As a good left-wing lad raised by Guardian-reading parents who didn’t drive, I knew Jeremy Clarkson was tasteless and unpleasant. In my first year as a junior doctor, my surgical ward had one of his articles pinned to the office wall. It was off-putting to see his shabby name and a piece from a tabloid, but one day I read it all the same.

As I recall, he’d had some minor scrape and written a column mocking the paramedics who showed up to help. He didn’t want two tinkerers who weren’t medically trained, he sneered. No, he wanted Michael Schumacher to drive him to hospital and a supermodel, sitting scantily clad in the back of the ambulance, giving him the will to live until he arrived. I remember finding it funny, given it echoed a real debate in paramedic circles – ‘stay and play’ versus ‘scoop and run’. I knew well enough, however, to disapprove, and my disapproval kept a lid on my enjoyment.

Once I left that ward, life went back to being Clarkson-free – I didn’t read the Sun, and cars were no more to me than a means of transport. Then, around a decade ago, my late son, aged about seven, came into the kitchen. A friend of his had been round, and they had watched some........

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