The Top Gear Story (10 page)

Coincidentally, when Clarkson appeared on
Who Do You Think You Are?
in 2004, he’d been so disappointed at the apparent provinciality of his ancestors – who seemed to have always lived within a few miles of each other and rarely travelled – that he declared: ‘I’m the product of 200 years of interbreeding, I’m surprised I haven’t got one eye!’

Despite the clamour for his scalp, the BBC refused to sack the presenter and simply stated that he had apologised and no further action would be taken because of this. They were then accused of hypocrisy since Carol Thatcher had been axed from her role on
The One Show
for one particular off-air comment.

Then in the summer of 2009, Clarkson’s venom for Brown was circulated once more as he was allegedly overheard to make an off-air remark in which he described the PM as ‘a silly cunt’. There were media reports at the time of a disagreement with a top BBC executive but the Corporation denied that he had been chastised.

Clarkson’s outspoken ways occasionally backfire. In October 2007, a serious breach of data occurred when two computer discs owned by HM Revenue and Customs containing the personal details of those families claiming child benefit in the United Kingdom went missing. In all the ensuing frenzy lambasting the loss of data and the sense of panic about what harm could be done, should the information fall into the wrong hands, Clarkson announced that it was an over-reaction typical of
the over-suffocating Data Protection Act of 1998: ‘All you’ll be able to do with them is put money into my account, not take it out. Honestly, I’ve never known such a palaver about nothing.’ And to prove it, he published his bank details in the
Sun
, as well as information about how to find out his home address. Shortly afterwards, it transpired that a third party had set up a £500-
a-month
direct debit from his account to Diabetes UK; also that this person’s identity was protected by the very same act that Clarkson had been railing against.

In his following week’s
Sunday Times
column Clarkson admitted that he had been wrong. Fraud expert Andreas Baumhof of online fraud protection company Trust Defender commented at the time: ‘He probably thought, “What can you do with this personal information?” and he got screwed straightaway because they can do a lot of things with this. He was pretty open and published all this information in the article, but a lot of people give out a lot of information on things like social networking sites that on their own is not very valuable but when you combine all these details with other information, they can become really valuable.’

At a motor show appearance on stage with Formula 1’s David Coulthard, another of Clarkson’s comments came back to bite him. In an exclusive interview for this book, Coulthard said: ‘I was speaking alongside Jeremy, and only a few days before in his column he’d said some fairly unkind things about me, I think one of them was that I reminded him of an alien! As he was talking to the crowd, I interrupted him and said, “What I really want to talk to you about, Jeremy, is why you said I look like an alien!” I got my own back, but he took it in great spirit and it was all good fun.’

Coulthard would later get the ultimate revenge in Series 14 of
Top Gear
when he appeared in a feature on F1 art. As well as an
exhibition of motorsport paintings judged by the series trio, there were various other exhibits of car-related sculpture and art, including pieces the presenters had to make themselves, with varying degrees of success/abject failure (James May’s metal sculpture actually set on fire). They were also challenged to run the PR for the art show to achieve a record number through the gallery’s doors, which after much stumbling and ramshackle attempts at advertising, they eventually succeeded in doing.

Clarkson also tried to create some art using a Red Bull Formula 1 car, one example of which was to spray-paint it
ultra-violet
, then send it round a track so that the wind blew the fluid all over the aerodynamic curves, after which they could create a luminous piece of art from the result. Another idea called upon Coulthard to sit in his racing car while the exhaust pipes were filled with paintballs. Then, with Jeremy standing behind the car, DC pressed the throttle and out flew various paint pellets at high speed. Unfortunately for Clarkson, the canvas he was holding in front of his wedding tackle proved too fragile to stop the speeding bullets of paint. ‘It was great,’ recalls Coulthard, ‘because I got to do what all the car manufacturers and press offices would love to do, which is to shoot Jeremy Clarkson in the testicles!’

