I was thrown on an hourly basis into the ice plunge pool, dragged from my bed in the middle of the night and beaten, made to lick the lavatories clean and all the usual humiliations that... turn a small boy into a gibbering, sobbing, suicidal wreck... they glued my records together, snapped my compass, ate my biscuits, defecated in my tuck box and they cut my trousers in half.

He played the role of a preparatory school pupil, Atkinson, in a BBC radio Children's Hour serial adaptation of Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings novels until his voice broke.

[31] His talk show, Clarkson, comprised 27 half-hour episodes aired in the United Kingdom between November 1998 and December 2000, and featured guest interviews with musicians, politicians and television personalities.

In September 2013, a tweet proposing that he might stand for election as an independent candidate in Doncaster North, the constituency of the then Labour leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband, was retweeted over 1,000 times – including by John Prescott.

[67] In January 2023, Clarkson argued a left-wing "coup" had silently taken place in British politics, media and culture, writing "We laugh as they change the name of the Sir Francis Drake Primary School to something less slavey.

"[81] However, during a 2019 trip to Cambodia while filming The Grand Tour, Clarkson acknowledged the "graphic demonstration" of climate change impacts on the Mekong River and Tonlé Sap was "genuinely alarming", but still expressed doubt that it was driven by human activity.

Describing the history of the company up to its last flagship model, the Rover 75, he paraphrased Winston Churchill and stated "Never in the field of human endeavour has so much been done, so badly, by so many", citing issues with the rack and pinion steering system.

"[155] In 2004, the BBC apologised unreservedly and paid £250 in compensation to a Somerset parish council, after Clarkson damaged a 30-year-old horse-chestnut tree by driving into it to test the strength of a Toyota Hilux.

[160] Chris Mole, the Member of Parliament for Ipswich, where five sex workers were murdered in 2006, wrote a "strongly worded" letter to BBC Director-General Mark Thompson, demanding that Clarkson be sacked.

[161] Clarkson dismissed Mole's comments in his Sunday Times column the following weekend, writing, "There are more important things to worry about than what some balding and irrelevant middle-aged man might have said on a crappy BBC2 motoring show.

"[160] In July 2009, Clarkson was reported to have called then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown "a silly cunt" during a warm-up while recording a Top Gear show.

[166] On 12 January 2012, the Indian High Commission lodged a formal complaint with the BBC over the "tasteless" antics of Clarkson's Top Gear Christmas special where he mocked India's culture and people.

[168] In an unused take for a Top Gear feature recorded in early 2012, Clarkson is alleged to have mumbled the racial slur "nigger" when repeating the children's rhyme Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

"[172] In October 2014, Clarkson attracted controversy when filming the Top Gear: Patagonia Special after driving a Porsche 928 in Argentina with the registration number H982 FKL, allegedly referring to the 1982 Falklands War.

[173] Also, during the broadcast, Clarkson was seen referring to the controversy that had risen after the Burma Special; when inspecting a bridge, which he and his colleagues had built during the episode, he was quoted as saying "That is a proud moment, Hammond, but... is it straight?

[175] In April 2007, Clarkson was criticised in the Malaysian parliament for having described one of their cars, the Perodua Kelisa, as the worst in the world, adding that "its name was like a disease and [suggesting] it was built in jungles by people who wear leaves for shoes".

[176][177] In February 2009, while in Australia, Clarkson made disparaging remarks aimed at the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, calling him a "one-eyed Scottish idiot", and accused him of lying.

... "Change the driver, pick up the big bits of what's left of the victim, get the train moving as quickly as possible and let foxy woxy and the birds nibble away at the smaller, gooey parts that are far away or hard to find.

[25] It emerged that Clarkson had been involved in a dispute over catering while filming on location in Hawes, North Yorkshire,[190] having been refused a steak (the chef had gone home) and offered soup and cold meat instead.

[25] It was later announced through the BBC's website that the network would be likely to drop the remaining two episodes of the series as well in the wake of the incident, which involved Clarkson punching producer Oisin Tymon, who was later treated in hospital.

[198][199] The petition reached its target 1,000,000 signatures by the afternoon of 20 March, and was delivered to the BBC in an artillery vehicle by a man dressed as Top Gear test driver The Stig, with Fawkes as spokesman.

In his other columns, Clarkson criticised Meghan for her "simpering victimhood", called her a "silly little cable TV actress", and stated that her climate change pleas make him want to "shoot a polar bear in the middle of its face.

[221] The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, whose name was also mentioned in the column, described Clarkson's comments as "deeply misogynist and just downright awful and horrible" and warned that "words have consequences".

[227] Peter Herbert, the chair of the Society of Black Lawyers, wrote to the Metropolitan Police requesting an investigation under the Public Order Act 1986 as he believed the column promoted racial hatred.

[231] On the following day, a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex described the apology as "nothing more than a PR stunt" and added that the publication had not contacted Meghan to personally apologise which "shows their intent".

In February 2023, IPSO announced that it was launching an investigation about the article, specifically taking forward two groups of complaints, from the Fawcett Society and the Wilde Foundation, which claimed "they were affected by breaches in accuracy, harassment and discrimination.

[236][238] While reviewing the TVR Sagaris in July 2005 for Top Gear at the test track, Clarkson slipped two discs in his back due to him excessively oversteering and was forced to stop driving for six months.

Clarkson was involved in a protracted legal dispute about access to a "permissive path" across the grounds of his second home, a converted lighthouse, on the Isle of Man between 2005 and 2010, after reports that dogs had attacked and killed sheep on the property.

[252] Clarkson later said he had banned Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his Top Gear and The Grand Tour colleague James May and a local named Maddy Hornby.

[255] On 19 October 2024, Clarkson revealed via his column on The Sunday Times that he had a stent fitted at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford after experiencing a "sudden deterioration" in his health after returning from holiday in the Indian Ocean.