Если у вас возникли сложности с курсовой, контрольной, дипломной, рефератом, отчетом по практике, научно-исследовательской и любой другой работой - мы готовы помочь.
Предоплата всего
Подписываем
notes
Note1
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO CLARKSON
Jeremy Clarkson made his name presenting a
poky motoring programme on BBC2 cal ed Top
Gear. He left to forge a career in other directions
but made a complete hash of everything and
ended up back on Top Gear again. He lives with
his wife, Francie, and three children in
Oxfordshire. Despite this, he has a clean driving
licence.
The World According to Clarkson
PENGUIN BOOKS
JEREMY CLARKSON
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London wc2R orl,
England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2,
Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwel
Road,
Camberwel , Victoria 3124, Australia (a division
ofPearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community
Centre,
Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale
Roads, Albany,
Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division
ofPearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24
Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank 2iy6, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80
Strand, London wc2R orl, England
www.penguin.com
These articles first appeared 111 the Sunday
Times between 2001 and 2003 This col ection
first published by Michael Joseph 2004
Published in Penguin Books 2005
47
Copyright ©Jeremy Clarkson, 2004 Al rights
reserved.
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Set by Rowland Phototypesettmg Ltd, Bury St
Edmunds, Suffolk Printed in England by Clays
Ltd, St Ives pic
Except in the United States of America, this book
is sold subject to the condition that it shal not, by
way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired
out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other
than that in which it is published and without a
similar condition including this condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN-13: 978-0-141-01789-1
www.greenpenguin.co.uk
Penguin Books is committed to a sustainable
future for our business, our readers and our
planet. The book in your hands is made from
paper certified by the Forest Stewardship
Council.
To Francie
The contents of this book first appeared in
Jeremy Clarkson's Sunday Times column. Read
more about the world according to Clarkson
every week in The Sunday Times.
Another Day's Holiday? Please, Give Me a
Break
According to a pol , the vast majority of people
questioned as they struggled back to work last
week thought that England should have fol owed
Scotland's lead and made Tuesday a bank
holiday.
Two things strike me as odd here. First, that
anyone could be bothered to undertake such
research and, second, that anyone in their right
mind could think that the Christmas break was in
some way too short.
I took ten days off and by 11 o'clock on the first
morning I had drunk fourteen cups of coffee, read
al the newspapers and the Guardian and then . . .
and then what?
By lunchtime I was so bored that I decided to
hang a few pictures. So I found a hammer, and
later a man came to replaster the bits of wal I had
demolished. Then I tried to fix the electric gates,
which work only when there's an omega in the
month. So I went down the drive with a spanner,
and later another man came to put them back
together again.
I was just about to start on the Aga, which had
broken down on Christmas Eve, as they do, when
my wife took me on one side by my earlobe and
explained that builders do not, on the whole,
spend their spare time writing, so writers should
not build on their days off. It's expensive andit can
be dangerous, she said.
She's right. We have these lights in the dining
room which are supposed to project stars onto
the table below. It has never real y bothered me
that the light seeps out of the sides so the stars
are invisible; but when you are bored, this is
exactly the sort of thing that gets on your nerves.
So I bought some gaffer tape and suddenly my
life had a purpose. There was something to do.
Merciful y, Christmas intervened before I could do
any more damage, but then it went away again
and once more I found myself staring at the day
through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.
Each morning, bed and the blessed relief of
unconsciousness seemed so far away.
I wore a groove in the kitchen floor with endless
trips to the fridge, hoping against hope that I had
somehow missed a plateful of cold sausages on
the previous 4,000 excursions. Then, for no
obvious reason, I decided to buy a footstool.
I took the entire family to the sort of gifty-wifty
shop where the smel of pot-pourri is so pungent
that it makes you go cross-eyed. Even though the
children were lying on the floor gagging, I stil
spent hours deliberately choosing a footstool that
was too smal and the wrong colour so that I could
waste some more time taking it back.
The next day, stil gently redolent of Delia Smith's
knicker drawer, I decided to buy the wrong sort of
antique filing cabinet. But after the footstool
debacle my wife said no. So it seemed
appropriate that I should develop some kind of
il ness. This is a good idea when
you are at a loose end because everything, up to
and including herpes, is better than being bored.
It's hard, I know, to summon up a bout of genital
sores at wil , but with a little effort you can catch a
cold which, if you whimper enough, wil easily
pass for flu. And yup, even lying in bed watching
Judy Finnegan in a Santa suit beats the terminal
cancer that is boredom.
Boredom forces you to ring people you haven't
seen for eighteen years and halfway through the
conversation you remember why you left it so
long. Boredom means you start to read not only
mail-order catalogues but also the advertising
inserts that fal on the floor. Boredom gives you
half a mind to get a gun and go berserk in the
local shopping centre, and you know where this is
going. Eventual y, boredom means you wil take
up golf.
On the day before Christmas Eve I sat next to a
chap on the train who, as we pul ed out of
Paddington, cal ed his wife to say that he was
finished, that he had retired and that from now on
his life was entirely his own. He was trying to
sound happy about it, but there was a toraway,
baleful look in his eyes which said it al .
He would spend a month or two at home,
breaking interior fixtures and fittings and general y
kil ing everything in the garden, and then one day
he would accept an invitation to tee off and that
would be it. His life would be over long before he
actual y stopped breathing. Pity. He seemed like
a nice chap.
Or what about fishing? You see those people
sitting en the side of the canal in the drizzle and
you wonder:
how bored do you have to be at home for that to
be better?
The answer, I suspect, is 'not very'. After a week I
was at screaming pitch and I couldn't even cook
some sausages to put in the fridge because one
afternoon, when my wife wasn't looking, I had
tried to mend the Aga. And the thing had come
off.
I could have put it back, of course, but strangely,
when you're not busy, there is never enough time
to do anything. I wrote a letter and stil have not
found enough space in the day to put it in an
envelope. Mind you, this might have something to
do with the fact that I spent eight hours last
Tuesday on the lavatory. Wel , it's as good a
hobby as any.
Apparently the British work longer hours than
anyone else in Europe and stern-faced men are
always tel ing us that this causes stress and heart
disease. Fair point; but not working, I assure you,
would give us al piles.
Sunday 7 January 2001
All This Health and Safety Talk is Just Killing
Me
You may recal that after the Hatfield train crash
last year six-chins Prescott, our deputy prime
minister, turned up at the scene and gave the
distinct impression that with a bit more effort and
a lot more investment, nobody would die on the
railways ever again.
There was a similar response last week to the
news that the number of people caught drinking
and driving in the run-up to Christmas rose by o. i
per cent. Al sorts of sandalistas have been on the
radio to explain that if the drink-drive limit were
lowered to minus eight and the police were
empowered to shoot motorists on sight, then
death on the road would become a thing of the
past.
These people go on to tel us that mobile phones
wil cook our children's ears, that long-haul flights
wil fil our legs with thrombosis and that meat is
murder. They wantan end to al deaths — and it
doesn't stop there. They don't even see why
anyone should have to surfer from a spot of light
bruising.
Every week, as we filmed my television chat
show, food would be spilt on the floor, and every
week the recording would have to be stopped so
it could be swept away.'what would happen,' said
the man from health andsafety, 'if a cameraman
were to slip over?'
'Wel ,' I would reply, 'he'd probably have to stand
up again.'
Like every big organisation these days, the BBC
is obsessed with the wel being of those who set
foot on its premises. Studios must display
warning notices if there is real glass on the set,
and the other day I was presented with a booklet
explaining how to use a door. I am not kidding.
So you can imagine the problems I shal
encounter this week when, for a television series
I'm making, I shal climb into a decompression
chamber to find out what life would be like on an
airliner at 30,000 feet if one of the windows were
to break.
The poor producer has been given a form the
size of Luxembourg which asks what hazards I
wil face. Wel , my lungs wil explode and the air in
the cavities under my fil ings wil expand ninefold,
causing untold agony, but I probably won't feel this
because there is a good chance that the
subsequent hypoxia wil turn me into a dribbling
vegetable.
I consider it a risk worth taking, but my thoughts
are irrelevant because these days my life and
how I live it are in the hands of the men from
health and safety. The same people who said last
year I could not fly in a US-Army helicopter
because the pilot was not BBC-approved.
Oh, come on. Everyone knows that American
forces are not al owed to crash their helicopters.
Fol owing the 1993 debacle in Somalia, when
they lost sixteen men
who were sent in to rescue two already dead
comrades, it has now been decided that no US
serviceman wil ever be hurt again. Not even in a
war.
This has now spread to Britain. You've read, I'm
sure, about the hearing damage which can be
caused by sergeant-majors who shout at privates,
but the plague goes deeper than that. On a visit to
RAF Henlow last week, I was rather surprised to
see that someone from health and safety had
pinned a poster to the notice board, warning the
fighter pilots that alcohol wil make them
aggressive and violent. Oh no, that's the last thing
we want — aggressive and violent fighter pilots.
Then we have Britain's fleet of nuclear-powered
hunter kil er submarines, which have al been
grounded or whatever it is you do with boats, by
health and safety because they could be
dangerous.
Now attention has been focused on Britain's
stockpile of uranium-depleted missiles, which are
by far and away the best method of penetrating
the armour on enemy tanks. Great, except health
and safety doesn't like them because it turns out
they might kil someone.
Former squaddies are on the news saying that
they loosedoff a few rounds in kosovo and now
they have caughtcancer. deepest sympathies,
but let's look at some tacts.they only way
depleted uranium can get through the skin is if
someone shoots you with a bul et made out ot it. It
can get into the body through the lungs, but since
itis 40 per cent less radioactive than uranium that
occursnatural y in the ground, it does seem
unlikely that
it could cause any damage. I have been down a
uranium mine in Western Australia and, so far, I
have not grown another head.
However, I do find it odd that the Ministry of
Defence wil test only soldiers who served in
Kosovo and not those who were in the Gulf,
where 300 tons of depleted uranium were used
and the alpha radiation has had longer to do its
stuff. But if by some miracle it does find that our
boys have been irradiated and that one squaddie
died as a result, then we can be assured that
depleted uranium wil , in future, be used only on
NATO, rather than by NATO.
Where wil this end? The US Air Force managed
to kil seven British soldiers in the Gulf with what it
likes to cal friendly fire, so would it not be
sensible for those of a health and safety
persuasion to ban Americans from the battlefield,
too?
Some people say global warming and ozone
depletion wil kil us. But I'm far more worried
about the people who have made it their sworn
duty to keep us al alive.
Sunday 14 January 2001
Men are a Lost Cause, and We're Proud of It
Being a man, I am unwil ing to pul over and ask
someone for directions, because this would imply
they are somehow cleverer than me. And
obviously they're not, because I'm toasty warm in
a car and they're mooching around on foot.
Sometimes, though, and usual y in a town where
the council has let a group of fourteen-year-olds
from one of its special schools design a one-way
system, I have been known to give up, become a
traitor to my gender andask a passer-by for
advice.
What a complete waste of time. If they begin by
saying 'er', then they don't know and you are
going to waste hours while they wonder whether
you go left at Sketchley's or right. So here's a tip.
If someone hesitateswhen you ask the way, or
even if a look of bewilderment befal s their
countenance for the briefest moment, driveoff.
Of course, some launch immediately into a bunch
of militaristic directions, involving clear, concise
ha nd signalsand bushy-topped trees at nine
o'clock.
But that's of no help either because you won't be
listening.it is a known medical fact, and it has
been so sincethe dawn of time, that a man wil
hear the first wordand then shut down.
When the Romans invaded England, they went
home to celebrate and didn't come back for 80
years. Why? Because they couldn't find it and, if
they did ask for directions in France, they didn't
listen.
In the late thirteenth century, Edward Longshanks
used women to steer his armies around the realm
because they could listen to, and absorb,
directions, whereas men couldn't. Actual y, I just
made that up. But there must be a vestige of truth
in it because if he had relied for guidance on his
knights, he'd have ended up in Falmouth rather
than Falkirk.
Certainly, I didn't listen last week when, having
been unable to find the shop I wanted, I found
myself drawn inexorably by the man magnet that
is Tottenham Court Road into one of those
temples to the pagan world of meaningless
beeps and unusual hieroglyphics: Computers 'R'
Us.
I didn't listen to the voices in my head tel ing me to
get out and nor did I listen when the man started
to explain al about a new type of Sony laptop that
has too many vowels in its name to be
pronounceable. It begins with a V and then you
have to make the sort of noise a cat would emit if
you fed it through a mangle.
Now don't worry, this isn't going to be a column
about how I don't understand computers, and how
I wish I were back on the RotherhamAdvertiser
feeding bits of bog rol into a sit-up-and-beg
Remington.
I like computers very much and I know enough
about them to send emails, write stories and find
some ladyboys in Thailand. Unfortunately,
however, I do not know as
much about them as the people who work or hang
around in computer shops, which means my mind
does that man thing and stops working.
Like, for instance, if you were offered the choice
of Windows 2000 or Windows 98, you'd go for
the bigger number. But the man in the shop
advised me to spend less on the 98 and, when
asked why, proceeded for al I know to talk about
his Newfoundland terrier. I did not hear a single
thing he said.
The one thing I wanted was an ability to send
emails via a cel ular phone, so I asked: 'Can I plug
this into my mobile?' And he replied . . . but
frankly, he may as wel have been talking about
the problems of making decent onion gravy while
marooned in a Nepalese hil fort.
So I ended up buying it . . . and now I think it's
broken. Every time I log off from the internet the
machine shuts down, casting whatever I've written
that day into a silicon no man's land.
Obviously, I could take the computer back to the
shop, but then they'l find that I've been looking at
ladyboys and this wil be embarrassing. Besides,
I can't remember where the shop was, and I'm
damned if I'm going to ask.
I could phone a friend, but it would be a waste of
a cal because, as a man, I'm just an ego covered
in skin and, if he knows how to solve my problem,
that's going to cause some light bruising. So I
won't listen. And if he doesn't know, then he's of
no help anyway.
At this point, a woman would reach for the
instruction book, but this is the single biggest
difference between
the sexes. Forget the need to be cuddled after
sex. And forget spatial awareness and fuzzy
logic, because the most butch woman in the
world, even Mrs Thatcher, would lie on her
stomach for hours with the manual for a new
video recorder, ensuring that when she gets back
from dinner that night she wil have taped the right
channel at the right time.
How dul is that. Me? I stab away at various
buttons safe in the knowledge that I could be
taping something on the other side, next Tuesday,
which might be much better.
This certainly helps when playing board games.
Because I've never read the rules for Monopoly, I
travel around the board in whichever direction
seems to be most appropriate, and if anyone
says I have to go clockwise, I respond with a
strange faraway look.
It always works. I always win.
Sunday 21 January 2001
We Let Them Get Away with Murder on
Radio
It's coming to something when the news is
making the news, but that is exactly what
happened at the beginning of last week when the
papers were ful of ITN's victory over the BBC in
the Battle of the Ten O'clock Bongs.
The BBC explained afterwards that it had twice
as many stories, twice as many live reports and
twice as much foreign coverage, but it was
stymied by ITV, which ran Millionaire two minutes
late and went straight to its bul etin without a
commercial break.
It even had the gal ant knight Sir Trevor McDonald
crop up in the middle of Chris Tarrant to say there
would be some news soon and not to go away.
This ratings war is getting dirty and deeply
annoying. In the past, when programmes largely
began on the hour or at half past, you could watch
a show on ITV and then,when it had finished, find
something else that was juststarting on another
channel.
But look at the schedules now. Things start at five
pastand finish at twelve minutes to, so by the
time you flickover to the beeb's new drama
series you've misseddieexplosion and the
subsequent car chase and have no ideawhat's
going on.
I understand why it has to happen, of course.
When 1 worked on Top Gear it didn't matter
whether we were
featuring a new Ferrari that ran on "water or
standing around in a field pretending to be sheep,
we always got the same viewing figures.
