The Stig has been revealed following a high court challenge by the publisher of his soon to be released autobiography, HarperCollins. On the pronouncement of the courts decision a spokesperson from the publishing house declared it a victory for free speech. Others might say it is a victory for party poopers.
The Stig is none other than Ben Collins. As well as his role on the BBC show Top Gear as the mysterious Stig, Mr Collins has also paid his bills by undertaking the stunt driving for Bond, James Bond, in a number of Bond films. It is somewhat incongruous that a man who has made his career secretively pretending to be someone else now wants to publish his autobiography. One can only hope he used a ghost writer.
Unfortunately the executives of HarperCollins seems to have forgotten one of the most basic lessons of childhood, there are good secrets and bad secrets.
A good secret is daddy giving his child a lollipop before dinner and saying “it is our secret, because mummy thinks it will ruin your appetite.” Uncle tom giving his neice or nephew his special ‘lollipop’ saying it is “our little secret”, that is a bad secret.
Keeping the identity of The Stig a secret was a good secret, it was, dare I say it, even a little bit of fun. People in bars and lounge rooms and bars the world over have been discussing and debating The Stig’s true identity for almost a decade. Now, not. Now it is just a driver in a white racing suit.
They did not reveal if he also played the character of Chandler on the long running sitcom Friends. Apparently this is not a story of sufficient public interest.
In the rules of law this might now set an unfortunate precedent, unmasking costumed characters; Humphrey B. Bear, Fat Cat (taken off air because the gender identity of this character was considered ambiguous and therefore confusing for children – removing the head may have solved this problem), sports mascots, Easter Bunny and Father Christmas. How disappointed will the children be when they discover the Paddle-Pop Lion is just Barry, the smelly guy from sown the street.
We should not stop there, it is time to finally reveal the two biggest secrets of our life time, the 11 herbs and spices used by the Colonel when he created his finger licking fried chicken recipe, and Coke (the cola beverage not the hallucinogenic powder). Actually the recipe of coke the powder should also be made public. It should not matter how many synthetic chemicals artificial colours and flavours are included in any of these three secretive recipes. The population the world over already knows none of these products have any nutritional value or any ingredient that could even be classified as foods. We know that the pleasure the body receives from consuming these products will be short lived but the guilt and uneasy feeling that follows will last a while, despite that we consume copious amounts of them on an alarmingly regular basis.
It is of course debateable wether these recipes constitute good or bad secrets. I can only hope that Colonel Sanders, Dr John Pemberton or every Columbian do not want to publish an autobiography.
