree-huggers into frenzy.)
I don’t think I have brought myself to watch even a single
programme of Top Gear from beginning to the end. This is not because I have
a low view of the programme (it is impossible to form a view on a programme you
have not watched) or because I have chosen not to watch any programme which has
Clarkson in it on matters of principle (because I don’t have any), but because
I am just not into cars. And spending an hour in front of the box, watching
three blokes exchanging jokey banter (all of which allegedly scripted by
Clarkson himself) in a studio, surrounded by a gaggle of people, and talking
about various cars with enthusiasm that calls for a gagging order is not my
idea of entertainment.
I am more acquainted with Clarkson the writer, having read a
few of the collections of his newspaper columns. In these columns Clarkson
gives the world the benefits of his wisdom about anything that happens to be
annoying him at the time of writing, which, judging by the astonishing array of
subjects he fulminates about, is pretty much everything that has a whiff of
political correctness about it. Clarkson’s columns have the intellectual level
of two drunks ranting about things over pints of lager, in some hole in the
wall, in a seedy part of the town, which specialises in grim décor, damaged
looking bar-maids the size of the cab of a long-distance truck, food which
inevitably leads to bypass, and clientele that looks like they are on
a day-release from the nearby high security asylum. Clarkson, let’s admit, is
not what you’d call a deep thinker. But he does know how to turn an interesting
phrase, and makes abundant use of hyperbole and sarcasm. And such is the deplorable level
of newspaper columns in the country that that is enough to make Clarkson one of the most
popular columnists in the country. If you are one of those who passionately hold
sanctimonious views about political correctness then Clarkson is definitely not
for you. If you want just to have a bit of a laugh then he is your
ticket, in small doses. You’d also be well advised to take a break after
reading a collection of his newspaper columns. His manic-depressive humour does tend to get a tad
repetitive after a while.
Coming back to the sacking business (although, strictly
speaking, Clarkson is not sacked; his contract will not be renewed once it
finishes) what I find interesting is that the BBC did not sack Clarkson when he
was going around being oafish and crude and was saying derogatory, racist
things; and were content to issue him with final warnings. However, when he
socked the producer of the show—who probably is not good enough of anything
other than arranging decent meals; and, evidently, not good even at that—in the jaw, he was deemed to have crossed the line, and the Director General was left
with no choice but to sack him.
There are many self-righteous prats who are rubbing their
hands in glee, and, in the time-honoured British tradition of kicking a man in
the goolies when he is down, pouring vitriol (read Independent & Guardian)
on Clarkson (who, lest you forget, deserves no sympathy). The producer of the
show has issued a statement reminiscing about the good times he spent with
Clarkson and their creative output (where is my barf-bag?), as if he had
anything to do with the creativity of the show.
So what next for Clarkson? I don’t know, but I suspect he
will be back. They all do. And Clarkson, whatever you might say about him, has
one thing that many of us don’t have. Wit. It’s a commodity in short supply
these days. Clarkson is imperious, shallow, vain, smug, uncouth (this is a partial
list), rude, spiteful, insightless; but not a bore. He will live.
