Clarkson’s Farm

[FiF]

98elise said:

Nimby said:

Farmers Weekly Champion of the Year.

Surely not. The Guardian were quite scathing in their one star review...

Guardian said:

Eight hours of a buffoon screwing things up for our supposed entertainment is bad enough, but it’s his total contempt for farming that makes this such a grim harvest

There's been more than one Guardian review. One of them they simply adopted a Grrr Clarkson stance from 10 minutes before it was actually aired.

[FiF]

Clarkson v Countryfile? There’s no contest

http://digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/751/re...

The Farmer's view

Clarkson who cut his teeth on local newspapers starts from the premise of showing the viewers what they will find interesting and let them work things out for themselves, warts and all, unlike Countryfile whose ethos leads them to provide information that they believe should be in the public domain and only that information.

So a scene where the local hunt is on Clarkson's land is accompanied by an aside from Jeremy about the absurdity that the hunt is unable, legally, to do anything about the fox attacking his chickens. That would be edited out by Countryfile, no question.

Countryfile does do some things well, a wide variety of subjects captured by, as usual, utterly stunning photography. But just avoids things and ignores welcome positive developments which don't fit such as the Packham narrative for example.

[Dr Jekyll]

juice said:

Gruniad - Farming is ver ver serious
Clarkson - How can I make this more appealing to the masses whilst trying to get a message across.
Gruniad - But farming is ver ver serious
Clarkson - POWER !!!!

2 worlds collide neither will understand each other but one has captured the essence and one is well....irrelevant

+1

The idea that humour can be a good way of making a very very serious point is totally lost on the Guardian.

[Blackpuddin]

stemll said:

Ari said:

98elise said:

Guardian said:

Eight hours of a buffoon screwing things up for our supposed entertainment is bad enough, but it’s his total contempt for farming that makes this such a grim harvest

I'd be curious to see any examples of his ' total contempt for farming' because I certainly didn't spot any. Quite the reverse, he seemed to have total sympathy for those scratching a living from it.

There isn't any, the Guardian just don't like him and probably didn't even watch it.

Edited by stemll on Saturday 9th October 21:47

I won't give the 'reviewer' in that case the oxygen of publicity by mentioning her name but she must have some powerful mates at The Guardian to be holding down the job of TV critic while having no apparent talent.

[98elise]

FiF said:

98elise said:

Nimby said:

Farmers Weekly Champion of the Year.

Surely not. The Guardian were quite scathing in their one star review...

Guardian said:

Eight hours of a buffoon screwing things up for our supposed entertainment is bad enough, but it’s his total contempt for farming that makes this such a grim harvest

There's been more than one Guardian review. One of them they simply adopted a Grrr Clarkson stance from 10 minutes before it was actually aired.

But they had certainly seen it from the comments in the review. That said they obviously panned it because it was Clarkson. Watching it wouldn't change that.

[DaveGrohl]

Blackpuddin said:

stemll said:

Ari said:

98elise said:

Guardian said:

Eight hours of a buffoon screwing things up for our supposed entertainment is bad enough, but it’s his total contempt for farming that makes this such a grim harvest

I'd be curious to see any examples of his ' total contempt for farming' because I certainly didn't spot any. Quite the reverse, he seemed to have total sympathy for those scratching a living from it.

There isn't any, the Guardian just don't like him and probably didn't even watch it.

Edited by stemll on Saturday 9th October 21:47

I won't give the 'reviewer' in that case the oxygen of publicity by mentioning her name but she must have some powerful mates at The Guardian to be holding down the job of TV critic while having no apparent talent.

And apparently not having a TV.

[CarCrazyDad]

LM240 said:

I happened to be driving past that area for work recently. It crossed my mind to stop at the shop and get something… then I had a word with myself.

Yes it has been on tv, but would I divert or make a special trip to a shop?!

Edit… though did happen to go past Tuthill Porsche, not knowing where they are based. But I wasn’t sure if they allow a random walk in to look around. That would have been far more interesting.

Edited by LM240 on Saturday 2nd October 15:21

I went a couple of weeks ago

It really is tiny, smaller even than it looks on the TV

All they had for sale was

Bacon
Sausages
Honey
Oil (Chilli Oil, plain oil, etc)
Seasonings (Basil, Pizza seasoning, etc)
Pumpkins
T-Shirts

Half of the shop, as well as a small hut on the outside, was clothing... !

