That 'Top Gear' / Argentina / licence plate thing....

pinno

Time to resurrect this old chestnut. It was metaphorical then but I think it should be literal.

viewtopic.php?f=40021&t=12643691

Stevo_666

Coach H wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

I think we offended the Argentines a lot more than Top Gear when we sent the Paras, Ghurkas and SAS down there in 1982. Although that time, they didn't actually set foot on Argentinean territory.

Agreed. Although there are a few hundred Royal Marine Commando's reading 'Paras, Ghurkas and SAS' and mumbling "poofs" under their breath

Slightly on a tangent, I nearly had a very close connection with the Falklands. My old man was a class mate and lifelong friend of the bloke who was the Governor of the Falklands at the time the invasion happened (now sadly deceased). In late '81 he invited my folks and me to stay with them in Stanley during the 1982 Easter holidays. My folks were on the verge of accepting then saw that the journey was a real killer on some crappy cargo plane with a lay off on Ascension Island so they politely declined. If we had accepted we would have landed the day before they invaded :shock:

Needless to say, Rex Hunt wasn't a big fan of the Argentines after that

Mark Alexander

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

Hoooo......yeah! If they get uppity, we can bomb their asses and teach them a lesson.

Oh, wait.

F**in Clarkson, starting a fight. As said, all good publicity. It wasn't so long ago many dickheads were trying to get this aching ars* of a human elected as PM. :roll:

Only if the French let us use our timeshare on the Aircraft carrier. or maybe if Gerald in accounting who does 5 hours RAF reserves on the weekend can get time off work.
Alternatively we could just bomb Clarkson.

slowmart

Could we get Clarkson to use a highly offensive number plate and drive through Syria?


Journalists and decent unassuming people seem to be the targets so Clarkson should be fine.

VTech

cyd190468 wrote:

I think the whole thing is a stitchup. Why would anyone in Argentina look at the plates unless they were prompted to look? You could understand if it came up after broadcast and there were closeups of the plates. but if the whole TG production crew drove through your town would you check the numberplates on the cars being driven?

If the TV crew drove through your town you would think that you wouldnt even notice but this is TG.
They almost certainly caused mayhem blocking traffic with stupid manoeuvres and idiotic driving. Seeking attraction is a thing they do incredibly well.

ballysmate

Can't believe this is still news in the papers.



(Pic lifted from Stevo)

Coach H

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/520150 ... e-BE11-END

Oh so the other number plate was a coincidence was it Mr Wilman???

VTech

Coach H wrote:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/520150/Jeremy-Clarkson-Falklands-War-Argentina-row-number-plate-BE11-END

Oh so the other number plate was a coincidence was it Mr Wilman???

Its not a real plate but it does suit the man himself who seems to be a KN08 END

pinno

Regardless of the fact that TG makes so much money, is it a good idea to be travelling the world and acting like complete bell ends? It doesn't sell Britain and it casts us all as bigoted idiots when in actual fact the UK is very cosmopolitan - London being the most cosmopolitan in the world apparently.
I wonder if there have been diplomatic efforts to placate the Argentinians.

imposter2.0

pinarello001 wrote:

I wonder if there have been diplomatic efforts to placate the Argentinians.

I think Damon Albarn has managed that all by himself...

VTech

pinarello001 wrote:

Regardless of the fact that TG makes so much money, is it a good idea to be travelling the world and acting like complete bell ends? It doesn't sell Britain and it casts us all as bigoted idiots when in actual fact the UK is very cosmopolitan - London being the most cosmopolitan in the world apparently.
I wonder if there have been diplomatic efforts to placate the Argentinians.

I constantly get mocked on this forum for being nothing more than totally honest, the fact remains (wether people argue or agree) that money is everything when companies make decisions. There will be a meeting where something is discussed and if an idea that is brilliant is bought up against an idea that is stupid, they will always consider the value of either before a decision is finalised.

I guess that is why you have someone with complete integrity and whom is a very decent citizen working at minimum wage level and then going to the local sports club to help the kids for free in their own free time just about surviving whilst at the same time you have a heartless, ruthless person earning money most can only dream about whilst not even seeing their own kids grown up.

At the end of the day its down to personal values.

4kicks

I constantly get mocked on this forum for being nothing more than totally honest

erm, no.

Stevo_666

pinarello001 wrote:

I wonder if there have been diplomatic efforts to placate the Argentinians.

