Must admit wifey and I enjoyed it. The "trailer drop" was an obvious set-piece; Hammond was seen to couple up the air-lines, which were disconnected when he drove the unit away.
I'd have loved to see them trying to reverse!
I hope all you "truck-bashers" were taking note of the fact that even Clarkson admitted that it ain't as easy as it looks! ;-)
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I gave up on it after 40 minutes...
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While the BBC is in a dump the idiots mode do you think they can start on Flop Gear or at least bring it back to a motoring program - £15k+ wasted on wrecking three trucks - that was part of my money - and gag screaming Jenny Barkson - what a pointless waste doing all that wheel spinning. - only good part was news that in a few more months I might be able to afford a Merc SL 600. --Thank goodness for Freeview recorders -- I got whole program down to 12 1/2 min
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 03/11/2008 at 10:15
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Why would you bring it back to an old-fashioned motoring program when there are several already? Makes little sense from a business perspective. Also, looking at worldwide viewing figures, say what you like but people in general like it how it is. All you need do is change the channel if you dont like it. Remote is invariably down the sofa, get hunting.
Not a bad first show. My only complaint - someone please take sort of those bad hair days, Hamster's hair looked like my misses' before she sorts her hair in the morning.
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Why would you bring it back to an old-fashioned motoring program when there are several
Ermm... Fifth Gear
and ......
Repeats on the cable/satalite channels?
Certainly agree re the "business" perspective... but I thought that the Beeb were supposed to also cover "minority" interests... and as TG is now just another light entertainment programme like Strictly CD but which features motoring from time to time is it not too much to ask that they start making another, true, motoring programme for those of us actually interested in cars and motoring?
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I don't think TG can get any more idiotic, can it? Richard Hammond has already tried to kill himself and last night I think that JC probabyly injured himself somewhat, although it's difficult to know what is real or trickery. I fast forwarded the start of the programme with that Porshe/Gaillardo nonsense (or whatever the makes were).
My partner walked out of the room, initially but returned later to see the end of the truck race - Oh dear what have we come to, when the BBC again are shown to be wasting our money in such a way as this. Surely the motoring public deserve something a LITTLE bit more serious and with a morsel of gravitas even if it is just for a quarter of the 60 minutes.
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Don't know the ins and outs of it but IIRC Top Gear is one of the most "sold" BBC programs. They make income from it, as does JC etc so I wouldn't worry too much about the cost.
Three trucks at 5 grand each or whatever, how does that compare to the weekly wage bill of say the whole Eastenders crew and actors?
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well you can moan as much as you like, but the viewing figures and the syndication indicates that your opinion is in the minority. Ergo that means despite how miuch noise you make, your opinion does not count because it is not representative.
In a purley commercial tv programming sense that is.
Oh and the reason you have Top Gear / 5th gear type programmes is that no-one watched the "old" style programmes.
Edited by Altea Ego on 03/11/2008 at 11:05
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There was an an article about Clarkson having moved to the Isle of Man recently.
The Isle of Man? A tax haven? Shurely shome mistake!
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A Top Gear spokeswoman said the star was "quite badly injured" in the stunt, staged, she said, to "see how difficult it was to be a truck driver".
According to the BBC News website (News ??)
And what were these "QBIs" ?
"His injuries included an index finger that looked like "a burst sausage" and heavy bruising to his shin and back"
Mmmm. Didemms.
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Man drives truck at speed into a brick wall. Hurts himself. I'm not a H&S guru but even I could see that coming.
Couldn't for the life of me see why they did it. The "challenges" on tracks like this where the scripting is even more obvious than usual, leaves me cold.
Slightly disappointed by last nights show, the only bit I liked was that he said nothing about the GT2 other than just screaming whilst driving it, that did make me chuckle.
Not sure why the Beeb has put it up against Strictly though, meant my better half didn't watch TG as she usually would.
