# Top Gear's Clarkson suspended **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 10, 2015, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713 "2015-03-10T18:29:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/41 "2015-03-11T20:01:29Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > The expression on Jeremy’s face during that scene… It’s that kind of scene that shows Jeremy plkaying jokes on himself. He takes it as hard as he gives it. Not only would Top Gear not work without Clarkson, I can’t imagine James or Richard hosting it without him, even with his full blessing. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/42 "2015-03-11T20:14:25Z")
I’ll miss Jeremy far more than I’ve missed Stephen Colbert. ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/43 "2015-03-11T20:18:11Z")
I laughed at the Peugeot segment, and it would have been even funnier if it had been 4-5 minutes shorter. Even now, the mental image of Jeremy obliviously hunched over the steering wheel with the engine roaring because he’s driving in too low a gear cracks me up. Also, introducing the car with, “This one caught fire, but the fire’s out now, so that’s OK.” I don’t think this season has been any worse than any other. And I love the show. But all I can think right now, a la James May, is “Clarkson, you pillock!” I like the guy, but it’s not as if he hasn’t had ample warning that some of his behavior is wearing thin with the higher-ups. If his lack of impulse control costs me the last 3 episodes of this season, I’m going to be quite pissed. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/44 "2015-03-11T21:24:04Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Are they following you around or something? In my mind… ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/45 "2015-03-11T21:47:27Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > Has it seemed to anyone else that this season of Top Gear (and last season, to be honest) seem rather uninspired? The episode where Jeremy and James just drove around in Peugeots acting like they’d never driven cars before was just…well, dumb. Right after the Great Stig Treason, the show went downhill very deeply indeed. Their whole episode with Australian Top Gear just seemed like a chance to bully the Aussies, and not in a pleasant way and the seasons following just seemed to recycle older content. This season is the first one in a while where they’ve seemed to have some good, original(ish) content. I think that they are running into the problem that the hosts are getting a little too old to do a lot of the stunts that would seem to naturally follow, so it feels like they’re getting right up against something exciting and then backing down just before it. I hope that they keep going, but at the same time I think that it wouldn’t be a bad time for them to quit either. I wanted them to just focus on doing the specials, but (as said) it seems like they’re not physically fit enough to do it properly any more. Probably what they should do is brainstorm up a new show about people going out exploring and getting into trouble around the world, cast some younger hosts, and just produce and direct it. The trio have a good chemistry that I think would translate into forming a good production team. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/46 "2015-03-11T22:22:42Z")
> [@leftfield6](#): > > i guess what i’m saying is that oafish, domineering, loud-mouth behavior on television is certainly not limited to clarkson in particular, or the british in general. hear hear! ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/47 "2015-03-11T22:43:57Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I wanted them to just focus on doing the specials, but (as said) it seems like they’re not physically fit enough to do it properly any more. Clarkson is 54. He looks a lot older than that. _does a drinking gesture mime_ ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/48 "2015-03-11T23:38:56Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Right after the Great Stig Treason, the show went downhill very deeply indeed. What was the great Stig treason? ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/49 "2015-03-11T23:50:07Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > Has it seemed to anyone else that this season of Top Gear (and last season, to be honest) seem rather uninspired? The episode where Jeremy and James just drove around in Peugeots acting like they’d never driven cars before was just…well, dumb. Eye of the beholder and all that, while I found that section moderately amusing a colleague of mine thought it was some of the funniest television he’s ever seen. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I wanted them to just focus on doing the specials, but (as said) it seems like they’re not physically fit enough to do it properly any more. And I’ve started to find the ‘specials’ and ‘wacky tests’ to wear a bit thin and hoped they’d revert to doing more straight car-reviews and tests. I suppose it just shows how hard it is to please everyone! As for Clarkson I find him generally amusing but he definitely does go too far at times, though ‘too far’ is a very subjective thing. ---
