Jeremy Clarkson

Well at least make it funny, make reference to their love for invading and occupying other countries yet calling invaders and occupiers wrong, and of course, their belief that shouting louder in English will compensate for them not being arsed to learn a foreign language.

Ya see, I **hope** all the English people on this thread will that this in the spirit it's intended :p
 
noblesteed said:
Mrs B I don't earn £4200 a month!!! I take home less than half that! THis is why I don't think my marvellous public sector pension is very cheap!!!! Certainly not how the government is deceitfully describing it!!!! I am VERY surprised by the amount my pension contributions will increase... I don't think that much of my salary SHOULD be taken by a pension... In fact my husband and I are now looking for alternatives to our 'wonderful' public sector pensions...

And actually not only does your tax pay my pension it ALSO pays my salary!!!!!

Otherwise who would run the schools your kids attend? They get a free education don't they? And a darned good one if they were at my school. Though it won't be when I'm still dothering around the classroom at 67...
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NOTHING is free, neither is education, otherwise you wouldn't get a salary:rolleyes:
 
Well WD and others, now you know how it felt when Brown did his pension raid on the private sector and we were asked to pay extra by companies and lose benefits.
The public pensions have been a problem for ages on how to finance them but nobody has wanted to tackle it.
 
AengusOg said:
I don't like Frankie Boyle either, but he is a comedian. Clarkson is a presenter who thinks he's funny. More a comic figure.

Pedantic, I doubt your wife is 'Scotch'. It's whisky. She may be spirited, but Scotch she is not. I think you'll find she's Scottish, or a Scot, or Scots by birth. That's pedantic for you, eh?

Methinks you are all comedians down there, but we don't find the ones up here too funny.

It doesn't really matter anyway, as all the bad boys come good sooner or later. Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand, Vinnie Jones, the wee politician who was jailed, wrote a book, then was let out and became a lord...it seems the badder they are the more you love them.
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Maybe it's the wind up there, but it went straight over your head I said "scotch" for a reason ;)
 
This guy is only a TV presenter... he is not the prime minister! Why are so many people obsessed with comments a Jeremy Clarkson make?
 
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Noblesteed- if pension contributions are 9.5% and you pay £420 per month (£5,040 per year), that would make your salary in the region of £53k a year. Obviously that's subject to tax but that's how salaries are generally stated.

I don't pay £420 per month into my pension because it would be nearly a quarter of my current salary. Given I don't have the luxury of a DB pension scheme I am reluctant (and unable to afford) to invest so heavily in my risky pension as there are still well over 40 years left for my entire fund to be all but wiped out!

I don't understand how pretty much every DB pension scheme I've come across is struggling, with sponsoring employers having to make significant deficit funding contributions, yet public sector pensions are apparently able to meet their projections?
 
Edit: don't think my pension scheme would even allow me to make 25% contributions even if I could afford it/ wanted to (can't edit my post as I'm on my phone
 
I Queenbeelieve in Santa said:
Noblesteed- if pension contributions are 9.5% and you pay £420 per month (£5,040 per year), that would make your salary in the region of £53k a year. Obviously that's subject to tax but that's how salaries are generally stated.

I don't pay £420 per month into my pension because it would be nearly a quarter of my current salary. Given I don't have the luxury of a DB pension scheme I am reluctant (and unable to afford) to invest so heavily in my risky pension as there are still well over 40 years left for my entire fund to be all but wiped out!

I don't understand how pretty much every DB pension scheme I've come across is struggling, with sponsoring employers having to make significant deficit funding contributions, yet public sector pensions are apparently able to meet their projections?
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Its because one is subject to economics and reality and the other is underwriten by the tax payer and subject to fantasy....
 
