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Well he’s getting there
This is the same Jeremy Clarkson who thinks that young people should work the fields, paid for with taxes, as part of a National Service scheme, right?
What a bell end!
"As an old guy who increased large sums of money in an agricultural tax dodge strategy, I demand younger people subsidize my costs so I can pocket bigger profits. "
Clarkson is a twat. Always has been. But at least when he was younger he was an entertaining, relatable twat. Now he’s old, richer than sin, and entitled as fuck.
That’s a rough 65 ngl.
He looks better under acceleration
Your wording there needs work.
Jeremy Clarkson looks at his best under POWER!
I fully expect Jeremy Clarkson to have never baked a loaf of bread in his life.
I’ll occasionally bake a loaf of bread, here in my home kitchen. I can’t do it with only wheat flour, I need water, salt, sugar and oil as well. So I have to pay my municipal waterworks, a salt miner, a sugar beet farmer, a rapeseed farmer, a wheat farmer, and whatever you call a yeast maker, plus their adjacent industries (I don’t by sugar beets, I buy refined granular sugar, etc) and multiple truck and train drivers who move all of those goods in their various states of manufacture around the continent.
Then I’ve got to bake it, I have an electric oven so now the local energy concern gets their cut. It’s that, or get a gas oven and cook with natural gas (fossil fuel methane), or misuse my backyard grill and cook with fossil fuel propane, or get out my axe, fell a tree and build a fire, which is labor intensive on my part.
Sometimes, watching Jeremy’s Farm, there’s an amount of “I didn’t think it would take this much knowledge or skill.” Because jackasses like me with 40 square feet of vegetable garden and some packets of seeds from the home center manage to make food. How hard can it be to scale that up to hundreds of acres? Modern farmers need a bachelor’s degree, you need to know about plants and animals and soil and all manner of shit to be a farmer. “Put seeds in ground, plants grow.” Yes, but actually no.
Sometimes it’s “He’s still The Orangutan from Top Gear.” He buys a tractor that’s way too big and then struggles to drive it, lol.
A lot of times it’s “I don’t think rich TV man actually understands how society works, people have just done shit for him his entire life.”
sugar?
Most white loaf bread recipes start with “dissolve sugar into warm water, add yeast, allow to proof until thick and foamy.”
that’s crazy
Most American white loaf bread recipes…
Even in the UK, we would call most American bread “fortified dough”, like a sweet/pudding, not bread. I bake occasionally and it’s flour, water, salt and yeast.
You don’t have your own yeastmonger? Shame. Only way to go really.
that sounds like a d-tier supervillain
For people who don’t know how agriculture works:
Grainaries buy from farmers, high supply and low local demand. Grainaries generally don’t have competition. That means grainaries set the price and farmers don’t have any negotiating power.
The grainary is now in charge of one thing and one thing only: logistics. The grains need to be distributed over a vast amount of distance, usually by train or by boat. You almost never see a grain elevator unless it is adjacent a railroad.
Well whose fault is that, the granary or the railroad?
I’m not a farmer, I’m not a baker, I’m just a bread eater, but even I knew that 1kg was way too much wheat for a single loaf of bread. Turns out, yup. 1kg makes 2 loaves.
How does that change things? Well it means a loaf of bread contains 12.5p of flour, not 25p. So, instead of a loaf from a grocery store being about 5x as much as the price of the flour it contains, it’s 10x as much.
Having said that, This isn’t just a “capitalism” thing. There are many steps between the farmer selling raw wheat and a loaf of bread appearing on a store shelf. Many of them are unchanged since ancient times. I’m sure baker in the Middle Ages charged enough for his loaves of bread that he’d make a reasonable profit and that was centuries before capitalism was a thing.
