The Mexican Ambassador to the UK has criticised BBC show Top Gear for a series of "outrageous, vulgar and inexcusable insults".
His Excellency Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza wrote to the corporation to complain about the comments made in an episode broadcast on January 30 and demanded the show's hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, make a public apology.
In the episode, which can be watched on iPlayer, Hammond joked that Mexican cars reflected national characteristics, saying they were "just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent oaf with a moustache, leaning against a fence asleep, looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat".
May described Mexican food as "like sick with cheese on it" and Clarkson predicted they would not get any complaints about the show because "at the Mexican embassy, the ambassador is going to be sitting there with a remote control like this [snores]. They won't complain, it's fine."
In his letter to the BBC, the Ambassador wrote: "The presenters of the programme resorted to outrageous, vulgar and inexcusable insults to stir bigoted feelings against the Mexican people, their culture as well as their official representative in the United Kingdom.
"These offensive, xenophobic and humiliating remarks only serve to reinforce negative stereotypes and perpetuate prejudice against Mexico and its people."
A BBC spokeswoman said: "We have received a letter from the Mexican Ambassador and shall respond to him directly."
It is not the first time the show, with its blend of motoring news, schoolboy humour and audacious stunts, has got into trouble.
In 2008 the show was rapped by the BBC Trust for showing Clarkson and May sipping gin and tonics at the wheel during a stunt.
Speaking backstage at the National Television Awards, Clarkson said the recent Sky Sports sexism row raised the danger of people being punished for "heresy by thought".
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