I missed Jeremy Clarkson on telly, although I heard recordings of it later. He said some buffoonish things on telly and people got very angry. But it sounds, from the clip that I heard, that he was being deliberately and obviously buffoonish - the words "But this is the BBC and I'd better be balanced..." or thereabouts were a bit of a clue.
And I heard the leader of a union that had been wanting to bring legal action on "PM" last night, saying that she had spoken to her lawyers but since Jeremy had said sorry, they'd take it no further. The questioner on PM was quite kind, but even under that light questioning it sounded like the "advice from the lawyers" to the union was "don't you think you're being a bit silly?"
So to summarise Jeremy Clarkson acted like an idiot and the unions jumped up and down making a fuss and attracting attention to themselves. Jeremy Clarkson - a man known for saying ludicrously right-wing things in an "ironic" manner - was invited on a programme on the day of a strike, and said something right-wing and ludicrous intended to be ironic. And was deliberately misunderstood for political effect.
Strikes me we didn't learn much here. I wonder what would have happened if it had been Jimmy Carr saying it?
Clarkson is supposed to be an idiot (or at least that's the on-screen persona he has developed, I suspect in real life he's more intelligent), why would anyone expect him to act differently?
ReplyDeleteI loath the persona that he's built but I'm supposed to! Seriously, is this it for comic irony and sarcasm? ... really?