Given the sort of bile spewed against the UK by the President of Argentina, most likely in an effort to deflect attention from their own domestic problems and this sort of pathetic posturing, I couldn't care less if they are offended. Imagine the Argentine reaction if the UK had published a bank note with an outline of the Falklands and a pic of a British Falklands veteran on it...

ballysmate

Stevo 666 wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

I wonder if there have been diplomatic efforts to placate the Argentinians.

Given the sort of bile spewed against the UK by the President of Argentina, most likely in an effort to deflect attention from their own domestic problems and this sort of puerile posturing, I couldn't care less if they are offended. Imagine the Argentine reaction if the UK had published a bank note with an outline of the Falklands and a pic of a British Falklands veteran on it...

I too am pissed off with people wanting our country to prostate itself to appease anyone who claims offence.
A British film crew get chased out of Argentina by a mob because they had a dodgy number plate and it is felt that diplomats should placate the Argentinians.
Nowt to do with diplomats. Don't encourage the Argentinians by pandering to their faux outrage.

Stevo_666

Ballysmate wrote:

I too am pissed off with people wanting our country to prostate itself to appease anyone who claims offence.
A British film crew get chased out of Argentina by a mob because they had a dodgy number plate and it is felt that diplomats should placate the Argentinians.
Nowt to do with diplomats. Don't encourage the Argentinians by pandering to their faux outrage.

The moral of the story is: if you don't want to get the p1ss ripped, don't start a war and then lose it. It's not like we just take the mick out of Argentina: we've ripped it out of the Germans for decades (and centuries in the case of the French) for that same reason, so what do they expect

pinno

Stevo 666 wrote:

Ballysmate wrote:

I too am pissed off with people wanting our country to prostate itself to appease anyone who claims offence.
A British film crew get chased out of Argentina by a mob because they had a dodgy number plate and it is felt that diplomats should placate the Argentinians.
Nowt to do with diplomats. Don't encourage the Argentinians by pandering to their faux outrage.

The moral of the story is: if you don't want to get the p1ss ripped, don't start a war and then lose it. It's not like we just take the mick out of Argentina: we've ripped it out of the Germans for decades (and centuries in the case of the French) for that same reason, so what do they expect

Well, dear old Thatcher did win the following General Election - she loved that war for her dwindling ratings. American diplomats at the time were breaking their backs trying desperately to prevent any conflict.
If some Argentinians had come to the UK with a car and a film crew with "Free the Malvinas" and started taking the proverbial, would we have found it so funny?

VTech

4kicks wrote:

I constantly get mocked on this forum for being nothing more than totally honest

erm, no.

Its a fact that people in general are like lemmings, more so on forums, they tend to write what they believe others will like so as to extend their online friendships.
I speak my mind, I don't really care wether people like me or not, I have a wife and 3 kids for the love section of my life which is more than enough.

I liken myself to Simon Cowell, you may not like his opinion but you will ALWAYS know where you stand with him.

ballysmate

pinarello001 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Ballysmate wrote:

I too am pissed off with people wanting our country to prostate itself to appease anyone who claims offence.
A British film crew get chased out of Argentina by a mob because they had a dodgy number plate and it is felt that diplomats should placate the Argentinians.
Nowt to do with diplomats. Don't encourage the Argentinians by pandering to their faux outrage.

The moral of the story is: if you don't want to get the p1ss ripped, don't start a war and then lose it. It's not like we just take the mick out of Argentina: we've ripped it out of the Germans for decades (and centuries in the case of the French) for that same reason, so what do they expect

Well, dear old Thatcher did win the following General Election - she loved that war for her dwindling ratings. American diplomats at the time were breaking their backs trying desperately to prevent any conflict.
If some Argentinians had come to the UK with a car and a film crew with "Free the Malvinas" and started taking the proverbial, would we have found it so funny?

God bless Mrs T, still tormenting lefties from beyond the grave. Yes the Yanks put pressure on to stop any conflict, but the Argentinians didn't withdraw did they? The resultant conflict was their fault, not ours. There wasn't some sort of plan to start a war to increase the chance of re-election. Peter Carrington resigned IIRC because he had been taken by surprise by the invasion.
As regards whether it was funny or not, I wouldn't expect Argentinian diplomats to apologise for a an individual's or film crew's behaviour in the scenario you outlined.

4kicks

VTech wrote:

4kicks wrote:

I constantly get mocked on this forum for being nothing more than totally honest

erm, no.

