of the media and people jumping on every little thing on TV in order to get themselves coverage or push their editors brand of moral panic. Its been like this since 'Sachsgate' can we give it a bloody rest?

It's lucky the press don't resort to lazy stereotypes everytime England meet Germany in a football tournament.

Busker Du should be banned for his unprovoked attack on the presenters of Top Gear.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12361873

Didn't think so.

As penance for their twatty, smug-git, sphinctal comments, maybe they could do a Top Gear Special from Ciudad Juarez. Just a thought...

"The BBC have now apologised over the terrible Top Gear Mexican stereotype jokes. Mexicans everywhere are dancing on their hats."

when everyone has had their sense of humour removed so we have removed the threat of offending anyone by the cracking of a joke.

If the best that these three pillbeans can come up with to justify getting paid to be 'funny' about Mexico is to lean on a creaking, ancient stereotype, I suggest that they find jobs more suited to the skills they do possess.

Sleeping policemen, would seem to be the best thing for all concerned.

should have read:

Dear sirs,

Ah, fuck it. You won't listen to me anyway.

so can I just say if you want to make any remarks about me being a brown-nosed snake-charming purveyor of unfeasibly hot food that's fine with me. Just as I probably have made jokes about tight Scotsmen, miserable Welshmen, slow Irish men, smelly Frenchmen, cowardly Italians and the like.

However, if you call me a dirty Paki in a pub and mean it, I will probably smack you one. Unless, you are bigger and tougher than me, in which case I might not.

There are plenty of very real racial and religous divides in the world which people are fighting over and dying over. So, please let's retain a sense of proportion about these issues

Twang Jr got a Top Gear branded Scalectrix for Christmas and now wants to watch the show. So on Sunday we sat down to watch an episode. Not being a viewer before I was a bit perturbed at the constant references to arses, cocks, chlamydia and other such hilarious punch lines. Happily TJ, age 6, didn't pick up on them but I shall be trying to avoid further episodes till he's a bit older. Or am I old fashioned? Is such hilarity family entertainment these days?

to me for wasting my taxpayer's money on apologising over dopey jokes. Why don't they just reply: "It's comedy. Some people laughed, some didn't. No one died. It's no big deal. Get over it."

For using the correct spelling there MAM.

that I wish James May would remove himself from the Top Gear gang. I just think he's better than that, that's all.

... approximately 112,000,000 and only a few hundred could be bothered to complain to the BBC, eh? Top Gear was right - they are lazy.

for a lot of "other things" and for laughing at many "other things" such as reductivist tendencies that are often just an excuse to separate words from effect in order to make a completely different point to that intended by the humour (conflation being the prime order of the day) or to justify through inherently vapid intellectualisation a different interpretation to that intended, thereby losing sight of what the comedic effect was in the first place. You get me?

"Oh dear me, we must be objective about race and foreigners because such issues are only capable of being observed from one linear narrative: mine and that of people who think like me".

Fuck off, please.

If you deny comedy its facility for having the capacity for having more than one interpretation - no matter how offensive - then you actually deny what it is that makes comedy funny in the first place. The point of humour is to create a response, the preference being laughter, but not exclusively, because the substantive content that underpins the humour isn't typically viewed as humorous; that's the point of creating a comedic effect. A chicken crossing the road isn't funny on so many more levels than it is, the joke only works if you're willing to accept that on some level it is actually funny. So why be judgemental when there is no consensus?

Those that criticise, for example with a conscious and prescriptive preference to stand back and observe only one shaft of light from the prismatic effect of a joke (e.g to criticise the people who made the joke) rather than actually recognise or acknowledge the joke itself - because of their own equally prejudicial position - are simply moving the goalposts to make a different point altogether. It's the same playing field, just a different angle. Again, vapid.

What I find offensive (no really I do) - but not so offensive that I have to go around looking for the offence in order to comment upon it - are those that go one step further. In addition to pontificating in a critical manner about those who deliver the joke they also direct their ire towards those who have the audacity to react to the joke by laughing rather than flagellating themselves for not recognising that someone somewhere might be offended. Someone like Foghorn Leghorn, for example.

It's like saying "oh my God I must make an intellectual and rational response to this joke because less intelligent people than me might walk away from this situation and go laugh at someone black or disabled as a matter of course. So I'll be melodramatic and equate their response with statements about a life or death scenario so they'll feel guilty about their natural comedic receptors and go on some self-correction course so they'll think about stuff properly. You know, like me."

Again, fuck off please.

