Quotulatiousness

January 12, 2012

This time it’s India that gets the Top Gear treatment

Filed under: Humour, India, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:12

I haven’t seen the Top Gear special in question, but from the complaints, it sounds like a pretty typical outing for the boys:

In the letter, published in the Daily Telegraph, the HCI criticised a lack of cultural sensitivity and called on the BBC to take action to pacify those offended.

One Indian diplomat told the BBC News website: “People are very upset because you cannot run down a whole society, history, culture and sensitivities.

“India is a developing country, we have very many issues to address, all that is fine but it is not fine to broadcast this toilet humour.”

He added: “There are many parts of the programme that people have complained about.

“It’s not only Indians, it’s also our British friends — it goes much beyond.”

The diplomat cited an “offensive” banner placed on the side of a train — reading “the United Kingdom promotes British IT for your company” — which read quite differently when the carriages were parted.

And he also criticised a scene in the programme which showed Clarkson taking off his trousers at a party to demonstrate how to use a trouser press.

Showing off the customised Jaguar, complete with toilet roll on its aerial, presenter Jeremy Clarkson said on the programme: “This is perfect for India because everyone who comes here gets the trots.”

Update: Jeremy Clarkson strikes again, this time agitating the folks on the Isle of Sheppey and recent immigrants:

Clarkson wrote: “Mostly, the Isle of Sheppey is a caravan site.

“There are thousands of thousands of mobile homes, all of which I suspect belong to former London cabbies, the only people on Earth with the knowledge to get there before it’s time to turn round and come home again.”

“And what of the locals? Well, they tend to be the sort of people who arrived in England in the back of a refrigerated truck or clinging to the underside of a Eurostar train.”

“And that reinforces my point rather well.

“Mboto has somehow evaded the gunmen and the army recruiters in his remote Nigerian village. He walked north, avoiding death and disease, and then somehow made it right across the Sahara desert to Algeria.

“Here, he managed to overwhelm the security men with their AK-47s and get on a boat to Italy, where he sneaked past the guards.”

The article in Top Gear mag adds: “He made it all the way across Europe to Sangatte, from which he escaped one night and swam to Kent.

“But that stumped him. Getting out of there was impossible, so he decided to make a new life in Maidstone.”

December 2, 2011

Biggest general strike since 1926 becomes a “damp squib”

Filed under: Britain, Government, History, Media — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:07

Some sense the evil hand of . . . Jeremy Clarkson?

It was to be the biggest strike in a generation. People were openly and unabashedly comparing Wednesday’s day of action over public sector pensions to the general strike of 1926. It was to bring Britain to a standstill. Mark a turning point in the battle against the cuts instigated by the spawns of the evil Iron Lady. Become a talking point that would strike fear into the cold heart of Cameron and pave the way to bigger, more decisive action.

Except, erm, the very next morning it had been almost completely forgotten. It barely registered as a blip on BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme. Newspaper coverage was on the whole sympathetic, but slight. None of the predicted chaos came to pass. Prime minister Cameron could quite safely dismiss the strike as a ‘damp squib’ and provoke few comments except from the usual suspects. People shrugged and went back to work. Far from being a Great Event like the 1926 strike that people would draw inspiration from in 85 years time, it was barely discussed. As my colleague Brendan O’Neill had anticipated, it all felt more like a ‘loud and colourful PR stunt ultimately designed to disguise the fact that, in truth, trade unions are a sad shadow of their former selves’.

Just as the PR flames were beginning to dim, however, enter Jeremy Clarkson, the cartoonish presenter of Top Gear, who sped to the rescue with a particularly naff joke about the strikers being shot in front of their families. Of course, he didn’t actually mean it. In the context of the programme, BBC1’s The One Show, his remarks were actually more a dig at the BBC: he had in fact been praising the strikers (‘London today has just been empty. Everybody stayed at home, you can whizz about… it’s also like being back in the 70s. It makes me feel at home somehow.) but then said, as it was the Beeb, he had to provide ‘balance’, making his now notorious quip: ‘Frankly, I’d have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families. I mean, how dare they go on strike when they have these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living?’

