So just to be clear, here's exactly what he said:
‘In England we’ve got this one-eyed Scottish idiot, he keeps telling us everything’s fine and he’s saved the world and we know he’s lying, but he’s smooth at telling us.’
Daily Mail (Scottish edition), 07 February 2009
My tuppence. To Clarkson and the vast majority of people, when talking to Johnny Foreigner about back home they refer not to Britain, Great Britain or the UK, but England and England alone.
I'm probably not alone in the experience of meeting lovely English folk on holiday, who recognise me as Scottish then, if newly arrived, ask me of news back in 'England'. The stock response of, "I don't know I live in Scotland." Oft produces bewilderment, when they realise that I don't consider England and Great Britain as being synonymous.
This is what is at the heart of the complaints and faux outrage by the likes of Baron George Foulkes von Cumnock, Iain Gray, Gordon Banks* et al. Clarkson resents a Scot being in charge of England and the other minor bits that make up 'Great Britain'. If he had refererred to Brown as a "one-eyed British idiot" the whole thing would have been dismissed in a jovial manner as 'typical Jezza, what a lad'.
*There is of course a delicious irony that Gordon Banks MP namesake is a one-eyed English ....goalkeeper.
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9 comments:
Good post monty. I've complained to the BBC that Clarkson's comment is racist. Not holding my breath for a reply of course.
As you get older Monty, you'll start being firmer with people about the England thing. When I go abroad the first words I learn in the relevant language is Scotland and Scottish. Believe me, they're used often, very often.
I think Clarkson is right, if Gordon Brown operated in our society(Scotland) he would be considered an idiot. He would be at best the manager of a costa coffee. thats the difference, we would make him ,at best, manager of costa, they make him prime minister! Whose the idiots now?
He is also blind and one eyed.
I just do not like Clarksons inference were all like him.
A few years ago, a Scottish football fan was found guilty of racist abuse for calling on loan Celtic player Craig Bellamy a "Welsh bastard."
If a sheriff in Glasgow can determine that Welsh is a race, then similarly the Beeb have a case to answer that denoting Brown as Scottish was also intended to be a derogatory racist term.
* Escocia Spanish for Scotland
* اسكوتلندا Arabic BETA for Scotland
* l'Ecosse French for Scotland
* Schottland German for Scotland
* la Scozia Italian for Scotland
Oddly enough in Turkey, Scotland is Inglaterra.
LOL
Michty I suppose I should be honoured that dear old AM2 has chosen to visit and has partaken of a lol.
Oh you git, I've just realised you're the other Scottis-Hunionist with the bum holes and the wrongmo stuff. My eyes!
He's made a charming comment on my blog too Monty.
Do you think he'd like to stalk us?
Or indeed vice versa.
Ahoy hoy Gandalf, I suspect the content is supposed to infer that the persons identity is our lavender chum formerly of Ayrshire, who bests the feeble onionists at every turn in the use of verbs and nouns. Tricky stuff this bluff, double bluff and counter double bluff, it fair makes the heid spin.
If you take out the word "scots" from his comment about Gordon Brown then his comment was okay i suppose..ooer im naughty..
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