Autoguide news pointed me this morning back to our own Daily Mail and a
story about Jeremy Clarkson being racist about Lenny Henry. Being American, they had to explain who Lenny Henry is. For those who don't know, I shall also explain who Lenny Henry is.
He is a very talented comedian/writer/actor from the West Midlands of England:
Who also happens to be black.
The Daily Mail is accusing Jeremy of racism due to an article he wrote about how eco-friendly TVs can be set so dim that everyone looks like "Lenny Henry in a cave"
I don't know if he was being racist or not - I know he always tries to find funny analogies for everything and if they are going to be controversial - then all the better. This is why he keeps ending up in trouble. I know that I find him very funny.
"Owning a TVR in the past was like owning a bear, I mean it was great, until it pulled your head off, which it would."
"We all know that small cars are good for us. But so is cod liver oil. And jogging."
"The Ferrari 355 is like a quail's egg dipped in celery salt and served in Julia Roberts' belly button."I got those off a
Clarkson fansite.
The Daily Mail is a horrible, right-wing, muckraking rag read by people who will gullibly take in all the propaganda it reports. But those people will agree with Jeremy who can only be described as very right of centre. So they won't have a lot of sympathy with their own newspaper here - the comments under the story seem to back this up. The story uses a VC-winning soldier who was offended by the article (good, typical Daily Mail fodder) and who also happens to be black.(Oops)
I think the result was right but for the wrong reasons - it was the old Alf Garnett effect - you're supposed to laugh
at him, not
with him.
So why pick on Jeremy anyway?
Could it be because he writes for different right-wing rags, The Sun and The Sunday Times? These are part of the awful Murdoch Empire and I would love to see them go the same way as "The News of the World" -
it's the end of The World as we know it.The Mail won't mention the competition, but it must have been one of these papers that Clarkson wrote the offending article in.
May, meanwhile, writes for yet another right-wing rag, The Telegraph - why do all the interesting people write for right-wing rubbish?
Oh yes - money!
Anyway, has anyone asked Lenny Henry what he thinks about all this? Maybe he isn't even aware of the story - I doubt if he bothers with The Sun or The Daily Mail or autoguide.com or Metro's Car Blog. If he does know about it, he is keeping a dignified silence - there's no mention on
his Website and although there are a couple of Twitter accounts purporting to be him - I don't believe he actually is a Twitterererer.
As you may be able to guess, I'm not a fan of the right-wing press - but they are diametrically opposed to what I believe in. I'm not afraid to use the word "Socialist" - I know many Americans are - it would be suicide for an American politician to use it - but I know the difference between Socialist and Communist.
And I also envy places like Sweden where people are richer, happier, have a better standard of life and more choice. Yes, everything is more expensive there and they pay more taxes and foreign tourists will be put off, but the Swedes themselves can afford stuff because they don't have to pay extra for their public facilities and they earn more anyway.
Pity the left-wing press is crap too.
They're up for Contempt of Court over that coverage which hounded a man that they had decided at the time was a murderer but, given that someone else has been charged in the meantime, is almost certainly completely innocent.
I think I don't particularly like his motoring writing - his latest piece, on the Paris Motor Show, is quite short and quite vague. It does, however, really wind up a small number of Telegraph readers who like to vent their spleen in the comments section. This amuses me very much and I enjoy their annoyance. I have made the point myself in the past that the better motoring columns tend to be found in the more obnoxious right-wing media - Fox News, The Telegraph and The Mail. But, then again, I hadn't really looked in the left-wing media. So I took a look in The Mirror. I did find two of my favourite correspondents, Richard Hammond & Quentin Willson. But overall, it is quite a disappointing site and very rarely updated - it's had the same couple of stories including one about an electric car called "The Lightning" on its header for at least three weeks now - and some very intrusive advertising. Socialist Worker doesn't appear to have a motoring section. I think they should. 