Update: James Delingpole said he’s been flooded with interview requests since the strike began, largely because of the public’s reaction to the strike:

I got my answer from a chance remark made by Jeremy Vine after our interview. He was telling me about the phone-in he’d done the day before during the public sector workers’ strike and what had astonished him was the mood of the callers. If I remember what he said correctly, one of his studio guests was a nurse on a £40,000 PA salary, with a guaranteed £30,000 pension, and this had not gone down well with the mother-of-three from Northern Ireland struggling as a finance officer in the private sector on a salary of £14,000 and no pension to speak of. The callers were very much on the side of the private sector. In fact, they were on the whole absolutely apoplectic that privileged, relatively overpaid public sector workers with their gold-plated pensions should have the gall to go out on strike when the people who pay their salaries – private sector workers – have to go on slogging their guts out regardless.

[. . .]

After all, as Fraser Nelson reports, the strike itself was a massive flop. Only a minority of union members voted it for it; the turn-out was so poor that the unions felt compelled to send out hectoring letters accusing their membership of being “scabs”; the hospitals – and many schools – stayed open, Heathrow’s immigration queues actually got shorter. This was not the glorious day of action (or inaction) that the militants had hoped for. Nor did it fit into the BBC’s ongoing narrative that Osborne’s vicious cuts (what cuts, we ask) are causing such hardship and misery among the saintly frontline public sector workers who bravely rescue our cats from trees and smilingly change our bed pans that really a Labour government run by Ed Balls is the only option.

Not only were the strikes a failure in numbers terms, though, but more damagingly they were a failure in propaganda terms. As both Fraser Nelson and Jeremy Vine have noted, there really has been a shift in public mood. I remember not more than a year ago going on Vine’s show to state, somewhat provocatively that I’d rather toss my children out on the street than have them sponging off the taxpayer in the public sector, and of course the mainly left-leaning BBC audience went apoplectic. I think if I’d gone on and said the same thing today they would probably have been demanding a statue erected in my honour in Parliament Square.

December 1, 2011

A defence of Jeremy Clarkson’s “strikers should be shot” comment

Filed under: Britain, Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:32

From, of all places, the Guardian:

How are your outrage levels today? Seen a sweary racist on a tram? Heard a TV personality make a bad joke about shooting public sector workers? Retweeted it and carefully added the correct hashtag?

Were you really, genuinely outraged?

Think about how you would have reacted to the story of an obnoxious woman on a tram seven years ago (pre-YouTube — PYT if you like). Would you have told everyone you know? Would you have asked them to tell everyone they know? Or would you have shrugged, mumbled something about the world going to hell in a handcart, and gone back to watching Top Gear, only to be confronted by Jeremy Clarkson making a hilarious joke about Spanish woman gypsy drivers (shrug again, change channel).

YouTube and Twitter are wonderful, wonderful things that have changed how we interact with the world, to the extent that I’m not sure I can remember life PYT. But they have created a mechanism by which we can we can monitor and record behaviour, whether of private citizens or public figures, play them over and over again, and share them with an alarming rapidity. Perhaps this heightened speed also leads us to feel forced into heightened reactions. Without the time to digest context and meaning we can only choose from a range of default reactions, largely based on our own prejudices.

[. . .]

Likewise with angry racist tram lady. My initial reaction to the video was “God, that’s horrible”, but as the storm grew, to the point where even Mia Farrow felt the need to tell us that she thought racism in south London was, y’know, just awful, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the woman who had become a vessel for everyone else’s outrage. The sheer volume of righteousness becomes off-putting.

And now Clarkson, who has made a dull golf club bar joke about striking public sector workers needing to be shot. God knows the man doesn’t need my pity, but I feel driven towards feeling sorry for anyone who has several thousand people calling for their head simply because they’ve noticed that he’s done the same kind of thing he’s always done. I don’t think there’s a single reasonable person there who actually believes that Clarkson wants people to be shot for going on strike, so why do people feel the need to react the way we do? Lord knows we’re not talking about the most subtle of jokes here, but must we be so literal and unsubtle in our reaction?

Update: Just saw an update from BBCBreaking that Clarkson has apologized for the “should be shot” comment.

October 13, 2011

BBC’s Top Gear GPS deal violates BBC’s own rules

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:04

Due to editorial rules, a Top Gear-branded GPS using Jeremy Clarkson’s voice will be withdrawn:

The BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, will now will now donate all proceeds from the sales to Children In Need to bypass rules that prevent the show’s presenters endorsing motoring products.

The Top Gear satnav features Clarkson giving instructions in typically sardonic style — amusing for Top Gear fans, no doubt, but it may begin to grate on the 100th journey.

