I give you, after God, Jesus, the Spirit, my dad, Father Christmas and the gerbils, my hero - one Jeremy Clarkson. The co-presenter of Top Gear, my favouritist programme ever, he is something of a inspiration to my more playful writing styles. He is one of the funniest men on the telly, and he says some of the most outrageous things - and often gets into trouble for it.
Today has taught me how strange humour is. Jezza's crime today was stereotyping Mexicans as 'feckless and lazy', and something about sleeping a lot. The BBC had to apologise to the Mexican Ambassador, who was right unhappy about the national stereotype. Now, the thing is this, I can only assume that Signor Ambassador was watching Top Gear, the vehicle (get it) of the comments. If he is a viewer of Top Gear he will be well familiar with Jezza's style. Now, if I were to stand up in my pulpit and call Mexicans 'feckless and lazy', he might have a case - but when a professional Rude Geezer does it (like he does every week), it seems like a willfull humour-bypass moment from the man from Guadalajara!
Which is why Sally Bercow is a numpty (allegedly). She is the Speaker's Wife (the Speaker being the fourth [I think] most senior bod in Parliament - a serious piece of political kit), and exclaimed (among her other facile exclaimings) that Mr Speaker Bercow was something of a yummy scrummy sex-god as Speaker. She said this and then ripped her kit off for a photo shoot, and the resultant image of her in a bed sheet caused mayhem - as well it might. Funny she thought, wrong time and place, I think!
And all this on the day when we learn that the government of Malawi is intending to make farting breaking wind in public illegal.
Now, that is funny ...
