Clarkson slips a gear

Jeremy Clarkson, fired from Top Gear, but you'll probably be hearing more from him... (Image extracted from YouTube)

For more:

• The Daily Beast: The BBC Fires Jeremy Clarkson, What Next For 'Top Gear'? You either love him or hate him, but even if it is the latter, you probably still watched him, along with his co-hosts James May and Richard "The Hamster" Hammond as they presented the massively popular motoring show.

  Clarkson, who scripted the show, has sailed close to the wind a number of times, offending everyone from Americans to... well... everyone else, with a string of quotes that offended many of the recipients, and amused a great many more.

  Here are a couple to whet your appetite...On the invention of the segway: "They're made in America, of course, so fat Yanks can go to the fridge without expending any energy."

  "I'm sorry, but having an Aston Martin DB9 on the drive and not driving it is a bit like having Keira Knightley in your bed and sleeping on the couch. If you've got even half a scrotum it's not going to happen."

  However, it was a 'punch line' too far when he rounded on producer Oisin Tymon when, instead of a nice juicy steak at the end of a hard day's filming, he got cold cuts.

  So, where to now? James May said yesterday that he, Hammond and Clarkson are "a package", but that the show was going when they joined it and seemed to suggest it would carry on with a new team.

  What he didn't say, however, was that since the trio joined, it has become massively popular... Top Gear is broadcast in 200 countries to an estimated 350 million viewers and makes bakkie-loads of cash for the BBC.

  On Twitter, where he has 4.84 million followers, Clarkson has even changed his job description profile to: "I used to be a presenter on the BBC2 motoring show, Top Gear."