Darren Adam

I wasn’t offended by Richard Hammond and Ice Cream Gate. Does that make me self-hating?

On Christmas Eve, as my partner headed upstairs to continue his Spanish lessons, I settled down to wrap presents while watching the New Top Gear – or the ‘The Grand Tour’ to use its official name. In a section called ‘Conversation Street’, in no way a retread of a similar section on The Old Top Gear called rather more prosaically ‘The News’, Clarkson observed that the lightly-coloured interior of a new Volvo S90 was no place to safely enjoy a chocolate Magnum ice cream. Hammond then replied that he didn’t eat ice cream, as he was ‘straight’. This curious statement was met with deserved surprise and was developed via innuendo about men eating chocolate bars in ice cream cones, into an amusing test of which chocolate bar crumbles more onto the upholstery when eaten behind the wheel.

I woke the next morning, however, to learn from social media that I should have been offended.

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