Series 2, Clarkson's Farm.

Pedro

Well-Known Member
Just finished watching this. It is entertaining and it highlights a number of issues:

1. Clarkson can get the authorities backs up without really trying.
2. Local governments seem only to hinder enterprises that will help the farming community and bring employment.
3. Star gazing is more important than anything else.
4. If it wasn't for Clarkson's wealth and probably the television company Diddly Squat Farm would have floundered without trace and neighbouring farms are all on the bread line.

Of course we really only see one side of these matters and no doubt there's more to it. but with the rules and regulations governing pretty much everything these days, it's a wonder we still have a farming industry. The council even refused permission for him to make a farm track on his own land! Albeit he didn't ask them until it was well under way to being created.

Whether you like Marmite Clarkson or not, it is riveting telly.
 
Despite the subject matter, and the doubtless very valid points it sounds like the series makes I just can't bring myself to watch Jeremy Clarkson do anything.
 
he has appealed against the planning and the HSE are investigating him for his safety attitude to working at height.

edit to add it was good to watch and showed the issue around TB also.
 
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Maybe a minority position, but a lot of the red tape he whines about was put there specifically to stop farmers from poisoning us and themselves with noxious chemicals, carcinogenic additives and hormones in our food.
The Health and Safety requirements are there to prevent farmers from killing and injuring themselves and their employees with gay abandon, farming is still one of the most dangerous jobs out there, big machines, minimal training and large animals make for an unforgiving environment for careless humans
You can’t have wholesale unrestricted development either, especially in rural areas with limited infrastructure. Someone has to keep an overview of development and have some sort of strategy.
He skates over the impact of his business locally but he brought traffic to a standstill with the shop and his “ car park” was an eyesore completely unfit for purpose and an unauthorised development besides.
Entertaining to watch on but he’d be very hard work to live beside with that attitude.
It’s a free country, but you can’t do whatever you like regardless of the impact.
I did enjoy the show though.
 
My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the whole series. Obviously much of it is very much tongue in cheek and clearly exaggerated or staged for television, but still very entertaining.
He does make several very good points though.
 
Maybe a minority position, but a lot of the red tape he whines about was put there specifically to stop farmers from poisoning us and themselves with noxious chemicals, carcinogenic additives and hormones in our food.
I haven't finished series 2 yet but don’t remember any whines about food safety unless it was the hypocrisy of banning stuff in this country but happily importing it from abroad where it wasn’t.
 
The thing that it really highlights is that you can earn enough to buy a plot of land (or inherit or whatever). You are the sole owner, lord of all you survey, yet there's pretty much nothing you can do on that land without first applying for permission. And at the same time (with some exceptions) you have to let folk roam about on it without a by your leave.

Of course there has to be policies and people to implement those policies with regard to preserving natural beauty and to stop people's land use making problems for others. But it's patently obvious that the rules and regulations and the demi-gods that implement them go too far.

If we had the same rules and regulations as we do now before the industrial revolution, the population would still be living in stone age round houses.
 
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