10 Things BBC Wants You To Forget About Jeremy Clarkson

2. That Racist Rhyme

The incident that put Clarkson firmly on "last warning" status and generated his most limp and grovelling apology to date, unbroadcast footage of Clarkson was released that appeared to show the presenter using the N word in an "ennie meeny miny mo" children's playground rhyme. The original broadcast had seen the presenter substitute the word for "teacher" but the leaked tape showed him using the highly-offensive racial slur in the segment instead. When caught, Clarkson immediately went down on both knees and begged forgiveness for the incident. "Please be assured I did everything in my power to not use that word, as I'm sitting here begging your forgiveness for the fact my efforts obviously weren't quite good enough, thank you." Quite why his efforts didn't extent to simply not saying it in the first place weren't quite clear, but after numerous calls to have him sacked the BBC held a series of high-level talks with Clarkson about his future conduct before reluctantly agreeing to allow him to continue.