Sweet Sorrow ... no, more like Heartbreak Hotel

I have always been an optimist, but also try present a balanced view, and aim to be reasonable. I find it hard, even when presented with an awful situation, not to measure my thoughts. It repeats in my head, be reasonable. But today I think - why not be unreasonable and let others just make up their own minds.

Well, today I read the article in which Richard Hammond said the end of Top Gear broke his heart. Emotive words. And why not, because it sounds perfectly reasonable in the circumstances.

It's one thing us, the fans, being upset about it, but when it's your life and you create it that's another thing altogether.

It's hard to know what is really going on though, we only have the newspapers, the occasional interview or snatched words on a doorstep. What strikes me more than any other thing is that the newspapers are sometimes wildly speculative and off track completely. Other times they are spot on. How do you know what to believe? You have to wait and see to be sure. But let's take a punt on rumours and reports.

Go back a bit to earlier in the year. After all of the unpleasantness which has obviously been going on in the background, to cap it all someone at the BBC made a comparison with Jeremy and a particularly evil person whose name I don't even want to place on the page.

Jeremy has also said that recently he was asked if he would consider coming back. (This is my interpretation of newspaper articles, I doubt an actual formal offer was made but I suspect feelers were put out before a final commitment was made elsewhere.) Apparently Jeremy said he would rather eat his own head. And why not. Someone said something so vile (and I think it was said) and yet that person has never been named, the context never clarified, the person (presumably) still works at the BBC. And they must be pretty high up in the organisation. The fact that this person is still in place, to our knowledge there has never been an apology or investigation, the whole thing has been effectively muted. It is appalling.

It seems the BBC would rather keep the person who made the comment in place, loose the best TV programme 'in the world' and break the heart(s) (speculative 's' there as we only know for sure about one broken heart) of the presenters. Why? To be politically correct? Not to lose face? Because someone really really doesn't like someone else? Because that someone has a lot of power?  It feels very personal which is rich considering that the programme is made for us, the viewers and licence fee payer, the fans. And we don't have a say.

In my reasonable mind I had said I hoped the next TG would have presenters I liked and that the programme would be watchable (although we all know it won't be a patch on Real TG). I am gradually coming to the conclusion that I would like it to fail, big time. Not because of Evans who is really just mildly irritating. No, because that's what the BBC Meddling Department and A N Other deserves.

Yes I agree, Jeremy said it was all his fault. And I'm sure he feels awful about it and will do something new to make up for it all. But working in an organisation where some people (not all obviously) are against you is terribly stressful when you care so much about your work. There's more to all this I'm sure. I just hope that one day we will know it all, that someone will tell the truth of what went on behind the scenes and the person responsible is named.

To Clarkson, Hammond and May. For what it is worth, you have my wholehearted support for whatever you choose to do in the future. Just don't cock it up.




Here's the link to the short article where: Richard says that the end of the show broke his heart.