Will Top Gear Return or have we seen the last ever episode??

I totally disagree with the Guardian article below, but interesting none the less. It's more of a Daily Mail stance. Bit weird!

Published in the Guardian 5th August 2009

Since the final episode of the latest series of Top Gear aired on Sunday, rumours have circulated that BBC2's motoring show will not return. I only hope these rumours prove true, for there is no place for the kind of language used on this show on the BBC.

Monday's show, in comparing the merits of different executive saloon cars, alluded to the racist term for Gypsies and Travellers: "pikey". It did this by displaying a pie and a key on the bonnet of a car, attempting to sidestep, one presumes, charges of offensive language. The point, it seems, was to indicate that the Audi in question was built for businessmen, not "pikeys", and if the viewer wanted a more exciting drive, he or she would choose another car.

Richard Hammond, testing the saloons, indicated that he was a "bit of a pikey" himself. This sequence was followed by a discussion in the studio in which Jeremy Clarkson described the second car to be tested as the "perfect car for anyone whose business is selling pegs and heather". But this was just a joke, surely? A typical example of the blokey, exclusive, bullying humour that has made the show so popular? And anyway, "pikeys" were being associated with faster, sexier cars to the denigration of boring businessmen. Isn't this a good thing?

The answer to these questions is a firm no. This old-fashioned racism is not funny and has serious political effects. Its apparent acceptability is a damning indictment of how slowly we as a culture are moving in terms of changing attitudes towards Gypsies and Travellers.

The key to this type of "humour" is that it is an in-joke. The audience is supposed to know what Hammond and Clarkson mean by the term, though the implications are vague. There is a subtextual wink, a "we'll get the better of these censorious so-called liberals", nudge-nudge. This appeal to a shared yet ambivalent understanding, a use of shorthand to invoke all manner of stereotypical images, has been a strategy of racist discourse since at least the 19th century. It was effectively employed by George Smith of Coalville in his anti-Gypsy campaigns of the 1870s, and even by those who sought to romanticise Gypsies in the late 1800s.

Hammond may say that he is a "bit of a pikey", but he is certainly not positively affiliating himself with the Roma and Irish Traveller people of Britain when he does so. He is excluding them, making them the target, once again, of a sly joke and reinforcing ethnic and cultural stereotypes.

There are many reasons why using this word is wrong, none of which seem to matter to the writers, producers and presenters of Top Gear. It popularises an offensive term, making it seem permissible in the workplace, pub and playground. It means that we tolerate prejudice. It fails to value the contribution that Gypsies and Travellers make to British culture. It implies that various and diverse groups of people can be easily and lazily labelled, and that with this label comes particular behaviour. It makes some individuals feel like outsiders. In associating "pikeys" with the traditional selling of pegs and heather, it calls to the past and legitimises the use of even older racist attitudes that are no longer deemed appropriate.

There are countless other reasons. One to which those involved in Top Gear might actually pay attention is that it is unoriginal and boring; we have heard it all before, for centuries.