Jeremy Clarkson was shocked to learn that there are reportedly at least 600,000 Italians who participate in nudism – and he quipped that he hadn’t seen much evidence of it himself. The 64-year-old Clarkson’s Farm star exclaimed: “All the policemen that have stopped me for motoring misdemeanours in Italy have been clothed, as have all of the waiters in all of the restaurants I’ve visited.”
However, he discovered – to his astonishment – that the mayor of a seaside town in Sardinia has announced plans to allow locals to wed nude on the beach. San Vero Mills has already had a designated nudist area for the past two years, but it will soon be legal for a woman to tie the knot wearing nothing more than her wedding veil.
The mayor, Luigi Tedeschi, defended: “Most people want freedom, not a regime.” He recently told CNN: “Nudity has nothing to do with sex… [and] if people want to marry nude, they can.”
However, a bemused Jeremy admitted he had no idea whether he should feel “relaxed” about the new move, or “revolted”. He suggested that nudity had been more common in his youth than it is today, and that – with the days of dozens of lads’ mags on display in newsagents fading away – it is now “frowned upon” in Britain.
Talking in his latest column for the Sunday Times, he reasoned: “The days of Brigitte Bardot letting it all hang out are over. Yes, there are still beaches where you can lie on the sand in the nude, but these are mainly for people who are melanoma enthusiasts, German or mad.”
He elaborated that he’d once visited a nudist beach in the south of France where he’d spotted men with cotton tied “tightly around the base of their penises” – and he’d found it “abnormal”.
He said he’d also visited one on the Greek island of Mykonos with AA Gill, only to be greeted by a man wearing only motorcycle boots.
“That’s not the thought process of someone who’s sane… Public nudity used to be mainstream, [but now] it’s been hijacked by the lunatic fringe!” Jeremy exclaimed.
Mayor Tedeschi, on the other hand, has claimed that nudist areas on beaches are always clean and “pristine”, whereas the clothed areas are covered in litter from revellers that haven’t been tidied away.
