In a contemporary hijacking scenario, passengers won't sit still for hijackers anymore.

This is not conjecture. Passengers have taken matters into their own hands on more than one occasion.

"Changing the auto pilot altimeter requires you to use a dial and then confirm the change in two separate actions."

The fact that the authorities were so definite about the altitude change raises the question: Does the system speak the change?

"They had finished filming at 10 or 11pm and the hotel cook staff had already gone home."

They apparently only finished late because Clarkson held them up - presumably by getting drunk.

"The argument was over the preparation of his dinner, not his lunch, so it was after hours."

Which, if stories are to be believed wasn't available because he spent 2 hours getting pissed instead of showing up at the booked time.

Except that the Monty Python guys knew it was an act and behaved more-or-less normally when the cameras stopped.

What it proves is that Clarkson's media persona is his real persona.

There's a difference between a comedy act and actually _being_ a Bullying Boorish Bore.

"He choose the 'Eeney Meeney Miney Moe' nursery rhyme only he supposedly used the N word instead of tiger."

He not only did it once, he re-recorded it and did it again.

7: Called a Burmese man a "slope" (casual racism) - http://www.theguardian.com/med...
8: Described mexicans as ""a lazy, feckless, flatulent oaf with a moustache, leaning against a fence asleep".
9: Described malaysian cars as being built in the jungle by people wearing sandals.
10: Deliberately used the word N****r whilst recording a segment (rerecorded it when he realised he wouldn't get away with it)
11: Drove around India with a toilet seat in the boot of a jaguar as a comment on the sanitation
12: Drove around the american south with a car spraypainted with comments about rednecks.
13: Characterised Albania as being full of mafia dons
14: Did a fair amount of environmental damage in Botswana's Makgadikgadi salt pan
15: Nazi salutes in a BMW review along with comments that the Satnav only had directions to Poland.
16: casual racism again: Named his dog Didier Dogba (Black soccer player)
17: Ranted on prime time national TV (The One Show) that public sector workers who were on strike at the time - "should be executed in front of their families"
18: Homophobic jokes directed at George Michael (and others, various gay slurs in various programs)

etc etc etc.

A good chunk of this has happened in the last 18 months and _no one_ believes the claims about the argentinean number plate being coincidental, as it was registered to a completely different vehicle.

Without confirmation it's hard to be sure, but the current version of events is that hot meals _were_ arranged, but Clarkson held the entire crew up for several hours - which resulted in them getting back to the hotel so late the chefs had clocked off.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/mot...

Shock Jocks and Faux News are on privately funded, privately run radio stations, not on TV stations funded by money forcibly extracted from the viewers.

I think even Howard Stern would draw the line at some of the comments Clarkson has made.

> "Not for profit" does not mean the company cannot hold a surplus of funds between each year. It means it cannot pay "profits"

This restriction doesn't put any restriction on paying utterly obscene amounts to various staff. The same applies to UK charities.

This results in people who hardly do any work getting six-figure (UK) take home pay (and is one of the reasons that the UK decided that "speed^H^H^H^H^Hsafety camera partnerships" could no longer keep the money they collected, as the amounts in question became more widely known)

BBC worldwide makes enough profit that the "tv license" in the UK is superfluous. They don't have to account for where that money goes and they don't.

"Top Gear has been making a lot of money for BBC that the non-profit BBC could then channel back into other productions, right?"

That's not how it works, unfortunately.

The TV license goes 100% to the BBC, who don't have to do much justification about how they spend it - and revenue collection is done by a fully owned BBC subsidiary (TV licensing Ltd), which in turn farms the actual work out to a debt collection company (Capita) and works on the assumption that every household has a TV, so any address which doesn't have a license must be watching TV illegally.

I've been getting their threatening letters for 12 years despite having a license - because my address is doubled up. It's fun to see how fast their "inspectors" can run when you point a camera at them and follow them down the street.

There have been several sources which indicated that the reason they were late back to the hotel is that Clarkson held the crew up.

The thing is, the entire crew will be under orders to stay quiet or be fired.

It was Clarkson himself who brought the assault to the BBC's attention, everyone else was keeping their mouths shut as they thought the victim had been sacked and they didn't want to be next.

The whole story may never be known. The BBC is known for being fairly vindictive when people blab.

He can't be charged if the victim won't lay a complaint - and he hasn't.