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news
Jeremy Clarkson © Twitter TheArchiniJeremy Clarkson takes to the streets of London on a bike - but it looks like his hi viz is going back to the shop
It’s just weeks since that infamous ding-dong with a cyclist he accused on Twitter of ‘point-making’ for taking a safe position in the road, but Jeremy Clarkson’s on a bike on the streets of London, and this time it’s in the name of work.
Spotted around the centre of the capital on an upright hybrid bicycle, accompanied by his co-star James May, who sported a Brompton, the pair appeared to be filming their faces with GoPro cameras attached to the handlebars.
Both had gone to some lengths to equip themselves with safety gear, including matching helmets, hi-viz jackets and gloves, and sunglasses despite the gloomy day.
It seemed Mr Clarkson’s jacket was so new he had in face omitted to remove the tags yet, as pictures published in the Daily Mail show.
The pair were being filmed for the new series of the BBC show Top Gear, followed by a camera crew on a motorbike as they made their way around the West End.
Although Clarkson has been spotten on a bike before, the GoPro is a new addition, and perhaps surprising given that in 2011 his co-presenter Richard Hammond, a keen cyclist, had been talking on screen about a BBC News feature on cylists wearing helmetcams “so they can video examples of road rage and people cutting them up on their bikes,” to which Clarkson interjected, “But cyclists deserve it,” the exchange continuing:
Hammond: “Don’t say that!”
Clarkson: “But they do deserve it, honestly. The other week, no honestly, there I am sitting in a traffic jam in London” – oh, the irony – “and a Frenchman, he was tried to cycle between the pavement and my car and after he’d removed most of the paint with his brake handle thing he came round to the drivers door to tell me off in that silly accent French people have.”
Hammond: “What, a French accent?”
Clarkson: “Yes, that, and I said to him, listen if you just work hard you can have a car.”
Hammond: “You are exactly the reason why I want a camera on my bicycle helmet when I cycle.”
Clarkson: “Why?”
Hammond: “When idiots like you get out of their car having cut me up – ”
Clarkson: “Who pays the road tax?”
Hammond: “Well – ”
Clarkson: “I’m sorry, I don’t mind if cyclists want to come on the road with their silly Victorian distractions, I’m not bothered, but they must behave themselves.”
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56 comments
Could have been worse.
Keep your eyes open and be courteous (applies to all road users).
Turning right is a danger spot.
Bus drivers are tw*ts.
Nobody likes a red light jumper.
More people cycling will ultimately reduce congestion.
All done in the unique TG style.
Yup, totally. Was pleasantly surprised, actually. What, did anyone expect a sanctimonious lecture about being nice to each other and not breaking any traffic laws etc.? Nobody would watch that. What they did was use their usual easily digested entertainment format to simply plant a few helpful ideas in the heads of motorists, made palatable by first addressing their prejudices with satire and ending with the imperative to give 6 feet of space. It was good work. We need more of that.
The whole piece is going to be painful to watch.....then hear about, from uneducated f*cks.
A few years back he stated to a female doing the track lap, she had a right to drive her four wheel drive round London to protect her family, and if cyclists got injured because of it, then it was their fault for being there!
Just for the record nobody in the UK pays "road tax" that was abolished in the 1930's in favour of "car tax" which is now based on a vehicles emissions. As a bicycle does not in itself produce any harmful emissions, the question of "road tax" for bicycles is irrelevant. These days Clarkson is just a very overweight boring TV has-been who needs to keep himself in the news usually for all the wrong reasons, but then that is what self-publicity is all about.
Road Tax was abolished 75 years ago, Jeremy.
It's very tiring having to keep on pointing this out to clowns who insist on saying cyclists don't pay it.
Now drivers pay Vehicle Excise Duty, rated according to
the level of emissions each vehicle produces.
Bicycles don't produce emissions, and neither do certain
cars, so they are exempt.
Money for road maintenance is taken from general taxation which everyone pays.
A few years ago I was member of a small team of cyclists riding from Oxford to Paris to raise money for an Oxford hospice that had cared for a friend in his final days. We wrote to a number of local celebrities asking them to lend their support - either vocal or financial - and as Clarkson is an Oxfordshire resident we sent him a letter with the attached photograph, in the hope that it would appeal to his sense of humour and suggesting he join us (bringing Richard Hammond along for the ride too). We never heard a squeak back and no pennies were forthcoming! Still makes me laugh though, whenever I look at it, but obviously it didn't have the same effect on the man himself!
clarkson&hamster_0.jpg
To paraphrase the duck saying; if it looks like a twat and acts like a twat - it's probably a twat, online/telly persona or no.
I have met him in real life a few times, through something our respective children did together. Nobody watching his schtick apart from me. I am sorry to report that his stage persona is in fact his real persona.
Much more importantly my safety, and that of other people on bikes, is endangered by his chirpy prejudice against us.
JC once sponsored me for a charity cycle ride I did from London to Paris so either I wrote a bloody brilliant letter or he isn't as anti-cyclist as he appears.
Thing is, if The Cycle Show recruited the two-wheeled equivalent to drone on about drivers in the way he drones on about cyclists, we would probably all get instantly painted as car-hating sanctimonious lycra-clad enviro-hippies (we are anyway, I grant you...), and it wouldn't do us any good. In fact, I think it would be quite harmful, but everyone just tolerates him.