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funny (with the exception of star in a reasonably priced car)
That was the only bit I saw. Very smooth performance by 73-year-old Michael Parkinson, and not humiliatingly slow either. What was wrong with it DD (or do you always think irritably along with many of us that on a good day you might be able to do a bit better yourself)?
I enjoyed the blarney-stuffed byplay with Jeremy Clarkson as one talkshow host to another too...
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What was wrong with it DD
Because it's the most boring part of the show. Nothing to do with how old the person was.
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Nothing to do with how old the person was.
I should hope not... of course a lot of these 'stars' are obnoxious nobodies no one with any brains has ever heard of, but one or two have a proper track record and are amusing.
Personally I think the efforts of Tom Dick and Harriet to hustle a puddingy mimsemobile round a circuit as quickly as possible are often quite interesting.
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Trucks were the best laugh of the week,laugh out loud funny and i enjoyed the Porshe/Lambo thrashing,good entertaining show.
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Here we go another Jonathon Dross - seems like Jenny Barkson has upset all truckers with his "murder a prostitute" comment. -- tinyurl.com/6kh29d - suspend him without pay or by neck. -- Why do I pay my licence fee
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Well, there's the saying that, 'Nobody ever lost money by underestimating the taste of the general public". TG continues to add credence to that assertion. And now we have JC as motoring's answer to Jonathan Ross (not that the question was ever asked!).
I don't want an 'old style' motoring programme, I want a 'new style' programme that tells me about cars and automotive technology, delivered by intelligent presenters who are not 'celebrities'.
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Stuff presenters ;) I want a real mechanic going underneath, talking about rust, oil and grease..
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I want a 'new style' programme that tells me about cars and automotive technology delivered by intelligent presenters who are not 'celebrities'.
Not the current TG, then! ;)
(Though that sounds awfully like the "old style" progs to me....)
Edited by b308 on 04/11/2008 at 07:45
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Watch Wheeler Dealers then and you can watch our Ed China get covered in oil, if thats your thing.
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188 complaints according to the paper this morning. Out of a weekly audience of around 6.3 million.
So, 99.997% of viewers were not offended at all, yet there are calls to suspend Clarkson and ban the show.
What is this country coming to?
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Snipquote!"What is this country coming to?
Road Haulage Association is complaining apparently and going a bit OTT IMHO. I'm not a truck driver though, maybe I'd feel different if I was?
It was not a smart thing to say, I think he's trying to turn himself into some kind of 'shock jock' to garner a little more publicity.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 04/11/2008 at 10:38
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Road Haulage Association is complaining apparently
They are such sensitive souls - aren't they. If they can't take a joke, then they shouldn't have joined.
Clarkson is very non-PC and all the better for it - even if some of his asides are a bit cringe-worthy. It was a joke - just like all the other, far worse, ones on that subject circulating at the time.
The Woss/Brand affair was rather different; very spiteful and personal.
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I'm asuming those complaints were about JC's comments about murder & lorry drivers. I was shocked at this - no, not only because of its slur on lorry drivers (although that's distasteful enough) - but for the extreme insensitivity it shows to those families who have lost family members in the various high profile cases involving female sex workers (who are simply young women let's not forget) in the past number of years - I won't go into detail, but we can probably all remember them.
To those who find this entertaining when broadcast to family audiences simply wanting to see people playing silly so-and-sos in cars, perhaps will reflect on the reaction if a visitor to your house had brought up in a 'lighthearted' way this or similar subjects or you yourself had been a family member of an unfortunate victim - not so funny then is it?
I won't be complaining formally, but I'll never watch the programme again or any of its presenters output.
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Not the current TG then! ;) (Though that sounds awfully like the "old style" progs to me....)
Well, if by 'old style' you mean a programme that treats its audience like intelligent adults then maybe I do mean 'old style'. There's enough lowest-common-denominator celibri-trash on already, can't we at least have a decent, intelligent, motoring programme.