If Clarkson were to run the country, he might want to get someone else to look after the Foreign Office (international relations are probably not his strong point). Ask the staff from a Hyundai UK stand at a motor show, who claimed he’d said they were ‘eating a dog’. In 2007, headlines such as Clarkson Offends Malaysia followed a piece that declared one of that country’s cars to be the worst in the world. Clarkson called the Perodua Kelisa ‘unimaginative junk, with no soul, no flair and no passion’ and set about it with a sledgehammer, then hung it from a crane and blew it up. Writing on
Times Online
, Clarkson went on to say, ‘The
inside is tackier than Anthea Turner’s wedding and you don’t want to think what would happen if it bumped into a lamppost. Also, its name sounds like a disease.’

Jeremy usually refers to inhabitants of France as ‘Frenchists’ (May has also said he finds France ‘intensely irritating’) and any review of an Italian/German/French car is inevitably peppered with descriptions revolving around the more colourful – and comic – national stereotypes. Thus Clarkson regards most German cars as too serious, lacking humour, Italian cars are fiery and unpredictable but have soul, Scandinavian cars are very precise, American cars too muscle-bound and loud … and so on. This is perhaps not surprising since the presenter has conjectured some machines have souls and cites the loss of Concorde as an example. (Note: he was actually a passenger on board the
last-ever
British Airways Concorde flight in October 2003.)

When Clarkson was reporting on the Tokyo Motor Show in 2005, he made comments about foreigners that typify both his sense of humour and also the rabid reaction these remarks often provoke. He was sitting with Richard Hammond as the latter suggested that to emphasise the new Mini estate was ‘quintessentially British’, they should have supplied it with teabags and teaspoons. To which Clarkson added his penny’s worth, saying they should make a car that’s quintessentially German … giving it ‘trafficators that go like this [he imitated a Nazi salute] … a SatNav that only goes to Poland … und ein fan belt that lasts a thousand years!’ (This comment took place in the studio and was part of an ad hoc improvised chat about the motor show rather than some scripted gag.)

That very night, the BBC received numerous complaints about those particular comments, including one that said Clarkson’s words were ‘poisonous rubbish’ and ‘a racist slur’. Initially the head of editorial complaints did not uphold this particular one
but the disgruntled viewer then took it further. The BBC Board of Governors is responsible for overseeing the running of the Beeb and also ensures that the Corporation serves the public interest, given it is licence fee funded. They are also responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of complaints handled by the BBC. Their case notes are incredibly formal (as they need to be) but reads rather incongruously when you see the actual off-the-cuff exchange between Clarkson and May, thousands of miles away from Broadcasting House then hauled up, written out and analysed verbatim. Still, there is a formal process to follow.

There are many parameters against which the Board of Governors have to quantify a complaint, but perhaps the key issue here – as in the majority of the complaints against
Top Gear
– is whether the BBC demonstrates ‘a clear editorial purpose’ in the offensive comments or actions while also taking into account the potential age of the audience, its composition and expectations.

Ultimately, the Committee decided the audience would have understood the jokes ‘as an established element of [Clarkson’s] television persona’ and that Clarkson ‘often uses the most exaggerated stereotypes to support or defend his opinions and would not have taken his comments seriously.’ The complaint was therefore not upheld.

It is many, many years since the show had been a dry magazine review programme and a viewer would have to live in a cave not to know that Clarkson and Co. were often outspoken. Even as far back as 2002, the presenter had filmed a five-part series called
Jeremy
Clarkson Meets The Neighbours
, in which he travelled around Europe in a Jaguar E-Type meeting various nationalities and usually coming home with a reinforced view of his own personal stereotype. While there is no doubt that some of the team’s comments might be offensive to some, it does beg the question: why are these viewers watching
Top Gear
in the first place?

Regardless of the light-hearted nature of the PM petition and Clarkson’s frequent comical observations about our overseas friends, through his role on
Top Gear
and his hugely popular column in
The Times
, Jezza is, reluctantly or not, a political figure. On one occasion, this proved very much the case when he was confronted by a gang of ‘hoodies’.

In the December of 2007, Clarkson left the quietude of his blissfully sleepy English home in Chipping Norton to take his daughter and her friends for a birthday party in Milton Keynes’ snow dome, Xscape. By his own admission, his local paper considers it has something of a scoop if a kitten goes missing, but the urban landscape of Milton Keynes is altogether a different place.

