You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Britain
The united states of total paranoia
2006-07-04
It's another hit piece, but this one by an arrogant dimbulb. We live in a "total police state." Really. And we're all stoopid. Really, really stoopid, unlike him.
I know Britain is full of incompetent water board officials and stabbed Glaswegians but even so I fell on my knees this morning and kissed the ground, because I’ve just spent three weeks trying to work in America. It’s known as the land of the free and I’m sure it is if you get up in the morning, go to work in a petrol station, eat nothing but double-egg burgers — with cheese — and take your children to little league. But if you step outside the loop, if you try to do something a bit zany, you will find that you’re in a police state.
I guess one man's "zany" is another man's "felony."
We begin at Los Angeles airport in front of an immigration official who, like all his colleagues, was selected for having no grace, no manners, no humour, no humanity and the sort of IQ normally found in farmyard animals. He scanned my form and noted there was no street number for the hotel at which I was staying. “I’m going to need a number,” he said. “Ooh, I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m afraid I don’t have one.”
Did you think of looking on your receipt? Since I'm purported to ahve an IQ higher than that of a barnyard animal, it would have occurred to me right away...
This didn’t seem to have any effect. “I’m going to need a number,” he said again, and then again, and then again. Each time I shrugged and stammered, terrified that I might be sent to the back of the queue or worse, into the little room with the men in Marigolds. But I simply didn’t have an answer. “I’m going to need a number,” he said again, giving the distinct impression that he was an autobank, and that this was a conversation he was prepared to endure until one of us died. So with a great deal of bravery I decided to give him one. And the number I chose was 2,649,347.
Wasn't smart enough to look on the receipt, or he preferred to lie. How zany.
Posted by:Fred

#25  Well I'm glad he didn't tell that petrol attendant how he really felt. She prolly would've kicked his ass.
Posted by: Broadhead6   2006-07-04 23:03  

#24  "...he hates officious people and is not keen on the EU. Ok, two saving graces."
I dunno, Tony, that may just be one.
Posted by: Darrell   2006-07-04 15:35  

#23  I read this through and was cringing by the end of it. So I read the original article and it was all very clear to me - it was written by Jeremy Clarkson.

For those who don't know him, he hosts a TV show called 'Top Gear' which basically consists of him taking the piss out of a shorter bloke in the programme, driving around in uber-expensive cars going "whoaar!", taking the piss out of the French, figuring out how to drop crappy cars onto caravans, taking the piss out of the Germans, driving extremely fast on the autobahns - again going "whoaar!", bemoaning the state of the British car industry (what industry?), taking the piss out of the Spanish, Australians!, Belgians, Dutch (kept asking them about 'chocolate sprinkles' - tee hee) and just about anyone else he can get hold of.

He can be unbearably obnoxious, tries to be 'laddish' and writes these type of columns just for the effect. Oh, and did I say he takes the piss? Well he does, a lot. He did have a talk show, but it was rubbish and was canned.

His one saving grace IMHO is that he hates officious people and is not keen on the EU. Ok, two saving graces.

Other than that, he's not funny and is a dolt.

I apologise for him ;)
Posted by: Tony (UK)   2006-07-04 15:30  

#22  Apparently the writer's young enough to be carded.

Nope.

But when it comes to the crunch he's actually on your side.

Of course.

Posted by: Angie Schultz   2006-07-04 15:07  

#21  Carry a dead cow on your car's roof?

You wouldn't have a roof. More of a "Vee".

If I wanted to carry a cow why didn't he at least have an F-150.
He could have mumbled about rendering or something...

BTW... Dead cow stories...
...
Sometime,,, Sometime.... NAH!
Posted by: 3dc   2006-07-04 12:40  

#20  Hoisted on his own smarmy petard. The man comes across as the utter childish fool he is.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412   2006-07-04 12:35  

#19  that is hilarious. It sounds like this guy was trying to make some kind of film here in America with NO budget. He didnt figure that in the land of Hollywood, the maroons who live there wont just give away the commercial filming rights to their stuff.
Brits in America need to leave their culturally myopic attitude at home if they want to travel and enjoy it, otherwise it would be better for them to remain on their Island. This guy is obviously a Muggle.
Posted by: bk   2006-07-04 12:27  

#18  He's European, give him a break, he's thoroughly conditioned that it's somebody's fault, (Not His) just decide who's fault it is and continue on.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2006-07-04 12:07  

#17  xb :-)
Posted by: Frank G   2006-07-04 10:50  

#16  ... full of incompetent water board officials ...