In the modern world there are different facilities for every step. There’s transportation which costs something at multiple stages. There’s winnowing and milling the flour. There’s buying and shipping the other ingredients. There’s mixing the dough. There’s baking the dough. There’s packaging (and possibly slicing) the bread. And finally, there’s the grocery store. To be useful, a grocery store basically has to be in a built-up area, which means high real-estate and related costs. It also needs to make enough margin to pay people to stock the shelves and cashiers to sell the loaves. The only truly modern part from all that that didn’t exist in the Middle Ages is sales and marketing. Paying to send out emails or a flyer or whatever to advertise their items. My guess is that most of those steps operate on razor thin margins and make up for it by doing huge quantities.
Now, it’s true that the system has flaws and inefficiencies. One glaring example is the lack of competition at many stages in many countries. In Canada, there are so few grocery store chains that the existing ones were able to literally fix the price of bread. So, of course when that happens both customers and farmers get squeezed.
I wonder if there ever was a “golden age of farming” when farming was a comfortable lifestyle. It seems to me that it has always been a very difficult career. If anything, it’s probably at its best now under “capitalism”. That isn’t to say it’s an easy job now, just that as difficult and stressful as it is now, it was even worse in the past.
It would be interesting though, just as an intellectual exercise, to imagine a perfectly fair world to figure out what the perfectly fair ratio is between the price of wheat and the price of a loaf of bread on the store shelf. If everybody were paid the exact same rate for their labour, and there were no excess profits generated that went to owners / landlords, how much of the final price of a loaf of bread on a store shelf should come from the raw ingredients of wheat, water, yeast, oil? How much goes to the baker? How much to the delivery drivers? How much to the shelf stockers and cashiers? Imagine it’s a wood-fired oven, how much of the price of a loaf of bread goes to a lumberjack, even though their involvement in the whole process is really indirect?
Yeah, “capitalism” is when a the private equity firm buys the farm and now instead of producing enough to live on, or even just "as much as they did last year, now they must show year over year profits… Every year… Forever
Nah, private equity doesn’t care about profits every year forever. They want to squeeze the remaining juice out of something then throw it away. Something that’s sustainably generating profits year after year is a pipe dream compared to what private equity does.
For them, it would be something like have the farm sell its land to an affiliated entity, so the farmer now owes rent on the land in addition to the other expenses. Take the money from selling the land and invest in farming a crop that’s completely unsustainable but profitable in the very short term. Say something that needs so much water that the water table quickly drops and the wells no longer work after a few years, or something requiring massive amounts of expensive fertilizer. While that’s going on, fire all the farm workers who do any kind of maintenance or planning work. It doesn’t matter if the pumps stop getting maintenance, if the tractors are never serviced, if bills are paid on time. It doesn’t even matter if mold starts creeping in or vermin start moving in, as long as it doesn’t happen immediately. Arrange for the farm to pay the PE owners a management consulting fee that’s so high that after paying rent and 100% essential costs, there’s absolutely no money left. Eventually, when the farm collapses, declare bankruptcy and let all the creditors fight over the remains.
All while reducing costs, often by skipping steps and ignoring safety.
I wonder if there ever was a “golden age of farming” when farming was a comfortable lifestyle. It seems to me that it has always been a very difficult career.
If I look at my own family - my English quarter were all farmers and they did OK. They lived to a ripe old age (my gggg-grandmother died of “senility of age”, she just got old and something stopped working) and had many children, all living in pretty flexible multi-generational units that allowed a flexibility to take in waifs and strays (an illegitimate child could work the land just as well as anyone else, so a grandparent or uncle would always find room for them). A ggggg-grandfather found himself at 63 with his wife and 7 or 8 kids dead, so he married a much younger woman and got a similar number of kids. He died at the age of 79. His grandfather died in 1767 at the age of 84. His father died in 1746 at the age of 90 (although he was a priest).
Meanwhile on my Dad’s side, all his great-grandparents were born in Ireland and all his grandparents were born in Liverpool. The majority of his male ancestors from those generations died nasty deaths in their thirties, largely because the Industrial Revolution ground such people up and oiled the machinery of progress with their blood (literally so for his maternal grandfather).
So farming would have been a tough job but it was preferable to a lot of the urban options.
