Jeremy Clarkson hits out at even more farming criticism after badger debacle
Jeremy Clarkson has hit out at critics who have called for him to use shipping containers to grow his farm produce.
The 63-year-old Clarkson’s Farm presenter said he would never agree to their demand for him to use the crates instead of building a barn – the cost of which they say he should donate to the local community.
The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host explained how he’s looking at building ‘a small stone barn’ to help him grow mushrooms, but critics have urged him to ‘use a shipping container instead’ while making a donation. so that I can grow mushrooms.
‘But I won’t,’ he told the Sunday Times. ‘Mainly because I’m running out of the damn things.‘We have one at the farm shop which is used for storage and one lying round in a field that’s used to house chemicals and two more which are welded together to create a farm kitchen. Honestly, my yard looks like the foyer at Maersk’s world headquarters.’
He insisted that shipping containers ‘painted in all the colours of the rainbow’ are everywhere from ‘outside a city centre railway station’ to ‘a Cornish coastal path’.He added: ‘[You] fancy a cup full of piping hot Israeli free peace coffee, and a vegan whelk, the man with the tattoo and the George Galloway T-shirt who serves it to you will be standing in a shipping container that he’s painted in all the colours of the rainbow.’
The latest farming drama comes after he was forced to deny claims he had filled in badger setts on his land, stating that he had shot the badgers while adding that it was ‘legal’ for him to do so.
An update alleged that five videos had been recorded that appeared to show a badger’s den that had been blocked off with rocks, seemingly to prevent a fox from gaining access.However, Clarkson has claimed again that he was not at fault, describing those who alerted the police in three simple words: ‘not very bright’.
‘They’re not very bright, because the what3words location showed these badger setts in the middle of a wildflower field,’ he told The Times.
‘Well, badgers don’t make their setts in the middle of a field like that. There wasn’t a sett, they were just making it up.’
Former Top Gear host Jeremy is also at war with his local council after he revealed his plans to build a restaurant on his Diddly Squat farm in the Cotswolds, but admitted the situation was somewhat manufactured after realising it would make good television.
He said in his column for The Sun: ‘After the first series of ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ aired, I went for lunch with a farmer friend who said, “If you want a storyline for the next series, try getting planning permission for something.”
‘I was a bit puzzled and asked what he meant by “something”. “Anything,” he replied. “It doesn’t matter. Because I guarantee you’ll be turned down”.
‘Oh, how right he was. I came home and asked for planning permission to turn a building that was already there into a restaurant. A restaurant that would serve the beef, lamb, beer and potatoes that we grow on the farm. And it was like I’d asked for permission to build Studio 54.’
