Low Gear

So. The BBC has fired Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear. The BBC’s Lord Hall said:

 “I have always personally been a great fan of his work and Top Gear. Jeremy is a huge talent. He may be leaving the BBC but I am sure he will continue to entertain, challenge and amuse audiences for many years to come.”

Well, yes. So it is a bit hard to see what the BBC has achieved by firing him. Top Gear has been generating about £50 million a year for the BBC. The income is now almost certainly going to be lost, and will presumably now be gathered in by whichever television company hires him, and probably the other

Belt up

I was in a mini-bus in Sydney yesterday – on a site inspection. There was a sign inside the bus suggesting that seat belts must be worn.

I do not agree at all. There is nothing wrong with seat belts

Marbles in their head

So, Greece is bust. It owes Germany lots of money. So, Greece’s idea is to set off its newly-revived claim for wartime reparations. It wants €162 billion. Germany says, “Oh no”. It says there was a deal in 1960 which settled all of those claims. But Greece says that that deal does not stand on its way. This is what Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has said about that deal:

 Bilateral Agreement of 1960.

This was when, by its own initiative, it paid 115 million Marks, as reparations, and the (then) Kingdom of Greece acknowledged that there are no further claims to be had. This agreement, however, did not have to do with the reparations that involved the damages suffered by the country, but with the reparations to the victims of Nazism in Greece. And, of course, in no case whatsoever, did it concern the Occupation Loan, or even the claims for reparations given the atrocities of war, the almost-complete destruction of the infrastructure of the country, and the destruction of the economy during the war and the Occupation.

Fringe benefit

Just as there is a fringe to the Edinburgh so there is a fringe here in Adelaide, which is on right now.

Last night, Louise and I went to see Arj Barker, who is an American comedian. I had never heard of him before. It was not really my choice; Louise was given the tickets.

Mr Barker may well be typical of the modern generation of comedians. He used the word “motherfucker” dozens of times, and his routine included imaginary conversations with his own penis, fantasies about persuading people to smear themselves with their own excrement, and a lot more such smut. The audience, which was very young, seemed to like it.

It is probably the fault of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, who took obscenity to such

Oisin Soars

I am not a huge fan of Jeremy Clarkson. But I might as well confess at the outset of this post that I am one of the half million people who signed the petition for his reinstatement.

He is a shade boorish for my taste. But he does sometimes make me smile, and even sometimes makes me laugh. And although he is not hugely funny, he is funnier than Charlie Hebdo.

Therein lies the point. He stands as a beacon against political correctness. It is hard to know which is worse: an organisation run by misogynistic men (supported by subservient women) or an organisation run by intolerant wimmin (supported by subservient men). Anyway, Jeremy Clarkson has plainly been for some time the victim of something of a witchhunt by the latter.

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out. Jeremy is plainly hated by the wimmin at the BBC, but will they

Bad News Bears

When I was child there was a huge stuffed polar bear in the main hall of the Natural History Museum in London. Nasty looking creature. They look all very lovely in the David Attenborough’s wildlife programmes, with their warm-hearted voice-over and soppy music, but in real life, they are vicious things. And cheats: their hair is not really white at all, but transparent.

So there was little pleasure to gained from Dr Susan Crockford’s recent survey of the evidence, that the beasts are flourishing these days, with more of them than ever:

On almost every measure, things are looking good for polar bears. Scientists are finding that they are well distributed throughout their range and adapting well to changes in sea ice. Health indicators are good and they are benefiting from abundant prey.

It is also very bad news for the WWF, which has made a fortune collecting money from the gullible, on the strength