He's blokey, obnoxious, loud-mouthed and downright rude. No wonder we can't get enough of Jeremy Clarkson. Not convinced? Here's a selection of his best bon mots...
10: Clarkson on Concorde
Concorde's final flight brought out Clarkson's poignant side: "This is one small step for man, but one giant leap backwards for mankind."
9: Clarkson on diesel motors
Clarkson's talent for similes can make even car motors interesting. "Sure it's quiet, for a diesel. But that's like being well-behaved... for a murderer."
8: Clarkson on small cars
Clarkson's scorn for the sensible is neatly demonstrated by this statement on small cars: "We all know that small cars are good for us. But so is cod liver oil. And jogging. I want to drive around in a Terminator, not the heroine in an EM Forster novel."
7: Clarkson on bad gadgets
When testing the Bentley Continental GT, Jezza just couldn't see the point in a lever on the dash that adjusted the suspension. He concluded: "It really is about as useful as putting a snooze button on a smoke alarm."
6: Clarkson on family cars
He may prefer roaring down roads in Mustangs, but here's Clarkson being nice about a lowly family car: "Much more of a hoot to drive than you might imagine. Think of it, if you like, as a librarian with a G-string under the tweed. I do, and it helps."
5: Clarkson on cool
Clarkson the cultural critic had this to say on the meaning of 'cool': "Cool is just another way of saying 'not very popular'. The Guardian is cool. Desks made out of zinc are cool. Rolf Harris, on the other hand, is warm."
4: Clarkson on Rolls
Clarkson was most impressed by the robust new Rolls Royce: "It looks like it might kick your head in... for fun. Especially in black. In a pale colour or silver, it looks like Vinnie Jones in one of Graham Norton's T-shirts."
3: Clarkson on consumerism
Appalled at being ripped-off by multinationals, Clarkson turned consumer champ. "Eighty-five pence for a plastic bottle of Coke? I thought they'd stopped using cocaine as one of the ingredients..."
2: Clarkson on cricket
Attending a cricket match, Clarkson had this to say on the audience: "Fathers and their sons dressed in matching blazers and slacks, as though women hadn't been involved in the breeding process at all. You just open up the chap like a Russian doll, and out pops another one."
1: Clarkson on Creation
We round things off with a quick geography lesson from Clarkson. "On the seventh day God didn't rest. He looked at what he had created and thought: 'Oh dammit, England's gone all wrong. The sea is washing silt off the coastlines in the north and depositing them in an ugly bulbous lump near Kent'. Today we call this unholy place East Anglia."
Author: ArchitectPage
