Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born April 11, 1960 in Doncaster) is a British writer and broadcaster who specializes in motoring issues. He writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun, but is most associated with the BBC motoring programme Top Gear, which he presented from 1989 until 1999, and then again from 2002 onwards. The show has 250 million viewers and won an International Emmy in 2005.

"[N]ot a man given to considered opinion," according to the BBC, [3] Clarkson is known as forthright in his views.

Biography

Clarkson was educated at Repton School. His first job was as a travelling salesman for his parents' business selling Paddington Bear toys, after which he trained as a journalist with the Rotherham Advertiser. [4]

In 1984, he combined his writing skills with his love of cars, and together with a business partner, Jonathan Gill, formed the Motoring Press Agency, conducting road tests on behalf of local newspapers, and writing for specialist car magazines such as Performance Car from 1986 until 1993.

He married his agent Frances Catherine Cain on May 8, 1993, and they have three children, Emily, Finlo, and Katya. The family lives in the Cotswolds near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, and also has a home on the Isle of Man — where his wife comes from — described by Clarkson in 2004 as "a thorn in the side of Tony Blair's nanny state," because of its lack of an upper speed limit.

His wife's father, Major Robert Henry Cain, was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry during Operation Market Garden in September 1944. When Clarkson presented a documentary about the Victoria Cross, he highlighted the story of Major Cain, only revealing at the end that he had married Cain's daughter, and that she didn't know her father had won a VC until after his death.

During a 2004 episode of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, Clarkson was invited to investigate his family history, including the story of his great-great-great grandfather, John Kilner (1792–1857), who invented the Kilner jar, a receptacle for preserved fruit. [5]

Television career

Clarkson is most associated with the motoring programme Top Gear, which he presented from 1989-99, and then again from 2002, when it was relaunched in a new format after a brief period off the air. It is now consistently the most watched show on BBC Two, with 250 million viewers around the world, winning an International Emmy in 2005 for best non-scripted entertainment show.

He has also presented other motoring-related series such as Star Cars, Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld, and Jeremy Clarkson's Car Years.

Engineering interests

Clarkson is interested in engineering, especially pioneering work, as his television programmes about Brunel and the Colossus computer have shown. Clarkson was awarded an honorary degree from Brunel University on September 12, 2003, partly because of his work popularising engineering, and partly because of his advocacy of Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the 100 Greatest Britons programme.

In April 2004, he appeared on the talk show Parkinson and mentioned that he was writing a book about the soul he believes many machines have. He cited Concorde as his primary example: when people heard it had crashed, quite aside from the sadness they felt for the loss of human life, there was almost a sadness for the machine. The book, titled I Know You Got Soul, was published in October 2004.

Controversy

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Clarkson has often been the focus of controversy. In October 1998, Hyundai cars complained to the BBC about what they described as "bigoted and racist" comments he made at the Motor Show in Birmingham, when he was reported as saying that the people working on the Hyundai stand had eaten a dog, and that the designer of the Hyundai XG had probably had a spaniel for his lunch. He also allegedly referred to those working on the BMW stand as "Nazis". [6]

In the Sunday Times on June 2, 2002 he said he had spent the day hunting rats using tennis rackets and croquet mallets. The RSPCA issued a warning to him as a result of this comment.

Clarkson's views on cyclists and promotion of motoring have caused concern among cycling and road-safety organisations. Transport 2000 have called for Top Gear to be replaced by a more safety and environmentally aware motoring programme. In February 2004, Clarkson rammed a 30-year-old horse chestnut tree with a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck to demonstrate how rugged the vehicle was. This led to the BBC having to compensate the local parish council who, until they saw the Top Gear broadcast, thought that the damage had been caused by local vandals.

He has had a long-running public feud with Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily Mirror. In October 2003, on the last Concorde flight, he threw a glass of water over Morgan while the two were exchanging insults. In March 2004, at the British Press Awards, he cursed at Morgan and punched him, apparently angry that the newspaper had published photographs of Clarkson with a woman who was not his wife. [7]

In 2005, the School of Technology at Oxford Brookes University awarded him an honorary engineering doctorate, leading to protests from green organizations who objected to his statements on the environment and his advocacy of car use. He has said: "I do have a disregard for the environment. I think the world can look after itself and we should enjoy it as best we can." After the ceremony, he was hit in the face with a banana meringue pie by a protester. [8] Clarkson took the pie on the chin and commented that it had too much sugar.