**Author:** ![DeptfordX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DeptfordX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeptfordX)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/50 "2015-03-11T23:55:41Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Clarkson is 54. He looks a lot older than that. _does a drinking gesture mime_ Someone asked this of me today and we looked it up. We were both astonished to see he was only 54. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/51 "2015-03-12T00:40:41Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Clarkson is 54. He looks a lot older than that. _does a drinking gesture mime_ Well I mean “old” in the sense of how healthy and physically capable you are, based on your life choices, rather than as a hard number. I suspect that smoking has done them more harm than drinking, though I suppose I don’t really know. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/52 "2015-03-12T00:42:30Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > What was the great Stig treason? > **[BBC v HarperCollins Publishers Ltd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_v_HarperCollins_Publishers_Ltd)** > > BBC v HarperCollins (2010) EWHC 2424 was a 2010 case in English law, in which the BBC applied for an injunction to prevent HarperCollins publishing a book by Ben Collins, which was to reveal his identity as the racing driver known as 'The Stig' on the BBC's Top Gear programme. > The BBC was not granted the injunction. HarperCollins thus released the book in September 2010. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/53 "2015-03-12T00:42:37Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > What was the great Stig treason? The guy who was Stig got [frustrated with his anonymity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Collins_%28racing_driver%29#The_Stig) and a few other things, so revealed himself (without the BBC’s permission), and wrote a book about it. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/54 "2015-03-12T00:44:32Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > What was the great Stig treason? [Ben Collins](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Collins_%28racing_driver%29) writing an autobiography revealing himself as one of the incarnations of The Stig, along with other revelations about the show. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/55 "2015-03-12T00:54:07Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I’ll miss Jeremy far more than I’ve missed Stephen Colbert. I’ll second that and throw in every former Doctor there ever has been. OK – except maybe number seven. Who else can introduce the Stig the way he does, writers or now. “Some say that to unlock him you have to run your finger down his face, like that. And that if he were getting divorced from Paul McCartney he’d keep his stupid whining mouth shut. All we know is he’s called the Stig.” ---
**Author:** ![Tabby\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/56 "2015-03-12T01:20:08Z")
I’d rather watch James May. In fact, I quite liked his Manlab series, as well as the series he did on old toys like Lego and Meccano. Love the guy! ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/57 "2015-03-12T01:35:31Z")
> [@Tabby\_Cat](#): > > I’d rather watch James May. In fact, I quite liked his Manlab series, as well as the series he did on old toys like Lego and Meccano. Love the guy! I saw his toy series and thought that it fell a bit flat. The fundamental ideas were cool, but each of the big builds just seemed to result in something more like an art piece than an “awesome object”. Like, they build the lego house and, after they are done, simply show some panoramas of the interior. They don’t set it up with working plumbing, they don’t showcase what life would be like living in the house, they don’t try and take advantage of the fact that it’s a lego house to improve livability in any way (even if on the whole the overall livability would be lower, there’s got to be at least one or two things that you can do by virtue of lego that you couldn’t otherwise). Basically, the show would just get to the part where all the questions you had could finally be tested, and instead they would just snap a picture and call it a day, without performing any of the practical tests. So overall the show was “fine” but not exceptional. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/58 "2015-03-12T04:01:13Z")
> [@DeptfordX](#): > > Someone asked this of me today and we looked it up. We were both astonished to see he was only 54. It’s not the years, it’s the mileage. > [@kopek](#): > > Who else can introduce the Stig the way he does, writers or now. Some say that he is allergic to vowels. And that he still bears the scar from the time a lug nut got cross-threaded on his penis. All we know is, he’s called Th Stg! ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/59 "2015-03-12T05:41:00Z")
The Clarkson character is just that - a character. He plays a loud-mouthed ignorant moron. Like the best characters it’s basically a severely exaggerated version of himself. He gave it away once on QI - when talking about driving the Robin Reliant (3-wheeler) and rolling it constantly, he mentioned that he received dozens of letters from the Robin Reliant fan clubs criticizing his driving style and telling him what he should have done - which, as Clarkson said ‘Would have meant a very dull show. The whole point was to be an idiot and roll it’. Top Gear is a comedy show about a loud-mouthed idiot, a hyper-active idiot, and a stuck-up, old-fart idiot. Criticising the characters is like criticizing the Skipper off Gilligan’s Island for not representing WW2 veterans accurately. If he has belted someone at work, however - he’s a dick. Whether that means he loses his job, is up to his employer. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713/60 "2015-03-12T08:57:36Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > It’s not “technical.” Ok, I was trying to distinguish between a shove and a punch, to me two very different things and assault is a term people usually use when referring to a punch. And people continue to assume that he has punched the other person. British press now definitely uses ‘allegedly’ now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gears-clarkson-suspended/714713.md?page=4)