I don't like many comedians because they are offensive but they make other people laugh so they must be funny.

To deny that is missing the point of comedy.

So, everyone, fuck off.

we don't complain to the US embassy everytime an American show makes a lazy stereotypical joke about the quality of British dentistry or we'd all be on the phone all day long.

Is if someone from a devloping/third world country phoned up David Cameron offering apologies about a comment on one of their TV programmes which poked fun at Britain.

Would he give a toss? Would we?

http://bit.ly/hg0Nyv

Thanks for posting that Paddy.

sums it up quite neatly.

Jeremy Clarkson sneers at a Sikh so you don't have to.

the goat?

Couldn't find the usual one

That it was a preconceived bid to outrage to get headlines?
Certainly after Clarkson's comments about the Keys/ Gray case, I got the feeling they decided to be outrageous to keep up their image as the most politically incorrect mob in the mainstream.
As I said to Bob on Twitter today, I don't like it, and I do also feel prematurely old in yearning for higher standards in broadcasting to be restored.
Lazy thinking all around doesn't help anyone.

not sure what it tells us but none of those involved come out with much credit. There are arseholes everywhere and our arseholes are as bad as everyone elses and everyone elses are as bad as ours.

I think that's why they're popular (the Top Gearistas, with apologies to PaddyH for the suffix)... They get paid lots of money to go to Albania and pretend to be in bank robberies for example, chase around disused airfields in cars that the vast majority of drivers in the UK aren't even capable of handling properly, and certainly cannot afford, and generally taking the piss out anything that gets a reaction ... In among all that, they retain an essential, uncynical sense of wonder when confronted with stuff like rusting submarines or abandoned MiG fighter jets. (If I was taken to a Cold War aircraft boneyard, I'd doubtless have to be dragged away while saying, "No, just one more picture...")
Far from Clarkson & pals sneering at Sikhs so we won't have to (see post above, also from PaddyH), they're still "being 15" because we aren't. After all, universal peace, love and understanding are at the top of my fantasy wish list for Planet Earth, but - if offered - i'd love to drive beautiful mountain roads in excellent cars, blow up the odd caravan, drive through an African desert and do other fun stuff ...
It's just such a pity that it'll take another couple of series before we see Tommy Sheridan as the star in the reasonably priced car...

I think that critiscm of Clarkson is a waste of time.

IMHO, he wont give a fishes tit about negative publicity, because (& this is only my opinion), its all about living up (down?) to his screen/ print image.

Top Gear is a hugely popular TV programme, & it gives him a massive platform to play to his fans.I think this is why his opinion will always carry far more weight than most (if not all) of the people on this site.

If someone does get the better of him, he can always use a newspaper column or a TV appearance to put his views over to his fan club knowing that they will lap it up.

The BBC wont rebuke him because TG is a massive money spinner for them & they know he could walk to ITV anytime he wanted.

I can remember some members of Word staff saying how much they like him, &, unlike most of us, they will know him as he is, rather than his carefully cultivated image.

As a final comment, I am sure that I have read somewhere that
Danny Baker has written scripts for him in the past.

For some reason, that slightly depresses me.

The problem with Clarkson is that many of his admirers and detractors take him more seriously than he takes himself.

Which can be summed up as "professional arsehole." You can tell this because he fails to annoy me on QI but annoys me everywhere else.

for the Canadians, no one likes them.

I *like* James May?

Thank you.

I don't hate him, which compared to how I feel about Clarkson and Hammond is full on bromance.

... "nomance"?

Is it a different version of 'Top Gear' that is transmitted into our house? 3 amusing chaps amiably bantering wittily, often venturing into foreign climes where they muck about and pretend to do naughty things while generally acknowledging humbly the wonderousness of such places. I am not expecting to agree with them on eveything but they provide me with much welcome entertainment.

Whilst the version of the Stewart Lee show we receive seems to provide a platform for a rather pompous, smug individual who is quite a pathetic sight as he comes over as an ageing 80s NME reader who never grew up and presents opinionated rants as funny 'comedy', which a rather sycophantic audience cheer in an over enthusiastic fashion. Bill Hicks used to do this kind of thing only he was funny.

