JEREMY Clarkson, the one man guaranteed to have the politically-correct brigade foaming at the mouth on a regular basis, has hit the headlines again after claiming on last week’s edition of Top Gear to have seen a burka-wearing woman trip up in the street and reveal some rather saucy underwear.
Last year, the blokey presenter incurred the wrath of the Royal National Institute of Blind People and a bunch of Scottish politicians when he referred to former PM Gordon Brown as a “one-eyed Scottish idiot”.
But, hey, there’s no point in being a right-wing English overgrown schoolboy unless you show it.
This latest stramash kicked off when Clarkson announced to the studio audience and his two chums: “This is an important bit of news; I really want to bring this up. People imagine that the most dangerous time of the year to drive is November or perhaps February – dark nights, fog, ice.
“But we were talking the other day and we think the most dangerous time to drive a car is round about now. Sunny skies, light breezes, girls wearing short skirts, because the thing is, you can’t not look.”
The wee Hammond chappie replied: “You can physically not use your mobile phone and it’s easy to drive home when you’ve had 18 pints of lager, but when you’re driving along and a girl walks past, you have to look. Actually, do you not think that here, there is actually a case for the burka? Because then the problem would go away.”
Once Hammond had paved the way for his boss in this carefully-scripted piece of jolly badinage, Clarkson came out with the following: “No, no, no. Honestly, the burka doesn’t work. I was in a cab in Piccadilly the other day when a woman in a full burka crossing the road in front of me tripped over the pavement, went head over heels and up it came, red g-string and stockings. I promise that happened. The taxi driver will back me up on that.”
The following day, several newspapers claimed that Jeremy’s wee anecdote had led to a storm of protest from outraged viewers. In fact, the BBC received only seven complaints compared to over 300 for his slur on Gordon Brown.
So it was all a bit of a storm in a teacup but, predictably enough, some Moslems chose to take offence.
Faeeza Vaid, co-ordinator of the Moslem Women’s Network UK, said: “The debate surrounding the burka is a serious issue which shouldn’t be publicly joked about. Rather than joking about it, we should be having serious dialogue.”
Ms Vaid doesn’t appear to have much of a sense of humour. Perhaps she’s right. The next time some English comedian makes a crack about Scotsmen wearing nothing underneath their kilts, maybe we should have some serious dialogue about it instead of just booing him off the stage in the time-honoured fashion.
But, unfortunately for Jeremy, it’s not only the Moslem women he has to worry about. Some of their menfolk are equally miffed at the mouthy presenter.
Militant Islamist Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was deported from Britain for his extreme views and who hailed the 9/11 terrorists as the “Magnificent 19”, said from his base in Lebanon: “This shows how much hatred he has for Moslems in general and Moslem women in particular. And if he doesn’t apologise quickly he could face Moslem youth attacking him physically.”
Of course, if Clarkson takes this threat seriously he could always get a burka of his own and thus avoid the attentions of any Moslem youths who feel they have been given the right to beat him to a pulp on sight.
Still on the subject of political correctness, I see that council chiefs in Portsmouth have decided that the traditional Punch and Judy show is much too violent for today’s kiddies.
They ordered the puppeteer responsible for Mr Marvel’s Punch and Judy show to ditch any of the props which might be construed as weapons.
Punch’s famous “whacking stick” has been replaced by a tickling stick; the mangle that Punch put Judy through has been banned, and, instead of throwing the baby out of the bath, Punch now tucks him up in bed.
Now, I have fond memories of the many times my parents took me to a Punch and Judy show, everywhere from Blackpool to the Isle of Man, and yet I didn’t grow up to be a wife-beater and I have never even considered putting Herself through a mangle.
Nor did I ever throw our one and only son out of the bath.
But the good councillors of Portsmouth decided to excise all potentially offensive scenes on the grounds that “some people could be offended by some aspects of the traditional story”.
Now, the children will just have to make do with their video games, the ones where they can stab and shoot their way through any number of baddies far from the prying eyes of busybody council officials, before growing into fine, upstanding citizens.
Wonderful, isn’t it?