Be Excellent To Each Other

I always thought Rockstar deserved everything they got about that for telling big old lies.

Plus, of course, it helped them sell loads of computer games.

He talks about football a lot. I don't really know what he's on about, but his friends seem to like it.

He also really likes Dragonball Z.

FO SHIZZLE MY NIZZLE

Apparently Clarkson got a standing ovation from the audience when he entered the set to film QI today, and yet the QI twitter feed couldn't quite bring itself to mention that he was there.

I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

Told you it would all blow over.

So you missed the ritual suicide in Trafalgar Square? Jesus dude, pick up a newspaper once in a while!

Heh, I don't read papers.

OFCOM rules it was offensive and the BBC roll their eyes.

I should congratulate those who were outraged for reintroducing that particular term to the language. Own goal much?

Right? I've got no doubt it was on purpose, but I didn't notice it at the time.

Indeed, it was on purpose, but I'd hardly say it was anything more than a linguistic joke in any case.

But I suppose people have axes to grind.

If it was on purpose then writing it off as just a 'linguistic joke' is a bit mealy-mouthed. You wouldn't make, or forgive, a linguistic joke around the word nigger or spic or whatever; I don't understand why this is different?

Mainly as those are words people recognise as offensive.

(Although I'm slightly baffled at the way people find words offensive by default, with no thought as to the intention behind them. A word only has whatever power you choose to give it.)

I'm aware that slope's a derogatory term so I recognise is as offensive. Am I not supposed to or something? I'm not really sure what your argument is here. If it was an intentional joke then Clarkston must've known of the word's double meaning. So unless he thought 'slope' was an endearing or complimentary term (which is possible, but seems unlikely) then surely he was being a dick in using it?



I don't think anyone does find a word offensive by default; they find it offensive if it's got an inherently offensive meaning (e.g. fuck, shit, cunt) or if it's been used offensively widely enough to earn that meaning (e.g. all racial slurs ever).

So, Is JayZ being racist here : http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jayz/nig ... tor99.html

No. Because Context.
It is quite depressing the way that one of he British favourite pastimes is being offended by stuff. Leading to a ridiculous carousel of words as they fall out of favour for being 'offensive'.

If I were to use such words, it wouldn't automatically make me a racist, due to, you know, not having any particular prejudices against any race. If you were to think it did, that would make you an idiot.

Indeed, the context being that not only is Jay-Z a member of the group that's been the target of the derogatory term but it's also a term that the group in question has spent decades reclaiming. Is Clarkson an Asian rap star? Is there a massive culture of Asian rap stars all over the globe churning out songs in which they call each other 'slant'? And why are you making me type all this out, given that there's no way in hell you don't already know it?



A ridiculous carousel? Really? You don't think you might be massively over-dramatising that? How many words in your lifetime are you really bothered that you can't use any more? Bearing in mind, before you come back and inevitably try to use 'slant' as an example, that as you say context is important and words like 'slant' are perfectly acceptable in the right context so you can't claim those to have been placed on this carousel you're so annoyed at.



You should probably find someone who thinks that then and tell them so; it's not very useful information for me. While you're doing that I'll carry on thinking that anyone using racists terms, even if they're not actually racist, is a bit of a tit who really needs to more carefully consider their word choice.

Kanye is a dick, it appears.

Oh shit, the rest of that article! Oh shit!

Is he serious?

Oh man, that article made me L-Lolz, as tragic as it is. Truly, there are some absurd people in this world.

“I’m the smartest celebrity you’ve ever fucking dealt with,”

Kanye West can be accused of many things. "“I’m the smartest celebrity you’ve ever fucking dealt with" Is not one of them.

Yep. He's a complete fucking lunatic.

Writes some damn catchy tunes though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31824040

BBC suspended him after a "fracas" with a producer, probably nothing exciting but the producer knew he could throw his weight around as Clarkson is on a final warning.

They should get Kanye West to cover for him.

I'd be pretty surprised if anything actually comes of this. The show is just too damned popular.

Cue Sky turning up outside his house with several tipper trucks full of cash, if anything does come of it

They are going to find it very difficult to justify not sacking him if he was at fault here.
Will be interesting to see what happens, and whether they would attempt to replace him on TG or just kill the show.

