Jeremy

There are times when I feel smugly vindicated. I could have told you so, and occasionally I have told you so. Take Jeremy Clarkson. 5 February: Murder On The Dancefloor - this is what I said:

"It will be thronged with expats desperate to try and ingratiate themselves with the Top Gear trio. I would advise caution. Clarkson's vitriol would doubtless extend to mostly all expats. If I were you, I'd avoid the Top Gear-ists like the plague. Not that I don't like Clarkson; quite the opposite. And anyone who has seen fit to punch Piers Morgan is fine by me. One trusts that the programme will show some suitably pleasant landscapes and be a rather more positive representation of Mallorca than some Chardonnay who has vomited over a nurse in Muro hospital A&E. (But) if you think Clarkson might go easy on the local expattery, do be warned: remember he once said that anyone who had moved to Spain had held up a post office."

Good old Jezza. Along with May and Hammond, he managed to pack out the race track at the end of the Classic Car Rally gig. Word has it that the stands were thronged, not with classic-car-adoring Mallorcans but with self-regarding and needing-to-be-seen expats - British ones at that. There were doubtless a few like Ben who were there for a love of cars, things that make them work and getting grease and oil all over themselves. For the most part though, it was those who were notching up another event on the social calendar, those wanting a chance to show off the latest Rolex or Jimmy Choo's, those who are just plain mad, and also the chancers sniffing a business opportunity or just some hoped-for, aspiring-to stardust being sprinkled by being in the proximity of the famous. Poor bloody saps that they are. They should choose their celebs wisely - if at all. Clarkson was always going to be dangerous to know. I warned you, but you didn't listen, did you? Never under-estimate, though, the lather of excitement and vacuous expectation that can be whipped up by the froth of even minor celebrity in the air-filled heads of many expatriates.

There is a stratum of society which, when the merest whiff of a celeb comes wafting through the ether, loses all sense of propriety and seeks to prostrate and prostitute itself at the feet of whatever celeb it happens to be. I once took a flight from Heathrow to Leeds-Bradford. Next to me on the plane happened to be Mark James, the one-time Ryder Cup golfer and indeed captain. I knew James lived locally to the airport. His being on the flight was not, in itself, that unusual. He spent the journey reading a golfing magazine and turning down any refreshment. Thinking that he would probably rather not wish to speak to anyone, least of all myself, I didn't say a word to him other than to say "good evening" when I sat down. When it came to the time for everyone to disembark, there was an unholy scrum involving several passengers from the rear of the plane pushing their way past others, clutching business cards and calling out: "Mark", "Mark". They all thought they had found their new best friend. He was at least polite in telling them to get lost. Jeremy Clarkson on the other hand ...

You see, the problem is that not every celeb is actually a journo and a very funny one who has scant regard for whom he offends and who also writes for "The Sunday Times" the week after he has been in Mallorca. Jeremy Clarkson is and does, and you really should have banked on him having a go. Just be grateful if you are not an expatriate, because if you are, wherever you may be (with the exception of the USA), you are damned - by Clarkson - and a failure. It's no good you or indeed I saying that Clarkson's message does not apply. It does. You, you, you and you, all of you, you expats, you're all failures. That's his message. Thought he was coming to Mallorca to do some wonderful PR work? No he was not. The naïvite but also the superficiality of the expat community here beggars belief. The Top Gear presence was little more than an excuse for showing off on a grand scale. And why was the British Consul at the rally? What had it got to do with him? It was because it became an expats' function, which makes one ask who the rally is in fact for. My understanding is that Mallorcans stayed away from the race track and observed the rally only along the route and in the villages.

It may yet prove that, when the rally footage is broadcast, Mallorca is shown in a good light. But there must be a fear that Clarkson or one of the others will have a pop at the place and at the people, because that is what Clarkson has most certainly already done. I should feel offended, but I am not. Partly, that's because I knew it was coming and partly because, well, he isn't wrong.

'I was in Majorca last weekend, which is jammed full of British expats all of whom would begin their explanation of how they got there with the same thing: “Well, after I sold the cab . . .”
'There they were, in their chips and footie bars with their desperate eyes and their booze-ruined noses, regaling everyone with their stuck-record views on life back in Blighty.
' “Don’t know how you can live in Britain. Bloody weather. Bloody Muslims. Bloody Brown,” and then, after a wistful pause, “. . . you don’t have a copy of today’s Telegraph do you?” '

Like moths to a flame, the expats were mindlessly attracted by the prospect of celebrity, only to find that they were then burned by the very thing that attracted them. Burned, ripped to pieces, shown up, made fun of, whole lives questioned, shat on. To hell with Clarkson, you might say. But I won't and can't, because I agree with him. Oh, and he's also very funny. Read the whole thing for yourselves. And if you don't read, I suspect you don't want to know the reality. Excellent stuff:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article5992555.ece


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The KLF once again (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwtSdJaPCSI). Today's title - Jeremy? Truly brilliant song that came out of the grunge, some say it wasn't grunge, movement. Unquestionably, like Mark Hollis (Talk Talk), one of the most distinctive of vocalists. Who?



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