British scandal moderator Jeremy Clarkson: With the Lamborghini across the fields of Oxfordshire

Jeremy Clarkson is the enfant terrible of British television. Despite being almost 63 years old, the terrifying citizen apparently never grew up.

The enthusiasm with which he and his companions Richard Hammond and James May, first in “Top Gear” and later in “The Grand Tour”, not only push high-horsepower cars to their performance limits, but often enough beyond them, fascinates viewers worldwide. Clarkson’s credo: “Gasoline cars have such a sound, I’ll drive them until I die.”

In 2008, Clarkson – whose fortune is estimated at £70million – bought a farm in the Cotswolds. The previous tenant retired in 2019, since then he has been managing the 400 hectares of forest, meadows and fields himself with lots of ideas and zero experience.

To get the job done faster, he bought a 269 hp Lamborghini tractor with 40 forward and 40 reverse gears to match his oversized ego.

What has also remained: Jeremy Clarkson magically attracts anger. Mostly self-inflicted, like when the BBC dumped him for allegedly assaulting a producer. Clarkson then migrated from public television to the Amazon Prime streaming service, in order to continue with “The Grand Tour” with an almost unchanged concept.

His hate speech on Duchess Meghan, Prince Harry’s wife, also endangers this cooperation. The British Press Council received almost 20,000 complaints about his op-ed piece in the tabloid The Sun. After all, Clarkson remains record-breaking.

Officially, the bond between the uncontrolled TV presenter and Amazon has not yet been cut, but whether “The Grand Tour” will be extended beyond 2024 is just as unlikely as a fourth season of “Clarkson’s Farm”. After all: Season three is confirmed for the coming year.

The Briton surprisingly restrains himself from freaking out in “Clarkson’s Farm”. The fact that he railed against regulations because he is not allowed to fight ground beetles earns him just as much sympathy as his scolding of annoying occupational health and safety regulations. Even the British Farmers’ Union praised Clarkson’s descriptions of everyday farming life.

Let the government do the talking. Fuck it all. I have my own plan.

Jeremy Clarkson does not believe that the subsidy promises to agriculture will be kept after Brexit.

For Clarkson, the neon lettering “Yes, we have no vegetarian food” in his barn, which has been converted into a restaurant, is just as authentic as his commitment to the combustion engine.

And if the post-Brexit government fails to keep its pledges to the peasantry, all Clarkson has to say is, “Let the government crack it up. Fuck it all. I have my own plan.”

Unlike the motor journalist Clarkson, the new farmer is aware that he is dependent on the help of others. But no matter what charm offensive he uses to win the goodwill of the neighborhood and how often he swallows anger, anger remains his constant companion. Even if he is not responsible for it himself.

In season one he had to fight for the necessary permits for a farm shop. Once it opened, it was so successful because of Clarkson’s popularity that visitors’ cars clogged the adjacent streets.

But because Clarkson’s farm is in a conservation area, West Oxfordshire Borough Council will not approve the expansion of the farm shop car park. After this was reported in the second season – which started in February – British media reported that a member of the city council and one other person received death threats.

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Source: Tagesspiegel

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