Clarkson had snuck outside like the naughty schoolboy he still is to have a crafty cigarette when he noticed a small gang of ‘youths’ approaching him. Writing in his
Times
column, he revealed that at first he assumed they were just
Top Gear
fans but the atmosphere quickly changed to something rather more sinister when they asked if he had any personal security guards with him. He suddenly realised events might not be so innocent and politely asked them to leave him alone. But they didn’t: as he started to walk away, they followed him.

It’s worth bearing in mind here that what strikes you most of all when you see Jeremy Clarkson in the flesh is just how tall he is. He has an abundance of confidence and is famously brash and outspoken but at the same time, having such a large stature (he’s just one inch below legally being declared a giant!) must boost his self-belief, should this ever be challenged or waiver. Yet all this seemed not to matter one iota to these youths.

Obviously unsettled, Clarkson decided to grab the ringleader by his hoodie and lifted him off the ground, telling him it would be best if he left. But he didn’t leave; nor did his mates. At this
point, Jeremy admitted that he was finding it hard to tell if the kid was 18 or 8 years of age – and if anywhere near the latter, then the countless photos that the hoodies were taking on their mobile phones might prove damning in the papers the next day. He put the youth down and after being sworn at and having various gestures thrown his way, the gang retreated back to wherever they’d come from. However, a 14-year-old girl later contacted Thames Valley Police to inform them that a man had been abusive to her friend.

Thames Valley looked into the unpleasant incident and even interviewed Clarkson as part of their procedures. Ultimately, they stated that not only did he do nothing wrong, if anything he was the victim. Police also spoke to witnesses at the centre who told them that the group of youths had been warned away by security staff earlier that day. A police spokesman said: ‘Mobile phone images were viewed as well as CCTV footage and it became apparent that, if any offence had occurred, it was the man who was the victim. There is no evidence that a crime took place and therefore there will be no police action.’ Meanwhile, Clarkson said he did not wish to make a complaint.

The situation outside the snow dome in Milton Keynes must have been threatening because Jeremy is not easily frightened. After all, he’s been in fighter jets, supercars and endless automotive bumps and scrapes. Even when he describes something on-screen as ‘terrifying’, there’s the sense that he doesn’t really think so. In a fans’ Q&A in 2005, he was asked what would truly scare him and his response was indeed chilling: ‘Being left with a baby with a full nappy to change.’

For a Series 3 feature on boy racers ‘cruisin”, he went along to the legendary Ace Café, just off the North Circular in northwest London to spend an evening of testosterone and burning rubber with the leading racers
du jour
. Originally a Mecca for old-school
Café racers on classic motorbikes, who used to pelt up and down the main road trying to achieve the magic 100mph (hence the nickname for some of them, ‘Ton Up Boys’), the venue has since evolved and now attracts a variety of car and bike clubs, who put on monthly nights as well as annual events. In this case, it was a so-called ‘Maxin’ Relaxin” night and the general demographic predominantly young, urban lads (Asians, West Indians and whites in equal measure). And there was a point to the location: Citroën had given away free insurance to many seventeen-year-olds as part of an incentive package and with premiums for teenagers rising into thousands of pounds year on year, this proved a canny sales tactic, creating a virtual car subculture overnight.

The car park was rammed with drivers showing off their beautifully customised and cherished vehicles. For many this might be an intimidating atmosphere, but Clarkson seemed genuinely in his element and far from uncomfortable, he actually enjoyed poking a little fun at their language and was clearly endeared by the jubilant atmosphere. When one of the kids told him, ‘It’s about flexin’, man!’, Clarkson merrily ridiculed him but in return the Citroën owners were laughing and jibing him back – it was all genuinely good fun.

In the week following the Milton Keynes incident, writing in his
Sunday Times
column, Clarkson used the altercation to make a powerful point: that in his opinion, Britain’s suburban towns and cities are awash with similar feral youth. Clearly he had been riled and lambasted those parents who claim
troublemakers
are ‘good boys’, saying if a young lad gets stabbed or shot, ‘If he was such a frigging angel, what was he doing on a derelict building site at four in the morning, you halfwits? He didn’t deserve to die, for sure, but you do, for having the parenting skills of a Welsh dresser.’