[Andy McDandy]

It's also gotten increasingly self referential. OK, any long running show will develop and embrace its own mythology, but there's a fine line between embracing it and disappearing up your own arse.

[crabcakes_windermere]

His popularity around Europe and beyond is huge. I can only guess that a lot of people like cars and Top Gear is possibly the only programme that covers the subject in a entertaining and innovative way whose format translates to any country. I'm sure Top Gear would survive post Clarkson. Chris Evans springs to mind for some reason.

Guy Martin has also been suggested.


I'm sure I've said before, but I like Top Gear myself because I like cars, travel and arsing about. Clarkson's obviously, OBVIOUSLY a cock, but then he himself never suggests otherwise and - taken as the blatant character he is - not really the relentless source of right-wing nastiness he's often made out to be. In fact, given he doesn't expect anyone to remotely take him seriously (unlike, say, Littlejohn - and by the same token he's not spiteful in the way Dickie is either), he probably does 'the right' more harm than good by being so identifiably rubbish and clueless and more or less admitting as much.

If he's actually been stupid enough to lamp someone then he needs an almighty bollocking at the bare minimum, but I also think he's obviously an easy target. He makes dodgy remarks, he likes petrol-guzzling cars, he's a dinosaur etc. But all the things he's done - and worse - would be immediately excused in others. For example Keith Lemon makes far more, hideously sexist remarks in his show, but that's OK because we're supposed to be laughing at him. Marcus Brigstocke has been critical of him on Twitter - but then he was a hypocritical complete shit to his wife and had an affair just after writing about how great his family life was, then whined about how sad he was on twitter for months inbetween tweets pushing his new show. Behind the scenes all manner of well regarded actors and actresses are supposed to be horrific to work for and I suspect juniors get all manner of abuse that a shove about catering would make pale in comparison. The difference is, Clarkson's dirty washing is always aired in public and we are always demanded to tut at it.

It's a strange situation in that I almost feel I should dislike him by default because I'm left wing (and indeed people I know are often surprised I don't), but I just don't. I don't see the intensely harmful threat to race, sex and the environment he's framed as sometimes. I see a middle-aged idiot. And crucially, unlike Boris, not one projecting that image as cover for actually being a grasping, corrupt bastard. I quite often wonder if it's not so much him but the people that like him and stand up for him (Liddle, Fawkes, Katie Hopkins, Cameron) who are the reason others call for his head. It's not they genuinely see Clarkson as a threat, it's more that they desperately want to finally get him to get one over on those who support him who they dislike all the more. And of course the unsavoury types all support him largely because they think doing so probably annoys lefties.

He's his own worst enemy. But his other worst enemies are his supporters, because they make his natural enemies hate him a thousandfold more.

[lord_kobel]

Dunno. He's made being a sexist, racist, climate change denying fuckwit more acceptable and thus helped to do a lot of harm.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

From a friend's Facebook timeline

People! I've repeatedly been accused of racism, and just punched a colleague. Could you sign this petition for me to keep my job? Thanks!

Perspective.

[crabcakes_windermere]

But then he's not done that given he didn't start the petition himself and hasn't called for anyone to sign it, the accusations are only ever really that (and only levelled at him, even when one or all of the other presenters are involved or he self-censors a gag for even potentially being seen as racist before it is even used, which is hardly the behaviour of an alleged brazen racist), and we don't actually know the full details of what happened yet with the 'fracas'.

I dunno. There seems to be an assumption he must be guilty of everything he's ever accused of mainly because he's Jeremy Clarkson rather than anything else, and that anything that doesn't get him fired is something he unfairly got away with rather that just something he shouldn't have actually been fired for in the first place. I'm just not comfortable with being able to push the boundaries and be close to the bone being exclusively a left-wing thing, because if you're right-wing and do it you're immediately branded a bigot. I also don't like the whole tribalism aspect that dictates what you should think about it that many people seem to adopt - both in his supporters and in his detractors.

[Killer Whale]

I'm with you here. I think he's an arse, but I don't think being an arse is something that should automatically disqualify anyone from being on television. I really don't want to go down the Mailite road of declaring that just because I don't like something, it should never get an airing in the popular media.

I also think he has the same right to a fair hearing that anyone else has. Maybe he should be sacked for gross misconduct, but I think that should be left to the standard disciplinary procedures rather than a bunch of gleeful lefties on Twitter.

[crabcakes_windermere]

Maybe he should be sacked for gross misconduct, but I think that should be left to the standard disciplinary procedures rather than a bunch of gleeful lefties on Twitter.

This.

[The Weeping Angel]

This is a very good piece on Clarkson

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/com ... 01557.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Agnes]

Quite a few straw men, though.

[youngian]

Compare and contrast Savile with Rolf Harris - in the latter case there seemed a sense of genuine disappointment, of 'oh no, not him'. Right up until he was convicted, he was popularly regarded as an affable and competent entertainer and TV presenter, capable artist, and so on. In contrast, Savile was - post retirement - viewed as a joke, a bit creepy, a sense of 'what in the world were we on, giving him airtime?'. His final TV appearances (HIGNFY, Theroux etc) were always underscored with 'let's laugh at this old fucker'.

Call it the Polanski factor - it's always better when your shamed celebs are a bit naff to start with. Less trouble reevaluating their output.

And didn't Clarkson lamp Piers Morgan once? He seemed to have got a pass on that one.

[Big Arnold]

Shamed publicist Max Clifford 'arrested by Operation Yewtree officers over further sex offences'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z3UCo9bHP8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tubby Isaacs]

This slipped past.

Pete Wylie indie side project, the Big Hard Excellent Fish, The Imperfect List. It's a list of things the speaker doesn't like

Contains the line "Leon Brittan. All nonces"

[youtube]3h1ehKMe_4M[/youtube]

[The Red Arrow]

Neil Fox charged with sex assaults

20 minutes ago

British DJ Neil Fox charged with nine sex offences involving six people, of whom three were children

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32022625" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mojojojo]

If they want to know if he's guilty do a DNA test. If he has crab genes he's a paedo.

[Daley Mayle]

He's not a BBC DJ therefore he is a subject of a witch hunt. Why are the police wasting millions of pounds and thousands of man hours when they should be out on the streets arresting anyone on benefits?