EENIE, MEENIE, MINEY, MOE .... WILL THE BBC LET HIM GO ?

Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson has said he is “horrified” that it sounded as though he used racist language while filming an episode and was “begging your forgiveness” for the fact it appeared that he did.

Responding to claims that he used the n-word while reciting a nursery rhyme, Clarkson told his Twitter followers he had made every effort to make sure he did not use the slur, but realised it might have sounded as though he had.

In a video posted on his Twitter account tonight, he said: “I was mortified by this, horrified. It is a word I loathe.

“Please be assured I did everything in my power to not use that word. And as I’m sitting here begging your forgiveness for the fact that obviously my efforts weren’t quite good enough.”

“When I viewed this footage, several weeks later, I realised that if you listen very carefully with the sound turned right up, it did appear I actually used the word I was trying to obscure,” he added of one of the first two takes.


The allegations were reported in today’s Daily Mirror, which claimed the footage was studied by “audio forensic experts” who told them the star “can be heard chanting Eeny, meeny, miny moe...’. He then mumbles ‘Catch a n***** by his toe’”.

His co-host, James May, also came to his defence on Twitter, saying: “Jeremy Clarkson is not a racist. He is a monumental bellend and many other things, but not a racist. I wouldn’t work with one.”

The claims come days after the motoring show’s producer apologized for broadcasting a “light-hearted” joke by Clarkson that sparked a complaint of racism.

An episode filmed in Burma and Thailand and shown in March featured a scene in which the presenters built a bridge over the River Kwai, and as an Asian man walked over it Clarkson said: “That is a proud moment, but there’s a slope on it.”

Somi Guha, an actress who complained to the BBC, said the use of the word “slope” was an example of “casual racism” and “gross misconduct”.

The BBC2 show’s executive producer Andy Wilman said: “When we used the word slope in the recent Top Gear Burma Special, it was a light-hearted wordplay joke referencing both the build quality of the bridge and the local Asian man who was crossing it.

Clarkson previously faced a storm of protest from mental health charities after he branded people who throw themselves under trains as “selfish” and was forced to apologize for telling BBC1’s The One Show that striking workers should be shot.

Top Gear Aimed At Viewers 'With Mental Age of Nine' Says Producer

The BBC show's aim, according to Andy Wilman, is to provide "an hour a week where absolutely nothing is achieved" but which provides a method of escapism for middle aged men. 

Having watched the majority of the show's upcoming nine episodes, Wilman found that "almost everything we'd filmed was, once again, aimed at people with a mental age of nine".


"I gave that last point some thought," he added during an interview with the Radio Times magazine. "And quickly realised that it was too important to mess around with.

"If you're actually nine, you need something to watch that isn't a computer screen," he said. "And if you're 29, 39 or 59, part of your brain will most likely still have a mental age of nine, and that part struggles to get nourishment.

"Modern life for adults is, after all, bloody hard. The workplace is not freer, but more regimented by management systems and nonsense enforced by going on "courses". Email hasn't decreased the workload but in fact piled it on.

"The demand to be accountable and produce results hangs heavy over every worker, and by the weekend they need a release valve. That's where we come in – an hour a week where three badly dressed middle-aged men bicker, fall over and catch fire.

"This is an important service we provide, and therefore essential that being nine should remain a massive remit of our films." Series 21 of Top Gear stars Sunday, 2 February, and Wilman promised that it would not contain any "grown up" content.

I'LL GIVE IT A GO

TONIGHT

This could be good ................

'BIDDLY BIDDLY BONG .......... YO'

Ricky Gervais revives David Brent for Comic Relief.

He will reprise his role as the former manager of Slough paper merchants Wernham Hogg, in The Office Revisited, for Red Nose Day on 15 March.

It has been 10 years since Gervais has been seen on British TV as David Brent. "I thought it was time to revisit my most famous comedy creation to find out what he's been up to for the last decade," Gervais said.

David Brent will be seen starting a new career as a talent manager in the music industry, as he tries to help urban solo artist Dom Johnson secure his big break.

"He is passing on his wisdom to younger would-be rock stars now. Well, really he is trying to worm his way back into rock and roll," said Gervais.


Brent has funded his new sideline as an impresario by selling cleaning products as a door-to-door salesman.

Reformed Hitman Who Inspired 'The Wire's' Omar Dies at 58

Donnie Andrews was a Baltimore hitman who turned police informant, and inspired David Simon to create the popular character.

Donnie Andrews, a former Baltimore drug world hitman whose life partly provided the inspiration for the character of Omar Little on HBO's beloved crime epic The Wire, has died at 58 from heart complications.

Andrews was surrounded by violence for much of his life, growing up in an abusive household and even bearing witness to a brutal murder at a young age -- all over an alleged fifteen cents. He was soon taken in by criminals and was robbing drug dealers at gunpoint in his teens. By 1986, he was addicted to heroin and carrying out hits for a major drug kingpin.

Andrews was arrested for the murder of two drug dealers, a crime for which he turned himself in and never sought a lesser sentence. He offered to cooperate with authorities "to repent," and was soon wearing a wire, capturing conversations implicating other criminals.

Andrews was paroled in 2005, and devoted the remainder of his years advocating to keep youth on the right side of the law.

The Wire creator David Simon was a crime reporter for the Sun at the time of Andrews' arrest, and sent Andrews copies of the newspaper while he served a life term in federal prison. He'd later use him as a consultant on The Wire, where Andrews, along with several other drug world assassins, became the inspiration for Omar -- the killer with a moral code.

Played by Michael K. Williams, Omar was a Baltimore underworld legend who never deviated from his own set of rules, the golden one being that he never threatened anyone not in "the game."

Williams saluted his real world inspiration on Twitter, writing on Friday, "R.I.P. to the original gangsta and a stand up dude Mr Donnie Andrews the man who was the inspiration for Omar Little sending out prayers."