Jeremy Clarkson is a very naughty boy

I was reading on the Beeb’s news site today that Top Gear are in trouble again.  Why is this news again? Top Gear are always in trouble aren’t they?  Isn’t that the point of the whole show? That somewhere, every week someone else in the world is pissed off by Jeremy Clarkson and writes a stiff letter of complaint to the BBC.  I’ve only been a devotee of Top Gear for a few years but here are some of the things they’ve been in trouble for that I can remember:

1. Upsetting people who like caravans and caravan clubs.
2. Driving too fast and doing handbrake turns in car parks.
3. Only showing nice, expensive cars that people actually aspire to buy rather than mundane Japanese boxes that everyone has to buy because the nice, expensive cars are too expensive.
4. Almost killing Richard Hammond.
5. Not taking the fuel crisis seriously by still insisting on driving cars in a programme about driving cars, cars which need to be fueled by petrol. Out bloody rageous.
6. Encouraging people to question stupid road laws that are clearly only in place so that the police have got some money for a trip to Bridlington and a go on the donkeys every year.
7. Blowing things up indiscriminately, particularly caravans.

Shocking, I agree.  I’m amazed that I haven’t gone blind, broken twenty seven laws of the land, driven too fast in a car which I don’t have a driving licence to drive and blown up the local police station in retaliation, because television is so influential in my life.  Although I have to admit to a loathing for caravans and the world of caravaning.  That is however, something I’ve had since my parents forced me to go on a caravaning holiday in Bourton on the Water with my new born brother in a heatwave in 1976, and has nothing to do with Top Gear, because it wasn’t even on then.  Admittedly it is nice to see someone on television endorsing my prejudices, but that’s as far as it goes.

So why haven’t I turned into a speed freak petrol head yet, just because I like watching Top Gear on a Sunday evening?  In fact, if it’s such an influential programme, how come I still haven’t got the bottle to pick up the phone and call the driving instructor to start lessons again?  Come on Jezza.  You’re just not trying hard enough.

Oh yes!I forgot! It’s because I know that television is for entertainment purposes and that Top Gear is not a documentary programme version of the ‘how to live your life in an orderly fashion,’ manual.  Odd how many people don’t see it the same way.  Perhaps people who have already had their minds melted once by an evil cult programme such as Blue Peter (’fifty years I’ve been looking for sticky back plastic.  It’s ruined my life’.) and have lost their already tenuous grip on reality and have decided to blame Jeremy Clarkson and his caravan phobia for all their earthly troubles.

Here are some things I think they’re probably going to get into trouble for shortly:

1. Impersonating police officers.
2. Not killing James May.
3. Encouraging people to drive backwards in shagged out old bangers (see their new ‘crap stunt man’ spot).
4. Not featuring cars driven by Valerie (So What if you shagged Peter Purves! I’d have been more impressed if you’d gone for Petra) Singleton made out of sticky back plastic.
5. Criminally enjoying themselves when they should be making searing documentary style programming about the Honda Civic and the rising oil prices.

So, what’s the new thing they’ve gone and done, I hear you cry?  Well, you’ll be amazed to know that it isn’t even something recent.  A while ago they made a programme where they raced to one of the poles. James and Jeremy went in a car, and Richard Hammond went on a husky sled.  During the programme James and Jeremy drank some alcohol as they were driving along, because they were outside of the law on whichever god forsaken lump of snow they were bouncing along and because it made for some rather entertaining television as they tried to mix drinks in minus x degrees and mittens.  Apparently there were several complaints that this reckless behaviour glamourised drink driving and would entice the feckless youth of today to start opening cocktail bars in the back of their Citroen Saxa’s as they were jouncing along the M25.

It has taken months of television licence payers money to find out that they were indeed very naughty and that nobody, but nobody must try and shoot Tequila Slammers in the back of a Toyota Prius, even if they are reducing their carbon footprint in the process.  It is especially dangerous to get shit faced and then drive to the North or South Pole in a Ford Ka, and anyone who tries it only has Jeremy Clarkson to blame.  So, if you want to do it and get off using the ‘extenuating circumstances’ card, I should do it now before all the fuss dies down.  Off you go, and don’t forget your vest and some very warm pants.

The other thing that they got into trouble for was showing a photograph of a frostbitten penis on the same programme.  Apparently it was unsightly! No! Really! I’m stunned.  I thought this was the only reason Rannulph Fiennes was able to keep such an extensive harem of nubile young fillie.  Apparently he kept giving them a glimpse of his frostbitten nether regions and they were so smitten they’d do anything for him!  Who wouldn’t for God’s sake?

The official regulators of such complaints have not upheld this particular complaint. They agree with Top Gear spokesperson who points out that the picture was shown because it was a relevant, scientific part of the documentary that they were making and not shown for the purposes of sexual titillation.  Now I’m sorry, but anyone who finds the sight of a frostbitten penis sexually arousing has more problems than getting rid of Top Gear alone is going to solve.  It looked like an exploded slug in a microwave.

Despite this cunning excuse for flashing some poor devil’s mangled nether regions on your televisual viewing device,  you can’t tell me that they put that picture in for ’scientific’ purposes.  They put that picture in because it was gross and hilarious and they fancied a good laugh.  Because that’s what Top Gear is all about at the end of the day, that and frost bitten willies.  It’s an excuse for three giant (well two and one midget) adolescents with driving licences, mucking about and having a brilliant time, while getting paid for it.  And I can’t see anything wrong with that, specially not when you compare it with something like Midsummer Murders or Heartbeat.  More petrol, more penises, more power to their naughty elbows.