Golly Jeremy!
The King of the Car Shows is in a spot of bother. Ooh-er. Will he be sacked? Will he be suspended? Who can possibly take over and test all those family cars for us? How will we decide which Ferrrari to buy or lease?
But hold on here. Was Lord Clarkson a bit previous with his apology – surely the first he has ever made? Was he perhaps misunderstood? Could a half-decent junior spinner from Blair PR Inc. have handled things better? Let’s have a go.
The reference to our prime minister being Scottish is factual, so the only points of issue are the spoken words which have been taken to be ‘one-eyed’ and ‘idiot’. What if Jeremy actually said ‘wan-eyed’?
I put it to you that it would have sounded exactly the same. ‘Wan’ can mean rather tired, unhappy and pallid – perhaps lacking in forcefulness, competence or effectiveness. There are people around who would see this as a factual statement too.
That leaves us with ‘idiot’. There may be those who see this as offensive. But it seems the origin of the word ‘idiot’ lies in the Latin word ‘idiota’ which means something like layman or private person – most likely ‘ordinary person’ would do. Matter of opinion as to whether Gordon is ordinary, surely.
So, what we have is probably a complete misunderstanding. Clarkson was merely giving it as his opinion that our Scottish prime minister is just an ordinary person who is rather tired, pale and a bit ineffective.
Is this a bad thing to have said? Well, don’t forget, Gordon rules in a Parliament which has no outstanding alternatives and, as Alfred Hitchcock famously commented, “In the country of the bland the wan-eyed man is king”.
I rang Jeremy to outline this interpretation of his remarks. ‘Golly’ was all he said (and let’s be clear he didn’t say Gollywog and anyway you didn’t hear this from me, right?)
February 7, 2009 at 8:38 pm | Car Leasing News | No comment
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