Jeremy Clarkson and the Striking Workers of Doom

Jeremy Clarkson worries me. And I don't mean in the usual sense that he writes for the Sun, or that his hair is a frightening reminder of the worst excesses of 1980s hairdressing; I mean more what the furore in the linked article represents. You see, on the one hand, he is an idiot. He's a big, petrol-loving, masculinist pile of 1970; a walking mid-life crisis. Yes he cheated on his wife. Yes he ignores climate change because he happens to like driving the biggest cause of it. And yes, he has on occasion said one or two genuinely offensive things. But the point is, that is the image that - I suspect - he very carefully cultivates as part of his media persona. But where he really concerns me is his propensity to land himself in vast amounts of trouble with humourless people who seem wilfully determined to misinterpret everything he says. The most recent example (that I just got round to posting) was the furore in the red-tops over striking public sector workers:

OUTSPOKEN Jeremy Clarkson is under investigation by TV watchdog Ofcom after saying striking workers "should be shot". The TV host was forced to apologise after he said all striking public sector workers should be executed in front of their families. He later told furious union bosses that his outburst had been taken out of context — and was simply a joke. Sun columnist Jeremy, 51, sparked more than 21,000 complaints to the BBC and almost 800 to Ofcom. The exchange came with show hosts Matt Baker and Alex Jones amid the walk-out over pension reform. Jeremy said: "I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families.

And that's from the newspaper which hosts his column. Taken out of context, it is a horrible thing to say, made more convincing by the curmudgeonly image he projects. It works in terms of horrifying the readers - they get to believe that Clarkson was so angered by the minor inconvenience to him that he would actually want to see people executed. And if that's the soundbite that was disseminated, it's hardly surprising. But look at the whole quote from the article initially linked at the top:

"I think they have been fantastic. Absolutely. London today has just been empty. Everybody stayed at home, you can whizz about, restaurants are empty." However, he added: "We have to balance this though, because this is the BBC. Frankly, I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families."

So Clarkson ridicules the BBC's rules about balance with a form of reductio ad absurdum (no, it's not a Harry Potter spell), and it gets picked up as a straight desire to see the striking workers massacred. Everything is wrong with this analysis, and the people making this analysis. If anything they should be complaining about the BBC, who at the time were attacking people trying to defend fair working conditions in the name of 'balance.' And it was these attacks that Clarkson was lampooning. But the people complaining didn't see the irony, or the obvious overstatement for comic effect. Either that, or they took the papers at their literal word, which - in the current Murdoch-controlled environment - is equally dangerous. And on the part of the journalists and the public both, it's just lazy - there are enough good stories to be written out there that making up new ones almost seems like journalists not doing their research. Not (as I, and anyone familiar with Clarkson did) looking up the original, full quote in it's desired context. After all, as I've said to friends before, the bible is just as open to wilful misinterpretation if you exclude the context. A lot of the old testament is 'backstory' showing the older, wrong attitudes Christians are trying to work on. Not every quote from a biblical character is intended to be taken as advice. Returning to Harry Potter for a second, if someone quoted a line by Voldemort or Malfoy, it's doubtful Rowling would consider them words to live by. A better example would be Harry's dialogue, depending whether he was making mistakes and panicking at the start of the book, or if he had realised what was going on. Or Snape, depending on whether he was at the time trying to lie to Harry, keep his double-double cross secret, or dying. Context is everything. Which is why the more paranoid among you may have noticed the disclaimer along the bottom of the page: "No part of this page may be paraphrased or reproduced out of context in any media without the prior permission of the author." It's a largely futile gesture I realise, but the idea behind the wording is that if someone wants to quote me they have to approve it with me first. Until they do, I'll be over here cowering under the bedsheets in case I advance far enough in writing for my rampant sarcasm to net me as many problems as the Kevin Keegan headed motormouth this rant addresses.