How Clarkson slowly drove himself out of job

Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of Top Gear, one of the most watched TV programmes of all time, was finally fired from the BBC. What may have come as a surprise to many was that he lasted that long. He has had many run-ins with his employer and his job was always hanging by a thread.

The man was irreverent, bold, witty, obnoxious all rolled in one. He has been accused of being racist, sexist, homophobic and hard to impress.

But, reading through his books, one comes across a writer with an overwhelming sense of dry humour, a serious deficit of political correctness and a weird take on things that would not usually attract more than just a passing interest by many of us.

Mr Clarkson has authored several best-sellers which are mainly a compilation of articles he used to write for several British newspapers.

In his book, the Top Gear Years, he demolishes cars, tears them apart bolt by bolt, and kills them off without even a hint of regret.

For instance, in The Corvette, Clarkson writes, “has no suspension at all, the wheels are connected directly to your buttocks.” I don’t think I would buy a car that has been described thus.

In writing about a Honda, he starts off in what appears to be a compliment, saying the average Honda owner will love the cars reliability and space and the way other drivers on the highways will move over when they see it coming their way.

“We are not parting (for the Honda) of course; we are running for our dear lives, because we know the Honda driver is deaf, mad and blind,” he casually clarifies.

EVERY SURFACE

When he is driving a Ford Galaxy, “on every bend, down every straight and over every surface, it never fails to disappoint and horrify.”

Clarkson is prone to extreme exaggeration, like this piece he wrote about a time he was held up in traffic several miles long in the English countryside because a car ahead of them was moving at 15 mph.

“When I finally got past him, I noticed the driver was several hundred years old. I knew this because his suit was finished in a colour that wasn’t brown, or green, or grey, but a peculiar blend of the three. It was, for want of a better word, ‘old’ colour,” he says.

But it is in one of his other books, ‘How hard can it be’ where he writes about everything under the sun, except about cars, and where you find Clarkson at his best. He rambles on about everything under the sun, and you just can’t keep the book down.

Writing about the seemingly excessive focus on health and safety issues, he draws parallels with the time when he was a school boy, and they were allowed to do experiments without wearing safety helmets, boots, gloves and all.

“I spent five years in the chemistry lab playing with sulphuric acid and I am fine. Sure, Jenkins got a bit disfigured one day but his hideous face is hardly a reason to refuse to teach anyone science.”
Writing about charity, Clarkson talks about the need to give to the poor but with the way such money is wasted, he is having second thoughts about giving to charity, especially for anything destined for Africa.

“People get dewy-eyed about Africa. That’s jolly noble, but I don’t see the point because I fear no matter how much money you pump in, the bejewelled pigs that run the place will pump it straight back out again, into the coffers of Kalashnikovs and Mercedes Benz.”

And in his characteristic bluntness (others would call it racism), he says the only thing he would send to “the dark continent” is “a team of SAS hitmen to shoot the likes of Mr Mugabe in the middle of his face”. Ouch!

Writing about the need to de-congest prisons in the UK, he suggests that Britons should be asked by their government to host, for a small fee, some of the prisoners in their houses during their incarceration. This, he admits, would be a kind of lottery, because you don’t know which junkie might end up in your spare bedroom.

“You could get a cannibal from Leeds who creeps into your bedroom every night with a knife and a fork and some mango chutney” presumably to have you for dinner.

He also gives an example of this fellow who killed and ate his lover, and who was sentenced to 30 years in jail as an example of a system gone wrong. “….which means, after he gets out a week (from now), he is going to come round to your house, sprinkle you with herbs and pop you in the oven”.

To deal with the big numbers of prisoners, Clarkson has one remedy; let them eat what they grow, “and if the harvest fails for any reason, well, they could take a leaf out of the cannibal’s book and eat each other”.

Clarkson can also be quite grim. Writing about death, he says the reason he wouldn’t want to be cremated when he dies is, if perchance there is a heaven, he wouldn’t want to hang out with the Angels looking “like the contents of a Hoover bag”. He laments how things have changed over time.

“Being dead used to be ever so easy. They would put you in a box, lower you gingerly into the ground and let you rot in peace.” Clarkson says he has never been a fan of football, and can never understand how people get emotional when teams win or lose in a ‘stupid’ game where “22 overpaid nancy boys with idiotic hair run around a field attempting to kick an inflated sheep’s pancreas into some netting.

The writer is a freelance journalist and a communications consultant