I absolutely love Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame. He’s a laugh, he’s witty, he says what’s on his mind and he gets at everybody.
I subscribe to his column in the Times Online and read it every week. The man is brilliant.
This week his target is good old Johannesburg. And boy does Clarkson have it in for us.
The article is titled: “I dare you to visit Johannesburg, the city for softies“. I was a bit concerned about the article and Joburg receiving even more bad press. I was almost right. But it’s not Joburg receiving the bad press, it’s us, the people living here. Clarkson believes that we’re all sissies who need to get over ourselves and start positively promoting our incredible city.
His closing lines:
Johannesburgians are telling the world they live in a shit-hole to save their lions. That’s the sort of people they are. And so, if you are thinking about going to the World Cup next year, don’t hesitate.
The exchange rate’s good, the food is superb, the weather’s lovely and, thanks to some serious economic self-sacrifice, Kruger is still full of animals. The word, then, I’d choose to describe Jo’burg is “tranquil”.
I await the backlash for his article and my posting of it. I am sure it is to follow.
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March 2nd, 2009 at 9:43 am
I think he is spot on! We do speak the worst of our home and weirdly, we do so proudly. Just listen to South Africans returning home at foreign airports, really sickening.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:50 am
I moved to Joburg from Cape Town 8 months ago. Everyone in Jozi and Cape Town asked if I was crazy!!!! I always reply… Dude (just for effect), there is more to life than the ocean and the mountain!
I came to Jozi on holiday – yes, on holiday – to visit my best friends who took the plunge to live in the most dangerous city in the country. I loved it. I fell in love with the vibe, the people, the shopping, the energy, the vibrance and the beauty of this city. Yes, i said it – the beauty. Have you gone for a picnic at Zoo lake? Have you seen the sky line at night? Have you listened to the birds on Katherine street – chirping like they’ve just seen their first sunrise?
Jozi is phenomenal… i came here mainly for a career move, and settling in has taken some time, but even been broken into, and robbed more than once in this short period of time, i’m not going to let that get me down. It’s all about the attitude and perception. Make the best of wherever you are!
just saying…
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:59 am
I’m glad that you guys concur with Clarkson, It’s always refreshing to see things through the eyes of a visitor who is doing the things that scare the locals like walking through Soweto!
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:33 am
Agreed. But then us Durban folks have always known jozi is for softies.
The problem we face is ourselves. I came home recently from 8 years in the UK, and your perception is honestly shaped by who you hang out with. Want to be depressed hang out with perth packers.Want to be happy, hang out with folks who believe in the countrys greatness!
Still love this tee..
http://www.cyphafrica.com/2008/04/load-shedding-t-shirt.html
i drive past the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban everday, and now in CPT have seen green point and we are on track for 2010
Its awesome, and I have come to realise this fact.
If you bad mouth something, you are in reality compensating for something you have not decided to change or take action on.
s.othere
March 3rd, 2009 at 11:28 am
Clarkson is soft in his old Pommie head
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I think i almost sort of get where Clarkson is coming from, this is not a god forsaken warzone, no. BUT i think he is the complete opposite extreme, AND an absolute pons for labelling South Africans the way he does “thats the sort of people they are”. i dont think he has a say here because he really has no idea. not only does he generalize based on the one celebrity safe block he stayed on but he also generalizes based on the people, and horribly. I love it here, and im not going anywhere, but i must say im getting awefully tired of being labelled as a “winging south african”, because im not, and im sure i speak for many others…
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I agree wholeheartedly with the article, however it’s very sad for me to see the negative response the public has given it.
Crime happens all over, yet all negatvie South Africans do is “talk about how many times they’ve been shot that day”.
It’s really embarrasing for an outsider to point that out.
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I agree to a ceratin level that you could call some people from Joburg, softies! Joburg is a great place and has been all the time Ive lived there but now that Ive moved off to University in Stellenbosch, the Cape is the way for me. Well for now anyways…
March 4th, 2009 at 8:56 am
I think that you and all these fucking morons on your site are so fucked up, this is a fucking hell hole, SA, it will go the same route as Zim, please make note of that, these people cannot govern, they will kills anything and anybody to get what they want. Fuck man wake up, these fucking barbarians will destroy this once beuatiful country.
March 4th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Hey Martin. Do us all a favour man, leave. If you have already left then shut up.
March 5th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Martin now you sound like a real contributor… sounds like you really deserve to live in the perfect place, nice person like you. You could have made that same point without all the idiot vocab. you have no credibility, sorry.
