Deserves a separate post.(see previous post for context)

[avevale_intelligencer]

[Poll #1800108]

Comments

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

There's a few options missing there. I want one for: "He tried to make a joke about 'the BBC has to be balanced', by giving two views that were balanced either side of the line of 'I don't actually know or care about the real issues so I'm just going to (a) enjoy the unintended benefits to people like myself / (b) condemn these people for disrupting my cosy priveleged life... and severly over-egged the pudding on the latter one, probably because he's utterly insulated from how genuinely scared and up-against-the-wire the people he's talking about are right now. But on the other side, the unions are clearly milking it for all its worth, and certain sectors of the press are playing along by only quoting the latter half of what he said."

Basically, there are times when it's OK to be a walking parody of the archetypal insular priveleged and bigotted git... and a period of genuine austerity and social unrest when such gits are actually at the helm is not one of them. Especially not by referencing specific detail of a method of violent repression that is *actually being practiced* in some parts of the world for protests not so very different from the strikes here.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

hank you for saying some thing much more cogently than i could

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Also: "What is this Klah-Xon of which you speak?"

Klah-Xon: A noisy object that causes general alarm, while failing to convey any specificly useful information.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I like it. :) Also, *hugs*.

[howeird]

By "condemning" do you mean he should be shot? ;-)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

You know I don't. Any more than I think he should be burned at the stake. I think his views on a variety of subjects have no place in a civilised society, but that's not for me to decide, which you may feel is a good thing.

[the-changeling.livejournal.com]

Incitement to hatred and violence, isn't acceptable.

No matter how much you go on about it being 'a joke'.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

did you hear the entire conversation in context or just the text taken out of context?

[the-changeling.livejournal.com]

Replace what he said with "blacks", or "jews" or "gays" and then tell me the humour makes it acceptable.

Aww, don't take offence, I was only joking!

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

"chips in brown gravy with cheese curds"

There. Fixed your poutine recipe for you :-)

(FWIW, I think he stepped over a line, but not far enough to be sacked. Certainly far enough to require a serious apology.)

[wolfette]

by apology do you mean "I am sorry I offended you" or "I am sorry you were offended"?

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

The former. The latter is by no means serious, and not really an apology in most cases.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Ignoring this type of idiot Politician, if I remember that's what this moron is, is really the best way. Giving them attention is just more fuel for the fire.

Sometimes I wish that there was an idiot switch on some people.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

No, he's just a TV presenter. See (or not, as you prefer!) "Top Gear".

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

I do with his gutterances what I do with Ann Coulter-geist's relapses of linguae, I consider the source. And I admit I think about slapping them around awhile but then decide the damage to my hand isn't worth it.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Probably because I live too far away and the sound of the waves between drowns it out, I don't think I've ever heard of the git, much less anything about his making his living by driving fast. He sounds like a real douchebag, though.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

he's not
he bright, intelligent, opinionated, and is a prat, He makes it very clear that he unbelievably crap at all sorts of things like fixing cars, but he can operate a sewing machine.

this is someone who is the lead presenter of what was a car show and is now something else. A classic catch phrase is "well how hard can it be" before discovering that it is lot more complex than he thought and he is fact really bad at it

On top gear he insults practically everyone who isn't from his bit of doncaster (where he grew up) even though he now lives in oxfordshire.

He has a very dry, very british sense of humour, and its fairly obvious that if you said "i followed your advice" he would quite possibly tell you, you were an idiot, because he's an idiot and has no idea what he's doing

what he actually is a very very good journalist. He a real gift for language and presentation, and under the stupid remarks and idiotic behaviour actually is a man cares passionately about stuff, I disagree with his politics but I certainly would enjoy his company.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

having now heard what he said in context, its very clear he was speaking tongue in cheek. he wasn't speaking about strikers he was talking about people who worked at the BBC out to be shot, People who didn't work for a living, Please note he works at the BBC as well, the implication was that he was including himself. he actually said was really enjoying the day, how easy it was to get around London, reminded him of his childhood in the seventies. He was speaking with a barbed tongue but it very clear he was assuming that no one would take him literally.

As someone pointed out on the today programme this morning, its a perfect storm. Lots of media get to talk about him. the strikers get sympathy and he gets a lot of airplay and sell a lot of his latest DVD.

He also has apologised for what he said, when he realised what he had said: was being taken out of context

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Okay, fair enough. I have now seen the quote in full (and note in passing it was the BBC who quoted the offensive part out of context) and one thing I notice is that the "two views" he provided don't actually conflict. The seventies were another time when worker's rights were under threat and strikes and disruption to essential public services were frequent, and there were people back then who also advocated shooting the strikers. And they weren't joking. That's how Thatcher got in.

How much of the fallout from this was intended is something one has to make up one's own mind about. My problem with him is mainly that "Jeremy Clarkson" is not a character that he puts on and takes off, like Alf Garnett or Al Murray's Pub Landlord; as far as I can tell, he believes these things, and if I am to read in a subtext then I need a few more clues.

One thing this has been, as someone pointed out on Facebook, is a huge distraction from anything else that might be going on, such as the Leveson inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal. If it seems unfair to flip between thinking he was sincere in advocating the shooting and thinking he just did it to create a furore and take people's minds off what the government is doing, then perhaps I could point out that I'm just presenting two views here. And again, they don't actually conflict. :)

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

i think he's a right wing idiot, who hides his opinions behind word play. I think he was making a joke in that he doesn't belive strikers should be shot but I suspect he would believe striking should be illegal,

redacted the comment about toby young - I should not have said that - it was inappropriate of me

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"he wasn't speaking about strikers he was talking about people who worked at the BBC out to be shot, People who didn't work for a living"

No, I'm afraid you've got the wrong end of the stick there. He said "this is the BBC, so we've got to be balanced". SO then he "balanced" his comments about "The strikes are marvellous, 'cos I can drive as fast as I like", by saying "the strikers ought to be shot". It was a joke about balance, done in a deliberately *non*-balanced way.

For my money, if he'd just said "they ought to be shot" and not gone any further, that would have been a bit tasteless but obviously humorous in intent. But he then went on, and talked about doing it in front of their families, which gets into some pretty horrifying ideas for daytime TV and particularly horrifying for anyone who has actually been in fear of a bullet, or who is genuinely fearful about how Western governments are starting to behave much like certain middle Eastern ones are famed for, towards any of their citizens who cause a fuss. (See the way the US has been treating Occupy protesters, for example). There's an ugly streak in the UK populace and especially in the UK media that's pushing towards that kind of hardline response to anything they see as disruptive. Now, maybe Clarkson was just trying to parody that, but if so, (a) he's the wrong man to try (because his public image is so right wing that, as has happened, people take him seriously), and (b) he chose very much the wrong platform to do it.