Jeremy Clarkson, last night, was interviewed on The One Show, and made some supposedly outlandish comments about the striking public sector workers who stopped much of the country's usual proceedings in their plea for improved pensions.
It is being reported that 'thousands have complained to the BBC following Clarkson's comments', presumably most of them have made issue with the Top Gear front man after watching this video:
If any of them were to be attentive enough to see the full conversation, they'd see that Clarkson made this extreme judgement as a parody of the BBC's even-handed approach to all things political. He begun this questioning by saying the striking was "fantastic, absolutely fantastic". The joke was not about the strikers, merely about the approach of the BBC, how is this being overlooked by civilised society?
The positive comment was equally subversive and devious, yet this one fails to make headlines as the hysterical media pumps up the pseudo-story and force Clarkson into a corner in which he apologises for his 'scandalous' comments.
This whole palaver happened in 2008 with Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross:
These phone calls were genuinely hilarious and most of the complaints regarding this incident were from people who'd made assumptions without listening to the audio.
I just wish comedians will continue to have the balls to make these judgements and air them to the public. As comedy is such an inherent part of British culture, it continually baffles me that people are so unwilling laugh at themselves.
We're an ignorant, paranoid nation of tea-drinkers and cricket-lovers, and I can only hope we don't get stuck on our high horse and fail to see the funny side of our peculiar little oddities.