However, if the programme began late, after al
the other channels had started their 8.30 p.m.
shows, we would drop 1 mil ion or so.
Interestingly, however, this type of 'schedule shuff
ling' does not seem to be happening in the world
of radio.
My wife, for instance, listens only to Radio 4. It
could run a two-hour shipping forecast and stil
she would not retune to another station. I know for
a fact that, like the rest of the country, she has no
clue what Melvyn Bragg is talking about on In Our
Time, but every Thursday morning the whole
house echoes to the unfathomable pontifications
of his stupefyingly dul guests.
At 10.25 a –m – every day I point out that over on
Radio 2 Ken Bruce has a good quiz about pop
music –a subject she enjoys very much – but for
some extraordinary reason she prefers to listen to
the state of the sea at Dogger Bank.
I am no better. Left to my own devices I start the
day with Terry Wogan, who last week got it into
his head that al Chinese people smel of
Brussels sprouts. Then it's Ken's pop quiz
fol owed by Jimmy Old.
Now at this point I should turn over, because Old
bombards his listeners with the big-band sound
and talks to his guests about the price offish.
Then people cal up and read out the editorial
from the Daily Telegraph and it's just not me. But
no. I sit there saying that it's only for two hours and
then it'l be time for Steve Wright.
Why do I do this? On television I only need to
catch the tiniest glimpse of a spangly jacket, the
suggestion of a Birmingham accent or the first
bar of the EastEnders theme tune, and in one
fluid movement I reach for the remote and switch
over. Yet, displaying the sort of brand loyalty that
would cause Marks & Spencer to pickle me in
brine, I wil drive for hour after hour while Old
drones on about how Mrs Nazi of Esher thinks
asylum seekers should al be shot.
There is a choice. Obviously Radio i is out, unless
you enjoy being serenaded by people banging
bits of furniture together, and Radio 3 transmits
nothing but the sound of smal animals being
tortured. What about local radio? In London there
is Magic FM which broadcasts the Carpenters al
day long. Of course, the Carpenters are fine —
especial y when you have a headache — but
between the tunes men come on and speak.
I should have thought that being a disc jockey
wasn't sobad. i mean, it could be worse. but
obviously i'm wrong, because nowhere in the
whole of humanity wil you find a bunch of people
quite so unhappy as the CD spinnerson 'misery'
fm.
By 8 a.m. on a Monday they are already counting
downthe hours to friday night as though al of us
treat dieworking week as something that has to
be endured. in their world, we al work for Cruel a
De Vil. And it's alwaysraining.
Even if it's a bright sunny day and we've just
heard on the news that John Prescott has burst,
they would stillfind something to moan about and
then it's on to
Yesterday Once More for the fourteenth time
since 6 a.m.
There is no point in going elsewhere because
quite the reverse applies. Misery FM is largely run
by people on their way down the career ladder,
but elsewhere in local radio most of the DJs
believe themselves to be on the way up — so
they sound as if they're talking to you while
someone is pushing Harpic up their nostrils with
an electric toothbrush.
'Who knows?' they must be thinking. 'A television
producer might be listening, so if I'm real y zany
and wacky al the time I'l end up on the box.'
Too right, matey, but on television they'l see you
coming and switch channels.
On the radio, for some extraordinary reason, they
won't.
Sunday 28 January 2001
Willkommenand Achtung, This is Austrian
Hospitality
A smal tip. The border between Switzerland and
Austria may be marked with nothing more than a
smal speed hump, and the customs hut may
appear to be deserted, but whatever you do,
stop. If you don't, your rear-view mirror wil fil with
armed men in uniform and the stil ness of the
night wil be shattered with searchlights and
klaxons.
I'm able to pass on this handy hint because last
week, while driving in convoy with my camera
crew from St Moritz to Innsbruck, a man suddenly
leapt out of his darkened hut and shouted:
'Achtung.'
I have no idea what 'achtung' means, except that
it usual y precedes a bout of gunfire fol owed by
many years of digging tunnels. I therefore pul ed
over and stopped, unlike the crew, who didn't.
The man, white with rage and venom and fury, de
manded my passport and refused to give it back
until I hadfurnished him with details of the people
in the other carwhich had dared to sail past his
guard tower.
I'd often wondered how I'd get on in this sort of
situation. Would I al ow myself to be tortured to
save my col eagues? How strong is my wil , my
playground-learnt bond? How long would I hold
out?
About three seconds, I'm ashamed to say. Even
though I have two spare passports, I blabbed like
a baby, handing over the crew's names,
addresses and mobile phone number.
So they came back, and the driver was
manhandled from the car and frogmarched up to
the stop sign he'd ignored. His passport was
confiscated and then it was noticed that al his
camera equipment had. not been checked out of
Switzerland. We were in trouble.
So we raised our hands, and do you know what?
The guard didn't even bat an eyelid. The sight of
four English people standing at a border post in
the middle of Europe, in the year 2001, with their
arms in the air didn't strike him as even remotely
odd.
We have become used to a gradual erosion of
interference with international travel. You only
know when you've gone from France into
Belgium, for instance, because the road suddenly
goes al bumpy. French customs are normal y on
strike and their opposite numbers in Belgium are
usual y hidden behind a mountain of chips with a
mayonnaise topping.
But in Austria things are very different. Here you
wil not find a fatty working out his pension. Our
man on the road from St Moritz to Innsbruck was
a lean, frontline storm trooper in ful camouflage
fatigues and he seemed to draw no distinction
between the Englander and the Turk or Slav.
Nobody, it seems, is welcome in the Austro-
Hungarian empire.
The camera crew, who were very disappointed at
the way I'd grassed them up and kept referring to
me as 'Von Strimmer' or simply 'The Invertebrate',
were
ordered back to Switzerland. And me? For sel ing
them out, I was al owed to proceed to Innsbruck.
Which does invite a question. How did the guard
know where I was going? We had never
mentioned our destination and yet he knew. It
gets stranger, because minutes later I was pul ed
over for speeding and even though I had a Zurich-
registered car, the policeman addressed me
straight away in English.
This puzzled me as I drove on and into the longest
tunnel in the world. That was puzzling, too, as it
wasn't marked on the map. What's happening on
the surface that they don't want us to see?
Final y I arrived at the hotel into which I'd been
booked, but a mysterious woman in a ful -length
evening gown explained menacingly that she had
let my room to someone else. And that al the
other hotels in Innsbruck were ful y booked.
Paranoia set in and took on a chil ing air when I
learnt that one of the army bobsleigh people I was
due to meet the fol owing day had been kicked to
death outside a nightclub.
I ended up miles away at a hotel run by a man we
–hal cal 'The Downloader'. 'So, you are an
Englisher,' he said, when I checked in. 'There are
many good people in England,' he added, with
the sort of smile that made me think he might be
talking about Harold Shipman.
Something is going on in Austria. They've told the
world that the Freedom Party leader has stepped
down, buthow do we know he's gone and won't
be back? Let's notforget these people are past
masters at subterfuge.
I mean, they managed to convince the entire
planet that Adolf Hitler was a German. Most
people here do think Haider wil be back. As
chancel or. And that's a worry.
I'm writing this now in my room, hoping to send it
via email to the Sunday Times but each time I try
to log on, messages come back to say it's
impossible.
Maybe
that's
because
The
Downloader is up in his attic, looking at
unsavoury images of bondage and knives, or
maybe it's because I'm being watched.
Journalists are.
Either way, I'm nervous about smuggling text like
this past customs tomorrow when I'm due to fly
home. I shal try to rig up some kind of device
using my mobile phone, hoping these words
reach you. If they do, yet I mysteriously disappear,
for God's sake send help. I'm at the . . .
Sunday n February 2001
Gee Whiz Guys, But the White House is
Small
If you are the sort of person who gets off on Greek
marbles and broken medieval cereal bowls, then
there's not much point in visiting an American
museum. Think: while Europe was hosting the
crusades, the Americans were hunting bison.
However, I have always wanted to see the Bel X-
i, the first plane to travel faster than the speed of
sound,
so lastweekend i set out for the
smithsonian institute in Washington, DC. The trip
was not a complete success because the X-i was
swathed in bubble wrap and housed in a part of
the museum that was closed for renovation. But
never mind, I found something else.
There are those who think America is as richly
diverse as Europe — they're hopelessly wrong,
and Washington, DC is the worst of it. I'd never
realised that it isn't actual y in a state. The
founding fathers felt that, if it were, the others
would feel left out – and that's very noble. Except
it means that residents of the capital city of the
free world have no vote.
Another feature it shares with Havana and Beijing
is the immense sense of civic pomposity. The
downtown area is ful of vast, faceless buildings
set in enormous open spaces and guarded by
impossibly blond secret-service
agents in massive Chevy Suburbans. The
pavements are marble and the policemen gleam.
Just three blocks south of Capitol Hil you find
yourself in an area where 70 per cent of the
population are gunmen and the other 30 per cent
have been shot. Then to the west you have the
dotcom zone, which is ful of idiotic companies
with stupid names and unintel igible mission
statements. Half.formed.thought.corp: Bringing
the World Closer Together.
You look at those huge mirrored office blocks and
you think: 'What are you al doing in there?' The
politicians wil never have the answer as they al
live in an area cal ed Georgetown, which is as
antiseptic and isolated from the real world as the
sub-basement at a centre for research into
tropical diseases.
Here, the only cannon is Pachelbel's. It was nice
to find it playing in the lobby of my hotel. It made
me feel safe and cosseted, but it was on in the lift
and in the bookstore next door, and in the art
gal ery.
It was even playing in the 'authentic' Vietnamese
restaurant
where
customers
can
gorge
themselves on caramelised pork in a white wine
jus. Now look, I've been to Saigon and in one
notable restaurant I was offered 'carp soaked in
fat' and 'chicken torn into pieces'. A difficult
choice, so I went for the 'rather burnt rice land
slug'. I have no idea what it was, but it sure as hel
wasn't caramelised or served in a wine sauce.
Stil , what do the Americans know about
Vietnam? Wel , more than they know about
France, that's for sure. The next morning I ordered
an 'authentic French-style
country breakfast' which consisted of eggs sunny-
side up, sausage links, bacon, hash browns and
– here it comes – a croissant. Oh, that's al right
then.
What's not al right are the people who were eat
ing there. Every single one of them was a
politician, or a politician's lapdog, or a political
commentator or a political lobbyist.
Because al these people with a common interest
live together in a little cocoon, they labour under
the misapprehension that their work is in some
way important. They begin to believe that there
are only two types of people: not black or white,
not rich or poor, not American or better; just
Democrat or Republican.
So what, you may be wondering, is wrong with
that? Surely it's a good idea to put al the
politicians together in one place, it saves the rest
of us from having to look at them.
I'm not so sure. When Peter Mandelson couldn't
remember whether he'd made a phone cal or not
he hadto resign and it was treated as the most
important event in world history. On the television
news a man with widescreen ears explained that
Tony Blair might actual y delay the election, as
though everyone, in every pubin the land, was
talking of nothing else.
That was London. But in a town built by politicians
:or politicians, it's much, much worse. You can't
even build a skyscraper in Washington, DC,
because al buildings must be smal er than the
Washington Memorial. The message is simple.
Nothing here is bigger than politics.
To explain that there's a world outside their
window, and it's a world of dread and fear, I felt
compel ed to buy some spray paint and a ladder
and write something appropriate in big red letters
on the White House.
But when I got there I simply couldn't believe my
eyes. Put simply, I live in a bigger gaff than the
president of America, and that's not bragging
because, chances are, you do too. It real y is
pathetical y smal .
Al around there were television reporters
revealing to their viewers some snippet of
useless information that they had picked up the
night before over a bowl of authentic Ethiopian
pasta. And I wanted to say: 'Look, stick to what's
important. Tel everyone that President Bush lives
in a hut and, most of al , warn people that the X-i
display at the Smithsonian is closed.'
Sunday 18 February 2001
Flying Round the World, No Seat is First
Class
According to recent scare stories, people on the
27-hour flight to New Zealand have a simple
choice. You can either die of deep vein
thrombosis or you can die of cancer which is
caused by radiation in the upper atmosphere
reacting with the aluminium skin of the aeroplane.
Both options are better than surviving.
I boarded the plane at Heathrow and was
horrified to note that I was to share my section of
the cabin with a couple of dozen pensioners on a
Saga holiday. Great. Half were at the stage
where they'd need to go to the lavatory every
fifteen minutes, and half were at the stage where
they didn't bother with the lavatory at al .
But the seat next to me was free. So who am I
going to get? Please God, not the girl with the
baby I'd seen in the departure lounge. There is
nothing worse than sitting next to a girl with a
baby on a long-haul flight. I got the girl with the
baby.
And then I was upgraded to first class. I didn't
stop to askwhy. i just took the moment by the
bottom of its trouser leg, moved to the front and
settled down with my book. It was a big fattie
called Ice Station, which promised to be the sort
of page-turning rol ercoaster that •vould turn the
fat 11-hour leg to Los Angeles into a dainty little
ankle.
Sadly, it turned out to be the worst book ever
written. Just after the lone American marine had
wiped out an entire French division single-
handed, I decided to watch a movie instead. But
since I'd seen them al , in their original formats,
with swearing, I was stuck.
You can't even talk to the stewardesses because
they think you're trying to chat them up and you
can't talk to the stewards either, for much the
same reason. So I thought I'd get a drink, but of
what?
My body clock said it was time for tea but I'd
already moved my watch and that said I should
have a glass of wine. But I couldn't have a wine
because then I'd want a cigarette and you can't
do that on a plane because, unlike a screaming
baby, it's considered antisocial.
I know. I'l look out of the window. I'l look at this
overcrowded world in which we're living. Wel
sorry, but for six hours there are no towns, no
people and despite various claims to the contrary
no evidence of global warming. Just thousands
upon thousands of miles of ice.
So I went back to my book and was halfway
through the bit where the lone American was busy
kil ing everyone in the SAS, when we dropped out
of the clouds and into Los Angeles.
Time for a smoke. But this being California, that
meant I had to go outside, which meant I'd have to
clear customs, which meant I had to get in line
with the Saga louts who'd al fil ed their forms in
wrong.
I queued for an hour while the American passport-
control people, in a bad mood because work
stops them
earing, barked at the old biddies and then
realised that rime was up. Unlike everywhere else
in the world, airlines in the States are al owed to
take off with your bags on board.
And so with a heavy heart and even heavier lungs
I trudged back to the 747 for the next, real y long
leg and
.ind that my first-class seat had gone. But then so
had die girl with the baby.
In her place there was a Californian beach babe
who was going to Auckland with her equal y
vol eybal ish friend.
To begin with, I didn't think too much of the fact
they were holding hands but as the flight wore on
and rhey started holding rather more intimate
parts of one another's bodies, the penny
dropped.
I know I shouldn't have been surprised. I've been
told countless times that people are born gay and
that it's not something that happens because
you're too much of a boiler to pul a bloke. So
there must be good-looking lesbians, too. It's just
that, outside films, you never see one.
I tried to read my book, in which the hero was now
caking on and beating the entire US Marine
Corps using nothing but a rope ladder, but it was
impossible to concentrate. And you try sleeping
when you're seventeen inches from two
pneumatic blondes playing tonsil hockey.
Somewhere around the Fiji islands they went to
sleep, andso did i, waking up an hour later when i
moved my armand the nicotine patch tore a
couple of armpit hairs clean out of their sockets.
After twelve hours we landed and I had forty
minutes to make my connection for Wel ington
which, even though the domestic terminal is a
brisk fortnight's walk away, was just about doable,
providing al went wel in customs.
It didn't. A man took my papers into a back room
and emerged ten minutes later wearing rubber
gloves. I damn nearly fainted.