We queued for an hour to get in, we bought a couple of things (because otherwise I've just wasted an hour of my life for nothing)
it came to £35! And we barely had anything, no meat (or Pumpkins!) were purchased

The parking was not ideal, it's literally a muddy field, It's been somewhat flattened for the most part, but there is still a lot of muddy areas, it had been dry for a few days when we went, I guess we were lucky, if there had been any rain it would have turned into a swamp

My 530e scraped it's undercarriage driving out , as did many cars when we were in the queue


While I'm not expecting a perfectly tarmac'd multi-story , surely some a few tonnes of gravel and a steamroller would have it in a much better state?

We won't be going back unless there is a major expansion to make it more in keeping with what you'd expect from a typical farm shop

I am not a farm-shop nerd but I've been in a few around, and usually they sell substantially more than what was on sale here

Burger van type shop around the back, didn't seem particularly value for money so we went into Burford for lunch

[fttm]

You sound like a right barrel of laughs ^^^^ Not being huge Clarkson fans in the last decade or so we've only just started watching , S1 Ep6 so far . TBH we're thoroughly enjoying it .

[Abbott]

if there is a queue for 1 hour to get in it sounds like there is no need at all do do anything to improve the shop or parking. It would just lead to longer queues.
I would guess that the majority of people visiting the shop are more interested in catching a glimpse of Clarkson.

[98elise]

Abbott said:

if there is a queue for 1 hour to get in it sounds like there is no need at all do do anything to improve the shop or parking. It would just lead to longer queues.
I would guess that the majority of people visiting the shop are more interested in catching a glimpse of Clarkson.

I don't get the mentality of that. I would stop if I was literally passing, and there was no queue, and it was dry. Queuing for an hour seems madness!

[aparna]

You seem in denial that you went to a TV set to buy merch?

[Fundoreen]

The sad part of all this is while showing a realistic view of the pain of trying to farm it also just encourages the fans to think they should move to the wilderness to be a part of all the fun. Which is engineered for tv.
Next they want all the facilities and services of the big city provided by all these loveable simpletons.
Next I would like to think they all get dead animals nailed to their front door.

[768]

Fundoreen said:

The sad part of all this is while showing a realistic view of the pain of trying to farm it also just encourages the fans to think they should move to the wilderness to be a part of all the fun. Which is engineered for tv.
Next they want all the facilities and services of the big city provided by all these loveable simpletons.
Next I would like to think they all get dead animals nailed to their front door.

Yeah. If I had a pound for everyone I knew who'd bought their own 1000 acre farm in the Cotswolds because of this show... someone needs to put a stop to it.

[soad]

There an online (merchandise) store - yet to spot anything of value (which doesn’t come as a surprise): https://diddlysquatfarmshop.com/collections/all

[zygalski]

Nonsense.
I'd pay to lick the sweat from under Clarkson's boobies, and I bet I'm not the only fella here to feel this way.

[hairykrishna]

Looks like the shop is aimed at you

22.50 for a candle? 16 quid for some honey? No thanks.

[stemll]

zygalski said:

Nonsense.
I'd pay to lick the sweat from under Clarkson's boobies, and I bet I'm not the only fella here to feel this way.

I think you might find you are

[daqinggregg]

One thing I don’t understand, Clarkson has in the past made it very clear he dislikes interaction with fans, then to post the farm shop opening all over social media and be surprised by the uptake.

Would I go out of my way to visit Didley Squat farm shop, no, there are plenty of good farm shops up and down the country. I’m a big fan of Clarkson, TG, TGT, and his other TV output and also his books. I thought Clarkson’s farm was great.

I just thought it a bit weird, that he would go out of his way to identify where he lives!

[Wacky Racer]

Just finished binge watching this last night...excellent.

Was on holiday last week near Chipping Norton so called in at the Diddly Squat farm shop.

[hyphen]

daqinggregg said:

One thing I don’t understand, Clarkson has in the past made it very clear he dislikes interaction with fans, then to post the farm shop opening all over social media and be surprised by the uptake.

Would I go out of my way to visit Didley Squat farm shop, no, there are plenty of good farm shops up and down the country. I’m a big fan of Clarkson, TG, TGT, and his other TV output and also his books. I thought Clarkson’s farm was great.

I just thought it a bit weird, that he would go out of his way to identify where he lives!

Money. Everything costs money. He doesn't want to run the farm at a loss, and he has looked at all the posh farm shops he himself shops at, looked at the prices they get away with, and thought I'll have some of that.

And he enjoys making telly programmes, it's what he is good at..

His new house which is near to completion, pictured below, will I imagine be far enough away from the farm shop.

Edited by hyphen on Wednesday 17th November 08:35