I thought those water board officials were all administering those secret CIA prisons.
Posted by: xbalanke   2006-07-04 10:35  

#15  I luv the part where he said he needed a number for the hotel and the govt. worker kept telling him he needed a number. I was thinking after the first time that govt worker just wanted a number any number, but it took this idiot 5 times before he fiqured it out.
Posted by: djohn66   2006-07-04 10:32  

#14  I liked it. It showed we love our 2nd ammendment, but don't like outsiders with guns in our country, good on the cops. We also have rules about setting up cameras in the street, something to do with blocking traffic, good on the traffic cops. And then there's the taking a car out in "our" desert and shooting it up. He probably was going to leave it there and did not do all the environmental things like drain the oil and radiator first. Good on all the cops that stopped this guy. I only wonder why he came here to do all this disruption. He certainly could not do any of it in the civilized UK.
Posted by: 49 Pan   2006-07-04 10:25  

#13  Wait a minute, I thought we were in the grips of an implacable hard-right Christian theocracy, looking to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen! Now it's a police state?

I guess Europeans would know fascism and totalitarianism, however. They have so much more first-hand experience with it.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie   2006-07-04 09:28  

#12  I watched Top Gear once, he was pounding the snot out of a Ferrari Enzo.
I'm ashamed to say I envied him at that moment, but that was before I realized his brains don't work.
Posted by: JerseyMike   2006-07-04 08:16  

#11  I imagine Jeremy is playing to (actual or perceived) British dislike of Americans, which at the moment is reportedly high.
Posted by: lotp   2006-07-04 07:07  

#10  Mike - That is a fantastic link. Lileks really really skewers assholes like this twerp. So accurate and spot on it simply rox. Thanks!
Posted by: Ulese Whiting4280   2006-07-04 06:25  

#9  fatuous condescension is what he does best.

He just like to take the p155 out of non-english people. But when it comes to the crunch he's actually on your side.

Oh and Top-Gear IS a good program, but what is it doing on Al-beeb?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2006-07-04 06:20  

#8  Resetting the bar for fatuous condescension.
Posted by: Ulese Whiting4280   2006-07-04 06:08  

#7  Perfect fare for the Fourth.

This is a stark reminder of one glaring aspect of why we fought to free ourselves... only a raving git poofta ponce can pen such posturing pretentious preening puffery.

/channeling .com

I watched Top Gear. Once.
Posted by: Cleans Slealet1559   2006-07-04 03:00  

#6  Apparently Jeremy is the Times answer to Dave Barry. Pathetic, isn't it. He also hosts a show on the BBC called Top Gear that is watched by 350 million world wide. I imagine that he was pissed off that none of us brain-dead Yankees recognized him.

Actually his politics aren't too far off from Rantburg's. He's a Europhobe and loves to piss off Enviro-Nazis on his shows and in his columns. Maybe if the Beeb was smarter about licensing (like maybe hiring some actual businessmen into that Socialist morass) more Americans would know him and we'd be spared his tantrums.
Posted by: 11A5S   2006-07-04 01:24  

#5  I think his plane made an emergency landing in Montreaux and dropped him off at a European Commission leadership retreat.
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-07-04 01:09  

#4  TRANZI fool.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom   2006-07-04 00:56  

#3  lying puke. We should've beaten the shit out of him at every turn before mailing him home in an envelope
Posted by: Frank G   2006-07-04 00:46  

#2  This is an actual article in Times Online! And they complain about blogs not being sophisticated. This doesn even rate as a good-nasty blog entry. It's what you expect to read in a cranky 14 year old girl's diary.
Posted by: 2b   2006-07-04 00:43  

#1  Lileks wrote the ultimate comprehensive refutation of this nonsense about five years ago.
Posted by: Mike   2006-07-04 00:41  

00:00