So the leaks from the BBC now suggest – as many might
have predicted – that Jeremy Clarkson may get to carry on presenting Top Gear
for the BBC, provided he ‘sorts himself out’. When all’s said and done it’s only
a television programme and while I’ve watched it for years, it’s not real life
and my own life won’t be poorer for its loss; just like the Six Nations Super
Saturday, disappointment at England’s triumphant winning-but-still-losing climax yesterday evening was a thing of
the moment and today we begin anew.
The Daily Mail reports, of Clarkson: “Jeremy wants to stay with the programme and
one possible way of him doing that would be if he could face up to his own
shortcomings.” And he “…needs to rest
and sort himself out.” Lurking in the background of all this is, of course,
the spectre of ‘rehab’, but if Jeremy Clarkson, of all people, succumbs to pressure
to be ‘Prioried’ then it really is the end. Going into rehabilitation is the
last resource of those hopelessly unable to control their urges; it’s the
desperate act of frail mentalities brought low by something they
crave.
And one of the most destructive cravings the modern world
has to offer is the belief that you can offload your own responsibility for
your actions onto the shoulders of others… for money. Like priests selling indulgences,
mediums offering to contact the dead or lower level mountebankery such as astrology
and palmistry, there is something in some people’s empty lives that turns them
to extra-corporeal assistance in dealing with the everyday business of getting
through every day. (I suspect soaps, trash-TV, ‘reality’ shows and Bake-Off
perform much the same function.)
I’m not suggesting a wholesale turning back of the clock
to a mythical time of pastoral ‘bliss’ where most waking hours were spent in
the Sisyphean struggle for survival, but hasn’t the pendulum swung rather far
the other way? To some people the most important things in their lives,
apparently, are social media, smart phones, games, online communities and the
acquisition of stuff. And while they do live within families, often the other
players in their game of life appear as ghosts, icons, cyphers and – in the
case of parents – servants, just a cast list of bit-parts, rather than a true
ensemble piece.
May, Clarkson and The Hamster... on a quest!
Now, some say a spell in rehab is like an extended bath in
the magical fountain of eternal youth. And that entering through the portals of
the Priory is like embarking on the modern-day Labours of Hercules, emerging
from which you will be a happier and stronger self. All I know is that
expecting strangers to sort out your personal shit is an addiction all of its
own. And on that bombshell…
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