Don't Cry For Jeremy Argentina

I thought that the hoo-ha about the Top Gear Argentina Special would have blown over by now.

But watching Have I Got A Bit More News For You? last night convinced me otherwise.

For those who have been out of circulation for the last couple of weeks, the Top Gear presenters and crew has to abandon their trip through Argentina due to an unfortunate number plate on a Porsche driven by Jeremy.  Most news outlets reported it - here's the Telegraph's take on it.  The offending number plate was H982 FKL.

Some say that was a deliberate reference to The Falklands Conflict.  Top Gear say that it was a coincidence.  Others say that H982 refers to the year of the conflict (although it actually 1982) while obviously the FKL is from FalKLands which the Argentinians like to call Las Malvinas.

I can see some concern there.

Although a local councillor there lost some credibility when he said that the digits 269 on the number plate of the Ford Mustang Richard Hammond was driving were close to the 255 Britons killed during the 1982 war and that the numbers 646 on James May's Lotus could be taken as a reference to the 649 Argentinian casualties.

No they couldn't.

Top Gear are insisting that this was an unfortunate coincidence and that nobody realised the significance of H982 FKL until it was pointed out to them and then lots of war veterans (aged in their twenties according to Jeremy) started throwing stones at them.

There is no doubt that that Porsche has had that number plate for at least 10 years - this means that they didn't deliberately change it.  However, they could have deliberately bought that car due to its number plate.

They deny that they did this.

They also point out that when the significance of H982 FKL was pointed out, they changed the plates on the car.

This is true, there are photos of the car carrying H1 VAE.

That plate apparently belongs to a Porsche 911.  Maybe the original owner (maybe with initials VAE - perhaps ex-Brookside actor Vince Earl?) traded in the Top Gear Porsche for his 911 taking his personal number with him and left the old physical plates in the car when it got re-registered.

Sounds a reasonable scenario - it would explain why there was a spare set of plates in the car.

So the story can die away now?

Wrong.

Clarkson writes for The Sun so the other papers want to keep twisting the knife.

This weekend, The Independent had an interview with the Argentinian ambassador to the UK, Alicia Castro.  She accuses Jeremy of portraying Argentinians as savages.  I only really mention it because I like her quote, "We eat a lot of beef, but we have never eaten a journalist."

However, news has now emerged of another set of plates with the car.  This is what they were talking about last night on HIGNFY.

These were almost certainly meant for Jeremy as a joke to be used at some point in the show.

 

Being pedantic, I hate mixing upper and lower case letters in words - I find it particularly iRriTatINg.  But "BE11 END" is clearly meant to be "Bell-End" - a penile insult probably lost on most non-Brits.

 

So why would they expect to need a new set of plates?  Without seeing a script it does look a bit dodgy.

 

The Star took it a bit far though, claiming Jeremy could end up in prison.  Apparently, "The DVLA has said it is an offence to drive a car in the UK or abroad with a plate which is different to the one assigned to the vehicle."

 

Well, I doubt if the DVLA have any authority in Argentina and there is no evidence of it being driven with the wrong plates over here.

 

Besides, The Star's main story today is a complete hoax that they have fallen for about a giant crab.

 

So maybe not a very reliable source of news?