Gear change

Success covers a multitude of sins, in Jeremy Clarkson's case more than most.  His legion admirers who in the past have excused the kind of casual racism that had long seen Bernard Manning, Roy Chubby Brown et al ushered from our television screens are now queuing round the block to act as apologists for his latest misdemeanour.  Actually 'misdemeanour' is too soft a word and plays into the hands of those who see as the naughty schoolboy cocking a snook at the establishment (myopically ignoring that he is part of that establishment).  More than 600,000 people have signed an online petition demanding Clarkson's reinstatement after the BBC suspended him.
Why did the BBC take this drastic step for its most bankable star?  After issuing a 'final warning' after he he provocatively used the 'n word' (but we all used it in our childhood say his defenders, like we all used to call Asians 'slopes'), there was a period of calm.  Now, though Clarkson has been accused of being in a 'fracas' (the delicate phraseology worthy of the licence fee alone say general BBC supporters), namely he punched or threw a punch at a Top Gear producer he thought was responsible for providing a cold platter of food rather than a steak after a day of filming.
To hurt (or at least try to hurt) someone, who may be entirely blameless for the catering arrangements, because you want a slab of cow in front of you is disgraceful.  To do it to someone who has been with the programme for ten years and thus someone you know fairly intimately is betrayal of any form of shared humanity.  Part of the Chipping Norton Set (containing the loathsome James Murdoch, the odious Charlie and Rebekah Brooks and of course, David and Samantha Cameron) - the exclusive club you least want to be a member of - Clarkson is also a Chelsea FC fan and so suffered a form of abstract punishment as his team not only lost and crashed out of Europe's premier competition before even making the quarter-finals, but lost in a humiliating fashion. 
As he sat in the stands, he watched Chelsea striker hurl someone to the ground, plus much other argy-bargy and probably felt in good company.  But José Mourinho, the supposed arch-tactician, was out-thought, as Chelsea - who had enjoyed a week's rest while their opponents Paris St-Germain had played on Sunday - laboured against ten men at home for 90 minutes after PSG's star player Zlatan Ibrahimovic was sent off in the 31st minute.  Was this a worse performance by Chelsea than when they lost 4-2 at home to lowly Bradford City in the FA Cup?  Was Mourinho being his usual sarcastic self when he said his players cracked under pressure from the opposition were reduced to ten men and under the pressure of playing at home?  In the night's other Champions League match, Bayern Munich showed how to beat at home over ninety minutes a team numerically disadvantaged.  Shaktar Donetsk had a player sent off in the third minute and Bayern ran out 7-0 winners.  Pressure, what pressure.
To return to Clarkson though.  Top Gear's remaining three episodes of the current series will not be shown as scheduled.  Clarkson will probably decamp to ITV or, more likely, Sky to present another motoring TV magazine, probably taking his colleagues James May (who is out of contract next month) and Richard Hammond with him.  Thus the damage he will suffer is only reputational and for a man like Teflon to his fans it won't matter.  For all those hundreds of thousands who signed a petition to reinstate Clarkson, they should be punched in the face and then made to reconsider if it's not a sacking offence before asking for him to be reinstated again.