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Clarkson can be marmite for many people but this series is just a great watch. He knows what makes great television but I don’t sense any cynicism involved. All human (and animal!) life is in there.

Having grown up in farming communities in Ireland I’ve seen the realities of that farming life up close and personal (my Dad’s company was based around land drainage, reclamation etc for farmers - he worked 363 days a year - Good Friday and Xmas Day the exceptions).

The amount of work and the general hardship involved in farming is really demonstrated effectively in this show.

Yip, Clarkson is a rich man and yes, he has been able to invest a lot of money into his farming business at a level impossible to attain for probably 99.9% of farmers. However, his approach is very admirable.

There is a genuine sense of emotional investment on his behalf here. He really seems to be doing his very best to showcase what it’s like to be a British (or Irish farmer by extension, Ireland being geographically part of the British Isles). These are universal themes - generally impossible weather conditions, officious and oft debilitating government bureaucracies, mostly low profits and wages, and absolute physical hardships at every turn. For me, the thing that hits me in the feels is rearing animals everyday and then sending them to slaughter. Feeding people is a business, but it’s not without its emotional impacts.

More than anything, the characters involved in the show are knowingly generic. You could have a ‘Gerald’, a ‘Kaleb’, or a ‘Charlie’ in any county, across Britain and Ireland, indeed, I know many such people in my local communities.

Folks with a strong affirmation of “well, it’s not going to do itself” when problems have to be tackled. They just get on with it. When Kaleb questions “who’s Neil Armstrong? Is he an actor?” you get a sense of how all consuming this lifestyle has been to the people in it as they’ve grown up around it. No time for the telly box etc when there’s cows to be milked and hydraulic equipment that needs to have seals checked or working parts that have to be greased, oiled and maintained *after* the days work has been done.

Set aside whatever Amazon are paying for this program, it is ultimately a humanist study on real people and real life problems that give us an insight into just what is involved when we sit down at a table and tuck into a steak, a potato, a sausage or pasta etc.

I couldn’t recommend this show more if you haven’t seen it.