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188 complaints and 6.3m viewers sounds (assuming the figures are right) as though there isn't a problem, DP.
But a lot of people who are offended, don't or won't complain because they think it's a lot of effort or they don't know how or they don't think it will make any difference. So the conclusion you draw from the figures is a bit unreliable at best.
Lots of younger people are influenced by the Clarkson/Ross couldn't give a tuppeny damn approach and I doubt that's a good thing.
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RossBrand debacle originally had only 2 viewer complaints until a tabloid got hold of it, and look where that ended
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The right ending as far as I am concerned.
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Seems to me we are becoming very censorous and easily offended,or is it just easier to complain in a public forum with email?Seems its flavor of the month the beat the BBC,but i think they do a good job overall and if people really dont like TG,why bother to watch,or do you need to watch to make sure you are offended?
Anyone remember Mary Whitehouse and her Viewers and Listeners Association?
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re all the previous postings about Top Gear. Well here;s my 3 pen'orth for what it's worth.
I think TG is great, funny and doesn't take itself too seriously. Its good to see a bit of lighthearted fun on a Sunday. Lets face it, in most of our everyday hum drum lives, motoring for the masses is a boring necessity on our overcrowded roads. Its nice therefore to be able to 'escape' from all that for 1 hour on a Sunday and ejnoy watching other people enjoy cars/trucks/boats/planes etc and having fun.
Its a Marmite show, You either love it or hate it.
If you hate it, don't watch it. Simple really.
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if people really dont like TG,why bother to watch,or do you need to watch to make sure you are offended?
It wasn't a question of liking or not liking - it's to do with a particular comment made, so that point is rather spurious.
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Where have standards of decency and good manners gone?
Why is it these people including JC think it is good sport to insult, belittle society like brainless schooldboys.
I dont want such drivel in my living room and for this reason the very mention of Brand, Ross, Clarkson et al, I switch over.
Trash with a capital T.
dvd
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Where have standards of decency and good manners gone?
To the same place as sense of proportion I expect.
I dont want such drivel in my living room and for this reason the very mention of Brand Ross Clarkson et al I switch over.
Drivel is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Things that make me switch over (or even off) happen to include soap operas, X factor etc., Jon Snow, Songs of Praise, Question Time and the shopping channel. But other people want to watch them and what makes me so important that I have any right to try and prevent them from doing so?
Why worry that my eye and your eye behold drivel in different things?
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>>Why worry that my eye and your eye behold drivel in different things?
Either you're missing the point here or ignoring it completely. The Brand thing & comments on TG are not to do with simple personal preference, they're actually becoming rather mean & callous reflections of a rather pathetic & inadequate section of our society - by 'section' I mean anyone who gets off on the coarse belittling of others. TG plumbed new depths of course - let's now trivialise murder & objectivise sex workers so they appear not quite worthy of the human respect we would expect for ourselves.
This is the point, not some daft notion of taste or a bit of Whitehouse-esque shock at a bit of cleavage. I genuinley feel sorry for those who gone past this point discernment .
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Either you're missing the point here or ignoring it completely. The Brand thing & comments on TG are not to do with simple personal preference
Yes they are, because...
they're actually becoming rather mean & callous reflections of a rather pathetic & inadequate section of our society
... that's only your personal opinion. You are quite entitled to it, as others are quite entitled to a different one. You're also entitled to complain if you don't like it, although I'm surprised anyone bothered. Indeed, only 2 people bothered with Ross and Brand, and I suspect the only reason so many bothered with Top Gear is that there is a section of our society (in my personal opinion, a rather pathetic & inadequate section of our society) who, in the aftermath of Ross/Brand, are suffering from an overproductive self-righteousness gland
let's now trivialise murder & objectivise sex workers so they appear not quite worthy of the human respect we would expect for ourselves.
