Jeremy Clarkson’s absence from this week’s episode of Have I Got News for You was not mentioned at the recording of the show on Thursday night, Monkey hears. But he did feature in the last round when a picture caption of what looked like The Stig and some car drivers prompted team captain Ian Hislop to come back with the riposte that the caption should include something about punching and Paul Merton joked it should be about Clarkson inventing a time machine to go back and see if there was a time when “he wasn’t a twit”. Whether or not the quips make it through the comedy cut to screen remains to be seen.