Yeah, that’s probably true for some farmers. Life was terrible, but life in the city was even worse.
the Industrial Revolution ground such people up and oiled the machinery of progress with their blood (literally so for his maternal grandfather).
Literally? I wouldn’t think blood would make for good oil for machinery, I’d have thought it was too sticky. And, since it’s water based it will evaporate quickly at high temperatures, so it’s not really suitable for most machines where temperatures can easily exceed 100C.
We’re STILL coming out from under that shit. Me and my father have a wood shop, and I have to get after him about eye and ear protection. And yeah, he’s an IT guy and I’m a mechanic, I was shown those gory training videos, he wasn’t. Things I’ve heard him say, “I’m wearing my regular glasses,” “It doesn’t sound that loud, it doesn’t bother me.” Especially with hearing protection, I think he’s just being macho. I’ve had sensitive hearing since I was a kid and sometimes I’ll just sit around in my ANR headset not listening to anything just…shutting the HVAC and the fridge and the rumble of society out.
He’s not the sharpest egg in the attic, is he?
According to Past Clarkson, if Current Clarkson can’t make good money farming then Current Clarkson shouldn’t be a farmer. Simple as that.
And that is because Current Clarkson is the worst farmer … in the world.
Simple as
Well Jeremy, somebody makes bread out of it.
I’m picturing David Mitchell saying this.
- Transporting the grain from the field to the mill.
- Milling
- Transporting flour (and at least 3 other ingredients) from the mill to the bakery
- Baking, packaging
- Transporting the bread from the bakery to the supermarket
- Running the supermarket.
Turns out there is a difference between raw wheat and bread. More news at 8.
When farmers get paid too little for their effort, making these wild comparisons isn’t helping. It seems we’re about a year away from the conclusion “I stubbed my toe. This must be capitalism’s fault.”
What did you stub your toe on? Under which economic system was that object produced? Open your eyes, sheeple!
Whoa whoa go back to sleep you’re woke now
And items like Bread and Milk are commonly loss leaders - their priced at a loss or a minimal profit margin by the larger retailers that can afford to make a loss to profit richly elsewhere.
Staples like bread and milk are highly price competitive because there is so much choice - choice in brands but more importantly choice in which supermarket customers go to.
That price pressure goes down the entire production chain. Big companies like Warburtons and Hovis can still profit asbthey benefit from economies of scale, as do the supermarket chains. Big farms also benefit from economies of scale to profit. At every level the small players - farmers, independent bakeries and small retailers struggle to make any profit at all. And at every level wages are kept down.
This is capitalism.
- You do not need entire kilo of wheat to make one loaf of bread
That depends on the bread size? From a quick survey of bread recipes online, you need flour and water in a ratio of about 2:1 to 2:1.5. So 1kg of flour gives 1.5kg–1.75kg of dough. I don’t know how much water evaporates during backing, but I think an end product of 1.25kg–1.7kg is a reasonable guess. That’s about a standard sized loaf (to me).
Shovelloaf
Don’t understand how he can be part of this industry and not understand it at all.
Or he does understand and is playing a victim. Second is more likely.
The second one for sure. But i would also argue that Clarkson himself is only part of the industry to some degree, because primarily he is still in the (quite successful) business of producing television. And while he is certainly learning stuff the actual act of running a farm is still primarily done by others.
On the practical farming side by Kaleb and on the business side by Charlie, who in this case would be the one understanding how the economics between 25p/kg weat and 1.25£ for a loaf of bread work.
I think you’ve got a valid point there. I would also say Clarkson is very “me me me”.
Yeah, this is the guy who successfully played victim when he got fired for punching someone in the face. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
Yup. I remember it well.
Did you see the interview during the farmers protest where he got upset that the interviewer pointed out he’d only bought the farm to dodge IHT?
According to his own column, no less.
It’s actually kind of crazy all of the rest of that happens for £1.25
Now if we do insulin in the USA, it won’t make so much sense. Capitalism!
