Jeremy Clarkson is filling his days getting into a different kind of stew - as a friend revealed he phoned BBC bosses to apologise for his notorious "fracas" to avoid a formal bureaucratic inquiry.
The presenter, who has joked about his ham-fisted, "Keith Floydish" foray into Vietnamese food, called Danny Cohen, director of television at the corporation, even though Top Gear producer Oisin Tymon had not made a complaint.
It is understood Clarkson, 54, hoped this would draw a line under the matter - "not least for the sake of the hundreds of people standing by to carry on with the rest of the show," according to his friend AA Gill.
"It was Jeremy who handed himself in. He ... explained he had lost his rag after a difficult and tiring day," the food critic wrote in The Sunday Times.
Gill praised his "mate" as a hard-working broadcaster who had earned the BBC "hundreds of millions" and slammed Mr Cohen's investigation into the row as "preposterous and ponderous".
He said: "Jeremy reported the incident. It was over the absence of hot food at the end of a long and frustrating day with the prospect of another early start in the morning.
"The producer, Oisin Tymon, had not made a complaint. Jeremy called Danny Cohen, the director of BBC television, directly and explained he had lost his rag.
"Cohen had a choice: to do the right thing or the bureaucratic thing, but at the BBC no good intention goes unquestioned."
He added: "People work long hours with a great deal of stress, and small things - almost invariably food - are tetchy trip-wires.
"Whatever did happen, in mitigation to Jeremy, nobody works harder or under more stress than he."
Mr Cohen suspended Clarkson and cancelled the next three episodes of the BBC2 programme after reportedly hearing that Clarkson threw a punch at Mr Tymon.
He also announced an inquiry into the incident, due to begin on Monday.
It will be led by Ken MacQuarrie, the head of BBC Scotland, who carried out the investigation into Newsnight's false expose of Lord McAlpine.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Clarkson described himself as a "not very interesting fat man" and joked about retirement while he awaits the disciplinary hearing.
"We read often about active and busy people who die the day after they retire because they simply can't cope with the concept of relaxation," he said.
"So as I seem to have a bit of time on my hands at the moment, I thought it would be a good idea to take up some kind of hobby.
"I began by watching daytime television, and soon felt myself starting to slip away. So I turned over to the news and it was all about a not very interesting fat man who had been suspended from his not very important job.
"But watching the fat man made me hungry and that's when the penny dropped: I'd take up cooking."
He added: "I decided to get ambitious and cook the most delicious thing I've eaten in my life: a pho ... a Vietnamese noodle soup that contains about 128 ingredients."
However, after tucking into wine while waiting for the beef broth to cook and adding chillies "that sat on the Scoville scale just above lava" he went to bed "hungry, drunk and with an ulcerated, gangrenous mouth".
Following his comments on Saturday that the time may have come for him to leave Top Gear, was he hinting at a possible new career as a restaurant critic?
"My new hobby is called 'going out to restaurants and letting people who know what they're doing cook my food," he wrote at the end of his column.
The BBC investigation will try to establish what happened on the night of 4 March at the Simonstone Hall hotel in Hawes, North Yorkshire, after Clarkson was told the chef had stopped serving hot food.
It will also take into account Clarkson's other controversies of the past two years, and could take weeks until his fate is decided.
The delay already appears to have irked fellow Top Gear presenter James May, who tweeted on Saturday: "So; it's been a week, and still no answer. How exactly do you pronounce 'fracas'?"
Nearly one million people have signed a petition calling for Clarkson to be reinstated, but not everyone at the BBC wants him back.
The BBC's in-house magazine, Ariel, published a letter from a receptionist at BBC Oxford that reflects the mood of some staff.
Pat Noel argued "there are only so many warnings the BBC can give one person. There is a lot of great talent in the BBC; let's not make one man a god."
Last month, the BBC approved its new bullying and harassment grievance policy, agreed with unions, and some are seeing allegations that Clarkson threw a punch at a producer as a test case.
Luke Crawley, assistant general secretary of the broadcast and workers' union Bectu, told The Observer: "If it turns out that the allegations are true, then the BBC must take a very firm line.
"Otherwise it seems to be open season for star presenters taking a pop at staff. This is a pretty serious test case."
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