Believe me, you do not want an intimate body
search after a 27-hour journey. You don't want an
intimate body search after a 27-minute journey,
come to think of it, but thankful y he limited his
probing to my suitcase and I made the last flight
with one minute to spare.
On it, I had another breakfast, finished my
godawful book and tomorrow, after just 36 hours
in Wel ington, I'm coming home again. This is jet-
set living? You can keep it.
Sunday 25 February 2001
They're Trying to Lower the Pulse of Real
Life
Did anyone else notice that, in the aftermath of
last week's train crash, the newspapers were
gripped with a sense of impotent rage? Try as
they might, and some of them tried very hard
indeed, they couldn't find anyone to blame.
The tracks hadn't disintegrated. The train driver
wasn't four. There were crash barriers on the
motorway bridge and the man in the Land Rover
hadn't fal en isleep. It had been an accident.
But, of course, there's no such thing as an
accident these days. If you trip over a paving
stone or eat a dodgy piece of meat, there wil be
an inquiry, someone wil be culpable, and steps
wil be taken to ensure it doesn't happen again.
We had a very wet autumn, as I'm sure you wil
recal , and as a result many rivers burst their
banks. But this was not an act of God or a freak
of nature. This was someone's fault.
Nobody is al owed to just die, either. George
Carman QC, for instance, pegged out at the age
of 71, which is not a bad innings. But oh no. His
death has been chalked op to cancer, as though
it might have been avoided if he'dnot eaten
cheese and broccoli.
Wel now look. The human being, and the human
male in particular, is programmed to take risks.
Had our ancestors spent their days sitting around
in caves, not daring to go outside, we'd stil be
there now.
Sure, we're more civilised these days, what with
our microwave ovens and our jet liners, but we're
stil cavemen at heart. We stil crave the rush of
adrenaline, the endorphin highs and the buzz of a
dopamine hit. And the only way we can unlock
this medicine chest is by taking a risk.
Tel ing us that speed kil s and asking us to slow
down is a bit like asking us to ignore gravity. We
don't drive fast because we're in a hurry; we drive
fast because it pushes the arousal buttons,
makes us feel alive, makes us feel human.
Dr Peter Marsh, from the Social Issues Research
Centre in Oxford, says the recent rise in
popularity of bungee jumping, parachuting and
other extreme sports is simply man's reaction to
the safer, cotton-wool y society that's being
created.
He told me this week that, when the youth of
Blackbird Leys in Oxford was stealing cars and
doing handbrake turns back in the 1990s, a
number of liberal commentators cal ed to ask him
why.
'It's funny,' he said. 'These kids steal a real y good
car, take it back to their housing estate and
charge around, with al their friends cheering and
applauding. They are having a laugh, and making
the police look like fools on television, and you
have to ask why!'
Who has decided that we must live in a
temperance
society where there is no stimulation, no risk, no
danger and no death?
In the past two months alone we've been told that
water makes us mental, that coffee increases the
risk of miscarriage, that lawn mowers cause
deafness and thatmiddle-aged men who dance
wil get 'glamrock shoulder'.
A professor at Aberdeen University described
washing-up bowls as 'an absolute menace'. We
were told that snooker chalk causes lead
poisoning and that the new euro coins contain
nickel, which wil blister skin. There were
warnings too that apples cause E-coli and that
mercury thermometers kil babies.
So where is al this rubbish coming from? Wel , to
be honest, it's being imported from America,
where scientists are now worried that a
consignment of PlayStations that has been sent
to Iraq could be linked to forma crude
supercomputer. this, they say, could then be used
to pilot a chemical warhead al the way to Buffalo
Springs.
Americans, remember, have got it into their
he a d s thatyou can now wage a war without
losing a single soldieror airman, and we see the
same sort of thing with theirweather too.
Instead of shrugging when a hurricane marches
across Florida, or a tornado tears up Oklahoma,
they insist that thegovernment does something
about it. they want more warning, better
protection.
Then of course there is the business of smoking.
Did you know that there are now porno websites
in America where you can cal up pictures of girls
with farmyard animals, and then, at the highest
level, for members only, pictures of ful y clothed
girls enjoying a cigarette?
And despite a few plaintive cries for help from the
back of the Washington Post, the public over
there seems to have bought into this belief that
life can, and should, be run without risk, that al
accidents are avoidable, and that death is
something that only happens to people who eat
meat and smoke.
This is odd. From the outside, Americans appear
to be human — a little larger than normal,
perhaps – but equipped nevertheless with arms
and heads.
So how come they are able to overcome the
base instincts that drive the rest of mankind?
I can think of only one answer. If they do not need
risk and stimulation, they must be genetical y
malformed. There's a simpler word for this. They
must be mad.
Sunday 4 March 2001
Forget the Euro, Just Give Us a Single
Socket
If you were charged with the task of standardising
an entire continent, from the Baltic to the
Bosporus, I'm pretty sure you would come up with
a list of things that areslightly more pressing and
important than a single currency.
Plug sockets, for a kick-off. How can it be that our
MEPs have managed to homogenise a banana,
yet they –nil al ow each member state to offer a
new and exciting wayof getting electricity out of
the wal ?
This wasn't so bad when we travel ed with only a
comb, but now that we need to charge up the
batteries m our computers, mobile telephones
and electronic organisers it means we must pack
a vast array of adaptors; <o many in fact that you
now need to travel like an E. M. Forster heroine,
with fourteen trunks and Cummerbund Akimbo,
your manservant.
And then the check-in girl has the temerity to ask
if your bags contain any electrical appliances.
Damn right ibeydo.
This is deeply maddening for me since I have
always pridedmyself on being able to survive
abroad for up to a month on nothing but hand
luggage. I have even developed a routine
whereby one pair of underpants can be made to
last for four days.
You wear them back to front on day two, inside
out on day three and then inside out and back to
front on day four. I know a cameraman who
claims to have developed a combination that
al ows a five-day switchover routine, but frankly I
don't believe him.
Then we have telephone connections, which in
the past were of no great importance. But now we
al have internets, how come there is no edict
from Brussels on what is, and what is not, a
standard socket?
They launch the euro, which means I won't need a
wal et that bulges with different currencies. Big
deal. Yet they're happy to have me stomping
around the Continent with enough cable in my
suitcases to build a suspension bridge.
It's also very difficult with road signs. Only the
other day, while searching Zurich for the A3
motorway to St Moritz, a blue sign said turn left
and a green sign said turn right. Blue is
motorway, yes? Nope. Not in Switzerland it isn't.
The blue sign takes you on the sort of road that
made the cabling in my suitcase look straight.
And lifts: why can't there be a standard letter that
denotes the reception level? It has been agreed
that al across Europe prisoners have an
inalienable right not to fal over and yet it is
deemed acceptable for people like me to spend
hours stabbing away at meaningless buttons and
emerging half a day later in the hotel boiler room.
Now I don't want you to think that I long for the
days when newspapers ran headlines saying
'Fog in the Channel. Europe cut off'. I don't
subscribe to the British-is-best mentality,
because we have John Prescott
andfuss and mutt. We have much to learn from
the Continent.
Austrian lavatories, for instance, are plainly a
good idea.there's a short flush for your number
ones and a rul -on niagara for even the most
stubborn number two. then you have three-hour
lunches in Spain and smoking bars on long-haul
French airliners.
So, surely, if we must have European integration,
i t shouldbe a case of taking the best bits that
each country hasto offer and blending them into
the other member states.
Take customs officers. In Germany you get poked
i n thechest by a hippie with a gun, and woe
betide anyone whotries to get a carnet signed in
France. I tried this last weekand the man at the
desk couldn't be bothered. He so couldn't be
bothered that, when pressed, he hurled the form
across his office, shouted 'merde' at nobody in
particularand stomped off.
I want to see an implementation of the system
they havein italy, i.e. no system at al .
It might be useful, too, if we could find a universal
buttfor european wit. we have the irish, the
swedes havethe Norwegians, the Dutch have the
Belgians and so on. What we need is a universal
whipping boy so that jokestranslate smoothly.
No, not the Welsh. At dinner last week in Austria,
therewere sixteen people round the table and,
real y, it waslike a bunch of flowers. there were
scandinavians, germans, brits, Italians, the lot,
and it was great.
We explained the jokes for the Germans, the
French
chose the wine, the Italians ordered the food, the
Austrians talked to the waitress and the
Dutchman spent his evening stopping the Swede
from trying to commit suicide. We laughed at one
another, joked with one another, learnt from one
another and it was just the most perfect evening;
a shining example of European cooperation and
harmony.
It was spolit by only one thing. There, in the
middle
of
our
arrangement
of
roses,
bougainvil ea, edelweiss and tulips, complaining
that we smoked and doing mock coughs to
hammer the point home was a giant redwood: an
American. He did not understand Wiener
schnitzel and couldn't grasp the notion that we
would want another round of drinks.
Sure, he was the perfect butt for al of us, but we
must remember that he comes from a federal
superstate where the plug sockets are al the
same. It's a worry.
Sunday 18 March 2001
I'd Have Laid Down My Life for Wotsisname
The court case involving Jonathan Woodgate
threw up an interesting dilemma last week when
his best friend gaveevidence against him. So
what do you do?
On the one hand, society cannot function without
honesty, so therefore you know it's right to offer
your services to the prosecution. But then again,
friendship is supposed to be an unshakeable
bond which cannot exist .vuhout loyalty. So it is
also right that you should keep shtum.
Wel , I thought about this long and hard in the
shower this morning and I've decided I'd squeal
like a baby. Because you know something?
Friendship is not an unshakeable bond at al . It's
like a gigantic sand dune, seemingly huge and
permanent, but one day you get up md it's gone.
Back in the early eighties I spent pretty wel every
Saturday night with the same group of friends in a
King's Roadbasement bar cal ed Kennedy's. We
laughed al thetime, we went on stage with the
band, we sang, we drank ourselves daft and we
knew, with the sure-fire certainty that night wil
fol ow day, that we'd be mates forever.
Had one of them been accused of gouging the
barman's eyes out with a lawnmower, I'd have told
the
police I was dead at the time and that I knew
nothing. I would even have taken the heat on his
behalf, had push come to shove. Which would
have made me feel awful y foolish today because
I have no idea where two of those friends are,
and, for the life of me, I cannot even remember
what the third one was cal ed.
How did this happen? Presumably, when I said
goodbye for the last time ever, I real y did believe
I'd be seeing them al again the fol owing
weekend. It wasn't like we'd had a row, or that
they'd al grown beards or moved to Kathmandu.
We just went home and never saw one another
again.
And this happens al the time. I went through my
address book earlier and there are countless
hundreds of people, friends, muckers, soul mates
and former col eagues who I never ever see.
Here's the problem. What I like doing most of al
in the evenings, these days, is sitting in a
gormless stupor in front of the television, eating
chocolate.
Going out means getting up, getting changed,
finding a babysitter, arguing about who'l drive
and missing HolbyCity. And quite frankly, that's
not something I'm prepared to do more than once
a week. So, the most people I can hope to see in
a year is 52, which means it would take two years
to see everyone in my Filofax.
Except, of course, it would take much longer than
that in reality because people who I'm not seeing
on purpose endlessly invite me round for dinner
until eventual y I've used every excuse in the book,
up to and
including being attacked by a Bengal tiger, and I
have to go.
And then, as the day in question dawns, I mooch
around the house, dreaming up the amount I'd
pay to someone if they came through the door
and offered me a guilt-free get-out-of-jail card.
Once I got up to Ј25,000, but stil no one came, I
had to go and, as a result, another week went by
without seeing Mark Whiting, a friend from my
days on the RotherhamAdvertiser.
And, of course, the more time that goes by, the
harder it becomes to cal on people who you
haven't seen in ages. I mean, if someone you
haven't heard from in ten years suddenly
telephones, you know ful wel that it'l be for one of
two reasons. He has lost his job. Or he has lost
his wife.
I have become so desperate about this friends
business that I recently asked my wife not to put
any new people in the address book. I don't care
how nice they are. I don't care if he is funny or that
she's al ergic to underwear. We have now got
enough friends.
This went down badly and so we've reached an
agreement. New people can only go in the book
providing old ones are Tipp-Exed out.
This is not easy. There's one bloke cal ed (name
and address withheld because I'm weak) who I
real y don't want to see again. Given the choice of
people I'd cal to ask for a night out, he'd come
below the woman in the video-rental shop.
Worse. If I saw him corning down the street
towards me, I'd pretend to be gay and lunge
endlessly for his genitals until he went away. And
if that didn't work, I'd run into the nearest butcher's
and feed myself into the bacon slicer.
But even so, as I stood there with the Tipp-Ex
hovering above this crashing bore's name, I could
hear his voice in my head, and it sounded like Hal
i n 2001: A Space Odyssey. 'Don't do it, Dave.
Remember al those nights we shared, Dave. I'l
try to be more interesting next time, Dave.'
I couldn't do it and so now I've got a much more
radical solution, pinched from anyone who's ever
tried to get out of a love affair with someone they
don't real y love any more. I need him to ditch me.
So what I shal do, first thing in the morning, is
take a leaf out of the Leeds United book on
friendship, cal the police, and shop him for that
joint I saw him smoke back in 1979.
Sunday 15 March 2001
Creeping Suburbia isn't Quite What I
Expected
You may be surprised to hear that the two words
most feared by those who live in the countryside
are not 'foot' and 'mouth'. Or 'mad' and 'cow'. Or
even 'Blair' and "Prescott'. No, out here the most
terrifying words in the English language are
'Bryant' and 'Barratt'.
If the cows in our paddocks were to develop
sores or a fondness for line dancing, we'd simply
set fire to them. But this option would not be
available should one of the big development
companies plonk a dirty great housing estate at
the end of our garden. And tempting though it
may seem, we couldn't cal in the armed forces,
either.
'Hel o. Is that the RAF? Oh good. I'd like to cal in
a napalm airstrike, please, at these coordinates.'
When a housing estate comes to your little world
you are stuffed. Your views are ruined, your house
becomes worthless and you needn't expect much
in the way of sympathy or compensation from His
Tonyness.
Quite the reverse in fact, because unlike the
spread of foot-and-mouth, which is being driven
by the wind, the plague of housing developments
is actual y being driven by Tony, who's said that
over the next six minutes the countryside needs
another 30 mil ion bungalows.
I went last week to exactly the sort of place that
Tony has in mind. It's a nearly completed
development cal ed
Cambourne Vil age and it is to be found in the
flatlands of Cambridgeshire between Royston
and Norway.
It's big. So big that it's been built by a consortium
of al the big developers. There's a business park,
a high street, a pub that does the sort of food that
is garnished with garnish, three vil age greens, a
lake and a helmetless teenage boy who rides
around the network of roads al day on an
unsilenced motorbike.
They've even tried to crack religion. Obviously,
the vast majority of people who'l come to live in
Cambourne wil be white, middle class and
Church of England. But, of course, in these days
of multicul-turalism you can't just stick up one
church and be done with it. So, to cope with that,
the single church wil be multidenominational.
Quite how this wil work in practice, I have no
idea. Maybe there's an inflatable minaret round
the back somewhere. Maybe they hang up the
tapestries when the Catholics are in, and then it's
al whitewashed when the lone Methodist from
No. 32 fancies having a bit of a sing-song.
I was thinking that this kind of thing might lead to
jealousy, and maybe even a smal war. But then I
thought of something else. If there's going to be
any backbiting in Cambourne, it'l be over who
gets what house.
You see, unlike any estate I've ever seen, every
single property in the whole damn place — and
there are more than 3,000 of them – is different.
Large, Ј260,000, double-fronted vil age houses
with PVC sash windows and garages nestle right
next door to smal two-bedroom
cottages which, in turn, are jammed up against
three-beet semis, some of which plainly have
ensuite bathrooms and some of which don't.