March 5th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Martin, u are fucked you know that…y dont u start a party for fucked up morons like you to fight “these morons” governing a country? Or like Nic say, leave..yeah, rather leave
March 6th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Who would’ve thought a spin doctor and not a soccer player would kick-off World Cup 2010?
I might have admired this farcical spin job in the face of incontestable evidence to the contrary – if it wasn’t such a supercilious and callous slap in the face of all South African crime victims and their grieving families.
The absolutely ridiculous hypothesis in The Sunday Times column is that local citizens “falsely” project Johannesburg as dangerous – because they want to save lions from aids! This is about as convincing as Jacob Zuma saying healthy men cannot contract aids by sleeping with an infected woman. The supporting , if contradictory, theory in the above report is that all major world cities have a key symbol and Johannesburg is using crime “to pull in the tourists and the investors”.
Is this for real? Is his target audience sensible and sophisticated adults or a comedy club?
The writer uses sarcasm to boast about his armed escort tours throughout the city and then egotistically proclaims crime must be a fiction of the imagination because, after all, nothing happened to him!
Well Mr Clarkson, unfortunately the young IT manager renting in Midrand was not as lucky as you. He was shot dead yesterday at 7-15am. His attackers fled with a mobile (cell) phone. Neither was Willie Klopper a week ago when armed robbers tied him to his car, doused him with fuel and then set him alight. Klopper died of burns to 100% of his body. The robbers fled with his mobile phone and a wallet.
Is that the “snappy one-word handle” Johannesburg needs to put it on the map? Do you think the young IT Manager and Mr Klopper agreed to become a “serious economic self-sacrifice” to save lions from aids? No! They were brutally, barbarically murdered despite both pleading for their lives!
This is the human face of the crime tragedy in South Africa. It places in perspective the 76 murders in the single police division of Johannesburg Central for the period April 2007 to March 2008. Gauteng has 130 policing divisions (or police stations)… You do the sums.
It represents the human misery perhaps not as evident in stark statistics such as 88.3 rapes per 100,000 population (2007); 485.1 assaults with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (2007/08); 228.7 common robberies (2007/08); 526.1 robberies with aggravating circumstances (2007/08); 647.2 residential burglaries (2007/08). These figures are not the total number of incidents, but a percentage of 100,000 of the population in a single province, namely Gauteng! These are official statistics, which is reported crime not actual crime.
Describing this as “tranquil” is akin to twisting a knife in the guts of those already reeling from the brutality of crime and its ghastly aftermath. It is a shocking piece of journalism and I express my deepest sympathy to all South Africa’s victims of crime and their families who may have had the misfortune to read this.
March 25th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Well, I’m so glad Mr. Clarkson likes our tourist attractions!!
I would like to cordially invite him to come drink with myself and my friends in my buddies shebeen Gelvendale, just please be sure to bring some cash and your cellphone and don’t forget to wear some nice shoes.
See you there, Jerry!
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:22 am
MyLifeEscape says:
“Jozi is phenomenal… i came here mainly for a career move, and settling in has taken some time, but even been broken into, and robbed more than once in this short period of time, i’m not going to let that get me down. It’s all about the attitude and perception. Make the best of wherever you are!”
I say: Dude, bend over, shove a feather duster up your bum!
BE AN OSTRICH IF IT’S EASIER FOR YOU! FINE!
Just lucky you lived through the robberies….
In the small towns (Jozi “most dangerous”????) where genuine statistics don’t exist, you probably wouldn’t have been that lucky. As most of the people I know, weren’t.
100% of the victims I know have all been robbed of life or left with a death sentence of Aids!
Facts can be ugly, shoving your head in the sand is just stupid!
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May 18th, 2013 at 3:37 pm
Johan you drama queen who thinks he’s usurped Clarkson (lol), how many people don’t get attacked every day? Your response is embarrassing, anyone can hand-pick incidents from almost any country in the world and make it look bad. It means zilch.
How about white South African fruitloops start showing empathy for Hondurans, Venezuelans, Mexicans etc. instead of going on their message boards stating South Africa is ten times worse? How many times have I seen this behaviour from white South Africans? I’ve never seen another ethnic group anywhere behave like that, it’s both disgusting and creepy.
Then you quote reported crime stats, be thankful that a lot of crime in South Africa gets reported, really dangerous nations don’t even report crime on any level – because they’re so screwed up and your telling us how many burglaries are reported to the police in ZA? You couldn’t make it up.
Drama queen.