Lizzie66 said:
If you don't like his style of humour then turn the telly off.
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I watch top Gear quite regularly, but it is scripted, and not live, so he is in control/under control, I did turn off the TV but only after he made the remark about trains [ which incidentally he does not use [allegedly], and I am sure he won't be welcome if he tries to get on one in the near future]., so lets hope he get a lifetime ban for driving [ha ha lets all laugh when he goes though a brick wall and has to use public transport, though no doubt he can afford to pay a driver, well, as long as he is employed and not disabled.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if he got no more TV, we would all have to PAY to go and see him at the theatre, where we will laugh uproariously and throw rotten eggs.
 
wonkey_donkey said:
JC is a total ****ing bell-end.
Glad he thinks it's so funny.
I pay £400 a month into my 'gold gilted' publc sector pension which I can just about afford and now they want me to pay another £140 a month (which I don't have) and work 8 years longer to get 30% less return.
Wish I had just gone on the dole at 17 years old and stayed on it for my working life cos it appears working hard for a living and making provisions for my old age was not the responsible thing to do after all.
Sack the knob head :-)
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If your contribution is going up by 3% and this equates to £140, then you are on £56k a year. Therefore even after your pension contribution you will be on in excess of £4k per month !

There are also a large number of public sector workers who are on more modest salaries and this probably will cause some of them genuine hardship. Its people like you that make the vast majority of private sector employed people very unsupportive of the public sector and tend to agree with the sentiment behind JC's comments.
 
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As I said I currently pay £340 a month into pension, but government want to RAISE that to around £420 ( £80 increase) In April.
This is what I went on strike about, that and having to work til I'm 67!!!!! Who wants a 67 year old teacher?

I am slighlty concerned that I have been paying this much per month into my pension because I take home £2000. It IS deducted before tax but my gross pay was £3000. meaning I lose £1000 in deductions... So that MUST be more than 6% I am paying, its more like 12...

I think I had better get on to payroll, because thats approx 11% of my gross pay, 20% of my take-home. Not the piddly amount (3-6%) the government is saying that we pay! My point is they are saying our pensions are cheap, I am saying NO THEY"RE NOT!!!! ANd they will be even MORE expensive once April comes!

I am only a middle-manager in a school. I am NOT rich or overpaid like people are implying!!!!! I have a 3-bed house in a nice area for which the mortgage costs over £1000 a month. I am only now, at 33, just to say earning enough to be able to afford to have children.

Maybe I should have gone on the dole at 17 instead of paying my way through university and working my socks off teaching at some very tough schools. I could have had plenty of kids by now.
 
Well for my twopennieth I am fed up with people jumping on the bandwaggon of offense everytime someone opens their mouth.
If someone says something you don't agree with or like just right them off as an idiot, end of.

We are going to end up with the thought police soon and its getting tiresome having all this analysis all the time. What was interesting was the comment from a wider perspective following the Fifa bosses comments re racism in that its only ever the British who read offense into everything and its because we're such a melting pot that british powers that be have to condemn anything remotely likely to offend in case it causes unrest.

Clarkson was put up to this by BBC producers. You know what you get with him and if you see the whole clip and not just the edited version you see the context is tongue in cheek.
 
perfect11s said:
I'm not his bigest fan however he does upset all the right people, the ones that make our lives harder less fun or dull so go on jezza you give it to em straight... the po faced PC brigade, the beardy yogurt knitters the envronMentalists... the jobs worths, the non produtives .......
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tee hee yoghurt knitters!

Did you hear Richard Herring this week? If not listen again to it, he was very funny talking about knitting with yoghurt on his high horse :D
 
BBH said:
Clarkson was put up to this by BBC producers. You know what you get with him and if you see the whole clip and not just the edited version you see the context is tongue in cheek.
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The one show is a family type program which is not known for cutting edge comedy and for very good reason, it is family viewing, and the producers can expect to be hauled over the coals if they "put him up to this" I don't think they did judging by the horror on the face of the interviewer, and subsequent apologies.
 
noblesteed said:
Mrs B I don't earn £4200 a month!!! I take home less than half that! THis is why I don't think my marvellous public sector pension is very cheap!!!! Certainly not how the government is deceitfully describing it!!!! I am VERY surprised by the amount my pension contributions will increase... I don't think that much of my salary SHOULD be taken by a pension... In fact my husband and I are now looking for alternatives to our 'wonderful' public sector pensions...

And actually not only does your tax pay my pension it ALSO pays my salary!!!!!

Otherwise who would run the schools your kids attend? They get a free education don't they? And a darned good one if they were at my school. Though it won't be when I'm still dothering around the classroom at 67...
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But my point is there is not enough money to pay for everything at the same level as we have been - that's why we're so badly in debt as a country. So why should one group of people be more exempt from cuts, salary loss, working longer and smaller pensions?
You CHOSE to do the job you do. As did I and no, I don't have children.
Would you prefer to take the money you think you can afford to put into a pension and buy one like many others of us have to - only to watch it disappear faster than you can pay money in?
Life ain't fair and never has been.
 
