Entertainment
Jeremy Clarkson sparks complaints with £85 January advent calendar-Emily Bashforth-Entertainment – Metro
The calendar is Clarkson’s response to Dry January.
Jeremy Clarkson has created his own Advent calendar – with a twist (Picture: Qian Jun/MB Media/Getty Images)
To anyone who thinks Advent calendars are only for December, think again, because Jeremy Clarkson has one for… January.
The former Top Gear presenter, 64, has launched his latest business venture, which will surely make the ears of drinks connoisseurs perk up.
In response to Dry January, a campaign where people abstain from drinking alcohol for the whole first month of the year, Clarkson has created a boozy calendar with a tipple behind each door.
This one lasts from the 1 to the 31 of January, comes in two different forms, and is aptly named The Not Advent, Advent Calendar: Damp Edition.
Its online description reads: ‘Don’t fancy a dry stint in January? Go for a drizzle instead with the damp edition of our Not Advent Advent Calendar.
‘Delicious British low-alcohol lager, our light Breeze lager, and a bottle of premium vodka to celebrate when it’s all over.’
The month-long calendar is a response to Dry January (Picture: Hawkstone)
‘January is rubbish; your drinks don’t need to be,’ echoes the slogan on its box.
As for contents, the product contains 16 330ml cans of Spa Lager with 0.3% alcohol volume, 15 330ml Breeze lagers at 3.4%, and one 70cl Hawkstone Vodka at 40%.
There are also shot glasses behind two doors.
In total, the calendar will set you back £85.
While the damp version contains low-alcohol options, Clarkson has also created a dry version, also retailing at £85, which contains only the 0.3% lager.
It does, however, also include the bottle of vodka in a special door on February 1.
Alas, the calendar’s release has sparked complaints from some who are unable to get hold of it.
Clarkson purchased The Farmer’s Dog, in Asthall, near Burford in Oxfordshire in August (Picture: Neil Robinson/PA Wire)
Amid high demand, a despondent basselindstrom commented: ‘UK deliveries only I presume’.
‘When will we see it in USA?’, asked joeinwestchester.
‘Would love that….ship to Italy!’, demanded tim_herrell.
The calendar’s release comes after Diddly Squat Farm owner Clarkson suffered a blow to his pub in Oxfordshire.
He discovered that glasses from The Farmer’s Dog were being sold on eBay, claiming they had been ‘stolen’.
Clarkson said it was just one of the issues causing him to lose money at the moment’, having already been forced to hire ‘a whole team of chemically trained hazmat engineers’ to deal with an accident in one of the outside toilets.
He also only managed to sell five of the 40 Christmas turkeys that had been ordered and over 100 glasses had been taken.
The former Top Gear host has been left raging over thefts in his pub (Picture: Eleanor Hoad/Every Second Media/REX/Shutterstock)
Over 100 glasses were stolen, and some were sold on eBay (Picture: eBay)
‘The theft, for example, is extraordinary. People seem to have it in their heads that if they come in for a pint, they are entitled to go home with the glass in which it was served. Last Sunday 104 went missing,’ he wrote in his column in The Times.
One glass was later sold online for £19.99.
In his column, Clarkson raged: ‘It’s galling to see how much effort is required to make so little money on the farm. It’s worse at the pub. The customers are coming. There’s no problem there. But turning their visits into a profit is nigh-on impossible.’
The former Grand Tour host opened The Farmer’s Dog in August, having paid less than £1million for the property, which was previously named The Windmill.
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