IT was probably a throw-away remark rather than a considered comment, nonetheless the notion, as expressed by Jeremy Clarkson's Top Gear colleague, James May, that the presenter's sacking from the BBC was "a tragedy" says much about the cult of celebrity in today's image-driven society ("Clarkson leaves BBC as police ask for report on row with producer", The Herald, March 26).

Rather, I feel, the BBC is to be congratulated or once in taking a stance against the puerile and the self-absorbed; a brave decision which will, undoubtedly, cost it dear.

Of course, the BBC is not the arbiter of what constitutes either free speech or good behaviour, whether in the personal or collective domain. Just the same, metaphorically, its action in sacking Mr Clarkson is, I believe, a finger in the dyke against a growing tide of simple boorishness and callous regard for the consequences of over-arching hubris. As ever, the Bard of Avon puts it most succinctly, thus:

"I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'er leaps itself,

And falls on th'other side"

G McCulloch,

47 Moffat Wynd,

Saltcoats.