Farmer Jeremy Clarkson was told he is incompetent by one visitor to his Diddly Squat Farm Shop, but he thought the interaction was “tremendous”.
Jeremy, 65, has won praise in recent years for his farming exploits that have shone a light on the hard work farmers do in the UK. The work has been so impactful it has led to calls for the former Top Gear presenter to run for Parliament, a suggestion he has so far rebuffed.
One arm of his farming empire in the Cotswolds is his Diddly Squat Farm Shop where he sells produce from the Diddly Squat farm. Despite how long it has been open for, the venue still has queues for entry.
However, in recent months, Jeremy has begun to notice Chinese people are queuing up more and more for the shop and watching his show on Amazon Prime.
While Clarkson’s Farm isn’t officially available in China, Jeremy said he’s had a massive influx of Chinese tourists to his shop. One day he decided to ask one of them why they were watching, to a surprise response.
Writing in The Sunday Times he said: “So why are they watching? It’s a question I put to one of the visitors to the farm shop. His answer was tremendous. ‘It’s because we cannot believe how incompetent you are.’
“Over there, they are bombarded with stories of successful people doing things well, so it makes a nice change to see a fat man f****** everything up.”
Even if the tourists may think Jeremy isn’t the best at what he does, he is doing it well enough for officials from the country to want to know more.
He added: “That said, though, we recently hosted a Chinese agricultural delegation who were on a fact-finding mission in the UK. So plainly the high-ups are interested in what we’re up to.
“Very interested in fact. I showed them one of our hen houses, which may look like a miniature Romany caravan but inside it’s all quite high-tech.”
Jeremy’s impact on the British farming scene, and raising awareness of the issues affecting farmers, has led to speculation he may try and run for political office and varying levels of support for him to do so.
This has included Jeremy hinting on social media that he might do so after he asked people on social media whether they were happy with their local MP, Labour’s Ed Miliband, and suggested someone from their “neck of the woods” could unseat him.
