Cockup on the catering front

The papers over the past week have been dominated by the latest exploits to besmirch the BBC's flagship motoring programme 'Top Gear'. A programme in which 3 middle-aged petrolheads get to play with insanely expensive, fast cars and live out their teenage fantasies by undertaking puerile stunts in exotic locations.

In the latest escapade to hit the headlines Jeremy Clarkson was involved in 'a fracas with a producer' at a North Yorkshire hotel, where the crew had been filming for the latest series.

This may be seen as another welcome opportunity for the BBC bashers to mount an assault on the corporation though I would prefer to view it as a welcome distraction of budget leaks and the preliminary jousting in the run up to the election.

According to witnesses at the North Yorkshire hotel Jeremy Clarkson launched into an expletive-ridden tirade against programme assistant-producer, Oisin Tymon, in which punches were thrown. It would seem that the trigger for the dust-up came when it was learned that there was no hot food prepared for the team upon their returned from a day's filming in Newcastle. To Jeremy's credit he did take the initiative and inform his bosses of the incident but given his previous history of bad behaviour the BBC found they had little option but to suspend him pending an inquiry.

Not only has his suspension been raised in the House of Commons but there is a 900,000+ names petition calling from the BBC to re-instate the 54 year-old.

The Top Gear programme is worth an estimated £50m thanks to the show and DVD rights which presents the BBC, who own the rights to the programme, with something of a dilemma. Rumour is that he set to walk away from the BBC, to set up a similar programme with a rival broadcaster.

In most walks of life throwing a punch at a fellow worker is a disciplinary offence, if not grounds for instant dismissal for gross misconduct.

Equally, you don't need to be boardroom material to know that it is wrong to reprimand a colleague in public.

Maybe there had been a 'cockup on the catering front' but publicly lambasting the person delegated responsibility for such arrangements will not get you a hearty meal any quicker. Perhaps if he had channeled his frustration into finding an alternative eaterie then all this stupidity could have been avoided.

In the words of the Chinese proverb 'Hungry man who stands in field with mouth open must wait many moons for Peking duck to fly in'.

In one aspect I do have a certain sympathy for Jeremy Clarkson; whatever medication the observer who compared this latest indiscretion to the Jimmy Savile scandal is on should have it removed post haste as it is clearly is not working. About the only thing that these 2 stories have in common is that they are both embarrassing to the BBC.

For all the corporations faults it remains one of the greatest shop windows for creative talent. To be part of a successful show opens the doors to so many other opportunities – book deals, merchandising, repeat fees, guest appearances and future projects, to name but a few. There are few companies or other professions that offer such rewards or allow their employees to pursue their own career path with such diversity.

To work for any broadcaster is a privilege that should be treated with respect. History is littered with 'stars' who considered their individual contribution to be greater than the needs of their employer and have paid the price for their behaviour.

There is talk that there could be no Top Gear without Jeremy Clarkson – You mean, just as there could be no 'Strictly' or 'Generation Game' without Bruce Forsyth or no 'Have I got news for you' without Angus Deayton – rest assured, no star is bigger than the show, in the same way that no footballer is bigger than the club they play for. Performers may have a valid reason for leaving a successful show but to have to leave a show because of unsavoury behaviour, having worked so hard to achieve that success is sheer lunacy.

Jeremy Clarkson is no fool and should be well aware that he has crossed the line on this occasion. Would he have become the multimillionaire he is without the exposure presented to him by the BBC, I very much doubt it. Will other stations welcome him? Almost certainly, he is still a big draw, some may even see his 'edginess' as a benefit to a programme. 

 

He may have wanted some humble pie on the night, he may not get a chance to eat it at this stage. If it all does go wrong for him he could always go and work for Dave, they may well have big gaps in their schedules to fill, then they may just as easily fill them with repeats of their repeats.

Motor madness

Sitting in a supermarket car park the other day (through necessity rather than choice - I am not that sad that I have nothing better to do with my life than sit in car parks for the hell of it) I couldn't help noticing that the car in front of me had a disabled sticker in the left hand corner of his window and an 'Unstable Load' in the right hand corner. This got me to thinking as to what disability would constitute an unstable load. My only conclusion was that it was a reference to the driver's mental state.

Since when has one's mental state had anything to do with one's ability to drive. If there was a law preventing anyone with a mental deficiency from driving then there would be no cars left on the road.  If anything , being one cog short of a cuckoo clock is a requirement for anyone intending to get behind a wheel these days. The very principle of charging through streets too narrow to accommodate the amount of traffic at speeds far greater than nature intended for humans is a fairly alien concept to any rational thinker. To do so in little more than a tin can whilst sitting on a large tank on flammable liquid should set the alarm bells ringing in most well-balanced human beings. Not satisfied with that thought, let's all put our faith in 4 bits of rubber filled with air - now we are truly heading towards the land of the fairies. Perhaps all cars should come with an 'Unstable Load' sticker.  

Trailer troubles

Spring may be just around the corner (for those with a more positive disposition) which unfortunately signals the return of the universally unwelcome breed of numpkin to the British countryside. I refer to that peculiar section of society that chooses to travel the length and breadth of this Fair Isle with an oversized sardine tin attached to the rear of their family saloon. You may have noticed that the extreme practitioners of this sect view clogging up our arteries as an all-year-round pastime.

Are their lives so vacuous that they feel the need to jump into the car and drive to some far flung location at every available opportunity? What do they do when they get to their destination and how long do they stay there?

The cost of these things would suggest they need to work around the clock to pay for them, so I am guessing that no sooner have they reached their destination and settled in than it is time to decamp and begin the homeward journey.

I once watched a TV interview where a member of this sect enthused about the joys of sitting around all day drinking tea and using a chemical toilet. Surely both these questionable benefits could be achieved at a fraction of the cost within the comfort of one's own home. You can’t tell me the experience of using a chemical toilet is any different in Doncaster from Dorset or Dundalk.

For those who argue that they are escaping the rat race I would suggest that they are simply replacing one form of rat race with another. They are escaping nothing, not even the household chores, the gardening, the DIY and car-washing that the majority of the population are forced to do at weekends. These people are not nomads, gypsies or road warriors, they simply enjoy sitting in soggy fields, exchanging stories of fuel costs, journey times and one-upmanship with groups of similar minded tea loving chemical toilet aficionados.

Weighted down with the fridge, the kitchen sink, the barbecue, the satellite TV, the dog and the family bikes these leviathans of the road trundle up and down the motorways bringing misery to millions of other road users whose simple purpose in life is to get from point A to point B in reasonable time, and with the minimum of inconvenience.

Stuck in traffic, surrounded by hundreds of these tin monstrosities one realises that they all have names such as ‘Rapide’ or ‘Vitesse’, ‘Sprint’, ‘Galaxy’, ‘Swift’, ‘Velos', 'Mistral', ’Cougar'. Even the manufacturers are taking the proverbial – these vehicles, whether they be caravan or camper van, were never built for speed. A sports car or racing bike you could understand. Why aren’t these people up in court under the Trade Description Act? Surely a more representative naming convention would still allow brand names to trip off the tongue effortlessly – how about the ‘Slo-go’ or ‘Dumpster', ‘Compact’, ‘Fridge’, ‘Snail’ or ‘Bollard’. The only downside to this idea, as I see it, would be the thought of being overtaken by a ‘Suzuki Snail’ bombing down the fast lane of the motorway with its 60 mph max sticker flapping in its wake.

Thankfully my disposition tends towards the bleak so I can look forward to another couple of months ensconced beneath my duvet. Wake me up when Summer is here.