Mass production and its effect on unit cost is amazing sometimes. But what is also lost is the transactions between each of those steps. Usually the ones that farm aren’t the ones milling, baking, packaging, etc., so there are layers to consider as well, all reducing the unit prices because of the large scale.
What about potatoes?
Those are needed to power the farm computers.
Honestly, I fucking like Clarkson.
Is he sometimes obnoxious? Yeah. Wrong? Definitely.
But like the role he’s playing he’s playing fucking amazingly. He’s an entertainment person who doesn’t have an entirely closed mind even though there’s definitely a lot of shit in it. And he isn’t overly political. Like he understands he can influence opinions a bit but he would never try to become a real politician. Would he?
He’s a racist, he assaults people over sandwiches and is a vile, right wing piece of shit. Glad you’re a fan of that.
Glad you’re a fan of that.
No, I’m not a fan of “that.” I said I like Clarkson. I can like a pesron and disagree with them. If he was genuinely trying to be some sort of politican then I wouldn’t, but now he’s more or less just an average tier UK media personality.
Like I said, he’s often obnoxious and wrong. But aside from punching that guy at BBC and being ideologically stuck in the 90’s (which he basically does more or less for humour, but you can’t do that for humour all the time without believing in it a little.)
I don’t know. I get sort of nostalgia from laughing with that rude cunt. And I do mean “with” more than “at”.
He gives sort of the vibes I had when I was little kid and dad still seemed cool. He turned out to be a somewhat stubborn pseudointellectual very stuck in conservative ways and not at all open minded. Compared to my late dad, Clarkson is pretty openminded.
You put my own thoughts into words. Clarkson reminds me a bit of my uncle.
I have no real opinion on Clarkson, but you’re wasting your time with that poster. Some people just refuse to acknowledge the ability to separate good and bad things.
I’m content with the idea that all my time spent on Lemmy is wasted. I’m just commenting for the sake of commenting
Idk. I live around vile, right wing peices of shit so I see and have to interact with them daily. I’ve seen some real nasty stuff. And I’m not saying everything Clarkson says is great and right, b he is pretty fun to watch even if I am rooting against him most the time.
Literally the whole time I warch his farming show I’m rooting for Caleb while calling Clarkson an idiot. Like I said, I don’t know why it’s entertaining, but I believe OP is correct
Social media is racist too, but apparently you’re a fan of it since you use it, so you must like racism. Just using your own logic. Maybe climb down off your pulpit mate.
He’s very likable, at least on that show, which is the first time I’ve really watched him. He’s far from a mere host, he really digs in and works.
Sometimes of Top Gear and The Grand Tour (although I’ve not watched all of them but anyway) it was hilarious how far he would actually go to avoid working. Like sometimes he’d put more effort into avoiding something that would’ve been rather trivial.
What’s the one time he dragged a log behind his Mercedes in Africa for some reason or another and then it ofc eventually tangled, bounced and hit him square in the back glass.
Oh right, it was his “handbrake.”
Like honestly fixing the handbreak prolly would’ve been less work at least in general. AT least for the crew, accounting for the broken window and cleaning and whatnot.
Oh wait, he actually says himself “stupidest idea in history.” I guess that’s the part I like. He does stupid shit confidently, announcing it’s brilliant, but when it inevitably goes wrong, he can laugh at himself and admit he was actually wrong. And yet go to the next stupid idea and do that with the same confidence as earlier. I find it amusing.
I like Clarkson, but fuck that guy. Welcome to actual capitalism
“Mind you I’m just a simple country farmer, but…”
I’ve not watched anything this person has been in, but every time I see him sharing his thoughts and opinions in publication he seems like a genuinely incurious, blathering moron.
Now imagine him shouting “SPEED!” and “POWER!” a bunch and being totally stubborn and you’ve got about 90% of his TV work
He’s also a racist and assaults people over sandwiches
oh nice, fuck him then edit: ha! looks like I hurt a racist’s feelings; guess what, fuck you too.
This is the man who punched somebody in the face when service workers went home and he was huuuungy
Funny how THIS incident was a big deal but everyone ignored his years of racist comments
