Fact 1: Jeremy Clarkson is a funny man. He doesn’t take life too seriously, and loves poking fun at sacred cows, whether they be on four wheels or two legs. He is also famous. His Top Gear show is watched by millions and has been for years now. You know by now what you are getting when you watch Clarkson on the tele.
Fact 2: The second world war ended 65 years ago. Holocaust aside, you’d think that by now, a generation later, telling jokes about it would cause nothing but mirth.
Fact 3, unbelievable though it is: Some people, fully aware of fact 1 and bearing fact 2 in mind, have complained about Clarkson, saying he has insulted half of Europe.
Clarkson made a spoof car advertisement on his show last Sunday night in Britain joking about Germany’s invasion of Poland, which led to World War II.
Wowsers, as you know, chiefly derive their jollies from either denying others pleasure or complaining about something that might give others pleasure, like Top Gear.
The press over there reported that scores of ropable wowsers complained to the BBC and the country’s media regulator Ofcom and on online message boards.
What was so offensive that it would make someone get out of their comfy lounge chair, scrabble around for the cordless phone, look up the Beeb’s number, and launch a whinge?
It was a spoof advert for the Volkswagen Scirocco TDI. With footage of Poles fleeing in panic, Clarkson joked about the car’s fuel economy, saying ``Volkswagen Scirocco TDI. Berlin to Warsaw in one tank.’‘
This is of course an hilarious reference to Hitler’s panzers invading Poland in 1939.
The most serious charges levelled at Clarkson by those compelled to opine were that he was a xenophobe or a fascist sympathiser.
Clarkson has poked fun at the Germans’ expense before. In 2005 he gave a Nazi salute on Top Gear while discussing the German-made Mini.
After saying the car’s indicators should go up and down, demonstrating with the salute, he then joked that the vehicle might have a GPS system ``that only goes to Poland’‘.
Forget about the future dangers of global warming. The human race needs to do something now about global whinging.
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