Unless you are genuinely worried that the next time a prostitute is murdered, the entire police and criminal justice system may pause to reflect on Clarkson's comments and consider whether to bother trying to find the perpetrator and bring a prosecution, I think you may be overreacting slightly.
I genuinley feel sorry for those who gone past this point discernment .
I genuinely feel enormous envy for those who have achieved everything they want to in their own lives such that they have the spare time to meddle in the lives of others. I genuinely feel sorry for the rest of us that they think they are entitled to and that they have lost (if they ever had it) any sense of proportion.
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Indeed, only 2 people bothered with Ross and Brand, and I suspect the only reason so many bothered with Top Gear is that there is a section of our society (in my personal opinion, a rather pathetic & inadequate section of our society) who, in the aftermath of Ross/Brand, are suffering from an overproductive self-righteousness gland
The number of people who complained directly through some feedback mechanism to the BBC is entirely irrelevant - many, many more expressed their dismay & disgust through the various media outlets, contacts with MPs & interent fora etc. - aren't those views to be counted? Don't you ever form an opinion on media reports or news even though you haven't directly experienced it? Of course you do, we all do.
Unless you are genuinely worried that the next time a prostitute is murdered, the entire police and criminal justice system may pause to reflect on Clarkson's comments and consider whether to bother trying to find the perpetrator and bring a prosecution, I think you may be overreacting slightly.
Language & its use help form our perceptions. It's why we have propaganda, spin-doctors & marketing - because language has a real effect. It's why we have legislation proscribing certain forms of address & descriptive stereotyping. I really can't make the point any plainer I'm afraid.
I genuinely feel enormous envy for those who have achieved everything they want to in their own lives such that they have the spare time to meddle in the lives of others.
Not sure what you're getting at here - unless having an opinion is somehow 'meddling'?
I genuinely feel sorry for the rest of us that they think they are entitled to and that they have lost (if they ever had it) any sense of proportion.
Proportion? Try this little experiement: instead of using the word 'prostitute' in that context, try substituting another group of people or person. Would a casual reference to killing a member of an ethnic group be okay? Or a policeman? A family member? A nurse? Or worse? Aren't they all (including sex workers) people?
Edited by woodbines on 05/11/2008 at 09:49
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The number of people who complained directly through some feedback mechanism to the BBC is entirely irrelevant
Not at all. Only spontaneous, unprompted, direct, immediate feedback may be automatically relevant at all. All of the other opinions expressed fall into one of two categories:
1. Those who heard it, chose not to offer a comment, but later changed their mind. In which case the opinion is irrelevant unless accompanied by a justification for the change of heart in deciding to complain after all.
2. Those who didn't even hear it but commented anyway. This amounts to "I wasn't there at the time, but I don't think other people should be allowed to hear this sort of thing even if they want to". Which is most certainly meddling and needs extremely strong justification.
- many many more expressed their dismay & disgust through the various media outlets contacts with MPs & interent fora etc. - aren't those views to be counted?
Not necesarily - see above.
Don't you ever form an opinion on media reports or news even though you haven't directly experienced it? Of course you do we all do.
Yes, although I'm careful to recognise the difference between fact and heresay when forming an opinion. But I don't suffer from the sort of unpleasant arrogance that makes people feel that their opinion is always valid for public airing regardless of how it was formed.
I genuinely feel enormous envy for those who have achieved everything they want to in their own lives such that they have the spare time to meddle in the lives of others. Not sure what you're getting at here - unless having an opinion is somehow 'meddling'?
Having an opinion isn't meddling. Failing to mind your own business and keep it to yourself can be.
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JC makes a point of being un-PC and is usually amusing. But he sometimes wanders into distasteful territory, as here. Sometimes jokes sound better live than when seen in cold print. It's the way they tell'em.
I don't admire Russell Brand and have never seen him perform for more than a minute or so. He has a faux naif come-on that I find nauseating, although it's a technique of his. Booky-wook! Tchah!
