Last weekend, the BBC’s Top Gear featured Romania heavily (especially the Transfagarasan highway) in the first programme of a new series.
If you have not seen the programme, tough: it was on You Tube but the BBC has taken at least some of the videos down (and not without good reason, they do own the copyright). The last live link we found to the programme was this one.
Needless to say, there are plenty of cheap jokes, some of which are funnier than others, but at the end of the day, everyone we have spoken to has agreed that this is just about the best advert for Romania seen on UK television at any time over the past 20 years.
Alas, the glorified ostrich who serves as Romania’s man in Britain (a certain Ion Jinga) thinks otherwise, and wants the programme reedited. He has to that effect submitted a letter to the BBC expressing his displeasure at a few of Jeremy Clarkson’s jokes.
In other news, he also last night called for the embassy’s stable door to be closed after the embassy’s horse bolted.
PS: Here is the story in the local newspaper Evenimentul Zilei. Interesting are the comments at the bottom: while most tell the ambassador he is an idiot, it appears that the he does have at least a little support.
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The name is JINGA. Fact-checking, dude!
Fact checking? What do think we are, a newspaper?
(Corrected, apropos)
The you tube embeds don’t work.
@Valentin: If the ambassador had been clever and not an ostrich he would have said he met Clarkson at some bash and that he has told him all about the Transfagarasan…
@Leif: I would not argue with your Mum, but I have, in EU parlance, ‘not ruled myself out of the post.’ Just waiting for the right man to win the election run off.
@Valentin: Knee jerk. Exactly. My guess is more people will visit Romania because of this programme than will because they saw a crappy Land of Choice ad…
Well, this reaction will fit nicely in the “Encyclopedia of Romania’s Ill-Considered, Self-Defeating Political Instincts – Volume 15″.
And I agree, the one too many gypsy jokes aside, this show promotes Rom better than anything I’ve seen yet. With what the country has to offer, it seems as if Romania tourism could be bigger than the Czech Republic, Hungary and Croatia combined if the people in charge would simply shut up and get out of the way.
Hey Craig – have they bounced the current Minister of Tourism yet? My mom thinks I should apply for the job (because I’m perfect in every way), but I think you’re better poised to do it right. You’d probably have to show a bit more cleavage though.
‘Knee-jerk’ is the best term to describe the Romanian reaction to jocular observations made by the Top Gear team. It is typical of a people and elite beset by inferiority complexes and unsure identity. Powerful, expensive cars are objects within the reach of many local nouveaux riches, but they lack the style, polish and even education of their western counterparts, hence the dismay produced by the good natured remarks in the Top Gear tv programme showing the amusing underbelly of Romania.
Clarkson
Clarskon even says “can we stay Romania? Forever”
Yes what is the problem,is fantastic.
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