Top Gear makes the BBC shit loads of money, not sure what they will do. Most people who like his show don't care very much about his gaffs they just like cars and stupid things been done with them every week.

BBC will be dammed if they do and dammed if they don't here.

They need to get Boris Johnson in. Similar circles of appeal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31828184

Looks like he punched the producer, BBC put a stop to the rest of the current Top Gear Season.

If it's true, I'd imagine they'll make some sort of agreement for him to retire after the current Top Gear series (I can't see them postponing the show for much longer, the expensive bits (location shoots) are already done).

Doesn't he own the rights to Top Gear or have I made that up?

I think he owns the production company

Not entirely sure it should be the lead item on the BBC News, but I'm oldfashioned like that.

I stopped watching 'Top Gear' several years ago when it no longer felt fresh and just seemed to be going through the motions. Surprised it's still running.

Well it's made the front page of most of the papers and it directly concerns the BBC itself. And the news would be very different if stories were ranked on some scale of global importance. Everything would be about war and climate change, it would be far too bloody depressing.

He sold his rights and production company for Top Gear to the BBC for 8.5 Million plus a 4.5 million dividend in 2012.

He is paid around 1 million a year for presenting the show as well as a seven figure income from BBC Worldwide for DVD sales etc, this runs out in September.

So a good chance BBC will have to pay him off twice, which will attract more bad press for them wasting money.

I would also imaging that as Clarkson has no income aside from presenting (and maybe the Worldwide deal continuing past 2015) that he doesn't give a fuck as SKY will take him on similar show and like or not he appears to be quite key to the success of Top Gear.

Does he not write any more?

(Well, I was aware it was still running but haven't watched it for years.)

It almost became a parody of itself at some point, and not much about cars either. One of the last things I remember watching is Clarkson creaming himself over the BMW M1 and calling it the spiritual successor to the original Golf GTi, which was such a ludicrous statement I had to have a LOL about it.

He comes across as quite an unpleasant character too.

The way Twitter is reacting this morning is highly amusing.

The Guardian are on good clickbait form today

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio ... t-top-gear

Wow. Wow.

I've only seen the couple of Tweets between yourself, Dimmers and Myp. What is the general Twitter consensus from the people you follow?

I stopped watching a few years ago when it became quite same-y. I think Clarkson's misdemeanours had less of the ring of a silly doddery old fool to someone who was seeing how many boundaries he could push and people he could offend without it triggering the censors to be 'funny'. I think, with the mounting evidence, he is probably not a very nice man, unapologetically casually and sometimes pointedly racist and has the hubris built up of such a popular product to think that everything will blow over because he was bringing in too much money to not feel untouchable.

Talking of something becoming a parody of itself... Still the Grauniad jumped the lefty PC sandal wearing eco-feminist shark years ago.

Bidisha (so important she has only one name, although she still lives with her mum) writing an article about how Lord of the Rings was all about obssession with a giant floating fiery vagina was a high point.

She's got a point though, Top Gear is pretty fucking embarrassing, and not a very good advertisement for men.

Unless it's admirable to be a racist arrogant bullying cockbag, of course.

Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show dedicated a slot to the debate, apparently there are now over 300,000 people who've signed a petition for Clarkson to be reinstated, even though he's allegedly physically assaulted a colleague in the workplace.

They had Katie Hopkins on there, she made me die a little bit inside.

That's the thing. He punched his boss. That should be fired right there.

Interesting that she references the BMW i8 by way of implication that it is ignored.

The car which Clarkson reviewed, creaming his pants over, made a public retraction of all of his previous statements about the potential of Hybrids to be any good, and then actively chose as his preference over the other, sportier, oil only BMW. 3 weeks ago.

Although he did then state that it was nowhere near as fuel efficient as BMW claim.

"Aimed a punch" is what's been said.

That's the rumour, but nothing confirmed either way. If he did, then it happened 5 days ago, which seems a long time to wait to do anything about it.

Well it should be handled as it would be with any employer where there is an allegation of physical violence.

The employee is suspended whilst the investigation takes place, and then the results of that investigation will instruct the actions thereafter. (Which seems to be what the BBC is doing.)

I'm a bit gobsmacked that 300,000+ people will actually go as far as to sign a petition to get Clarkson reinstated when the allegation against him is that he punched a colleague, because clearly there's nothing wrong with that.