This looked like an anthropologist's worst night
mare. 'Not only does the man at 27 have a
wooden, Sussex-style garage for his BMW 3r8i
but he also has a 20 X 20 lawn, with a tree. And if
you stand on the avocado bidet in his back
bathroom, he has a view of the lake!'
Sounds like a hideous way to live until you
remember that al proper vil ages are like this.
There's a manor house, a dower house, a smithy,
a home farm, some tied cottages, a council
estate and a boy on a motorbike. It's normal.
What's not normal are the housing estates of old,
where every single property is exactly the same
as al the others. And everyone has a BMW 3i8i.
That is what's wrong with Milton Keynes. Yes, you
never sit in a traffic jam and yes, there's always
somewhere to park. But al the houses are the
same. They appear to have been pushed out of a
Hercules transport plane and parachuted into
position.
In Cambourne, it's al different. And some of it is
very, very pretty. There's one row that put me in
mind of Honfleur in Normandy. And as I wandered
around, I started to feel little pangs of jealousy.
I thought I had it al worked out, living in the middle
of the Cotswolds, but I have no neighbours to chat
to and there are no other children to keep mine
amused. In Cambourne you can walk to the
shops, walk to the pub,walk to church and walk to
work. i could walk for
two days and I'd end up with nothing more than
muddy shoes.
They've even got their own website, where
residents can sel bicycles and share wife-
swapping tips.
And they don't even have to put up with the usual
drawbacks of vil age life like an annual bus
service, tractors and men in jumpers deafening al
and sundry with their penchant for campanology.
Though I would imagine that when the inflatable
minaret is pumped up, things might get a bit
noisy.
But you know the absolute best thing about
Cambourne? It's not in Oxfordshire. Which means
it's not in my back yard. It's in Cambridgeshire.
Which means it's in Jeffrey Archer's.
Sunday I April 2001
Is It a Plane? No, It's a Flying Vegetable
So, the Bubbles have cancel ed their order for 60
Euro-fighter jets, saying they need the money to
pay for the Olympic Games. Wel , thanks Mr
Popolopolos.
That's just great.
Eurofighter could, and should, have been a
shining example of pan-European cooperation.
One in the eye for Uncle Sam. The greatest
ground-attack 'mud mover' the world had ever
seen. But instead it wil stand for ever more as a
beacon, showing the world that a federal
superstate can never work on this side of the
Atlantic.
The idea for such a plane was first hatched back
in the early 1970s when Britain realised it would
soon need a land-based fighter bomber to
replace both the Jaguar and the Harrier. We
couldn't design such a machine by ourselves
because we were on a three-day week at the
time, so we went to see the French and the
Germans.
The French said they already had a fighter, the
Mirage, and therefore only needed a bomber
which could be used on aircraft carriers. The
Germans said they didn't need a bomber since,
for once, they weren't planning on bombing
anyone. They needed a fighter. And they
absolutely were not interested in this aircraft-
carrier business because they didn't have any.
Obviously the whole thing was never going to
work,
so in the spirit of what was to come the three
countries did the sensible thing, signed a deal
and went back home to come up with some
preliminary studies.
Now, to understand the hopelessness of the
position I would like you to imagine that they were
not designing a warplane but a vegetable. So
Britain came up with the potato, France designed
a stick of celery, and Germany did a lobster
thermidor. The project was dead.
But not for long. From nowhere, the Italians and
Spanish suddenly decided that they wanted a
piece of the action and, flushed with the idea of
these extra complications, a new contract was
drawn up.
It was ever so straightforward. The amount of
work, and therefore jobs, given to each country
would depend on how many of the fighters they
would buy. That was fair. But not to the French it
wasn't. They wanted one plane, 50 per cent of al
the work and total control, and when they were
told to get lost, they did.
Taking Spain with them.
So now it was Britain, Germany and Italy and it
stayed that way for about twelve seconds, when
the Spanish fel out with the French and asked to
come back in again. So fifteen years after the
project was first mooted and just eighteen months
before the RAF needed its planes, the project at
last was up and running.
Then disaster. The Berlin Wal fel over and al of
a sudden European governments lost the wil to
spend tril ions on a plane that would have nobody
to fight. The air forces, too, realised that a highly
manoeuvrable, Mach-2, dogfighting jet would
have no place in the new
world order. So it was agreed by everyone to
keep going.
Germany and Britain were going to take 250
Euro-fighters each, which is why we each had 3 3
per cent of the workload. But in the recession of
1992 our governments wondered if this was a
trifle excessive. The RAF dropped its order to
232 planes and the Luftwaffe to just 140. But the
German government insisted that it kept its share
of the work. When everyone else kicked up a fuss
it threatened to pul out.
Fearful that the pack of cards was about to come
tumbling down, the Italians and Spanish went to
lunch and the British got tough. Immediately, we
gave in to the Germans.
However, the delay had thrown up a new problem:
the name. Al along it had been cal ed Eurofighter
2000, but by 1994 it was obvious that it could
never be operational until 2001 at the earliest. So
it became the Typhoon, which conjures up
pictures of devastation and death.
Wel , don't get your hopes up. You see, Tony Blair
recently decided that the plane's missiles should
be British rather than American. Good cal , but
the British weaponry won't be available until eight
years after the jetgoes into service. so what are
the pilots supposed to do in the meantime: make
rude gestures?
That said, though, I have talked to various auth
oritative sources over the past year and it is
widely thought that Eurofighter wil become the
world's best fighter-bomber. It is desperately easy
to fly and at Ј50 mil ion a pop it is also extremely
cheap. To put that
in perspective, each new USAF F-22 Raptor wil
cost Ј115 mil ion.
So Eurofighter is something about which Europe
can be justifiably proud. Should the Russians ever
decide to invade, we wil have exactly the right
sort of fire power to hold them back.
However, for dealing with sundry world leaders in
far-flung parts of the globe, what you real y need
are aircraft carriers. Britain has just ordered two
and there was talk of modifying Eurofighter to
become precisely what the French wanted 30
years ago. But presumably it was too much of an
effort. So what have we done? Wel , in a perfect
spirit of European cooperation, we have teamed
up with the Americans to build something cal ed
the Joint Strike Fighter. Thank you, Europe, and
goodnight.
Sunday 8 April 2001
Is This a Winner's Dinner or a Dog's
Breakfast?
No. I mean, yes. Yes, I have just been to
Barbados but no, I didn't stay at Winner Central,
the newly reopened Sandy Lane hotel. Why?
Because I checked, and for bed and breakfast
only, a fortnight there for a family of five would
cost Ј44,000.
So, who's going to fork out that kind of money for
two clean sheets and a croissant? Not David
Sainsbury, that's for sure. He was staying in our
hotel down the road. And not the TetraPak
Rausings, either. They were holed up in their
bungalow.
Obviously, I had to find out and since you can't just
walk in for a nosey, I had to bite the bul et and
book a table for dinner. So I cal ed to make a
booking and was told that if I didn't turn up, $100
would be deducted from my credit card. Christ. A
hundred bucks for not going.
When you arrive you are shown by the doorman
to a woman at the reception desk who shows you
to a man who shows you to the door of the
restaurant, where a man shows you to the man
who shows you to your chair. I felt like the baton in
a relay race.
Or rather I would have done but sadly I was stil at
the gate, in the back of a taxi being stared at by a
guard with a piece of curly flex connecting his ear
to the back
of his jacket. He probably thought it made him
look like an FBI agent, but in fact it just made him
look deaf. Which is why I resorted to shouting at
him.
I was told subsequently that it is poor form to turn
up in a taxi and that I should real y have arrived in
a proper car. Which would have meant buying
one. And that would have been even more
expensive than turning round and going home. I
hadn't real y gone to the Sandy Lane for the food.
I'd gone to see the people. So you can imagine
the crushing disappointment of finding that the
restaurant was not a sparkling sea of Cheshire
Life gold shoes, with a sprinkling of noisy New
Yorkers. In fact, only two other tables were
occupied.
To my right there was Bewildered Dotcom Man,
who'd gone to bed one night, a struggling geek
on 38p a year, and woken up the next morning to
find he was worth $4 bil ion. He was wearing a
short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt, see-through white
trousers and was accompanied by his wife,
Janet.
To my left there was White Tuxedo Man. He was
with his wife, Sylvia, to whom he uttered not one
word. He spent most of the evening either
reading the credit cards in his Filofax or talking
into his mobile phone . . . which would have been
impressive except that I have the absolute latest
Ericsson, which works on Everest, in the Mariana
Trench and even in Fulham. But it couldn't get a
signal in Barbados, so sorry, sunshine, you
weren't fooling anyone.
So, with no other guests to laugh at, we thought
we'd have a giggle at the food. Good idea, but I
couldn't find it.
It turned out that there was a sliver of what looked
like corned beef on my plate, but it was so thin
that when you tapped it with a knife it made a
clinking noise. I tried scooping it up with a fork,
and then a spoon, but neither was successful, so
in the end I gave up and just licked the plate.
What did it taste like? Wel , meat, I guess, with a
porcelain afterglow.
Then the water came. There had been an
enormous song and dance with the wine but this
was just a dress rehearsal for the main event. The
waiter unscrewed the cap as though defusing a
nuclear bomb and for one glorious moment I
thought he was going to ask me to sniff it.
But that would have been only mildly ridiculous.
So instead, he poured a splash into the glass for
me to taste. 'No, real y. Unless you got it out of
Michael Winner's bath, just pour away. It'l be fine.'
Drinking at the Sandy Lane, though, is nothing
compared to what happens when you need to
expel it. In the lavatory you are offered a choice of
bog rol – plain or embossed. And that is just so
Wilmslow.
Before leaving we were given a bal ot paper on
which we were asked to vote for the evening's
'champion', the waiter who'd impressed us most.
The losers, presumably, are lobbed into the shark
pool.
And then we got the bil , which was the funniest
thing of al because, when translated into English,
it came to ,Ј220. The lobster-salad starter, al on
its own, had been ^32, and for that I'd have
expected the damn thing to get up and do a song
and dance routine. Instead, it had
just sat there, being a dead crustacean. A bit like
White Tuxedo Man's wife.
I don't care what you read over the coming weeks
by hacks on freebies, the Sandy Lane is
preposterous. If you were given al the money in
the world and told to design the most stupid
restaurant on the planet, you wouldn't even get
close. I mean, you wouldn't think to put the waiters
in pink trousers, would you? They have, though.
And pink shirts.
But that said, it is a good thing. Every resort
should have a place like this, a giant black hole
that hoovers up precisely the sort of people that
the rest of us want to avoid. Once you know
they're there, you can go somewhere else.
Sunday 29 April 2001
Call This a Riot? It was a Complete Washout
Fol owing the success of last year's anti-
beefburger riot when protesters gave Winston
Churchil an amusing Mohican haircut and planted
cannabis seeds in Parliament Square I was
rather looking forward to last week's rematch.
Obviously I was a little concerned that my car
might be turned over and burnt, so I booked a
chauffeur-driven Mercedes and spent the day
hunting what Jack Straw had promised would be
a festival of rubber bul ets and Molotov cocktails.
Secretly, I was hoping for some water-cannon
action. There is something real y funny about the
sight of an angry young woman being hosed into
the gutter by a tank. If Jimmy Savile could be
coaxed out of retirement, this would be top of my
Fix It hit list: the chance to propel a vegetarian
into the middle of next week.
I was also hoping that at some point I could sneak
off and lob a brick through Pringle's window on
Regent Street. Just because.
But London was as quiet as the grave. Al
morning we cruised the streets and al we saw
was a man in a kaftan posing for photographers
at Marble Arch. And, like every other shop in
town, Pringle had boarded-up windows.
Eventual y we found the mob and I would like to
bet that if I gave you 2,000 guesses, you'd never
guess where they were. What symbol of
capitalism had drawn them to its portals: Nike
Town, McDonald's, the Ameri can Embassy?
Nope. They were outside New Zealand House.
Except they weren't. I counted 17 television
crews,
wel
over
100
reporters
and
photographers, 75 policemen and … 14
protesters.
Disappointed, I went for lunch at the Ivy hoping
that something would kick off in the afternoon. But
it didn't. I heard on the radio that Regent Street
was closed and so, keen to see if Pringle was
under attack, I hurried over there to find 2,000
policemen dressed up as navy seals surrounding
two women who were so angry about something
or other that they had decided to sit down in the
middle of the road.
Unbelievable. The police had rented every van in
Europe, there was a helicopter chewing fuel in the
sky and why? Because two women were cross
about men, or student loans, or East Timor or
whatever it is that angers women at university
these days.
So what's the problem here? How come every
other city in the world staged a pretty good riot
and al we got was a brace of lesbians — and I
quote from radio reports – 'throwing paper at the
police'?
To understand why the British are so hopeless at
getting off their backsides, we need to go back to
the summer of 1381 and the so-cal ed Peasants'
Revolt. A mob, seeking equality for al , had
sacked London. They had burnt the houses of the
rich, beheaded anyone
dressed in velvet, opened prisons, drunk John of
Gaunt's wine and scattered financial records to
the four winds. These guys were on a rol . The
army had fled, the king, Richard I , was just
fourteen years old and his bodyguards were so
scared they had gone into hiding. Then the mayor
of London compounded the problem by sticking
his dagger into the neck of the protesters' leader,
Wat Tyler.
Now you would think, wouldn't you, that this would
inflame the situation somewhat. (If Ken
Livingstone had stabbed one of the lesbians, the
other would have become incandescent with
rage.) But no. Ten days later, the rebels
confronted the king who told them: 'You wretches,
detestable on land and sea; you who seek
equality with lords are unworthy to live.' So they al
went home.
How come? What was it that extinguished the fire
in their bel ies? Wel , I have no proof of this
because nobody was keeping meteorological
records in the fourteenth century but I'd like to bet
that it started to rain.
A lot of people with vast foreheads have, over the
years, wondered why Britain has never had a
successful uprising. Some say it's because the
monarchy was too powerful. Others argue that
you can't have a revolution if you have a strong
and contented middle class.
Pah. I say it's because of the drizzle. Last year's
May Day riot was a success because it was dry
and quite warm. This one was a washout
because it rained and we are brought up on a
diet of party invitations that always say 'If wet, in
the vil age hal '. And you can't change the
fabric of society from a venue that's also used for
parish council meetings and line dancing.
There is some evidence to back up this theory.
The night of ii April 1981 was dry and
unseasonably warm. I know this because it was
my twenty-first birthday. It was also the night of the
Brixton riots. Then there was Toxteth and it wasn't
raining on the television coverage of that, either.
Aha, you might say, but what about the Russian
Revolution? They also have rubbish weather so
how did they get it together? Wel , look at the
dates. It began in early spring and it was al over
by October. And when did the French storm the
Bastil e? It was 14 July.
Here's a thought: the only reason why the Arabs
and Jews have managed to keep their nasty little
war going for 50 years is because it never bloody
rains. If the post-war powers had put Israel in
Manchester, there'd have been no bloodshed at
al .
Sunday 6 May 2001
Being a Millionaire is Just One Step
frombeing Skint
So, the other night, I was sitting around after
dinner playing the board game of Who Wants to
be a Millionaire? with Hans and Eva Rausing.
At first, I was slightly bothered that they didn't
seem terribly interested in getting the questions
right but then, of course, it struck me. As builders
of the TetraPak fortune, becoming a mil ionaire
means taking a significant step backwards.
It made me laugh. And then it made me think.
Even if we leave bil ionaires out of the equation,
who does want to be a mil ionaire these days? I
mean, Ј1 mil ion is just enough to ensure that you
lose al your friends but not quite enough to buy
anything worthwhile.
You see those poor souls with Chris Tarrant,
shuffling up to the centre of the stage with their
shirts not tucked in and their dreadful shoes,
saying that, if they won the big prize, they'd buy an
island and move there with Meg Ryan. No you
wouldn't. A mil ion doesn't even get you a decent
flat in Manchester these days and, even if it did,
you're not going to pul Meg Ryan with it.