Its a fact that people in general are like lemmings, more so on forums, they tend to write what they believe others will like so as to extend their online friendships.
I speak my mind, I don't really care wether people like me or not, I have a wife and 3 kids for the love section of my life which is more than enough.

I liken myself to Simon Cowell, you may not like his opinion but you will ALWAYS know where you stand with him.

erm, still nothing to do with why youre mocked.

VTech

4kicks wrote:

VTech wrote:

4kicks wrote:

I constantly get mocked on this forum for being nothing more than totally honest

erm, no.

Its a fact that people in general are like lemmings, more so on forums, they tend to write what they believe others will like so as to extend their online friendships.
I speak my mind, I don't really care wether people like me or not, I have a wife and 3 kids for the love section of my life which is more than enough.

I liken myself to Simon Cowell, you may not like his opinion but you will ALWAYS know where you stand with him.

erm, still nothing to do with why youre mocked.

Of course, the list is quite long. When lemmings congregate you will often find lists increase rapidly.
It still leaves only 2 possible choices though.

Stevo_666

Ballysmate wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Ballysmate wrote:

I too am pissed off with people wanting our country to prostate itself to appease anyone who claims offence.
A British film crew get chased out of Argentina by a mob because they had a dodgy number plate and it is felt that diplomats should placate the Argentinians.
Nowt to do with diplomats. Don't encourage the Argentinians by pandering to their faux outrage.

The moral of the story is: if you don't want to get the p1ss ripped, don't start a war and then lose it. It's not like we just take the mick out of Argentina: we've ripped it out of the Germans for decades (and centuries in the case of the French) for that same reason, so what do they expect

Well, dear old Thatcher did win the following General Election - she loved that war for her dwindling ratings. American diplomats at the time were breaking their backs trying desperately to prevent any conflict.
If some Argentinians had come to the UK with a car and a film crew with "Free the Malvinas" and started taking the proverbial, would we have found it so funny?

God bless Mrs T, still tormenting lefties from beyond the grave. Yes the Yanks put pressure on to stop any conflict, but the Argentinians didn't withdraw did they? The resultant conflict was their fault, not ours. There wasn't some sort of plan to start a war to increase the chance of re-election. Peter Carrington resigned IIRC because he had been taken by surprise by the invasion.
As regards whether it was funny or not, I wouldn't expect Argentinian diplomats to apologise for a an individual's or film crew's behaviour in the scenario you outlined.

+1

Although in any case I don't see how they would be able to take the proverbial when they lost - badly. I suppose if they had done it, we would have laughed at them for being losers and maybe stuck some large yellow chicken pictures on their car to remind them of the performance of their armed forces in 1982.

Stevo_666

Actually, they already tried something like that before the 2012 Olympics.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2138926/Falkland-Islands-London-2012-Olympics-ad-shows-athlete-training-Argentine-soil-Port-Stanley.html
From what I can see we just told them to take a running jump. As was pointed out in the article: 'At least on the islands they won’t steal his trainers and tracksuit at gunpoint!'

bigmat

Can people not distinguish between the acts of a government and the people themselves? All this "they" about the Argentinians - its pretty obvious that the invasion, and the recent issues, were an attempt to distract attention from domestic issues by the presiding governments. You could say much the same about Thatcher's response. As for the people of Argentina, does this really make it OK to wilfully offend them? In my experience they are a welcoming, cultured bunch of people and I never got any hassle for being English, so all these schoolyard references to how "they" started it are a bit pathetic. Its like saying its OK for Islamic terrorists to blow us up as "we" are bombing their people. Utter boll**ks really.

Top Gear's efforts here are all a bit puerile, the worst thing for me is the BBC's failure to just hold its hand up and apologise, but the whole thing is a storm in a teacup really.

ddraver

Have to say that I was with the Argentinians until I saw the Indy article. That level of bullsh1t has put me fully on the side of the Top Gear crew. All she had to do is shut up and be the bigger ambassador...

pinno

@ Bally - we used to be known for our diplomacy. Perhaps you should be pi55ed off with that reputation being eroded by some overweight middle aged petrol heads from Vietnam to Argentina. Have they compromised travel by us gringo's to there?

@Stevo - the Argentinians were led into a war which was as much a political gesture as Thatcher's rhetoric and warmongering and they lost some 600 men as a result and you call them 'loosers'.

