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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be bemused by the reaction to Jeremy Clarkson's strike comments

153 replies

fizzwhirl · 02/12/2011 09:30

I mean, have the people who are getting all wound up about it actually watched it?

He was being completely tongue-in-cheek. He starts off by saying how nice it's been to have empty streets. Then pretends to pull himself up with the comment that 'we have to balance it though don't we, because this is the bbc', and then he makes up the most extreme anti-striker view he can think of, which is what everyone is quoting.

Even if you took it literally (which would be a very strange thing to do!), he explicitely says that it's not his view.

IT WAS IRONY!

The generous part of me wonders whether the unions are just upset because he was being rather dismissive of the effect of the strikes - he certainly wasn't being respectful and taking them seriously. But I can't help thinking that actually they're just showing genuine inability to evaluate and understand.

Karen Jennings from Unison said it was almost like Gadafi making a comment about a demonstration! And she was being serious!!! Riighhhtt... so, a celebrity making a joke is the same thing as a dictator using foreign mercanaries to slaughter his people?! I suspect the Libyans would have preferred Jeremy Clarkson...

Personally, I think it's Karen Jennings who should be sacked - not for making a comment which is more offensive than the one Jeremy Clarkson made, but just for not having the slightest clue!

OP posts:

AlpinePony · 02/12/2011 18:48

I think it's a wonderfully quick way to build a list of the terminally stupid.

orienteerer · 02/12/2011 20:49

Pleaseeee, he was being ironic/joking...however you want to interpret it. He is actually an intelligent man with a good sense of humour...........lets all lighten up a bit please.

stinkingbishop · 02/12/2011 21:09

And while we're at it, can all union officials on TV/radio stop referring to taxes 'going into George Osborne's coffers'. You are looking like FOOLS. It's not his Meribel fund. It is THE STATE that pays for schools, NHS, gosh, even the stipends that go to union officials. Where my tax goes too. Weird, huh?

Soooo tempted to call up one of t'red tops and sell a story about the lots-in-the-news-now chap who runs one-of-the-biggest-unions for whom I was doing a bit of consultanc,y taking me out for a 'chat', trying to ply me with champagne, and then pocketing the receipt for 3 bottles of which I had precisely one glass, which he obviously intended to claim back on expenses - funded, not out of 'George Osborne's coffers' but his members' hard won subs.

Go Clarko.

MoreBeta · 02/12/2011 21:16

I just watched the whole clip on HIGNFY including the part that went before when JC said the strike was good. It is absolutely clear that the entire thing was scripted and set up as a joke.

It is disgraceful that the BBC have not seen fit to put the entire programme up on iPlayer so everyone can make their own mind up. It is also a disgrace that the news channels have not been playing the entire clip and that unions have continuously quoted the segment out of context.

MustControlMincepieOfDeath · 02/12/2011 22:07

''...I just wanted to say that we had the telly on the other night, and for a few minutes it was the One show. I remember walking through the room, and seeing JC on it...''

Jane stop pretending you weren't sat watching it with a nice cuppa

muffinino82 · 02/12/2011 22:08

I'm bemused by the reaction and I'm a pickett-ee who should be taken out and shot!

Deadsouls · 02/12/2011 22:10

YANBU the overeaction is completely daft

dancingmustard · 02/12/2011 22:10

Someone sneaked into the UK and stole everyone's sense of humour as we slept.
JC made a joke which obviously wasn't a threat.
Then oodles of people who probably never saw it probably out xmas shopping and decided they were offended retrospectively.

microcow · 02/12/2011 22:12

someone stole the uk's sense of humour years ago if we're looking at clarkson as a comedian

he's an old git who needs to be taken to the nicholas parsons home for old tv bores then shot

calamityboo · 02/12/2011 22:55

I love Jezza - i watched the whole thing and when they appologised i had to rewind and find out why because i didnt hear anything that offended me, as a lot of posters have said, if you watch the whole clip it is just funny! Also since then i have been wathcing other shows, and heard other celebs make comments like stephen fry on QI saying that people should be stabbed with a rusty knife - any complaints?? no coz it was funny!!!!!!!!!!!

SirCharles · 03/12/2011 00:51

I love this whole debate. I especially like the demands to sack him..... Is he going to sack himself?! I seem to remember his production company makes Top Gear & sells it to the BBC which then makes loads of money on selling it.... I don't think the BBC can sack him!

