A producer has to have an incredibly thick skin and ability to shrug things off. Seems like this producer did.
A “talent” will bleed a producer dry and want more.
It takes a special kind of person to be a producer.
BTW just who ordered the cold cuts instead of steak? Was it the producer or was he following orders from BBC?
We really know very little about this.
Of course this could all be some kind of sick stunt...
They were out filming late and the hotel (out in the middle of nowhere, Yorkshire) stopped evening meals at 8:30 pm
It would have been sensible for the producer to pay the hotel extra to keep the staff on late - heck it's his job to do the organizing. The extra cost to the BBC would have been negligible compared to the UK rates for daily helicopter rental...:^)
A long day out in the cold, windy, wet moors of Yorkshire would deserve a hot meal for all of the crew not just Clarkson - the producer didn't do his job and may not have deserved a punch, but it may have been the last straw to Clarkson.
After returning from a warmer part of the UK after 3 weeks I was happy to feel the warm air at Phoenix airport...:^)
The Yorkshire moors can be a miserable place to be even in a UK summer.