Jonathan Ross is very intelligent and actually quite a good film critic. But he has sold his soul to the devil, in the shape of the sort of audience that brays with moronic laughter at sallies like the ones that caused all the trouble. As someone says above, personal and spiteful. If Andrew Sachs had gone round with a baseball bat I would have been happy to hold his coat while he did the completely justified.
The Beeb is between a rock and a hard place on all this. Unfortunately it has to pander to an expanding audience of unpleasant, illiterate, alienated morons. By being 'edgy' and 'contemporary'.
blasphemous remark removed.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 04/11/2008 at 19:01
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Personalities who are 'un-PC', like Clarkson, are usually very choosy about their targets aren't they? Usually some group or individual who can't fight back or won't attract any public sympathy. I look forward to Clarkson being 'un-PC' about Jews or Muslims, for example - I bet I'll be waiting a long time.....
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Being un PC to Muslims and/or Jews could be seen as inciting racial hatred and result in a court appearance. Making a bad taste remarks about a group of people, one of who did murder some sex workers, may be true but it is still in very poor taste How many complaints were there when Michael Gambon told the story about why he gave up man-sex, as JC calls it? None I think beause it was patently a wind up and a very funny one at that. People being murdered is not funny in any way at all. There lies JC's error.
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Being un PC to Muslims and/or Jews could be seen as inciting racial hatred and result in a court appearance.
More to the point he'd probably finish up with his head on the end of a spike. Better to make smart cracks about soft targets. I wonder which of his script writers came up with that particular 'joke'.
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Well said, Dr Duffy, well said. I think you're dead right.
But when what he considers to be his rights are infringed - walkers near his spread on the Isle of Man - he calls in m'learned friends. Ditto Woss. All the ethics of the big boy in the playground who picks on the little ones but runs to Miss if someone turns on him.
Edited by Optimist on 04/11/2008 at 15:26
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Well said Lud - the most articulate critique of the whole thing so far. Bookie Wookie indeed.
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Well if by 'old style' you mean a programme that treats its audience like intelligent adults then maybe I do mean 'old style'. There's enough lowest-common-denominator celibri-trash on already can't we at least have a decent intelligent motoring programme.
Hear, hear! At last someone else who want something less puerile than TG. Its popularity beggars belief, really, if people find TG entertaining after so many series of the same old stuff.
A "........decent intelligent motoring programme" is what the British motoring public deserve when you consider how popular and essential cars are in our lives, today.
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"He's not the Messiah...he's a very naughty boy!"
Edited by midlifecrisis on 04/11/2008 at 16:17
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I like TG and it's unusual that i can watch and enjoy a car based programme that my wife will enjoy as well.
Yes it doesn't go into any technical depth etc, but to some that part can be boring, which is presumably why the audience figures are so much higher and why husbands can sit and watch programmes with their wives, i.e a broader appeal.
JC's lorry driver comments. Come on was it really that bad. Do we really think he has no compassion for murdered ladies of the night. Do we really think he has such a low regard for lorry drivers. I don't think so.
I don't see the comparisons with Ross/Brand and Clarkson. The first two used inappropriate humour to be very rude and hurtful to an individual about that individual's family member. Clarkson's was a broad sweeping statement in the form of black humour, which o.k. wasn't the funniest thing i've ever heard, but neither was it strikingly in poor taste IMO.
Black humour is used by many people inc the armed forces, emergency services etc to lighten a subject matter and try to find a funny side to something unpleasant. It doesn't mean they don't care etc.
Bottom line in this increasingly irritating PC world is i'd rather have more Clarkson's than a load of clones too scared to say anything.
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Bad taste ? - Probably
Sacking offence ? - no
Wrist slap ? - possibly appropriate
Move on ? - Please
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I dont buy this bit about Clarkson being some sort of jerk - he plays a persona on TG like anyone else on TV. He has a history of upsetting people but more often than not, I find him saying what otehrs think but are too spineless to say.