“Keep left — if you’re not sure which side left is you really shouldn’t be on the road,” he tells drivers.

“After 700 yards, assuming this car can make it that far, you have reached your destination, with the aid of 32 satellites and me — well done.”

The corporation’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, said no more of the Top Gear satnavs, made by TomTom, would be produced.

A plan to allow existing TomTom owners to download Clarkson’s voice to update their models has now been dropped.

Given how many people have complained about the default voices provided with their GPS units, I can see why adding Jeremy Clarkson’s dulcet tones to the mix could hardly have made the situation any worse.

October 9, 2011

Top Gear: Jeremy Clarkson’s tribute to the E-type Jaguar

Filed under: Britain, History, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:19

February 2, 2011

BBC’s Top Gear team spark hostile response from Mexico

Filed under: Americas, Britain, Media — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:25

I guess that diplomats must do things like this, but anyone who’s watched more than five minutes of Top Gear would not take them seriously as political commentators. Hilariously funny, yes, but not particularly representative of British or British government views. Mexico, however, has chosen to take offense and has sent a demand to the BBC for a formal apology:

The irreverent British motoring show “Top Gear” has driven into diplomatic hot water after a host branded a Mexican car “lazy, feckless and flatulent” and said it mirrored Mexico’s national characteristics.

Mexico’s ambassador to Britain fired off a letter to the state broadcaster protesting the show’s “outrageous, vulgar and inexcusable insults” and demanding an apology.

In the episode, host Richard Hammond likened a Mexican sports car to “a lazy, feckless and flatulent oaf with a mustache, leaning against a fence asleep, looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat.”

Co-host James May went on to describe Mexican food as “like sick with cheese on it,” or “refried sick,” while Jeremy Clarkson predicted they would not get any complaints about the show because “the ambassador is going to be sitting there with a remote control, snoring.”

I’m sure the BBC will provide the requested apology, but I doubt that it will change anything. Top Gear without the over-the-top commentary would be just another bloody car show.

December 26, 2009

QotD: Soccer

Filed under: Britain, Quotations, Soccer — Tags: — Nicholas @ 00:10

Over the years I have argued that football is a stupid game in which 22 overpaid nancy boys with idiotic hair run around a field attempting to kick an inflated sheep’s pancreas into some netting while an audience of several thousand van drivers beat one another over the head with bottles and chairs.

Nor could I understand how someone from Tooting could possibly support, say, Manchester United, a team sponsored by those hateful bastards at AIG and made up of players from Portugal, France, Holland and, in the case of Wayne Rooney, Walt Disney. Where’s the connection? What’s the point?

I have also suggested that it’s preposterous to have football stadiums in the middle of cities. Why should anyone be delayed by match traffic just so a handful of thugs can watch a Brazilian man falling over?

And as for those people who can’t cope if their team loses. Give me strength. If you get all teary-eyed just because someone from Latvia, playing in a town you’ve never been to, for an Arab you’ve never met, against some Italians you hate for no reason, has missed a penalty, how are you going to manage when you are diagnosed with cancer?

Jeremy Clarkson, “You’re a bunch of overpaid nancies – and I love you: Why should anyone be held up by match traffic just so some thugs can watch a Brazilian man falling over?”, Times Online, 2009-03-22

November 13, 2009

British emigration woes

Filed under: Britain, Education, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 14:02

Jeremy Clarkson enumerates all the places would-be Ex-pats can’t go:

There’s talk of emigration in the air. It’s everywhere I go. Parties. Work. In the supermarket. My daughter is working herself half to death to get good grades at GSCE and can’t see the point because she won’t be going to university, because she doesn’t have a beak or flippers or a qualification in washing windscreens at the lights. She wonders, often, why we don’t live in America.

[. . .]

It’s a lovely idea, to get out of this stupid, Fairtrade, Brown-stained, Mandelson-skewed, equal-opportunities, multicultural, carbon-neutral, trendily left, regionally assembled, big-government, trilingual, mosque-drenched, all-the-pigs-are-equal, property-is-theft hellhole and set up shop somewhere else. But where?

You can’t go to France because you need to complete 17 forms in triplicate every time you want to build a greenhouse, and you can’t go to Switzerland because you will be reported to your neighbours by the police and subsequently shot in the head if you don’t sweep your lawn properly, and you can’t go to Italy because you’ll soon tire of waking up in the morning to find a horse’s head in your bed because you forgot to give a man called Don a bundle of used notes for “organising” a plumber.