Stevo_666

BigMat wrote:

Can people not distinguish between the acts of a government and the people themselves? All this "they" about the Argentinians - its pretty obvious that the invasion, and the recent issues, were an attempt to distract attention from domestic issues by the presiding governments. You could say much the same about Thatcher's response. As for the people of Argentina, does this really make it OK to wilfully offend them? In my experience they are a welcoming, cultured bunch of people and I never got any hassle for being English, so all these schoolyard references to how "they" started it are a bit pathetic. Its like saying its OK for Islamic terrorists to blow us up as "we" are bombing their people. Utter boll**ks really.

Top Gear's efforts here are all a bit puerile, the worst thing for me is the BBC's failure to just hold its hand up and apologise, but the whole thing is a storm in a teacup really.

It should be pretty obvious which one we are on about given the references above to the actions of the Argentine government and their incompetent, odious president.

Though like you say, bit of a storm in a teacup which is why we're taking the mick.

imposter2.0

Shame that a thread about Top Gear's less-than-subtle attempt at 'Argie-bashing' has turned into a thread consisting mainly of.......er.......Argie bashing.

Ah well...

Stevo_666

pinarello001 wrote:

@Stevo - the Argentinians were led into a war which was as much a political gesture as Thatcher's rhetoric and warmongering and they lost some 600 men as a result and you call them 'loosers'.

You what? The Argentine military junta started it by invading the Falklands - as Bally said above, we were taken by surprise. So please explain exactly how you think they were 'led' into this :roll:

When someone invades your territory - especially a tinpot dictatorship - what do you think is the appropriate response? Shrug your shoulders and say 'OK, it's all yours, off you go'? Nope, we did the right thing and defended the rights of the Falkland Islanders - 99.8% of whom not so long ago voted to stay under British rule. You respect self determination, do you not?

BTW I called them losers because they lost...bit hard to argue with that fact. But I'll call them 'runners up' if that helps?

pinno

^Your use of the word 'looser' is just juvenile. Are the deaths of both British and Argentinians so incidental to you that you can justify such a flippant use of the word like the result of a footy match?

Yes, the same tinpot dictatorship that took a country to war which led to those deaths.

WTF are you on about? :

"...what do you think is the appropriate response? Shrug your shoulders and say 'OK, it's all yours, off you go'? Nope, we did the right thing and defended the rights of the Falkland Islanders - 99.8% of whom not so long ago voted to stay under British rule. You respect self determination, do you not?.."

I never said that ^.

You are trying to say that Thatcher didn't use that war and didn't escalate it and didn't want it for her own progression. You must think that the sun shone out of her 4rse. You must also be blinded by the theatre that is politics (when it suits you).

Stevo_666

pinarello001 wrote:

^Your use of the word 'looser' is just juvenile. Are the deaths of both British and Argentinians so incidental to you that you can justify such a flippant use of the word like the result of a footy match?

Yes, the same tinpot dictatorship that took a country to war which led to those deaths.

Deaths of British military are not incidental to me. The responsibility for the deaths on both sides rest with the junta - they took the decision to invade another country's territory knowing full well the likely consequences.

Can you tell me honestly that you've never joked or been flippant about German/French/Italian/etc military history - ever? In wars that killed millions. Did you always turn off the TV in disgust when 'Allo Allo' or 'Dads Army' came on the box? :roll:

pinarello001 wrote:

WTF are you on about? :

"...what do you think is the appropriate response? Shrug your shoulders and say 'OK, it's all yours, off you go'? Nope, we did the right thing and defended the rights of the Falkland Islanders - 99.8% of whom not so long ago voted to stay under British rule. You respect self determination, do you not?.."

I never said that ^.

Never said you did say that - I asked you 2 questions, let me try and put them a bit more concisely:
(1) What would you have done if you were in charge of the UK at the time? Would you have retaliated or let them have the Falklands?
(2) Do you respect self determination? Yes or No?

pinarello001 wrote:

You are trying to say that Thatcher didn't use that war and didn't escalate it and didn't want it for her own progression. You must think that the sun shone out of her 4rse. You must also be blinded by the theatre that is politics (when it suits you).

Nope, you seem to be blinded by an irrational hatred of Thatcher (RIP). Produce some evidence for your claim that the Argentines were 'led into the conflict' or it stays in its current status - conspiracy theory and nothing more.

I have seen nothing in the public domain to seriously suggest that is the case and in my own conversations with the bloke who was the Governor of the islands at the time (also RIP), he was not aware of anything like that either - and was at the stage in his life where there were no consequences of telling me the truth.