This whole debacle makes me laugh. Surely the unions have more important things to focus on than silly JC & his scripted comments?!

AlpinePony · 03/12/2011 05:39

calamity I saw the Stephen fry thing too and was 'wtf? Hypocritical much?'. All utterly mental.

Although I'll gladly hug and make a nice cup of tea for anyone genuinely cowering in fear under their kitchen table thinking jc is about to burst through the back door with a sawn-off shotgun!

FellatioNelson · 03/12/2011 05:52

Yes, I agree with Deck too.

LtEveDallas · 03/12/2011 05:58

I like the FB quote:

21,335 people have complained about Jeremy Clarkson's qoute on The One Show.

Well that's 21,335 people that clearly need to get laid.

Chandon · 03/12/2011 08:50

I am soooo glad about this thread! even before seeing the clip in context (it was an eye opener when they showed it in context on "Have I got news for you"!) I guesses it was hyperbole, and I thought the reactions pathetic.

I would really worry if I had woken up to a thread by outraged MN ers.

So relieved somehow

JaneBirkin · 03/12/2011 08:52

LOL that I was sat watching it

Wellllll......

No, you'd have to pay me a fortune. The kids are in control of the TV here. I make them turn it round when Hollyoaks comes on as I refuse to have that shite played in my home.
Other than that they're kind of free to watch whatever they want...often it just gets left running while they bugger off and put on a DVD in the other room.

Animation · 03/12/2011 09:23

Jane - methinks you might protest too much.

BendyBob · 03/12/2011 09:29

Clarkson you have a detention. Stay in behind after The One Show and write 100 times 'I must not upset the public sector'.

Love JC! I saw it and laughed; he was being ironic or flippant or.. just JC .

But I've laughed more at the reaction it's got. God what a load of precious ninnies leaping on any opportunity to be offended. Hilarious

And the interesting thing is this is starting to overshadow the strike. This has caused more of a stir than the actual strike. Many striking people may not think JC's comments were upsetting at all, but for good or bad the union's reaction does represent them.

DesertOrchid · 03/12/2011 14:00

Of course the same reaction did not occur when Ken Livingstone said that George Osborne should be hanged... I wonder why?

noddyholder · 03/12/2011 14:39

He somewhat loses his say what everyone else is thinking when you read today it was all worked out with the shows producers before hand

slug · 05/12/2011 12:53

I just question your sense of humour. I'm the one who objects to "jokes" being made about my breasts when I walk down the street. I get told to 'lighten up' and 'learn to take a joke'. I also object to men making jokes about my daughter's impending puberty. Again I get told to "learn to take a joke" and that I should be flattered that she's so sexually attractive (she's 10 ffs). Or when a guy with notoriouly wandering hands would try to cop a feel I was supposed to just accept that "that's the way he is".

And when my 10 year old, who loves the One Show (I didn't manage to instill taste in her ) sees a man she does not know (because Jezza is banned from our telly) proclaiming that striking workers should be shot in front of their family, she looked at her father and burst into tears. How do you tell a child whose whole extended family was out on strike that he didn't mean it and it was just a very very bad joke? I've had to deal with fecking nightmares for days now.

If Jezza wants to make a "joke" like that he should make it in an appropriate setting. i.e. after the watershed and preferably only on an R18 DVD where the young and impressionable aren't going to be exposed to it. 6:30pm on a light family orientated magazine style show is no place to be advocating the violent death of 2 million people. He should have known better. I bet he did know better, but he has, afterall, a DVD and book to flog.

OhDoAdmitMrsDeVere · 05/12/2011 12:56

Hahahhahahahahhahahhhhhhaaaa

Sorry I am still laughing at the first post that said JC was capable of Irony.

Hahahahahahaha

He wouldnt know ironic if it came at him dressed in a bikini driving a mercedes.

stinkingbishop · 05/12/2011 17:48

slug life must be very hard for you...am sure you've tried very hard to make sure your DD has a thicker skin.

Avocets · 05/12/2011 18:33

Personally I preferred marina hyde's much funnier take that JC should get himself a pair of knee pads.

slug · 06/12/2011 10:03

Charming comment stinkingbishop. Why on earth is it wrong to suggest that is should be OK to go through like unharassed?

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