Last night, while watching The Grand Tour, my wife noticed something odd. There was Jeremy Clarkson, draped in an elderly gentleman’s cardigan, as his cigarette habit has forced him into early senior citizenship. That was normal. But wasn’t normal was what was dangling from his wrists.
“Is he... wearing bracelets?” she asked.
He was.
It was the weirdest thing. There appeared to be three bracelets and a watch sitting right there near the end of his left appendage. I figured it was some weird mid-life crisis fashion statement, like his bad orange shirt. But then, outside the studio segment and during the Italian road trip, there they were again:
Many, many bracelets. This had crossed from the realm of the absurd, and into the territory of the deeply disturbing.
I was at a loss to explain this strange sartorial turn. Was it a cry for help? A plea for peace in the Middle East? Was he trying to pass along an even deeper message than that?
It turns out that yes, he was. The message is BUY MORE WATCHES, according to The Guardian:
Much scrutiny, too, would be given to the trio’s expensive watches seen prominently on steering wheels. (“Episodes contain product placement,” warns the Amazon Prime website.)
It appears as if the bracelets are meant to attract attention towards – or draw attention away from – the watches that Clarkson and crew are now being forced to wear, in what must be an ostensible exchange for trailers full of tires for smoking.
While The Grand Tour and Top Gear are pretty much the same, there are some things that are entirely different.