The simple facts of the matter are these. Fifty new
mil ionaires are created in this country every day.
When American Express launched its plutocratic
black card, the initial print run of 10,000 was
snapped up in days.
According to the Inland Revenue, more than
3,000 people earned more than Ј1 mil ion last
year, which means there are now 100,000 people
across the country who have a mil ion or more in
liquid assets.
But if you include people whose houses or shares
in companies are worth more than seven figures,
then you arrive at an alarming conclusion. There
are probably half a mil ion mil ionaires in Britain.
So why, then, can you hear yourself think this
morning? Why is the sky not ful to overflowing
with Learjets and helicopters? How come your
dog is not cowering under the table in case
someone tries to turn it into a coat? Why isn't
everyone married to Meg Ryan? Why does Pizza
Express not offer a panda-ear and tiger-tail
topping?
These days, to live what we stil perceive to be a
mil ionaire lifestyle, you need to have a damn
sight more than Ј1 mil ion.
How much more, though, that's the question.
Back in 1961 Viv Nicholson won Ј152,000 on the
pools and promptly embarked on a pink and furry
spending spree, commensurate with what in
today's money would be Ј3 mil ion. And it lasted
precisely fifteen years before she went broke.
A recent report said that, to live the super-rich
lifestyle today, with a personal stylist to do your
hair and a fast, convertible car to mess it up
again, you actual y need Ј5 mil ion, but I'm not
sure that this is going to keep you in pointy shoes
and Prada.
I mean, Mr Blair is going to help himself to 40 per
cent, leaving you with Ј3 mil ion, which becomes
Ј2.5 mil ion once you've set aside a little
something for school fees.
You then buy the big house in the country, and that
leaves you with liquid assets of Ј1 mil ion, which
sounds great. But hang on a minute: you're part of
the so-cal ed super-rich now, so you can forget
about holidaying at CenterParcs. You're going to
be taking the family and the nanny, in the front of
the aeroplane, to the Caribbean every year.
Lovely, but do that for twenty years at Ј50,000 a
pop and you'l get home one day to find a letter
from
the
bank
manager
saying
he
is
'disappointed to note that you have no money left'.
Al you'l have to show for your -Ј$ mil ion is a
suntan, a terraced house and surly children who
would rather have gone to the local comp.
I suspect that to live a boat-fil ed, choppery
existence off Venice one minute and St Kitts the
next, you actual y need Ј10 mil ion. But then, if you
have this much, if your bank balance is bigger
than your account number, you're going to spend
every night for the rest of your life at charity
auctions being expected to stick your hand up
and buy the big lot: the signed Frankie Dettori
underpants.
Every day you'l be approached by people who
either need backing for their new publishing
venture in Azerbaijan or an operation for their not-
very-il six-year-old niece.
Oh sure, other very rich people wil ask you to
come
and stay at their Tuscan vil as but, when you get
there, you'l have to share a breakfast table with a
man who runs guns for the Iranians, a woman with
an Argentine accent who's permanently bored
and a gaggle of airheads who throw you in the
pool.
You'l ricochet from pil ar to post, a one-man
social-services department until, one day, your
wife shacks up with the under-gardener and you
end up alone in the Savoy, knowing that al the
friends you used to have are sharing a bottle of
Bulgarian plonk in a Chiswick pizza joint, laughing
a lot and careful y splitting the bil afterwards.
I therefore have a new idea for a television game
show. It's cal ed WltoDoesn't Want to be a
Millionaire Any More} Al the contestants are
super-rich and the idea is to give away as much
money as possible in the shortest time.
The trouble is, of course, that nobody would
phone the hotline. They'd al be at home with their
lovely wife Meg, admiring their signed Frankie
pants.
Sunday 13 May 2001
What Does It Take to Get a Decent Meal
Round Here?
At this time of year Country Life magazine swel s
as its property pages fil to overflowing with six-
bedroom manor houses, each of which can be
bought for the price of a stamp.
You may be tempted by the notion of a crunchy
gravel drive and a selection of stone mushrooms,
but before taking the plunge look careful y at the
photograph of the 'far-reaching view'. There's
nothing in it, is there? Just fields, foxes and a
mil stone grit outcrop on the far horizon.
It may appear to be pleasant and tranquil but it's
going to be a big problem when you're looking for
a restaurant. You see, fields do not eat out.
Mil stone grit outcrops are not to be found
demanding a glass of Sauternes to wash down
the pudding. Foxes don't like cappuccino.
On Tuesday my wife and I were celebrating eight
years of perfect wedded bliss and thought it
would be fun to toast the moment with a simple
but expensive dinner somewhere posh.
Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons is not too far away
but frankly it may as wel be on the moon because
we're not going again. Why? The last time we
went it was hosting a convention for photocopying
engineers who spoilt the
evening somewhat by making me pose for
photographs with their cars.
No matter. There used to be a great restaurant in
Oxford cal ed the Lemon Tree, but now it has new
owners who said that if we wished to smoke, we
would have to sit in a special raised area. This
sounded a bit like a naughty chair. So that was
out.
The Petit Blanc was crossed off the list next
because, oddly, it only al ows smoking at
weekends. Owner Ray White should be advised
that people who smoke do so because they have
to. It's not like fishing. Tel someone they can't go
to the canal until Saturday and they'l be fine,
whereas smokers won't. They'l start eating your
tablecloths, and if you object, you'l be on the
receiving end of what I now believe is known as 'a
Prescott'.
After an hour on the phone it looked like we'd
have to give up and eat in a pub which, as I'm
sure you know, is slightly less appealing than
eating the pub itself. The only thing I can say
about 'pub grub' is that it tastes like I cooked it.
And I am the only person in the world who can
make cauliflower taste like the back of a fridge
freezer.
Eventual y, we found a rather nice smoker-friendly
fish restaurant cal ed Dexters in Deddington,
which is a local place for local people, al of whom
were not celebrating their wedding anniversaries,
or indeed anything. That's why they were at home
and we were the only people in there.
So, one has to presume, it wil eventual y close or
ban
smoking and then that'l be it. We'l have to start
eating the mil stone grit outcrops.
I'm not kidding. I live in the Cotswolds, one of the
most affluent, sought-after areas in the whole
country –a six-bedroom manor house round here
costs more than a whole book of stamps — and
yet there is only one worthwhile restaurant within a
half-hour's drive. One. And it's empty.
However, before everyone in London splits in half
with mirth I should point out that the three worst
meals I've ever eaten were al at wel -known
restaurants in Notting Hil . Last week.
In one we were told by a waiter, who looked like
his house had just burnt down, that the chef had
messed up the food and that most of it was off.
We never saw the wine we ordered, my crab
starter was covered in wal paper paste and after
two hours the main course stil hadn't turned up at
al .
And I'm not alone. Everyone I've talked to recently
is saying that their favourite restaurant is starting
to deliver what tastes like hamster droppings to
table 9 at 10 p.m., when it should have gone to
table 14 at 7 p.m.
But this was inevitable because while the
countryside has no restaurants at al , London has
far too many. Take West End Lane in
Hampstead. It used to be a shopping street but al
they can offer now, apart from a haircut and a
bijou flat for the price of Gloucestershire, is a
plate of spaghetti that should have gone to table 8
last week.
A year ago the situation was so bad that
restaurateurs were reduced to trawling Paris for
waiting staff. Some reports suggested that as
many as 10,000 surly, off-hand Pierres had
migrated to London. And that was then.
Now, with more and more new restaurants
opening every day, I'm surprised Marco Pierre
White isn't to be found at the traffic lights offering
jobs to passing motorists. Hel , I'm surprised he
isn't offering them to the Albanian window
washers.
You see, it's al very wel employing the best chef
in the world, but what's the point if you can't find
someone to take it from the kitchen to the dining
room? Wel , someone with a sense of direction
and a basic grasp of English anyway.
I was disappointed the other day when my six-
year-old daughter said she wanted to be a
waitress when she grew up. The way things are
going she could get a job now. Unfortunately
though, there aren't any openings round here.
Indeed, the only place where you can get a
decent steak is cal ed a pyre.
Sunday 20 May 2001
Cutting Lawns is the Last Word in
Civilisation
Having seen Emmanuelle in Bangkok, I thought I
knew what a massage would be like. Wel it isn't.
The first disappointment comes when you find
that there wil only be one masseuse, and the
second when you discover that his name is Bil .
Then things real y start to go pear-shaped. After
asking you to undress and lie face-down on the
bed, he'l tel you that you're tense. And you'l want
to reply that this is not surprising because you
were not expecting someone who learnt al about
body pressure points while serving as a Spetsnaz
assassin. But al you'l manage is a muffled
'Aaaaaaaargh'.
Be assured, a proper massage gives you some
idea of what it would be like to fal down a
mountain while locked in a fridge freezer. It would
be more relaxing to have your fingernails torn out
while being force-fed with used engine oil.
I have discovered that the best way of soothing
away the stresses and strains of the working
week is to mow the lawn. Sitting there, with the
sun on your back, concentrating on nothing but
going in a straight line and not running over the
flowers, you can actual y feel your muscles turning
to jel y and your teeth unclenching.
And then, when you've finished, you can stand
back
with your hands on your hips and admire the
sheer geometric perfection of that verdant test
card, that subtle blend of absolute straightness in
a curved and wild world. You have taken on
nature and, with nothing more than a Honda
Lawnmaster, brought civilisation and order to the
unruly forces of nature. Wel done. You are now a
lawn bore.
You wil start shouting at your children if they ride
their bicycles on your immaculate conception.
You wil tut when you find discarded cigarette
butts. You wil stand for hours in the garden centre
eying up trowels, and you wil talk about Roundup
with your friends in the pub.
I am now such a lawn bore that when I discovered
a thistle that had dared to show its hideous, ugly
face in my perfect turf I shot it.
And while I like having a fighter plane in the
garden — it's better than a water feature because
the children can't drown in it – I was inconsolable
when I saw the damage that had been done while
it was being towed into position. There were
three grooves, each a foot deep, stretching al the
way from the broken electric gates to my dead
yew hedge.
This, you see, is my problem. I want to be a
gardener. I want a potting shed and some
secateurs. I want Homes & Gardens magazine to
profile my work, but al I can do is cut grass.
Everything else turns to disaster.
Two years ago the field across the road was
planted with saplings and I bought precisely the
same stuff for a
patch of land next to my paddock. Today, his
trees are 12-14 feet tal . Mine have been eaten by
hares.
I fil ed the grooves in the lawn with ten tons of the
finest topsoil money can buy and then, to speed
the repair along, mixed some grass seed with the
most expensive organic compost in the world and
sprinkled it al on top. And the result? Three long
and unsightly strips of mushrooms.
I was assured that my yew trees would grow at
the rateof a foot every twelve months but they did
nothing of the sort. For the first two years they just
sat there and then they decided to die. So they
did.
So I was intrigued last week by the fierce debate
that appeared to have been raging at the
Chelsea Flower Show.
There are those who like gardens to be
traditional, a Technicolor riot of flora and fauna
harmonised to create a little piece of harmonised
chaos. These people are cal ed gardeners.
Then you have the modernists who think it is
much better to throw away the plants and replace
them with stark concrete wal s and gravel. These
people are cal ed Darren and you see them every
week on Ground Force.
The Darren philosophy is tempting. First of al ,
you get a quick fix, a wel -planned and attractive
garden in a couple of hours. And second, the
whole thing can be maintained by taking the
Hoover to it once a year.
But these modern gardens do feel a bit like
rooms withoutroofs, and you wil lose things in
the gaps of
your decking. I know one man who lost his wife
down there.
So what about the gardening option? Wel , al
things considered, it doesn't sound quite so
good. I mean, what's the point of planting an oak
tree when the best that can happen is that it stops
being a twig just in time for the birth of your great-
great-great-grandson. And the worst is that it
commits suicide.
Furthermore, if you go down the gardening route,
you wil have to spend your entire retirement in
crap clothes with your head between your ankles.
You wil then get a bad back and that wil require
terrifying and undignified weekly appointments
with Bil at the massage parlour.
So what's the answer then? Wel , I've just bought
an acre or so and I'm going to employ the third
way. I'm going to do absolutely nothing, and next
year I shal cal it 'the New Labour wilderness',
and transport it to Chelsea where it wil win a gold
medal.
Sunday 27 May 2001
An Invitation from My Wife I Wish I Could
Refuse
What would life be like if parties had never been
invented? Tents would stil be used solely as
places for Boy Scouts to sleep, there would be no
such thing as a plate clip and you would never
have heard an amateur speech.
There would be no black tie, no parking in
paddocks, no chance of running into former
spouses and you would never have drunk a warm
Martini, garnished with ash, at four in the morning
because the rest of the booze had run out.
We're not even programmed to enjoy parties that
much. Think. When you were little you liked your
teddy and you liked your mum, but other children
were the enemy. You were forced to go, and sat
on your bottom waiting to be humiliated by
someone saying: 'Oh dear. Who's had a little
accident then?'
You always have little accidents at parties. No
sooner are you out of nappies than you're straight
into the flowerbed where the hostess's mother
finds you face down at dawn. And then when
you're married, you get in huge trouble for
dancing with the wrong girl in the wrong way for
too long.
I mention al this because three weeks ago I
caught the perfect il ness. There was no pain, just
an overwhelming
need to lie in bed al day eating comfort food and
watching Battle of the Bulge.
I was enjoying myself very much, but halfway
through the afternoon my wife tired of popping
upstairs –with trays of quails' eggs and
mushroom soup and, with that hands-on-hips way
that wives have when their husbands are not very
il , announced that I should get up and organise a
party for her fortieth birthday. 'You have 21 days.'
My first chance to have a little accident came with
the invitations. Every morning we get invites but
we have no idea who they are from or where the
party is being held because the typeface is a
meaningless col ection of squirls, and al the
instructions at the bottom are in French. RSVP.
I thought the solution would be simple. Write in
block capitals and use English. But oh no.
Nowadays, it's important to make your invitation
stand out on the mantelpiece, so it must be
written on an ingot or a CD-Rom or on a man's
naked bottom.
The printer was quite taken aback when I asked
for card. 'Card?' he said. 'Gosh, that real y is
unusual.' And then he gave me an estimate: 'For
150 invites, sir, that wil be ^6.2 mil ion. Or you
could go down to Pronta-print and have exactly
the same thing for I2p.' Right.
The next problem is deciding on a dress code.
What you're supposed to do these days is dream
up a snappy phrase such as 'Dress to thril ' or
'Urban gothic', but since none of our friends would
have the first clue what any of this meant, I put 'No
corduroy'.
With just two weeks to go I cal ed a party
organiser to help out with the event itself. 'Al we
want,' I explained, 'is a bit of canvas to keep the
wind off everyone's vol-au-vents.'
Wel , it doesn't work out like that because he sits
you down and says that you real y ought to have
some kind of flooring. It's only ^170. So you say
fine. And then he says that electricity might be a
good idea, too. It's only Ј170. Everything is only
^170, so you end up ordering the lot.
When the estimate came, I real y was il . 'What
would you like?' asked my wife, seeing that this
time I wasn't faking. 'Some fish fingers? A
nourishing bowl of chicken soup? Where Eagles
Dare?' No. What I want is for everyone we've
invited to come over al dead.
It was not to be. With a week to go, only six had
had the decency to say no and the next day, two
changed their minds.
Except, of course, we hadn't heard a whisper
from anyone who has ever appeared on
television. It is a known fact that once you've been
on the electric fish-tank, even if it's just for a
moment in a Dixons shop window, you lose the
ability to reply to party invitations.
So you've got the caterers asking how many they
should cook for and you're having to say they'd
better get Jesus in the kitchen because it could
be five or it could be five thousand.
