Men in Black

Jeremy Clarkson is not everyone's cup of tea, but then again neither is Frankie Boyle (the Scots comedian) - and no one gets their knickers in a terrible twist. 

Well, not most people anyway. 

The thing about Clarkson is that he often makes a telling point - at times he takes  things things too far yet that's the essence of humour - some jokes are better than others while others don't even work.

What I do object to though is the politically correct response of the 'po-faced' - who would censor and punish people like Clarkson, if they could - just for speaking his mind.

Sure he makes fun of the trade unions and the Labour Party from time to time - but so what? - there are plenty of comics and writers who do the same thing except from a more left-wing or pro-Labour point of view.

Here's a piece written by the 'Old Petrolhead' in yesterday's Sunday Times - which is funny and challenging at the same time.

Because there's no point in moaning constantly about the Men in Black unless you're going to bring in instant replays and new technology for referees - to cope both with honest mistakes and all the cheating that blights the beautiful game these days.

"This lanky git will call you what he wants, ref – you blind idiot"

For the sake of English football Manchester United always need to win. Which is probably why, in last weekend’s top-of-the-table clash, the referee set about sending the entire Chelsea team off for wearing blue clothes. And then, when that didn’t work, he awarded a goal to a player who was so offside he might as well have been standing in Bristol.

As a Chelsea supporter I was very cross about all this. Indeed I spent most of the game wondering what the ref in question would look like without a head.

Today, though, I feel rather sorry for the stupid, blind idiot because it has been alleged that during the game he made derogatory remarks about John Obi Mikel. It was also suggested earlier in the week that he had called Juan Mata a “Spanish t***”. (Clue: not “twit”.)

I would imagine that this sort of thing has been going on in football since someone inflated a sheep’s pancreas and discovered that jumpers could be used for goalposts. But suddenly it isn’t allowed any more. So the ref has been suspended and is being investigated for a racially aggravated offence by Plod. In other words, the sharp-elbowed group hug of inclusivity has now landed in the middle of a football pitch.

Football is not croquet. The stands are visceral and ugly places full of rage and hatred. And standing in the middle of it all, trying to keep order, is the referee. Until 2001 he was an unhappily married amateur called Keith who used a Saturday afternoon kickabout to get back at everyone who had made his working week so dreary and miserable. I do not know a football referee. I’ve never even met one. And I bet you haven’t, either.

Today Premier League refs are professionals on more than £70,000 a year. But, I’m sorry, that’s not enough. Dentistry is bad. You live in a fog of halitosis waiting for the day when you accidentally catch Aids. And I can’t imagine it’s much fun being a North Sea trawlerman either. You spend all day in a fish-scented cloud of diesel smoke, vomiting, and when you get home a bureaucrat tells you to throw the six cod you caught back into the sea.

People are expected to address one another like promenading Victorian ladies But worse than both these things — worse even than being a dentist on a trawler — is the job of a Premier League referee. No 1: you have to wear shorts. No 2: there is a very great deal of running about. And No 3: every single person in the entire world would like to eviscerate you, in front of your family, on the internet.

Can you imagine what life would be like for a surgeon if he had to go through his working day with his assistants, his nurses and even his patient telling him loudly and constantly that he was useless, that he was bent and that he worshipped at the altar of onanism? “Call that an incision, you effing w*****?”

Then there’s the business of making mistakes. We all do that. I make millions, and so do surgeons, even when they are in a warm room, wearing long trousers and listening to the calming strains of Pachelbel’s Canon.

A football referee, on the other hand, is not listening to classical music. He can’t sit back in a comfy chair to ruminate over a steaming mug of tea on what he should do next. He is running at top speed, often in the rain, trying to keep on top of the action in a game that is played 20% faster now than it was just five years ago. He is being told to eff off at every turn.

And then he thinks he sees something happen and must react without a moment’s pause. I think I would be useless. I think you would be, too.

But Premier League refs are not. Because more than 92% of the decisions they make are subsequently proved by slow-motion replays to be correct.

To achieve this level of accuracy, they train hard. Not just so they’re as fit as the players they’re monitoring but also so they can see like a bird. Seriously. They do eye exercises to improve both their peripheral vision and their ability to spot, through a fast-moving pack of tangled limbs 20 yards away, who’s doing what to whom.

In short, then, the man in black must have the stamina of an athlete, the eyesight of a pigeon, the reactions of a kingfisher, the legs of a male model and an autistic indifference to the opinions of other people. And now, on top of all this, he must also behave like a vicar.

Last weekend Mark Clattenburg, the ref at the Chelsea game, was having an off day. He must have known this because 35,000 people, including my son, were reminding him very loudly, and with uprooted chairs. It is entirely possible that Juan Mata was reminding him also. So what’s wrong with saying, “Shut it, you Spanish t***”?

When Richard Hammond is being annoying, which is when he’s awake, I refer to him as a “Brummie t***”. He, in turn, often calls me a “lanky t***”, and both of us regularly call James May a “boring t***”. No harm is meant by any of it.

But we are now reaching the point where, even on a football pitch during a vital game between the two best teams in the country, people are expected to address one another like promenading ladies on a Victorian pier. It’s absurd.

And, of course, it’s all the fault of a man called Ed Miliband who runs the Labour party. He is leading the charge to make it impossible to tease anyone because of their colour, their facial disfigurements, their religion, their size, the colour of their hair, their sexual orientation, the country of their birth or their sex. Only last week he added a new one: we can no longer poke fun at those who suffer from mental illnesses.

Of course we can’t go around tipping people out of wheelchairs and hounding fatties to death. But there should be a distinction between genuinely unpleasant behaviour and harmless banter. Otherwise we end up with a situation where I can’t call Miliband an “adenoidal t***”, but I can call him a “t***”. Which is why I just did.