Author Topic: Controversial  (Read 5450 times)

exchangeandmart

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Controversial
« on: September 16, 2009, 06:00:35 PM »
Anyone else heard/read about this? James Martin is in trouble after claiming he inflicted "sheer terror" on cyclists. The television presenter, writing in a magazine column, told how he forced a group into a hedge while test-driving a sports car. He described the incident as the "best thing I've ever seen in my rear-view mirror. I expect you all some pretty strong thoughts about this!

Fred A-M

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2009, 06:19:38 PM »
Yes, I read about it.  He's a complete knob, not much else one can say other than saying I wouldn't feel  sympathetic if he was permanently maimed or suffered long slow painful lingering death as the result of someone else with similarly contemptuous views for other road-users. 
 

pastafarian

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2009, 07:14:53 PM »
Haven't heard of this nutjob, but a googling revealed an "apology": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8258247.stm
Funny he should apologize about any potential upset over the article instead of apologizing for what he did to the group of cyclists. Shows a certain lack of empathy. He is far from the only motorist who thinks and talks this way. I sincerely hope he gets some time in jail for pulling a stunt like this.

On another note, today's paper said tv chef Keith Floyd has passed away. Sad news as I understand he was very popular. I was quite young when his show aired in Sweden and all I can remember is he drank a lot on tv. lol

Fred A-M

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2009, 08:23:07 PM »
Agreed, hope the CTC are able to identify the cyclists and start a law suit....prosecution is the very least he deserves.  Hopefully the BBC will take a suitably dim view and cancel his contract.
 

jimmer

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2009, 12:35:20 AM »
What a profoundly unpleasant and deeply ignorant man this James Martin is. A hackneyed scribbler of sub Clarkson nastiness and ignorant prejudice with an obsessive interest in cars, whose implicit claims to masculinity through such bragging suggest over compensation. What a dozy, useless gobsh*te. 
Besides his other unsavoury qualities, he displays jawdroppingly brass necked hypocrisy. He writes of his glee in disturbing other’s freely made choice of activity in a publication that consistently decries restrictions made on the individual’s right to freedom of action and that recreation of law abiding middle Englander is persistently disrupted by antisocial elements. His behaviour is no different to the childish, self gratification of the boorish yobs who make the life of many Mail readers so utterly intolerable (apologies to any fellow cyclists that take the Mail,  but some editorial consistency can reasonably be expected from a paper that is so identified with a particular social stance). The state restrictions on individual freedoms that I imagine he greatly resents, are necessitated by such callous disregard for the rights of others. He pursued his own demonstrably harmful actions (self aggrandising braggadocio about dangerously driving a noisy, polluting sports car) to the extent that they impinged upon the harmless actions of a group of friends out enjoying a spin in the country.
To speculate upon how much it would please us to hear that one day he had ploughed a brand new Aston Martin DB something or other into the back of a wagon carting cheap processed food to a European owned discount supermarket and being unbelted as a free born Englishman refusing to kowtow to the socialist nanny state, was left crippled by the force with which the steering wheel drove into his face (airbags are for wimps), would make one as bad as he. Rather, cycling induced endorphins give us a more sanguine outlook on those whose views differ from ours; we’re too knackered to waste energy on getting worked up over silly people showing off. To those who thrive on bilious hatred we may appear smugly self righteous. They can rest happily assured that for once in their fallacy strewn lives they’re correct, it is and we deserve to be.
 

exchangeandmart

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2009, 01:53:16 PM »
Yeah he has now apparently apologized Too little too late imo                                                                       

Cake

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2009, 04:36:08 PM »
I think if happen to see him walking along i may may well park the front wheel of my RT in his arse crack.  And then apologize.  Perhaps.  I've always thought he was a bit of a big head, and as is the usual case with big headed people, he has proved himself to be a tosspot.

Fred A-M

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2009, 07:26:55 PM »
That's quite a tirade Jimmer  ;D, am in entire agreement with its sentiment!