MrsD123 said:
The one show is a family type program which is not known for cutting edge comedy and for very good reason, it is family viewing, and the producers can expect to be hauled over the coals if they "put him up to this" I don't think they did judging by the horror on the face of the interviewer, and subsequent apologies.
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Its in the papers today.

They put him up to it and had arranged a joke but maybe jezza being jezza he added some poetic licence who knows.
 
Jen_Cots said:
I have an issue with the strikes - the defined benefit pension is not sustainable at final pay level. Very few companies offer this now, so why should the government?

My pension costs me 5%, and is worth less than funds invested. I'd love a defined benefit pension at 3% !!
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I'm not sure where the stats came from as I also saw that on TV but when I was in local authority I paid 6% pension and I believe 11% when in the police.
 
Re the public sector, the main point has been overlooked, these employees applied for a job and were selected as the most suitable candidates, they then signed up to a contract to work for the country, on a pre-determined salary scale plus pre - determined pensions and work conditions.
Suddenly the government finds itself in a complete mess, obviously the economists whom they employ [at great expense], "forgot" to tell them what was happening, OR they ignored the economists, AND common sense, allowed the country to build up debt [unlike Germany]. Even handing out nice extras like paternity leave, and other vote catching fripperies.
Suddenly they need to conjure up mega cuts in expenditure, and since Maggie Thatcher and her cohorts sold off the family silver[1980's] there is no "pot" to delve in to.
Suddenly they find out we are all living longer [what a surprise event], so will be taking more out of the pension fund annually than is going in.
They don't have a pension pot as such, it is current payments from employees, not payments from current beneficiaries, unlike like the private pension schemes, where one person should be building up one pot.
To some of these workers, it must seem like they have been badly let down by their employers, and for this reason, they agreed to strike, as the only way to express their anger/discontent/dismay.
There are other false sunrises in the Government's strategies which no one seems to have picked up on; this idea that everyone will work to age 67, well I have been unemployed since I was 50 or so, due to my age, I could not get a job, I had to start up a business, but due to creaking bones and age related weaknesses, I can't work as hard as if I were 25, and I am bumping along the bottom, many people are in the same position, but just imagine a 67 year old teacher trying to control a classroom of thirty or more school pupils aged 14. It won't work, and we will end up with massive mental health problems as people struggle to do their jobs.
Oh yes, and don't think the government will be sympathetic, they don't want people claiming disability benefit either.
If I were young and fit, I would apply for a passport, sell up and go somewhere else.
 
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All interesting points though still not clear on the actual rights. However, we are a democracy, whether I agree with the public sector is largely irrelevant. I do support their right to strike and voice their opinion and concerns. However I also expect them in turn to allow others to respond. Yes Jeremy Clarkson was a bit over the top. He always is, but we listen because there is normally some sense in what he is saying as well. Unions demanding his head for speaking out is quite frankly ridiculous and puts them in a poor light.

The comedians jokes about Katie prices son are not in the same category at all. That was bullying of the offensive kind and he deserved Ms Price going after him for that.

It all goes back it the old adage of "I may not like what you say but I defend your right to say it"
 
MrsD123 said:
The remark which was offensive and not funny was that it did not matter if someone died by suicide in front of a train the authorities should not stop the train, ie not inconvenience anyone on the railway.
Well sorry, every such death has many many victims, who should be allowed to grieve and not have it made out to be a sick joke.
I think there were some who had to go after the Andrew Sachs telephone call, another of the same type of "joke".
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I had a much loved uncle killed by a train and my DIL jumped from a bridge onto a railway line at the age of 15.

Was I offended ? Nope.

It was a joke, and those of us who have faced such grief are often less bothered by being offended where none was meant.

My sympathy goes out to train drivers for whom jumpers are their worst nightmare but, I also have friends and relatives who are drivers and track workers, and they use black humour as a defense mechanism.

Jeremy is a breath of fresh air.
 
