'I dare you to visit Johannesburg'

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drew137

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'I dare you to visit Johannesburg'

Cape Town - Maverick motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson writes in his latest column for the UK's Sunday Times that Johannesburg's "fearsome global reputation for being utterly terrifying, a lawless Wild West frontier town paralysed by corruption and disease," is nonsense.

Clarkson is the presenter of the BBC's popular motoring show Top Gear and is well-known for his outspoken columns and politically incorrect views.

He writes: "Johannesburg is Milton Keynes with thunderstorms. You go out. You have a lovely ostrich. You drink some delicious wine and you walk back to your hotel, all warm and comfy. It's the least frightening place on earth. So why does every single person there wrap themselves up in razor wire and fit their cars with flame-throwers and speak of how many times they've been killed that day? What are they trying to prove?"

He goes on to say that South Africa is hosting the Soccer World Cup in 2010 and the opening and closing matches will be played in Johannesburg, and "no one's going to go if they think they will be stabbed".

"At first it's baffling. Why ruin the reputation of your city and risk the success of the footballing World Cup to fuel a story that plainly isn't true?

Clarkson has written a number of books including the bestselling series The World According to Clarkson.

To read the full column on Johannesburg - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article5821586.ece
 
Jeremy Clarkson only spent a few days here... let him spend more time here and he will take that article back and eat his words!
 
Hopefully Jeremy will prove this by driving around the city in cars labeled with insults like they did in the U.S. Maybe a drive around Hilbrow at night in expensive executive cars
 
gdiza said:
Jeremy Clarkson only spent a few days here... let him spend more time here and he will take that article back and eat his words!
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Sounds like more than a few days
But I’ve spent quite a bit of time there over the past three years and I can reveal that it’s all nonsense.
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Out of curiosity how much time have you spent in JNB in the past three years?
 
He has a point. We do have a knack of slagging off our country instead of promoting it. But what he fails to realise is that there is reason for this and his short stints in SA without being mugged or murdered prove nothing.

However his intentions are good in the article at least and there is nothing wrong with that...
 
gdiza said:
Jeremy Clarkson only spent a few days here... let him spend more time here and he will take that article back and eat his words!
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It certainly wouldn't be the first time he's had to eat his own words :D

Gobby TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson has been forced to reverse his position after he lost money after publishing his bank account details in a newspaper column.

The Top Gear presenter rather rashly published his account details in a column in The Sun to back up his claims that the child benefit data loss furore, which resulted in the loss of unencrypted CDs containing bank details of 25m people, was a lot of fuss about nothing.

Clarkson published his bank account number and sort code, along with clues to his address, insisting that the worst that could happen was that someone could pay money into his account.

Days later Clarkson was forced to admit he was wrong after an unidentified prankster set up a £500 direct debit from the presenter's account in favour of charity Diabetes UK, the BBC
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/07/clarkson_bank_prank_backfires/

He does however have a point. I lived and worked in JHB for 6 years. My job partially involved fetching and delivering vehicles for our panelbeating shop so basically I drove all over between JHB and Pretoria, east rand, west rand you name it, been into some dodgy areas including Soweto a few times. My girlfriend did a teaching degree in JHB and she drove right smack bam through the middle of Hillbrow every single day for 3 years.

No once did her or myself have a single incident of any kind whatsoever and we've both lived and worked in the worst places.
 
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drew137 said:
Here is a foreign visitor praising JHB and we still knocking his positive write up about it?
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Because we live here and know what JHB is truly like, vis it news24.com and see for yourself.
 
drew137 said:
Here is a foreign visitor praising JHB and we still knocking his positive write up about it?
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Fast cars, Fancy food, and Five star hotels can make hell seem to be a pretty hospitable place...

i too think a provincial road trip is in order for the Top Gear trio, perhaps they should each receive a set amount of cash to each begin a taxi operation and see who makes the most money before rival taxi's chase them off their turf.

:rolleyes:
 
I haven't been to JHB for a few years but every one of my relatives there has been the victim of crime as well as some of my friends. They include house breaking( a gun was pointed to the head of my cousin's child) hijackings( one involving the same cousin this time gun pointed at him and the trigger was pulled but the gun failed to go off) plus many other crimes. IIRC no murders though.
 
Alan said:
I haven't been to JHB for a few years but every one of my relatives there has been the victim of crime as well as some of my friends. They include house breaking( a gun was pointed to the head of my cousin's child) hijackings( one involving the same cousin this time gun pointed at him and the trigger was pulled but the gun failed to go off) plus many other crimes. IIRC no murders though.
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Sorry to hear all that, luckily nothing serious has happened to me, just been mugged 3 times, 1 x attempted hi-jacking and a couple break ins [ No deaths touch wood.]
 
You could tell your mother you were going on a package holiday to Kabul, with a stopover in Haiti and Detroit, and she wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But tell her you’re going to Jo’burg and she’ll be absolutely convinced that you’ll come home with no wallet, no watch and no head.
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BWAHAHAHA!

Look, Joburg ain't for sissies, but its not as bad as it seems to be portrayed overseas. There are definitely far worse places on this planet.
 
Does sound like he stayed at Monte though, mind you. Hardly Joburg proper :/
 
Clarkeson always throws his own views about everything around - right or wrong. He cant make a call based on spending his short time here and living out of his 5 star hotel. Even his reviews of cars are often just his own perception of things and based on no facts.
 
Generally those South Africans living overseas tend to tell of all the horrors of our country because it justifies their decision to leave. This is why the perception overseas is unjustly skewed...
 
catweasel said:
Clarkeson always throws his own views about everything around - right or wrong. He cant make a call based on spending his short time here and living out of his 5 star hotel. Even his reviews of cars are often just his own perception of things and based on no facts.
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+100

I wonder where he stayed?
 
Get hold of the crime stats for joburg and then we'll see if he is right or wrong
 
We should take Clarkson to Danville or someplace scary.... or maybe even Hillbrow.... then he'll swallow those words super quick :D
 
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