In September 2005, Clarkson wrote an editorial for The Sun criticising Americans, and including the comment: "most Americans barely have the brains to walk on their back legs." [9]

Trivia

• Clarkson was one of the passengers on the last BA Concorde flight on October 24, 2003. He paraphrased Neil Armstrong to describe the retiring of Concorde: "This is one small step for a man, but one huge leap backwards for mankind".
• His book The World According to Clarkson was at number one in the charts for eight weeks.
• He has been blamed for poor denim sales. Draper's Record, trade magazine to the fashion industry, ran an article on Clarkson's poor fashion image: "For a period in the late Nineties denim became unfashionable. "501s — Levi's flagship brand — in particular suffered from the so-called 'Jeremy Clarkson effect', the association with men in middle youth." He was also featured on What Not to Wear, where he was named as one of "the world's worst-dressed celebrities".
• During a guest appearance on QI, screened on the November 11, 2005, he said that seal flipper tastes "exactly like licking a hot Turkish urinal". He also ate whale, which he said tastes like steak but with an iron tang, covered in grated puffin. He said, "The waiter asked if I wanted some grated puffin on my whale and how do you say no to something like that?"
• In his book The World According To Clarkson, he wrote: "I've eaten snakes, dogs, small whole birds in France and crocodiles, but Tommy Turtle is my line in the sand. I don't care if turtles turn out to be the antidote for cancer, I'm not eating even a small part of one and that's that."

Works

Non-motoring shows

• Clarkson (1998): A chat show that ran for three series.
• Jeremy Clarkson's Extreme Machines (1998): where he rode all manner of machines, including a plane, and an airboat.
• Robot Wars (1997): Clarkson presented the first series of the UK version.
• Jeremy Clarkson Meets The Neighbours: A notorious Europhobe, Clarkson travelled around Europe, confronting (and in some cases reinforcing) his prejudices.
• Have I Got News For You: hosted three episodes, the first in 2002 and two in 2005.
• Inventions That Changed the World: five episodes featuring the invention of the gun/computer/jet engine/telephone/television from a British point of view.
• Top of the Pops: co-hosted one episode on July 24, 2005 with Fearne Cotton.
• QI: appeared as a guest on four occasions.
• Room 101: appeared on this in 1995 when Nick Hancock was host. Clarkson's choices were caravans; flies; Last Of The Summer Wine; the mentality within golf clubs; and vegetarians.
• Jeremy Clarkson: Who Do You Think You Are?
• Great Britons : In a poll to find the greatest historical Briton, Clarkson was the chief supporter for Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who came second.
• The History Of The Victoria Cross

Videos

Clarkson has produced the following:

• Jeremy Clarkson's Motorsport Mayhem (1995)
• Jeremy Clarkson - Unleashed On Cars (1996)
• The Best Of Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld (1996)
• More Motorsport Mayhem Featuring Jeremy Clarkson And Steve Rider (1996)
• Jeremy Clarkson's Unlimited Extreme Machines (1997)
• Jeremy Clarkson - Apocalypse Clarkson (1997)
• The Most Outrageous Jeremy Clarkson Video In The World...Ever (1998)
• Jeremy Clarkson Head To Head (1999)
• Jeremy Clarkson - At Full Throttle (2000)
• Jeremy Clarkson - Top 100 Cars (2001)
• Jeremy Clarkson - Speed (2001)
• Jeremy Clarkson - No Limits (2002)
• Jeremy Clarkson's Shootout (2003)
• Jeremy Clarkson - Hot Metal (2004)
• Jeremy Clarkson - Heaven And Hell (2005)

Books

• Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld (1996)
• Clarkson on Cars: Writings and Rantings of the BBC's Top Motoring Correspondent (1996)
• Clarkson's Hot 100 (1997)
• Jeremy Clarkson's Planet Dagenham: Drivestyles of the Rich and Famous (1998)
• Born to Be Riled: The Collected Writings of Jeremy Clarkson (1999)
• Jeremy Clarkson's Ultimate Ferrari (2001)
• The World According to Clarkson (2004)
• Clarkson on Cars (2004)
• I Know You Got Soul (2004)
• Motorworld (2004)

References

• "Celebrity Gallery" by Dan Waddell, BBC, undated, retrieved December 9, 2005
• "Jeremy Clarkson, Presenter, Top Gear" no byline, BBC World, undated, retrieved December 9, 2005
• "Clarkson hit by pie at degree ceremony" by Polly Curtis, The Guardian, September 12, 2005
• "Clarkson in the doghouse", no byline, BBC News, October 28, 1998
• "I should have been fired years ago, to be honest" by Lynn Barber, The Observer, November 20, 2005

Further reading

• Jeremy Clarkson at IMDb
• Archive of Clarkson's Sunday Times columns
• Petition opposing Clarkson's receiving an honorary degree
• Banana meringue news story from The Sun