MrsD123!!! You have become JC wth your ageist and offensive remark "just imagine a 67 year old teacher trying to control a classroom of thirty or more school pupils aged 14. It won't work"
I am sure there are many "old" teachers who have the experience to control classrooms much better than some young thing straight out of training. ;-)
 
Crikey people seem to think that 67 is absolutely ancient. Do we really believe that 67 year olds aren't capable of doing a proper and decent job?

I have no doubt that a 67 year old could keep control of a class of badly behaved teenagers. At the secondary school I went to it was the young teachers who lacked control, not the older ones. In fact we had a part time teacher who worked beyond retirement, and was over 67 (she looked about 105...). She had a 100% attendance record, being one of only a couple of staff members who made it in during snow (she walked 6 miles to and from school every day)and if she taught your class you didn't think of misbehaving. She was terrifying!

It is incredibly patronising to suggest that someone can't do a reasonable days work at age 67.

For example Churchill was 65 when he first became prime minister and by the end of his last term he was 80. And the general opinion is that he did a pretty good job of leading the country through some of the most difficult times we have ever faced. He was 70 by the end of WW2!

Ranulph Fiennes climbed Everest aged 65 (and in the same year gave Mr Clarkson himself a good ticking off.. and he's the epitomy of a a naughty schoolboy!)

And 67 is also the age of the oldest person to compete at the olympics, in the dressage.

But forget all that at 67 all you will be good for is knitting in a rocking chair and sucking werthers originals!
 
FWIW I think this strike more than any other has divided opinion as public sector workers did not sign up for increased working lives and higher pension contributions. This whole mess has been caused by years of over spending by an incompetent government and now the chickens have come home to roost hard working tax payers are saddled with the burden.

I don't think the private sector / self employed have quite the same issue in that they would have known of the risks of uncertainty when entering the work pattern / place they chose, and we all know the self employed have the option of ' hiding' money. Its very evident down here the PAYE folk are struggling and all the brand new black range rover drivers are the self employed groundsworker, builders, skip hire people etc etc.

Lets hope all those QUANGO costs and wastage and benefit fraud millions have been worth it cos it'll take years to get over this.
 
Nobody "signed up" to work to age 67, but the change will affect everyone as state pensions will not become available until then. Many private sector workers do not have a private pension or if they do it will be far to small to live off so any prospect of retiring early like so many baby boomers have has disappeared.

Oh and the self employed do not have the "option" of hiding money. Are you implying that the self employed all do, or should commit criminal offences?
 
I don't see what the big issue is, I am on a LGPS but I didn't strike as I can't see where it us going to get us - anyway - JC lives and thrives on controversy and winding people up, I didn't get offended by it I just thought what a knobish statement to make!! :) :) :)
 
LOL, thats true. When I was at school, back in the dark ages and taught by nuns, it was the young ones that couldn't keep control, whereas the ancient, wrinkly ones kept order with one look that had us trembling in our sandals.

Yikes, Sister Veroncia and Sister Anne, may have been 4'11 and whizzened, but they were spritely and no one dared step out of line.
 
KristmasKatt said:
Crikey people seem to think that 67 is absolutely ancient. Do we really believe that 67 year olds aren't capable of doing a proper and decent job?

I have no doubt that a 67 year old could keep control of a class of badly behaved teenagers. At the secondary school I went to it was the young teachers who lacked control, not the older ones. In fact we had a part time teacher who worked beyond retirement, and was over 67 (she looked about 105...). She had a 100% attendance record, being one of only a couple of staff members who made it in during snow (she walked 6 miles to and from school every day)and if she taught your class you didn't think of misbehaving. She was terrifying!
It is incredibly patronising to suggest that someone can't do a reasonable days work at age 67.

For example Churchill was 65 when he first became prime minister and by the end of his last term he was 80. And the general opinion is that he did a pretty good job of leading the country through some of the most difficult times we have ever faced. He was 70 by the end of WW2!

Ranulph Fiennes climbed Everest aged 65 (and in the same year gave Mr Clarkson himself a good ticking off.. and he's the epitomy of a a naughty schoolboy!)

But forget all that at 67 all you will be good for is knitting in a rocking chair and sucking werthers originals!
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People may be able to do a decent job but the question is no-one wants to. People may choose to work part time doing something they love rather than the pressure of a fulltime demanding job or travel , socialise, etc etc but its their choice and that choice has been taken away. What if they die at 70 no retirement at all.
 
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