You can’t go to Australia because it’s full of things that will eat you, you can’t go to New Zealand because they don’t accept anyone who is more than 40 and you can’t go to Monte Carlo because they don’t accept anyone who has less than 40 mill. And you can’t go to Spain because you’re not called Del and you weren’t involved in the Walthamstow blag. And you can’t go to Germany . . . because you just can’t.

The Caribbean sounds tempting, but there is no work, which means that one day, whether you like it or not, you’ll end up like all the other expats, with a nose like a burst beetroot, wondering if it’s okay to have a small sharpener at 10 in the morning. And, as I keep explaining to my daughter, we can’t go to America because if you catch a cold over there, the health system is designed in such a way that you end up without a house. Or dead.

October 11, 2009

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Filed under: Food, Humour, Randomness — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:17

Jeremy Clarkson makes the acquaintance of “limited-edition Insanity private reserve” hot sauce:

It’s an American chilli sauce that was bought by my wife as a joky Christmas present. And, like all joky Christmas presents, it was put in a drawer and forgotten about. It’s called limited-edition Insanity private reserve and it came in a little wooden box, along with various warning notices. “Use this product one drop at a time,” it said. “Keep away from eyes, pets and children. Not for people with heart or respiratory problems. Use extreme caution.”

Unfortunately, we live in a world where everything comes with a warning notice. Railings. Vacuum cleaners. Energy drinks. My quad bike has so many stickers warning me of decapitation, death and impalement that they become a nonsensical blur.

The result is simple. We know these labels are drawn up to protect the manufacturer legally, should you decide one day to insert a vacuum-cleaner pipe up your bottom, or to try to remove your eye with a teaspoon. So we ignore them. They are meaningless. One drop at a time! Use extreme caution! On a sauce. Pah. Plainly it was just American lawyer twaddle.

A valid point: if everything these days carries warning labels, the actual level of concern for ordinary consumers drops . . . so real warnings are drowned out by the hundreds of bogus ones put there merely to avert lawsuits, not to provide useful information about the product.

The pain started out mildly, but I knew from past experience that this would build to a delightful fiery sensation. I was even looking forward to it. But the moment soon passed. In a matter of seconds I was in agony. After maybe a minute I was frightened that I might die. After five I was frightened that I might not.

The searing fire had surged throughout my head. My eyes were streaming. Molten lava was flooding out of my nose. My mouth was a shattered ruin. Even my hair hurt.

H/T to Dave Slater for the link.

September 2, 2009

NHS better than Canadian health system, says Jeremy Clarkson

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Health — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:03

It’s always surprising to find a British author willing to call their massive National Health Service (NHS) “a monster that we can barely afford”, but that’s exactly what Jeremy Clarkson says in his latest Times column. But that’s merely an aside. The venom in this article is reserved for Canadian healthcare, specifically in Quebec:

Some say America should follow Canada’s lead, where private care is effectively banned. But having experienced their procedures while on holiday in Quebec, I really don’t think that’s a good idea at all.

[. . .]

Now, we are all used to a bit of a wait at the hospital. God knows, I’ve spent enough time in accident and emergency at Oxford’s John Radcliffe over the years, sitting with my sobbing children in a room full of people with swords in their eyes and their feet on back to front. But nothing can prepare you for the yawning chasm of time that passes in Canada before the healthcare system actually does any healthcare.

[. . .]

After a couple of hours, I asked the receptionist how long it might be before a doctor came. In a Wal-Mart, it’s quite quaint to be served by a fat, gum-chewing teenager who claims not to understand what you’re saying, but in a hospital it’s annoying. Resisting the temptation to explain that the Marquis de Montcalm lost and that it’s time to get over it, I went back to the boy’s cubicle

[. . .]

And they also had the cash to employ an army of people to slam the door in your face if you poked your head into the inner sanctum to ask how much longer the wait might be. Sixteen hours is apparently the norm. Unless you want a scan. Then it’s 22 months.

At about 1.30am a doctor arrived. Boy, he was a piece of work. He couldn’t have been more rude if I’d been General Wolfe. He removed the bandages like they were the packaging on a disposable razor, looked at the wound, which was horrific, and said to my friend: “Is it cash or credit card?”

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