British TV host  in race row after using the word 'pikey' in magazine column

"Pikey" is a bit hard to translate from British English but it includes ideas of being mean and not living up to your obligations.  It originally applied to Gypsies and other "travellers".  Note, however, that the presenter was applying the description to HIMSELF

Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond has been embroiled in a race row after he used the word 'pikey' in a magazine column.

An Irish traveller group slammed the 42-year-old television presenter and journalist, saying the word was the equivalent of calling a black person a 'n*****'.

Hammond used the word in his regular column in this month's Top Gear magazine while writing about how much money he had spent on his Land Rover.

He wrote: 'I have, over the 10 years I've owned it, spent way too much money on my Land Rover. I've documented on this page before some of the car's many stages of evolution.

'It's spent time as a blinged-up street cruiser with chrome wheels, blue neon underlighting, straight-through dragster sidepipes and a pumped-up stereo that could damage your pelvis on loud.

'A lot of my little touches have been fun, innocent and pretty harmless. I have fitted chromed accents on the dash and commissioned back seats bearing my daughter's names.

'Yes, I am a pikey, and it is important that my Land Rover reflect that.'

A spokesman for the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain said: 'He has to understand that pikey is the equivalent to the n word.

'You could make a joke with the n word in but if you did it wouldn't be funny. It would be offensive. It is the same with pikey.'

Top Gear magazine's editor Charlie Turner said: 'We're sorry this term has caused offence. That was never the intention.'

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