Fact is, he only directs his awful humour at groups he can get away with. He'd object to anyone different to him, but you think he'd try it with, for example, black people, or the islamic faith? He's a tired old fool that's been telling the same joke for as long as anyone can remember.
Motorists are murderous myopic menaces. It would be doing the world a favour if we put motion sensitive mines underneath the cars which are featured in the Utube videos posted by cyclists.
Don't worry, I'm only joking. Can't these po-faced humourless drivers lighten up a bit?
That's it and Clackson and he's cav click would find no humour in that would they .The worm would turn quick for sure
He is brilliant and his ability to wind people up - look at some of the responces on here - is second to none.
Its time for people to grow up and just accept that there are people in this world who hate cyclists just like the bigotry being shown here towards Clarkson.
By the way he is on now... series link set
Problem is some people take him seriously.
If you take him as a grumpy old man who hates everyone fine, if you take him as a role model....
I'm not getting annoyed, it's just my online persona getting annoyed. Also, I think that Clarkson should be run over by a lorry. And 95% of the police force should also run over by a lorry. Twice. That percentage are almost certainly racist, homophobic anti-cyclists who love their power and only do their job to push people around.
Ha ha, that's just a joke, my online persona saying that, just to get a reaction. I don't really mean it. Or do I? Either way, I'm nearly as hiiiiilarious as Clarkson. All I need to do is ... put some needless pauses in my sentences .... for comic effect.
A fully-scripted exchange, it's worth pointing out, if you're taking time to analyse it. The oafish Sorry-I-can't-help-being-boorish shtick is all quite deliberate, whether you find it endearing or not.
I agree 95% of the Police force should be run over and then we can claim mega bucks in compensation, after all we work for each other to get the right outcome, unlike the poor members of the public, oooooh sorry was thinking out loud there
It is wonderful how the police stick together, isn't it? Like in the run-up to the Taylor report, where the showed great solidarity with each other to maintain the spotless reputation of HMC. Got to love those boys in blue.
Oh dear - can one assume from this that the poster is a road traffic officer?
A detective constable once laughingly said to me that that's "where all the dicks end up!"
Learn to spell by the way: it'll come in handy for statement writing.
Think I'll wait for the segment to be aired. (Just to be fair you understand.)
Then I'll lynch him for being the TW*T he is!
Loved the airbag comment.
I used to be a massive fan of Top Gear years ago. If I couldn't watch it when it was broadcast I'd record it on VHS videotape recorder! But the last few series that I've just briefly observed I always think, "these guys really are a bunch of pricks now." The show needs new blood, new presenters and slightly different content. That neanderthalic dinosaur JC need to go, he does nothing for the show, for motorists and he is really quite irritating now. Its the reason I don't watch it any more.
Can't be a dinosaur and a Neanderthal. One died long before the other turned up.
Sorry couldn't resist.
Shit show, anyway. Waste of air time.
The problem with inflammatory comments couched in it's-part-of-my-persona-you-obviously-don't-have-a-sense-of-humor-isms is that there's a slippery slope between jest and dangerously bigoted targeting. If you take the phrase "they're cyclists and they deserve to be [menaced off the road by 2 ton vehicles, punched by aggro luxury car drivers, killed by mini van drivers unused to driving when a bright disc is visible in the sky ...]" and insert another group like "they're women wearing tight Lycra and they deserve to be [whistled at, propositioned, felt up, don't really mean it when they say no, dragged off by their hair into a dark alley ...] it dehumanizes them making greater leaps of questionable behavior less questionable. IMHO it's dangerous and irresponsible to say even in jest that it's okay to intimidate someone with a car because then you could also say that it's okay to wave a gun around in someone's face because "I didn't really mean it officer, he just didn't get the joke." Grounds for being reincarnated as a rock.
Oh and in the US motorized vehicles are assessed road taxes based how much estimated road damage is caused by whatever vehicular class you fall into, mainly based on vehicle weight, since the taxes go towards maintaining the road infrastructure. Doubtful a 200 pound bicycle and rider causes much if any road damage and even in Portland where a lot of people use alternative transportation, most of us also have a car so still pay road taxes in some form.
Some great points put really well.On the road TAX point I have 2 cars and three motorcycles all TAXED but seem to end up riding my bycycle because I just prefer it.But still the morons pull along side and shout GET SOME ROAD TAX.It winds up my pea so much I could take life at that moment.Not good but it's the truth.What can we do.Clarkson just makes things harder for us with he's(whitty not) comments AND I PAY HIM TO DO IT which also makes my blood boil.
You pay as much "road tax" as a Toyota Prius - not to mention that it's actually VED and based on emissions...fairly easy to respond as such if any motorist wants to have an argument with me
Quite shocked no one else has said this yet. To be clear; there is no such thing as road tax today. Road tax was abolished in 1933. What people here are referring to is vehicle excise duty, a tax on emissions. as a bicylce produces no emisions no vehicle excise duty will ever need paid.
Roads are paid for by council tax, not "road tax".
Yes I know all of that but try telling some moron as they pass shouting GET SOME ROAD TAX, doesn't seem to work too well
I wouldn't give a toss were it not for the fact some people take him seriously. Just last week I had a middle aged man try to force me off a narrow road by driving very deliberately at me, presumably out of some false sense of primacy of the type JC espouses. Now in the hands of the met police as a witness reported it, so that the met can file a report (in the big round filing cabinet called the bin).
It's worth noting that Top Gear actually makes money for the bbc as it's sold worldwide for a massive fortune.
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