Then the guests start telephoning asking what
they should wear instead of corduroy and where
they can stay. Here's a tip. When you're looking
for a hotel in
Chipping Norton, you're more likely to find out
what's good and what's not by cal ing someone in
Glasgow. People who live in Chipping Norton
usual y have no need of local hotels. And I don't
care what you wear. And yes, your ex-husband
wil be here. And no, I'm not going to tow you out
of the paddock if it turns into a quagmire.
You'l probably have a miserable time but look at
it this way. It'l be much more miserable for me,
and even more miserable for the poor old dear
who lives next door. As the band wheeled in their
speaker stacks, I cal ed her to explain that there
might be a bit of noise on Saturday night. 'Oh I
don't mind,' she said. 'What is it? A dinner
dance?'
No, not real y, it's more a chance for al my wife's
wildly disparate groups of friends to come and
not get on with each other.
Sunday iojune 2001
How Big a Mistake are You Going to Make?
Many years ago, when I was working as a local
newspaper reporter, the editor sent me to cover
the inquest of a miner who'd been squashed by
an underground train.
Hours into the interminable proceedings a
solicitor acting for the National Coal Board told
the court that the deceased 'could' have stood in
an alcove as the train passed. And I wrote this
down in my crummy shorthand.
But unfortunately, when I came to write the story, I
failed to transcribe the meaningless hieroglyphics
properly. So what actual y appeared in the paper
was that the man 'should' have stood in an alcove
as the train passed.
Wel , there was hel to pay. Damages were
handed over. A prominent apology was run. The
lawyer in question shouted at me. The family of
the dead man shouted at me. The editor shouted
at me. The proprietor shouted at me. I was given
a formal written warning about my slapdash
attitude. And here I am, twenty years later, with my
own column in the Sunday Times.
We hear similar stories from the City al the time.
Some trader, dazzled by the stripes on his shirt,
presses the wrong button on his keyboard and
the stock market loses 10 per cent of its value.
He gets a roasting and
later in the year spends his seven-figure bonus on
a six-bedroom house in Oxfordshire.
So I feel desperately sorry for the Heathrow air
traffic control er who was found last week to be
guilty of negligence when he tried to land a British
Airways 747 on top of a British Midland Airbus.
He has been demoted and sent in eternal shame
to wave table tennis bats at light aircraft in the
Orkneys.
The problem here is that we al make mistakes,
but the result of these mistakes varies drastical y
depending on the environment in which we make
them.
When a supermarket checkout girl incorrectly
identifies a piece of broccoli as cabbage and you
are overcharged by I5p, nobody real y cares.
But what about the man who incorrectly identified
a live bul et as blank, put it into the magazine of
an SA-80 army rifle and heard later that a
seventeen-year-old Royal Marine had been kil ed
as a result?
The inquest last week recorded a verdict of
accidental death and now the dead soldier's
father is said to be considering a private
prosecution and a civil action against the people
responsible for his son's death. I don't blame him,
of course. I would do the same. But the fact
remains that as mistakes go, loading the wrong
bul ets into a magazine is exactly the same as
loading the wrong information about broccoli into
a checkout weighing machine.
Think about the chap who was employed by P&O
ferries to shut the front doors on the car ferry
Herald of Free Enterprise. I have no doubt that he
performed his
badly paid, noisy, repetitive and unpleasant job
with the utmost diligence until one day, for
reasons that are not clear, he forgot.
Now if he had been a warehouseman who forgot
to shut the factory gates when he left for the night,
there may wel have been a burglary. And that
may wel have put a dent in the insurance
company's profit and loss account. But he wasn't
a warehouseman and, as a result of his
momentary lapse, water rushed into the car deck
and 90 seconds later the ship was on its side.
And 193 people were dead.
He was not drunk at the time. He did not leave the
doors open to see what would happen. He just fel
asleep.
So what's to be done? Wel , you can employ the
Health and Safety Executive to dream up the
most foolproof system in the world, the sort of
money-no-object set-up that I'm sure is employed
at Heathrow. But the fact remains that al systems
rely on human integrity to some extent and, if
someone takes their eye off the bal lor a
moment, two jets with 500 people on board can
get within 100 feet of one another.
Or you could argue that people who hold the lives
of others in their hands should be paid
accordingly. But I don't think the size of a person's
bank balance affects their ability to concentrate. I
mean, His Tonyness is on ,Ј163,000 a year and
he makes mistakes al the time.
No. I'm afraid that fairly soon we are going to
have to accept that a blame culture does not
work. We are going to have to accept that
doctors, no matter how much training you give
them, wil continue to stick
needles into people's eyes, rather than their
bottoms. We are going to have to accept that,
once in a while, Land Rovers wil crash onto
railway lines causing trains to crash into one
another. We are going to have to stop penalising
people for making that most human of gestures
— a mistake.
And the best way of doing this is to ban those
'Injured at work?' advertisements for solicitors on
the backs of buses.
So long as there's an opportunity to profit from the
simple, unintentional mistakes of others, then
there wil always be a desire to do so. To lash out.
To blame. To turn some poor unfortunate soul
who just happened to be in the wrong job on the
wrong day into a human punchbag.
Sunday 17 June 2001
America, Twinned with the Fatherland
Europe offers the discerning travel er a rich and
varied tapestry of alternatives. You may go
salmon fishing in Iceland or sailing off Greece.
You may get down and dirty on the French Riviera
or high as a kite in Amsterdam. You can bop til
you drop in Ibiza or cop a shop in London. And
we haven't even got to Italy yet.
So why then do a significant number of
Americans, having decided to take that vacation
of a lifetime over here, always start the tour in
Germany? Because Germany is to holidays what
Delia Smith is to spot welding. Perhaps it's
because they've heard of it. Maybe they have a
brother stationed at Wiesbaden or perhaps their
father did some night flying over Hamburg back in
the war, but judging by the movie Pearl Harbor,
they don't.
Or maybe in the brochures Germany somehow
looks appealing to an American. I mean, both
peoples tend to eat a little more than they should
and both have a fondness for driving very large
automobiles, extremely badly. Both countries also
have absolutely hopeless television programmes
where the hosts dress up in vivid jackets and
shout meaningless instructions at the contestants.
An American flicking through the 215 one-size-
fits-al alternatives in his Stuttgart hotel room
would feel right
at home. Until he got to Channel 216, after
midnight, and found a whole new use for a dog.
Both countries enjoy the same British exports,
too: Benny Hil , Mr Bean, Burberry mackintoshes.
Then there's the question of taste. Only two
countries in the world would dream of teaming a
tangerine bathroom suite with purple and brown
carpets. And only two countries go around
pretending to be democracies while burdening
the people who live there with enough regulations
and red tape to strangle everyone in China.
Twice. In Germany, you must not brake for smal
dogs and you must have a licence before you can
play golf. An American would nod sagely at that.
So, it would appear that Germany and America
are identical twins and now you may be nodding
sagely, remembering that some 25 per cent of
Americans are derived from German stock.
Indeed, shortly after Independence, there was a
vote in the Senate on whether the official
language of the fledgling USA should be English
or German.
Whatever, a great many Americans spend
vacation time in the Fatherland, including, just last
week, a retired couple from Michigan cal ed
Wilbur and Myrtle. They packed their warm-
weather gear into a selection of those suitcases
that appear to be made from old office carpets,
got their daughter Donna to drive them from the
gated community they cal home to Detroit airport,
where they flew for their holiday to Cologne.
Myrtle had packed some powdered milk because
she'd caught a report about foot-and-mouth
disease in
Europe and figured she'd better stay safe. Wilbur
was worried about catching KGB from beef that
had been infected with BSM and vowed on the
plane he'd stick to chicken. Both wondered if you
could get chicken in Europe.
I know this because I know the man who lent them
a car. They liked him very much, not simply
because he spoke such good English but also
because, contrary to what they'd heard, he could
stand on his hind legs. Myrtle asked whether they
should go to Munich because an antiques fair
was in town or if it was better to visit Frankfurt
which, she'd heard, was the Venice of Germany.
'Wel ,' explained my friend, 'there is a river in
Frankfurt but it's probably stretching things a little
to think of it in the same terms as Venice.'
Stil undecided, they set off, and that should have
been that. But just two hours later they were on
the phone. It seems that they'd become a little
confused and strayed into Hol and, where they'd
found a charming little cafe that did chicken.
Unfortunately, however, while they were inside
someone had broken the back window of their
car and helped themselves to al their belongings:
not only the Huguenot felt-tile suitcases but also
their passports, driving licences and Wilbur's
wal et.
Maybe the thief was a drug addict after his next
fix. Or maybe he'd mistaken them for Germans
and had taken everything in exchange for the theft
of his father's bicycle. Or perhaps he'd taken
umbrage at their registration plate. Al Cologne-
registered cars this year begin
with KUT, which is Dutch for the worst word in the
world.
Either way, poor old Wilbur and Myrtle were not
having much luck with the police, either in Hol and
or Germany, to which they'd returned. They
decided after just six hours in Europe that they'd
had enough and were going to fly home. So they
did.
The problem is, of course, that while Germany
may superficial y have some things in common
with America, it is not even remotely similar once
you go beneath the surface. There's no 'have a
nice day' culture in Germany. The German does
not care if you have a nice day because he is a
European.
I'm writing this now in a town cal ed Zittau on the
Polish border. I feel at home here.
Sunday 24 June 2001
Cornered by a German Mob Bent on
Revenge
So there I was, cruising into town with the top
down when, with the crackle of freshly lit kindling,
my map hoisted itself out of the passenger side
footwel and, having spent a moment wrapped
round my face, blew away.
Ordinarily this would not be a problem. I had the
name of a bar where I could watch the Grand Prix
and I even had its address. So I would simply pul
over and ask someone for directions.
Unfortunately, I was in Germany where, if
someone doesn't know exactly what you are
looking for, they won't tel you at al . To make
matters worse, I was in the eastern part of the
country where there are no people to ask anyway.
I first noticed the problem in the achingly beautiful
Saxony town of Zittau which, at 8.30 on a Friday
night, was deserted. It was like a scene from On
the Beach. Further up the autobahn in the city of
Zwickow, Aida was playing at the opera house
but there were no queues. The shops were ful of
expensive cutlery sets but there were no
shoppers. There were car parks but no cars.
The latest figures suggest that since the Berlin
Wal came down, some towns have seen 65 per
cent of the population migrate to the west in
search of work. I do
not believe this. If 65 per cent have gone, then 35
per cent must stil be there. Which begs the
question: where the bloody hel are they?
West Germans are paying a special 7 per cent
tax at the moment for a new infrastructure in the
east. Chancel or Kohl promised this would last for
three years but twelve years have elapsed and
stil the spending goes on.
A recently leaked report from Wolfgang Thierse,
the German parliamentary speaker, painted an
apocalyptic picture of the east as a region on the
verge of total col apse. We think we have
problems with migration from the north of England
to the south-east but ours are smal fry and we are
not hampered by having the lowest birth rate in
the world.
In the year before unification 220,000 babies
were born in East Germany. Last year just 79,000
births were recorded.
They are pumping bil ions into the former GDR so
that everything over there is either freshly restored
or new. The lavatories flush with a Niagara vigour.
Your mobile phone works everywhere. The roads
are as smooth as a computer screen. But it's like
buying a new suit for someone who is dead.
And that brings me back to Sonderhausen on that
boiling Sunday, when I had twenty minutes to find
the bar before the German Grand Prix began.
With nothing but the sun for guidance, I just made
it and in my rush failed to notice that the bar was
located in the worst place in the world. It was a
quadrangle of jerry-built communism; a faceless
ten-storey, four-sided
slab of misery and desolation. And there, in the
middle of it al , was the Osterthal Gastshal e.
I have drunk at roughneck bars in Flint, Michigan,
and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. I am no
stranger to the sort of places where the optics are
rusty and the chairs are weapons. But the
Osterthal was something else. The only light
came from a brewery sign above the bar and a
fruit machine in the corner. But this was enough to
note that there were eight people in there, none of
whom had any teeth.
But, I said to myself, this is okay. This is a mining
town. I'm from a mining town. I know that in mining
towns you don't ask for a glass of chil ed Chablis.
So I ordered a beer and settled back to watch the
race.
It did not last long. Pretty soon one of the
toothless wonders sauntered over and offered the
international hand of friendship. A cigarette.
Except it wasn't a cigarette. It was cal ed a
Cabinet and it was like smoking liquid fire. 'Is
good yah?' said the man, helping himself to
fistfuls of my Marlboros.
Then things grew a little serious. Could I, he
asked, explain what was written on the television
screen? It's just that despite the much-vaunted
school system in the old GDR, he couldn't read.
But he could speak English, providing we stuck to
old Doors lyrics.
Have you ever tried this: commentating on a
motor race using nothing but the words of Jim
Morrison? It's difficult. 'Heinz-Harald Frentzen.
This is the end. You'l never look into his eyes
again.' By lap 50 I was struggling badly and, to
make matters worse, they had
each consumed 150 litres of beer and were
ready for a good fight.
Ordinarily, I guess, they would ram each other's
heads into the fruit machine but today they had a
much better target: me, the western git. A living,
breathing example of the faceless capitalistic
machine that had moved into their town, bought
the mine, asset-stripped it and shut it down.
They had lost their jobs, the free kindergarten
places for their children and most of their friends.
In exchange they had got a new sewage system.
Now I was facing a simple choice: watch the end
of the race or get my head kicked in.
What these people want, more than anything, is to
have the Berlin Wal back. What I want, more than
anything, is to know who won the Grand Prix.
Sunday I July 2001
Wising Up to the EU After My Tussles in
Brussels
Ordinarily I don't talk about the European Union.
But when you are in Brussels, the capital of
Belgium and the capital of Europe, it's hard to
stay off the subject for long.
Yesterday I settled down in an agreeable square
with a charming and erudite Irish girl who has
lived here for four years. We spent four seconds
on the prettiness of Bruges, eleven seconds
talking about Jean-Claude Van Damme and then
I could contain myself no longer.
'What exactly,' I demanded brusquely, 'has the EU
done for me?'
I'm sorry, but the night before I had arrived at the
Presidents Hotel behind two coachloads of
tourists who could neither read nor understand
the fantastical y enquiring registration cards. It's
interesting, isn't it: you don't need a passport to
enter Belgium, but you do need a passport
number before they wil let you stay the night.
Stil , it was only a smal wait of two hours before I
was issued with a key to what was basical y a
double-bedded blast furnace. Immediately, I knew
this hotel was designed and run entirely for the
benefit of visiting Americans, a people who seem
unable to cope unless a room is either hot
enough to boil a fox or cold enough to freeze
nitrogen.
By i a.m. I had dragged my pil ow into the minibar
and was trying desperately to get some sleep
when the man next door decided what he'd like to
do most of al was to play squash. So he did. For
about an hour.
Having worked up a sweat, he then decided that
what he needed was a nice long shower. So he
did that for an hour, too. Then he figured it would
be a good time to cal the folks back home in
Iowa. Although why he used the phone I am not
entirely sure.
'Hey Todd,' he yel ed, 'it's Chuck. Listen how loud
I can make my TV go.' I haven't had the chance to
check yet but I feel fairly sure that if you look in
The Guinness Book of Records to see who has
the loudest voice in the world, you wil find it's
good old Chuck. And boy, does he have a lot of
friends. So many that by the time he had finished
cal ing them al , it was time for another game of
squash. Eventual y, I had to cal reception to ask if
they would ring the man and ask him to go to
sleep. I heard him pick up the phone.
'Hel o,' he bel owed. 'Yeah, sure.' Then he put the
phone down, knocked on my door and whispered
at the sort of level that can splinter wood: 'Sorry,
buddy.' Then the sun rose and in the same way
that it always seems to find the crack between the
sun visors in your car, it found the crack in my
curtains and bored a line of pure, superheated
radiation straight into my left retina, so I had to get
out of the minibar and back into the Aga that was
my bed.