Incidentally, the edition of Top Gear shown on Sunday offerred a kind of Word blog perfect storm as it featured an extended encounter between the dreaded Clarkson and the reviled Wossy. I fear that some of our contributors, were they to venture upon such a scene, would have self-combusted in outrage. Perhaps some did.

with Clarkson is that he keeps his real name while being this boarish oaf rather than calling himself the 'Petrol Station Manager' in the vein of Al Murray Pub Landlord.
It's a persona he uses to great effect and it achieves every thing he aims for. He should maybe call himself Jeremy M. Clarkson for one so people can differentiate between enviro bashing dolt and history infatuated raconteur. He is like Jekyll and Hyde on QI.
The Top Gear Clarkson is not my cup of tea so I choose not to watch it. But when he lowers his guard for documentaries about VC awardees and travelogues where he truly descibes how he feels about Germany or France he is very engaging and interesting.

I haven't seen any of Clarkson's history programmes; I have seen him on QI, where he generally comes across as OK. I'm intrigued by the notion that this side of him is the "real" Jeremy Clarkson, while the Top Gear/Environment bashing/hate anything remotely liberal side is a either a construct or at least a deliberate caricature.

Surely it's possible that the reverse is true: that he really is that arsehole, but he can hide it pretty well when he wants to.

It is also possible that both sides are equally genuine: that he is an intelligent, articulate man with an interest in history, who has views that I and many others find ghastly, and no compunction about spouting them wherever he goes; and who can be genuinely unpleasant. After all, there are very few people who are irredeemable. Andrew Roberts, for example, is, in my view, a right wing shit; he is also a reputable historian, and made a programme about great men which included a glowing appraisal of Martin Luther King which it would be impossible not to be touched by. And "Gorgeous" George Galloway is a pretty loathsome individual - but that doesn't mean that he hasn't often been bang on the money about certain issues.

back the American, all the fake indignation and 'we can see it coming from three days ago' controversy has disappeared from the thread.

the rival car shows fronted by ex-TG presenters? Fifth Gear springs to mind, fronted by the jolly hockey sticks Vicki Butler-Henderson, the terribly posh Quentin Willson and the excitable Tiff Needell.

According to Wiki, Fifth Gear is up to its 17th season, yet no one ever seems to mention it. Could that be because it lacks the rugby-club-out-on-a-stag-night format favoured by Clarkson & Co?

Fifth Gear features all the same cars as TG, with none of the macho, shouty stuff. It's a little too posh perhaps, but give me that over the boorish Top Gear any day.

cars on Top Gear? I hadn't noticed. Wouldn't watch it if they started doing that sort of nonsense

.

as to what kind of mentality we are dealing with here, let me quote something from the current Top Gear magazine.

There is a section at the back of the mag listing prices and specs of cars currently on sale. Presumably to give them the Clarkson seal of approval (or otherwise), each make/model is summed up via a pithy one-liner credited to the man himself.

In the section dealing with the Smart Car, Jeremy Clarkson says this: "Smarts are rather like Hillary Clinton: clever, but you wouldn't want to".

I'll repeat that: "You wouldn't want to".

Wouldn't want to what, exactly?

Well, in Top Gear lad-speak parlance Clarkson clearly means that Hillary is a brainy lass, but he wouldn't want to shag her. Nice.

Oh well, it's refreshing to see exactly how much respect Jezza has for "the fairer sex" (as he'd probably call them).

... attached to hugely popular TV programmes.

So I think yes, that's disgraceful. A BBC presenter judging a politician on her appearance because she happens to be female? If he said that to his mate in a pub I couldn't give a stuff. Writing it on a national platform is completely shameful.

And there's my problem with Clarkeson. I bet he doesn't do that in private.

That remark is a joke made in a magazine bought by people who tune into the show of the same name that shares its sense of humour. Therefore its totally in keeping with what the reader expects. And 'national platform' - really? A car mag?

if you don't like Clarkson and his humour then you wouldn't be buying the publication. Whether you find it funny or not is of no relevance apart from your own personal reaction to the gag. Its akin to me going to a Chubby Brown gig and complaining it was a bith "blue".

Unless you're buying Top Gear magazine to find out about cars, but that would be krazy.

"I bet he doesn't do it in private."

I know you can't answer that point (unless you are either JC or his wife or a friend) so perhaps I'm being unfair.

But I do think that a publicly funded organisation like the BBC should not be trading on crude stereotypes. Nor should magazines affiliated to it. That's my major point. If Top Gear was on Sky I wouldn't give a fuck, given that I choose to boycott all Murdoch products. But Top Gear is the BBC. Which I love. Different rules apply.

why should the beeb be exwempt from the real world.

i guess if you believe they are 'trading' on cruel stereotypes then so be it. i personally don't and i'm glad my licence fee is spent on shows like top gear.

But it is publicly funded. Which I perhaps should have been clearer about in my post.