No way in hell this was a coincidence. In typical TG fashion, they wanted to stir up shit just to get a reaction and some interesting footage for the show. They didn’t anticipate being chased out by a mob with torches and pitchforks, but I somehow doubt they’re terribly disappointed at how it all ended up and possibly it’s even more than they hoped for.
Still love the show and honestly, fuck 'em if they can’t take a joke.
Memories of Top Gear in Alabama.
60 Minutes segment from a quick interview with TG about that. Evidently they were chased for 2 hours.
So I can see somebody in that team figuring a way to cause some drama. If this is a plate from back home wouldn’t it be easy to figure it out? Head to the DMV and check records?
Since the rest of the number plate is FLK I’m not surprised that peole “went looking for it”. I dare say I982 FLK was unobtainable. Of course Clarkson and his production team knew what they were doing. Implausible deniability.
Goodness, they could have at least waited until the Royal Navy has its carrier and planes in order.
What’s the name for the (strong) tendency of the brain to pick out patterns whether they exist or not? Ah, yes, pareidolia.
Faces on Mars, license plates niggling at apparently overly-sensitive people.
H982FLK? Really? I guess the take-away here (SDMB) is that bombastic hosts can cause Occam’s Razor to swing in CT directions.
Looking it up here https://www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/ - seems like the plate is attached to the original vehicle
Seems like a lot of work to find a Top Gear appropriate vehicle with a vaguely trolltastic plate.
People, it’s Top Gear, which means that the whole “chased by mob” part is just as staged and fake as the insistence that the choice of plate was a “coincidence”. Not that they won’t try to pass it all off as “real” when the episode airs, obviously.
I think that whole schtick is getting old, but maybe it’s just me.
I’m seeing a lot of evidence that it wasn’t faked on one side, and on the other side…maybe it’s just you?
Also a lot of people in this thread have been getting the registration wrong. It’s FKL not FLK which (arguably) makes it look even less like it’s supposed to say “Falkland”
On the other hand I can barely think of a UK licence plate more likely to give offence in Argentina than the plate in question. Neither can I think of a tv show more likely to try such a stunt as this.
Top Gear gets loads of free publicity from this stunt, Clarkson gets another kicking from certain media outlets who love to hate on him, and he once again cements his reputation within a certain section of British lad culture. Everyone’s a winner.
Remember the Top Gear India episode where they hung “promotional banners” on the side of a train that ripped apart when the train cars decoupled, so the banner then “accidentally” read “Shit for your company”?
This sort of controversial “oopsie” is part of how Top Gear generates free publicity. The “laddish” core of their fanbase is tickled at the notion of seeing the “darkies and wogs” get all upset while Clarkson smirks about “unintentional” or “just a joke”.
If this Argentina incident really is a rare occurrence of Top Gear’s unintentionally offending somebody with an unforeseen misunderstanding while being completely innocent of any intent to offend, there’s an element of “boy who cried wolf” about it. Since everybody knows that Top Gear specializes in engineering provocative “coincidences” or “jokes” that piss off the locals, it’s foolish to expect the locals to believe that anything Top Gear does that happens to piss them off could possibly have been truly unintentional or coincidental.
Jeremy Clarkson is rapidly approaching the point where any self-respecting foreigners will be likely to furiously punch him in the nuts if Clarkson so much as says “Nice day” to them on camera, because they’ll just assume there’s an insult in there somewhere. And you can’t entirely blame people for being too quick to take offense if you’ve spent a significant portion of your career deliberately saying and doing things you hope will offend them.
Much of that is fair enough, though I do like Clarkson. He’s something a bit different in today’s PC dominated television output. I also applaud your desire for violence against the man. The next time any Argentinian group unfurls a Malvinas flag in the UK lets hope they all get a good kicking from local chavs.
Oh, I’m not saying that Clarkson isn’t likeable much of the time, and he’s also funny much of the time, and knows what he’s talking about with respect to cars much of the time. But he has deliberately built much of his schtick on attempts to coyly accidentally-on-purpose piss people off. So he can’t really complain if people think he’s trying to piss them off even when he’s not.
Sounds like you’re the one who’s projecting the “desire for violence” there, pal. I do not endorse or approve of anybody committing violence against Clarkson or any other provocatively offensive jerk. I’m just pointing out that somebody who spends a fair bit of his working life obviously hoping to offend and insult others will find those others growing ever more quick to take offense at him.
Except they’re just as offensive against white British people and other segments of society, I don’t think racism really comes into it. They’re equal-opportunity offenders.
Re-edited to add that the ‘slope on the bridge’ crack did make me lose some respect for him, that wasn’t funny, just nasty. Though I didn’t know it was an ethnic slur when I watched the episode. Just as I was previously unaware that there was a racist version of the ‘eeny-meeny-minnie-mo’ rhyme (it was actually a Straightdope thread that made me realise that one)
I’m not claiming that the Top Gear folks themselves are racist or jingoist, but I think it’s primarily the high-octane racist-insult and foreigner-putdown controversies that keep their notoriety kettle a-bubbling. They wouldn’t be generating such lucrative fuss-and-scandal with only tired old wheezes about lorry drivers and politicians.
You may have a point.
The trouble with this is that we (the UK) have a very sensitive relationship with Argentina, and now the state broadcaster is associated with a stunt allegedly designed to offend them. Clarkson’s public declarations that the whole thing was actually cooked up by the Argentinian government is hardly helpful to that delicate relationship. He’s a moron, and I’m personally sick of paying him.
…and Caravaners! Can’t forget the Caravaners!
I doubt the state broadcaster issue is much of a problem. Or it shouldn’t be. Anyone in their right minds know this stunt was by Clarkson and Top Gear not the BBC. If the Argentinians cannot, or are unwilling to make that distinction then we should not be bending over backwards to explain it. The Argies are overly sensitive about such things.
Oh, c’mon. It’s Jeremy Fucking Clarkson! Of course he did it on purpose.