Understandably then, the next day I was not in the
mood for smal talk about Jean-Claude Van
bloody
Damme. 'Come on,' I persisted. 'What has the EU
ever done for me?'
My companion, a fervent Europhile, explained
that she would not have been able to go to an
Irish university because she had been educated
in England and, as a result, could not speak Irish.
'Wel ,' I said, 'that's very wonderful but how does it
help me?'
She had to agree it didn't but, unfazed, went on to
explain that because of the EU leather shoes
must now sport an EU-approved symbol showing
they are made of leather.
Hmmm. I'm not sure that this, on its own, is quite
enough to justify the two-centre, three-tier govern
ment with its staff of 3 5,000 people, especial y
as most of us are clever enough to recognise the
difference between something that came from the
bottom of a cow and something that came from
the bottom of a Saudi oil wel . 'No,' I said. 'This
leather thing is going nowhere. You must do
better.'
She told me that because of the EU designer
clothes were now cheaper in the UK, but since I'm
not big on Prada I don't care. Then she said that
were it not for the council of ministers there would
be more air pol ution. Wrong subject, I'm afraid.
Twenty minutes later, after I had finished
explaining precisely how little damage is being
done to the world by man and his machines, she
moved on.
Apparently, if I go to a country where no British
embassy is operating (neither of us could think of
one) and got myself arrested for drug smuggling, I
could cal
for help from any EU member state which was
operating a mission there.
So, if you get banged up in Kabul for producing
heroin – and this, believe me, is very unlikely –
and it turns out that the Foreign Office has been
forced out for some reason, you can go to the
Swedes.
And that, after an hour of soul-searching, was al
she could come up with. Cheap, bureaucratic
leather shoes and help from the Vikings if things
go pear-shaped in some Third World hel hole.
That night I checked into a hotel where the
chambermaids were hosting a 24-hour Hoover
race. My room was on a tricky little corner where
most of them crashed into the skirting board.
This, I suspect, is why the EU doesn't real y work.
None of the people who run it is getting any sleep.
Sunday 8 July 2001
A Weekend in Paris, the City of Daylight
Robbery
Last Sunday a Connex Third World commuter
train broke down, due to the wrong type of
government, just outside Sevenoaks in Kent. This
forced both inbound and outbound Eurostar trains
onto a single track, causing delays of up to five
hours.
Predictably, the passengers were said to be
'disgusted'. Those in cattle class said that al
they'd been offered was a free glass of water,
while those in first class said they couldn't get any
sleep because the carriage doors made too
much noise.
It al sounds very grim. And very strange. Because
I was on one of the trains and I never even noticed
there was a problem. Sure, we left Waterloo at a
brisk saunter and rattled past Sevenoaks at a
stately crawl but this is what I'd been expecting.
Time and again we are told that Eurostar doesn't
work and that the tunnel is ful of rabies and
German tanks.
That's why I've always chosen to go to Paris in a
car, in a plane, on a boat; on my hands and knees
if necessary. Anything rather than the train which
could give me a disease and catch fire 20,000
feet beneath Dogger Bank.
However, let's just stop and think for a moment. It
is never reported that every motorist driving to
Paris is
stopped by the constabulary and made to stand
naked in a freezing cel while they raid his
pension plan to pay for the inevitable speeding
fine. Nor do you ever read about flights being
diverted to Bournemouth due to the wrong type of
air.
This happened to me last autumn. My car was at
Gatwick. I had landed at Hum, So what did I do?
Get on a train and go straight to London, or get
on a bus for a three-hour trip round the M25 so I
could be reunited with my wheels? The answer,
as far as I know, is stil parked at Gatwick in car
park G, row 5.
The result is that last Sunday I chose to go to
Paris on Eurostar. The first-class ticket cost me
FFr2,000 so it's more expensive than flying. But
from the centre of London to the centre of Paris it
is ten minutes faster than going in a Boeing.
You can smoke, too, so who cares that the
carriage doors open as though they've been
blown apart with Semtex and that the clanky
drinks trol eys have square wheels?
However, I'm not sure that Paris was the right
destination. It's funny, isn't it, that Haussmann's
low-rise, starburst city of lurve is always first
choice for a romantic weekend break and yet,
when you stand back for a moment, you have to
wonder why.
Obviously, the metropolitan pomp is extraordinary
and the whole place does give good fountain, but
in recent years it has become dirty, down-at-heel,
more rude than ever and yet somehow less
interesting. On the dark and broody Left Bank,
left-wing Jean-Paul Sartre
types have been driven away by high rents and
the aristocracy has retired to its clubs on Rue St
Honore.
You are left with a vast and chewy middle class
and at this time of year even that is busy sunning
itself on the beaches of Biarritz. Paris is therefore
like the elephant house without the elephants. It's
bereft of anything. Except perhaps a sense of
menace; a sense that, real y, you should put your
wal et down the front of your underpants.
It's not as bad as Detroit, obviously, where you
wouldn't get 30 yards before someone put a hole
in your head so they might steal your toenails. Or
Puerto Rico where the hotel guards said it would
be best if I stayed at the bar. But it's bad al right.
At night, Paris has eyes.
Carjacking, for so long the preserve of Muscovite
gangsters and urban Durbanites, is now an
everyday occurrence. Elsewhere in Europe the
weapons of the needy are a sponge and a bucket
of water, but at the traffic lights in France it's a
pistol and an instruction to get out.
The French, displaying a Latin leaning to the right,
blame immigration, saying Paris was fine before
it was swamped with half of Macedonia. But the
fact is that I felt tempted to steal something the
first time I sat down at a pavement cafe and
ordered a couple of beers.
This was in Montparnasse, which is nothing
special, and yet the bil was ruinously
preposterous. I paid ten bleeding quid for two
poxy 1664s and half a dozen olives. Then there
was my laundry bil in the hotel: X180. ^ would
have been cheaper to buy a washing machine.
And we haven't even got to the food which, I was
assured, would restore my faith. Even the worst-
looking dive, they said, would conjure up a taste
sensation. Everyone in France, apparently, is
born to cook.
No, they're not. The first time I ate out I was struck,
for the first time ever, with loose stool syndrome;
the second, my lobster had been nuked (they
probably got it from Mururoa atol ); and the third, I
got a plate of what tasted like a smoked inner
tube.
So, al I can say is that if you're looking for a dirty
weekend of rumpy pumpy, forget Paris. They'l
nick your condoms. And make you eat them later.
At Ј500 a pop.
What I would do is get on the train and do what
you always want to do on the plane – turn left.
That way, you'l end up in Bruges where you can
walk round quite safely in a hat made of money,
gorge yourself sil y on pig's trotter sausage and
have a very, very nice time.
Sunday 15 July 2001
It's a Work of Art, and It was Built on Our
Backs
I suppose that in the world of jet travel we have al
seen some noteworthy modern architecture. The
arch at La Defense in Paris. The new Reichstag
building in Berlin. The Transamerica Tower in
San Francisco. And yes, even the Mil ennium
Dome.
But no matter what you've seen or where you've
been, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is
enough to blow your underwear clean into next
week. Some say this vast, curling edifice
resembles a ship; others say it's a big steel fish;
while those of an architectural bent argue that it
echoes Bilbao's maritime past while drawing on
the town's more recent flirtation with heavy
industry.
The truth, however, is that it sits in the city like the
Taj Mahal would sit in Barnsley, dominating the
sightlines and your thought processes with equal
aplomb. It'sthere at the end of every street, and
when it isn't it's etched on your mind.
You can be halfway through a bowl of pael a half a
mile away and you are drawn, as if by some
invisible force, to get up from your table for yet
another look. It's the aurora borealis. It's a
moonlight rainbow. It's a meteor shower and a
tornado and the most magnificent African sunset
al rol ed into one. It is the most amazing
thing I have ever seen. And I have seen Kristin
Scott Thomas in the nude. So, obviously, I had to
go inside.
On the top floor was an exhibition of frocks by
Giorgio Armani which, I'm told, was a runaway
success when it was shown at the Guggenheim in
New York recently. This, of course, means nothing
because Americans wil turn up in great numbers
to watch a tractor move.
Unfortunately I can get excited by a frock only
when there is someone in it so I went to the
middle floor, where there was a display of
television sets. But since I've seen this sort of
thing in Dixons, I carried on going to the ground
floor, where there was a large queue to go in a
triangular maze.
This is always going to be a problem with
buildings of this nature, whether they be the
Pompidou Centre in Paris or the Dome. What the
hel can you put inside that is going to be more
astonishing than the building itself?
The most successful exhibition ever staged in
Bilbao was a motorcycle show. But then bikers
tend not to be terribly interested in aesthetics.
Most would walk over a lake of Renaissance art if
there was a Harley-Davidson on the other side. I,
on the other hand, was glad to be back outside
again, to sit in a bar and gawp at this disjointed
tower of titanium and golden limestone.
I knew that three architects had been invited to
pitch for its design. Each was paid $10,000 and
al owed three weeks and one site visit to come
up with something. And I knew that the contract
had been awarded to a Canadian cal ed Frank
Gehry. But who on earth paid for it?
The Guggenheims made a fortune from mining,
but then they lost a big chunk of it when the South
American mines they owned were nationalised.
Today the family is stil a huge patron of the arts
but it likes a bit of public money as wel . And it got
public money in Bilbao to the tune of $100 mil ion.
And that begs another question. How can Bilbao,
which is one of the greyest, most unfortunate and
ugly towns in the whole world, possibly have
come up with $100 mil ion for a museum? Towns
of this nature in Britain can't even afford to empty
a dustbin let alone build a modern-day version of
Westminster Abbey down by the river front.
This being Spain, answers are not easy to come
by. Everyone has a recorded telephone message
saying that they're at lunch and wil be back some
time in September. If by some miracle you do find
someone who is at their desk, they say they can't
be bothered to find out.
So let's consider the facts. Bilbao is a Basque
town and the money was raised by the PNV, a
Basque nationalist party. That's fine, but what is
the PNV doing with access to $100 mil ion?
I don't know – but I do know this: in 1999, and
that's the most recent year for which figures are
available, it cost the British taxpayer ^3.5 bil ion to
be a member of the European Union. That
equates to ^60 for every man, woman and child.
And that sum, plus a bit more, went to Spain to
help with the modernisation programme.
Wel now, Spain already is modern. Dentists use
electricity. The hedges are neat and low-voltage
lighting has replaced that halo of the Third World
— the fluorescent tube. Sure, they may tel you
that they've 'only' been a democracy for 25 years.
But 25 years is a long time. Nobody ever says
that he has 'only' been married for 25 years.
What are they doing with al the cash? Wel , I can't
find a link but it may wel be that, actual y, you and
I paid for the Guggenheim. And that makes it as
British as Gibraltar.
The Dome may have been an unmitigated
disaster but it seems that, unwittingly, we've
managed to create the greatest building the world
has ever seen. Go there, but for two reasons don't
go inside. One: it's not worth it; and two: they'l
charge you, even though you've paid already.
Sunday 22 July 2001
They Speak the Language of Death
inBasque Country
By the time you read this I'l be in Menorca, you'l
be in Turkey, your neighbours wil be in Florida
and a man in a mask wil be in your sitting room,
helping himself to your television set.
Stil , it could be worse. You could have gone to
Biarritz. It was the world's first seaside resort and
is to be found on the Atlantic coast just before
western France makes a right-angled turn and
becomes Spain. I love it there, and not just for the
vast beach with those man-sized Atlantic rol ers.
I love the town, which blends Napoleonic
splendour with peeling Victorian modesty and I
love the rol ing hinterland, too, where you find the
caves from which European man first stumbled
10,000 years ago. I love the cooking which
tumbled into town from neighbouring Gascony. I
love everything so much that I don't even mind the
crummy weather that blights these parts from time
to time.
Anyway, when it rains it's only a half-hour drive to
Spain, where you can watch bal et dancers stab
bul s. Then at night you can go to the town of San
Sebastian, which has more bars per head of
population than any other city in the world.
Wel ington's troops got so blotto, they burnt the
whole place to the ground.
So what's wrong with it? Wel , unfortunately, this is
Basque country and that means it's twinned with a
place that's up the Shining Path, along the Gaza
Strip, past the Tamil's tiger, round Pol's Pot and
beyond the Fal s Road.
We tend to think of ETA, the Basque separatists,
as a low-rent terrorist organisation which uses
bicycle bombs because cars are too pricey.
They're news in brief, at best.
Not when you're there, they're not. They raise
money not by jangling tins in far-away Chicago
but by making everyone, up to and including
international footbal ers, pay a revolutionary tax.
And if you don't pay, they blow up your car, your
house, your wife, your budgerigar, your bar and
everyone in it.
That's why I left the place behind and have come
to Menorca.
Since the recent troubles began they have kil ed
nearly 900 people and as a result there's a
policeman on every street corner dressed up like
Robocop, wielding a heavy machine-gun and
sweating the sweat of a man who is very, very
frightened indeed.
I saw one poor copper, a kid, probably eighteen
years old, and I swear to God that if I had snuck
up behind him and said 'Boo', he'd have had a
heart attack. I'd only been there an hour before
one of them was shot.
I'd only been there a day before I came round the
corner to find myself at the scene of a car bomb.
Now I've seen most things that can be done to a
car, but it was quite a shock to see how far you
can make one go,
and in how many different directions, if you put a
bit of dynamite under the driver's seat.
Needless to say, the driver in question had been
turned into a veneer.
So that was two dead in a day and not even the
Palestinians are at that level.
Yet ETA is stil news in brief– unless British
tourists are delayed flying home by the odd
bomb, as in Malaga on Thursday.
How can this be? Spain is our next-door
neighbour but one and yet, so far as I can tel ,
nobody in Britain has the first clue what these
Basques actual y want.
To try and find out, I spoke to Karmelo Landa,
who is their equivalent of Gerry Adams and who
quoted extensively from the book entitled What
To Say When You're the Spokesman for a
Bunch of Terrorists. It was al democratic this and
political that and I must confess I got rather cross
with him.
The fact is that the Basque region, apart from a
short spel during the Spanish Civil War, has
never been an autonomous state. They may be
descended directly from those early cave
dwel ers but the Romans, the Vandals and the
Visigoths passed them by. Since then, they claim
to have discovered America, which is unlikely,
and that they built the Armada, which sank. They
also maintain that they gave the world the word
'silhouette'. But this isn't exactly up there with
putting a man on the moon, is it?
The
Basques
have
the
same
defining
characteristics as the Welsh. The Welsh can sing.
The Basques have big
earlobes. The Welsh are good at moving stones.
The Basques are al blood group O. And both
have a militant core that wants autonomy primarily
to protect a language that doesn't real y work.
Welsh is burdened by an almost complete lack of
vowels but it's nothing compared with the
language of the Basque. Even the name of it is
unpronounceable. Let me give you an example:
the literal translation of 'I am writing' is 'In the act
of writing, doing. You have me'. And to make
matters worse, it seems that the only three letters
in the Basque alphabet are X, K and X again. It's
so hard that pretty wel everyone, even in the
Basque hil towns, prefers to use Spanish,
despite the lisping and spitting.
It's madness. I can see why someone would fight
for their freedom, god or country. But it's hard to
see how a language can be worth a life. And nigh
on impossible to see how Basque could be worth
900 lives.
Sunday 29 July 2001
Reason Takes a Bath in the Swimming Pool
The ninth week of my trip around Europe brings
me to Menorca, where there is a harsh, laser
edge to the shadows. The heat sits on everything
out here with such oppressive force that even the
crickets can't be bothered to sing. It should be
relaxing.
Except it's not, because of course in the garden
of the house I am borrowing there is a swimming
pool which, after voicemail, is the single most
exasperating rung on the ladder of human
achievement.