Replace the word cyclist in his comments/article with any race/nationality and Nazi tendencies become pretty self-evident - I think it's fair to say that that there'd be a reasonable case for him to be prosecuted for incitement of hatred. 
 

jimmer

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #8 on: September 18, 2009, 10:49:53 PM »
Dear Fred A-M,

I was holding back somewhat.

I'd just logged on to make exactly the same point about incitement. Any lawyers out in Thorn land up for a spot of pro bono service to the cycling community? My legal knowledge begins and ends whith a vague feeling that possession is probably not really nine tenths of the law.

A Mail reading colleague brings in the rag for which Martin strings together a few ill judged words (and in doing so further undermines my confidence in the collective intellect of my fellow professionals). Having read the article I owe Martin an apology. I said that he was test driving a noisy polluting car. He was in fact testing the Tesla electric car whose quietness he deliberately used to get close to the group of cyclists, maximising the danger of collision. Our allotment association treasurer conducts research on high capacity batteries, he's gets pretty worked up about the Tesla as an utterly misguided attempt to promote electric vehicles. I once mentioned it as an interesting development during a conversation about sustainable transport and found my rent doubled.

By his apology he adds pusillanimity to hypocricy in his portfolio of deplorable traits. To say he meant no offense and it was a humorous peg upon which to hang his tired, banal doodlings shows he understands English even less well than he writes it.

He claimes that his violent hatred of cyclists is insired by the frequent occasions on which they batter his windscreen and glare at him. If this has ever happened to him it is probably due to agressive or inattentive driving. If it is a regular occurrance it suggests that he is a habitually dangerous driver, sponsored by the Mail to tear around the roads in a succession of cars evidently too powerful for him to adequately control.

Yours, James
 

DavidH

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2009, 08:05:10 PM »
Quote
Hopefully the BBC will take a suitably dim view and cancel his contract

No such luck. They are too frightened to do the honourable thing. Not unless someone famous and a national treasure is personally embarassed on air.

The production team of Top Gear have been responsible for broadcasting a lot of socially damaging polemic masquerading as light entertainment for many years, which I think brings the BBC in to public disrepute (BBC lawyers please see this comment and sue me). From the track record of bigoted opinions, and the lack of balance in them, it is clear they are said with the intention of promoting the personal agendas of the individuals in the programme. And for light relief we will blow up a caravan in a quarry / slay cyclists, laugh at public transport.

I have previously made a complaint about these individuals, and the editorial team excuse whatever is said "Well Zaphod's just this guy - you know?" The irony is, the editorial team (who regularly make these occasional forays into apologising for the behaviour of this over zealous genius behind the programme, just as the BBC did with Russell Brand and Jonathan Woss), probably insisted they tried the Tesla, as an attempt at getting some balanced coverage of environmental issues on the programme. I think Top Gear is one of the most complained over programmes, but also adored by some in society, precisely because of the belligerent views put out by the likes of Martin.

They'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes... (sorry that's 2 Douglas Adams quotes in one postings.)
 

jimmer

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #10 on: September 21, 2009, 09:25:14 PM »
Just to clarify the matter. James Martin presents "Saturday Kitchen", a programme for those who can't even bring themselves to stir from the couch over the weekend. He is some sort of minor celebrity chef and writes as the motoring correspondant for "Live", the Mail on Sunday's bloke  orientated supplement.

Now that's cleared up Martin's precise status, does any one recall Clarkson's broadcast assertion that most truckers enjoy nothing so much as murdering prostitutes. Top Gear is a truly vile programme.

James
 

julian

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #11 on: September 22, 2009, 09:16:40 PM »
Over on the facebook page "Why does James Martin hate cyclists?" (I only joined facebook so i could join the group...honest) there are details of a Sainsbury's sponsored cooking event coming up in November (around the 25th I think) and there's talk of a good number of cyclists turning up (tickets £3) to confront JM about his bigotted views. Anyone feel like a trip to the NEC?
 

jimmer

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #12 on: September 22, 2009, 09:28:27 PM »
That's just across the city from me. Sound's like a plan.

James
 

stutho

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Re: Controversial
« Reply #13 on: September 23, 2009, 09:47:06 AM »
I've also joined the facebook group.  Very tempted to go up to the NEC!