| Product: |
The World According to Clarkson - Jeremy Clarkson |
| Date: |
24/10/05 (719 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Humour covering a wide range of subjects.
Disadvantages: Some topical humour dates quickly.
Most people who are interested in the latest developments in cars will know this author, Jeremy Clarkson, from watching his BBC2 programme Top Gear. My only interest in cars is that I like them to get me about in reasonable comfort, so I have only seen snippets of the Top Gear programme when other people in my house have been watching it.
Similarly, because of my lack of interest in how cars and other machines work, I haven’t read any other of Clarkson’s books, or watched his DVDs.
I had half read this book before I got my first taste of Clarkson on Top Gear. While reading, I was sometimes unsure if some of the things he wrote were serious, or if it were all in jest. Seeing his deadpan face while he was insulting the live audience didn’t help me decide whether he was being deliberately rude or making a joke, but as the audience, including the victims of his jokes, were laughing, I guess they took his ridicule as a good bit of fun.
The BBC web site says that on Top Gear, “Clarkson is more than capable of reducing car manufacturers to floods of tears with nothing more than a long pause and a few well considered words.” He has also hosted a show for them called Inventions That Changed the World.
In The World According to Clarkson, his love of machines is most strikingly shown when he compares Concorde to a loyal dog being shut away in its kennel.
I have learnt from this book that he also has a lot of other interests, and nothing that interests him seems to escape his, often sarcastic, brand of humour.
The book contains 81 witty articles written by Clarkson that first appeared in the Sunday Times between 2001 and 2003.
The most obvious sort of person who should like this book is, like me, a fan of Have I Got News For You, in other words, someone with an interest in current affairs, who would rather not take life too seriously. Clarkson did host one of the Have I Got News For You topical quiz programmes.
Some of the more topical parts of this book do seem slightly dated already, but it didn’t stop me laughing at it, so I’m not going to deduct a star for that. Not many of the people mentioned are dead yet.
It is not only those in the news that he gives his blunt opinion of though. His family comes in for some light-hearted mockery as well, but as he includes himself in the ridicule, I assume they weren’t upset by it.
You will probably be pleased to learn that he believes it is important for both parents to care for children. His reasoning though is that, “To fathers, kids are fun. To mothers, they’re a responsibility.”
Apparently he doesn’t really mind that the Daily Mirror took a photo of his fat stomach while he was lying on a beach and gave it the title “Pot Gear”. He claims that the Mirror missed the big story, as he tells us, “The reason I’m so fat is because I am pregnant.”
A health and safety poster he saw on a visit to RAF Henlow surprised him. It warns fighter pilots that alcohol will make them aggressive and violent. Is that really a bad thing for fighter pilots?
Sometimes the humour seemed juvenile and sometimes very clever, but his, mostly irreverent, musings always seemed funny to me.
Some will want to read the book from cover to cover without stopping, while others will find they just like to dip into it when in need of a laugh.
It’s the sort of thing that it might help to read in a dentist or doctors waiting room to help you take your mind off any fears related to that. I don’t think it should be provided on the NHS though, because the already over-stretched staff may find they would get even more patients.
I have read chunks at a time, or just one piece depending on how much time I had, and very much enjoyed going into Clarkson’s eccentric world. It made me think about the world in which we all live in a less serious way, most of the time.
Highly recommended to those who would like to learn his brash comic views on things as varied as Americans, Europeans (both in and outside the EEC), aliens (from outer space), Staffordshire, holidays, the Met Office, organic food, gardening, public relations, family relationships, school sports days, cricket, music, birthday parties, office parties, political parties, political correctness, foxes, Two Jags and His Tonyness. As it has been so long since we have had a change of Prime Minister, his repeated attacks on His Tonyness were even more entertaining to me.
While I highly recommend this book, I am aware that some people find Clarkson extremely irritating, instead of funny. I would expect anyone who has enjoyed his style of humour on TV to also like this book.
Paperback 340 pages (May 26, 2005)
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 0141017899
List Price: £6.99
Amazon.co.uk price at time of writing review: £5.59
Summary: Eighty-one witty articles that first appeared in the Sunday Times between 2001 and 2003.
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