Having read the Hamsters book about his recovery, Clarkson's genuine concern for his fellow human being seems to be something that he keeps private.
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>>JC's lorry driver comments. Come on was it really that bad. Do we really think he has >>no compassion for murdered ladies of the night. Do we really think he has such a low >>regard for lorry drivers. I don't think so.
Well, it spoilt my enjoyment of the show. When you switch the TV on, ready to laugh and allow these people in to your home via the telly at 8pm on a sunday you are placing a bit of trust in them that they wont foul the air with this kind of stuff.
I dont think anyone is suggesting that JC has anything other than normal human compassion for those tragedies, the trouble is that humour and that situation DONT go together. It just isnt funny. I like JC - It was a mistake - we all make 'em one way or another with a big mouth.
It just makes me boggle that stuff like that gets through editing!
Cant even use the term "black humour" as that is usually a coping mechanism (illogical as that human trait is) because he has no link to those murders.
The "Joke" was a cheap non existant parallel.
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I dont think anyone is suggesting that JC has anything other than normal human compassion for those tragedies the trouble is that humour and that situation DONT go together. It just isnt funny. >>
the trouble is many people do find it funny, it's similar to laughing when someone trips over a kerb. Unless you're an awful human being, you don't really think it's hilarious that someone falls over and hurts themselves..yet you laugh out loud when they do
look at the content of some text messages nowadays...how many people have a quick chuckle, then pass it to someone they trust, before removing it before the 'thought police' find it
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I can't follow what you're saying from one post to the next.
Before you were going on about emergency services and black humour. Which of the emergency services does Clarkson belong to? What terrible event is he seeking to exorcise?
Now, "many people" find the idea of prostitutes, lorry drivers and murder funny. Who? Explain how it's funny, please, in the sense of makes you laugh rather than makes you cringe with embarrassment and in disbelief.
It's not very easy to justify the unjustifiable, that's the problem. It would have been easy for some grown-up associated with the programme to have said. No, Jeremy, over the top, Not clever. Not funny. We'll edit it out.
What thought process persuaded the editorial team to keep it in?
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Especially in the light of other events. There's a lot worse said in Have I Got News For You and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and they get away with it. Lets not be too precious about it. I laugh with the others when the Michael is extracted from my line of work - even if its tasteless.
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I can't follow what you're saying from one post to the next. Before you were going on about emergency services and black humour. Which of the emergency services does Clarkson belong to? What terrible event is he seeking to exorcise?
you don't have to be in the emergency services to find black humour funny, albeit i'd understand if it wasn't everyone's cup of tea
i remember a clip from a few years back on one of those 'funny' tv clip shows where an American news reader deperately tried to stop himself laughing and had to keep apologising before eventually losing it with a fit of laughter...because... he read out an item that a man was killed on a train because he mistook the toilet door for the outside door. In the cold light of day (and in this case this post) i don't suppose the death of an innocent train traveller is all that funny, especially when you think about his family...but at the time when watching it, it was hilarious..presumably why it got shown on that programme.. doesn't mean those that laughed are callous etc
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If I could choose the way to be remembered it would be for something like that. If my passing made someone else laugh, I'm sure it would comfort my family that my death would have cheered someone up. I mean that by the way :-)
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There's a long short story by Graham Greene about this. A boy at boarding school is called in by the headmaster to be given some grave news. The boy's father, a minor bureaucrat in British intelligence, whom the boy has always idealised as a glamorous Bond-type secret agent, has been killed in Naples. By a pig falling from a high balcony in a dilapidated building. As the headmaster tries to work round to the details, with the boy imagining a wet job by Soviet agents, the boy notices that the head is having difficulty suppressing mirth... Later, he himself deals with the funny side by being serious about the details: 'Of course, falling from such a height and coming from such an angle, having sort of ricochetted from a lower balcony, the pig... '
Very funny and, typical Grahame Greene, agonisingly cruel.
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