It's funny, isn't it: nobody ever dreams of putting a
pond in his garden. Ponds are for those who think
it's safe to let their children play with electricity.
Ponds are for pond life.
Barely a week goes by without a garden pond
kil ing a toddler somewhere. But take away the
lilies and the dragonflies, add a little depth for
added danger, dye the whole thing vivid turquoise
and suddenly we perceive the whole wretched
thing to be as harmless as Lego.
The problem, however, with the pool out here in
Menorca is not that it might kil the children. It's
that it might kil me. There's a cover, you see,
which adheres to the first rule of anything to do
with swimming pools: it doesn't work. Not unless
you dive underneath a wooden
platform in the deep end and unjam the
mechanism, a process that takes ten minutes —
exactly nine minutes and fifty seconds longer than
Mr Marlboro Man can hold his breath.
I've been down this road before. Five years ago I
rented a house in the south of France which, it
said in the blurb, came with a pool. And indeed it
did. But on the second day of our holiday we
awoke to find that half the water had escaped.
Keen to preserve what was left, I donned my
Inspector Clouseau scuba suit and ascertained
that the only possible way for water to leave the
pool was via a big hole in the bottom. Unaware
that this had something to do with filtration, I
covered it with a large dinner plate and went to
the beach.
Certainly, my brave and swift actions meant that
no more water leaked away, but unfortunately they
also meant that the pump was sucking on nothing
for eight straight hours. People say the resultant
explosion could be heard in Stuttgart.
I vowed there and then, and again this morning,
that I would never have a pool at home, but
unfortunately my wife real y wants one.
'Why?' I wailed. 'You're Manx. You're supposed to
have taste.'
'Yes,' she replied, 'but I was born in Surrey.'
There are other problems with instal ing a
turquoise slash in our garden, chief among which
is the fact that we live in Chipping Norton, widely
regarded as the coldest town in England. Even
when the whole country
is basking under a ridge of pressure so high that
everyone's eardrums are imploding, the only pool
I ever want to immerse myself in is a nice hot
bath.
But my wife is adamant and haughtily dismisses
my suggestion of a skip fil ed with rainwater and
slightly upended to create a deep end. I even
suggested that we could heat it from below with a
brazier, but she hit me over the head with a rol ed-
up newspaper. So I have been doing some
research and it seems you can put in a
chlorinated child-kil er for Ј20,000 or so. That is
less than I thought, but it's not enough.
There is a level of one-upmanship in pooldom
that would leave a Cheshire car dealer breathless
with envy. First of al there is the issue of
temperature. Your pool must be warmer than
anyone else's in The Close. But to win this game
you end up with something that's hot enough to
boil a lobster.
Then there's music. Moby must be piped into
underwater speakers for reasons that I have yet
to understand completely.
Let's not forget depth. A friend of mine cal ed
Jumbo recently instal ed a pool at his home on
Hayling Island only to discover that it's
impossible, when you're so close to the sea, to
dig down more than 4 feet. He has ended up with
a pool that has two shal ow ends, connected in
the middle with a shal ow bit. You don't swim in it
so much as strol around looking like Jesus. It's
social death.
The only way round it, I'm told, is to employ a pool
man of such devastating beauty that nobody
notices they
are gathered round what is basical y the most
expensive puddle in Portsmouth.
But let's say that you have got a pool that is
deeper than Lake Tahoe, hot enough to fry the
underwater speakers, attended to by Hugh Grant
and served by a pool house which is a ful -scale
model of the Taj Mahal. Then what?
Wel , then you're going to need a pool cleaner.
The best I ever saw was a huge spidery thing that
waved its arms around, sucking up anything that
drifted past. Its owner was very proud, and then
very angry, when a friend of mine fed it a burger
and it sank. 'What did you do that for?' he
bel owed. 'Wel ,' said my friend, 'it serves you
right for buying a cleaner that only eats leaves.
How was I supposed to know it was vegetarian?'
So swimming pools can be summed up thus: they
take al your money, al your sense of reason, al
your time, and if you leave them alone for a
moment they take your children as wel .
Sunday 5 August 2001
You Can Fly an Awfully Long Way on
Patience
I knew, of course, that a charter flight from some
low-rent Spanish holiday resort to London's
Stansted airport was never in a mil ion years
going to take off on time.
To make matters worse it had a scheduled
departure of 11.30 p.m. which meant it would
have had an entire day to get out of sync. And
sure enough, when we arrived at the airport we
were told it was stil in Essex.
'So what's the problem this time?' I inquired with
the world-weary resignedness of someone who
has heard it al before. 'Technical problems?
Wrong type of air? Leaves in the sky?' 'No,' said
the rep, 'the captain got stuck in traffic on the Mil.'
I see. Because the hopeless git did not set off for
work on time, I now have to spend four hours in an
overheated, understaffed departure lounge with
seventy children under eight, none of whom is
mine. Great.
I don't know who you are, captain, but I sincerely
hope you have a penchant for Thai ladyboys and
that your col eagues find out. I am not a vindictive
man but it is my fervent wish that from now to the
end of time al your itches are unreachable. And
that someone writes something obscene in
weedkil er on your front lawn.
To keep us al happy and to help to while away
the
hours, we were assured that free soft drinks and
snacks would be provided.
They were not. What was provided was a
styrofoam cup of hot. Hot what, I'm not sure. It
could have been tea or it could have been oxtail
soup. The snack was a sandwich fil ed with a
piece of pink that was thinner than the paintwork
on a 1979 Lancia. Then I discovered that the
batteries in my Game Boy were flat.
To my left, a fat family clad from head to foot in
Adidas sportswear had managed to find some
chips. An amazing achievement this, since al the
shops were shut. But you could put people like
that on the fourth moon of Jupiter and within
fifteen minutes they would find a sack of King
Edwards and a deep-fat fryer.
To my right there was a much thinner family, also
clad in Adidas sportswear, attempting to get
some sleep and using their Manchester United
footbal shirts as pil ows. Sleeping was difficult
because every five minutes King Juan Carlos
himself came on the Tannoy to explain very loudly
that by royal decree smoking is prohibited.
Then it got more difficult stil because a team of
heroical y lazy Spanish cleaners final y woke up
from their afternoon siesta and decided that the
floor needed a damn good polish, using a
squadron of machines that were designed by the
Russians in the 1950s and had been in service
with the Angolan air force ever since.
By 1.30 a.m. I was reduced to reading the
instructions on the fire extinguishers and
contemplating starting a food fight. I decided
against it because the bread in the
free sandwiches was hard enough to kil and the
fil ing was too light to fly properly. It would just sort
of float.
At i .45 a.m. we were asked by the king again to
board buses which would take us to the plane.
Yippee. At long last, Captain James T. Berk had
arrived. We were on our way.
Oh no we weren't. After fifteen minutes of
standing on the stationary bus, we were forced to
endure 50 minutes of sitting on the stationary
plane where there was no air conditioning and,
worse stil , no explanation or apology from the
flight deck.
Only after we had become airborne and fal en
asleep did Captain Fool come on the PA system
to explain what had gone wrong. It had been too
hot, he said, for the plane to take off and, as a
result, some of the bags had been removed from
the hold.
Oh, that's marvel ous. So you get us home four
hours late, you separate us from our luggage, you
never say sorry and then you come up with the
worst excuse I have ever heard. How can it have
been too hot, you imbecile? Because of your
shoddy timekeeping, it was three o'clock in the
bloody morning.
The thing is, though, that I (mostly) kept my
temper because I knew I could come home, write
this and therefore make his life as miserable as
he had made mine.
What staggered me was the patience of my
fel ow passengers. They never complained. They
quietly sat at the airport eating their meat veneer.
They quietly stood on the bus, sweating. They
didn't even squeal when the stewardesses
poured boiling water into their laps,
told barefaced lies about the luggage being on
board and general y treated us as if we were a
nuisance in the smooth running of their aeroplane.
The problem is that we are used to al this, and
more. We expect the tiny bit of road that isn't
jammed solid to be festooned with speed
cameras. We expect the train to be late and the
Tube to explode. We know that the plane wil
make an unscheduled stop in Bogota and that if
we complain we'l be taken off by the police,
arrested and shot.
Natural y, we expect a charter flight to get us back
to Stansted four hours after everyone else
because, of course, this particular airline is the
sponsor of the spectacularly hopeless Minardi
Formula One team which, last time I looked, was
just finishing the 1983 French Grand Prix.
Sunday 12 August 2001
What I Missed on My Hols: Everyday
Madness
And so, after two months on the Continent, I'm
back in Britain trying to decide if I have missed
anything. What I normal y miss is the British
weather. A dose of hot sunshine may be pleasant
for a week or two, but soon you begin to tire of
sunscreen and having a red nose. You find
yourself hunting down bits of shade and not
wanting to do any work because it's far too
sweaty.
After four weeks I found myself lying awake at
night dreaming of being cold. We have no idea
how lucky we are in this country having weather
that we don't notice; weather that doesn't slap us
in the face every time we set foot outside the
door.
But what concerns me more than the weather is
what I've missed in the news. We al assume
when we come back from a spel abroad that the
country wil have changed out of al recognition.
There wil have been fourteen days of
developments about which we wil have no
knowledge.
New fashions wil have come and gone. New
political parties wil have formed, new bands wil
have been created and we won't be able to talk
about any of it at dinner parties. So what exactly
have I missed in the past nine weeks?
I missed Bil Clinton standing in for Cliff Richard
at Wimbledon, and I missed the joyous spectacle
of Jeffrey Archer going down, but then I didn't
real y because the verdict was extensively
covered in the Spanish newspapers where, for
some extraordinary reason, he was likened to a
modern-day Oscar Wilde. Wel yes, apart from
being conspicuously un-gay and even more
conspicuously unable to write.
Also, I missed Madonna's deification. When I left
she was a fading Detroit pop star but I've come
back to find that she is sharing a social plinth with
a fat blonde hairdresser from Wales who seems
to have become famous after admitting to a
fondness for blinking. The foreign newspapers
missed that one. Perhaps they were diverted with
the problems in the Middle East.
It seems that I also missed a hugely funny
television programme about child pornography,
although I'm told that most of the people who
found it offensive missed it too.
Then there has been this business with Michael
Portil o. When I left he was going to be leader of
the Conservative Party. But now the clever money
seems to be on some bloke who I've never heard
of. Is he good at blinking as wel ? One has to
hope not or he might miss himself.
I was about to deduce that I had missed nothing
when my eye was caught by the New Labour
exhibition at the Saatchi Gal ery in London. What
on earth were they exhibiting? Perhaps they had
taken a leaf out of Tracey Emin's book. Perhaps
this is where al the National Health Service beds
went. And al the bricks that should
have been used to build playcentres for the
kiddies. As wel as the last vestiges of our pride
and dignity.
Have you ever heard of anything quite so
preposterous as an exhibition, in a world-
renowned art gal ery, that is named after the ruling
political party? A party that received fewer votes
than the girl who likes blinking.
But, that said, I would love more than anything to
do my own New Labour exhibition. 'This is the
egg that hit Mr Prescott and here's the shirt worn
by Tony when he had the sweat problem. And if
you fol ow me now past the Women's Institute
zone, we can see Peter Mandelson's mortgage-
application
form,
lovingly
entwined
with
Reinaldo's visa-waiver document.'
In the restaurant I would have lots of mugs, lots of
mad cows and lots of free fish for the Spanish
visitors. In the play zone I would have hundreds of
savage, rabid foxes and a helter-skelter. If anyone
said that wasn't very New Labour, I would tel
them it was a spiral staircase for disabled
people. Inside I would have Ron Davies in the
lavatories, Keith Vaz on the til and audio guides
recorded by Michael Martin. And when it al went
horribly wrong I would blame Mo Mowlam.
Keen to find out what had actual y been exhibited
at the gal ery and if I was on the right track, I dug
out an old copy of Time Out and was somewhat
bewildered to find it had singled out a video
exhibit by Liane Lang. Who she is, I have no idea.
Another Big Brother contestant perhaps?
My bewilderment turned to bafflement when I read
what the video contains: a clay hand manipulates
a
woman's groin fringed with spiky black hair.
Devoid of sexiness, the image, we are assured,
is perplexing. You're damn right it's perplexing.
And it gets worse. Rebecca Warren, it says here,
uses clay to a more playful and seductive effect.
Painted with a wash of pink, a woman opens her
legs to the lascivious attentions of what might be
a grey dog.
Astonished, I telephoned the gal ery and asked
what any of this had to do with Tony Blair and his
third way. 'Oh, nothing,' said the girl. 'It's just that
the exhibition opened on election day and we sort
of thought the New Labour name fitted.' Actual y, it
does.
It's a load of metropolitan claptrap. I may have
missed the exhibition, which closes today, but to
be honest I didn't miss it at al .
Sunday 19 August 2001
Rule the Waves? These Days We're Lost at
Sea
My childhood memories of Britain's maritime
achievements centre around endless black-and-
white television pictures of shrivel ed up little men
with faces like Furbal XL5 stumbling off their
battered yachts in Southampton having sailed
round the world backwards.
Francis Chichester, Chay Blyth, Robin Knox
Johnston. Grainy pictures of Cape Horn. And
Raymond Baxter reminding us al that, once
again, the noble island nation has tamed the
savage ferocity of those southern oceans.
Trafalgar, Jutland. The Armada etc. etc. etc.
Britannia rules the waves. Always has, always
wil . The end.
Now, however, we find that pretty wel every
sailing record in the book is held by the French.
They've been across the Atlantic faster than
anyone else, round the world faster than anyone
else and, while plucky El en MacArthur grabbed
al the headlines by pluckily coming second in the
recent Vendee Globe race, the event was actual y
won by a Frog. Same as it was the year before.
And the year before that.
Some say the problem is sponsorship, some
argue that sailing in Britain is drowning in its own
gin and tonic. But the simple fact is that, these
days, the only time a British sailor gets on the
news is when his boat sinks.
We had that bloke who turned turtle off Australia
and survived by eating himself. Then there's the
Royal Navy which, these days, would struggle to
gain control of a puddle. And let's not forget Pete
Goss, whose Team Phil ips boat, built to go round
the world, didn't even get round Land's End
before the end came off.
Now I should make it perfectly clear at this point
that I'm not a sailor. I tried it just the once on what
was basical y an aquatic Rover 90. It was
captained by an enthusiastic Hampshire type who
kept saying we were real y 'knocking on', but I
doubted this, since I was being overtaken by my
cigarette smoke.
You could have steered that bloody thing through
a hurricane and it would stil have only done four
knots. And that's another thing. Why do people
lose the ability to speak English as soon as they
cast off the spring? Why is speed knots and knots
reefers? And why, every time you settle back for a
real reefer, do you have to get up again? To get
the painters in.
Furthermore, even the most mild-mannered man
acts like he's got the painters in as soon as he
grabs the wheel (helm). Why? We're at sea, for
heaven's sake. If I don't respond immediately to
your commands or pul a sheet instead of a
halyard, it real y won't matter. A two-second delay
wil not cause us to crash.
In fact, come to think of it, I know al there is to
know about sailing, i.e. that it means spending
the day at 45 degrees while moving around very
slowly and being shouted at.
Understandably, then, I was a trifle reluctant when
I was invited to Brest, to join the captain and crew
of Cap Gemini, a Ј3-mil ion French-built monster
— the biggest, fastest trimaran the world has ever
seen.
Launched just last month, it is hoped it wil get
round the world in 60 days and, to put that in
perspective, an American nuclear submarine just
made the same trip in 83 days. This is one real y
fast boat.
But it's the sheer size of the thing which draws the
crowds. Finding it in a port is a bit like finding a
haystack in a needle. You just look for the mast
which stretches up past the other masts, through
the troposphere and way into the magnetosphere.
This boat doesn't need satel ite navigation. You
just climb up that mast and have a look.
In fact, Cap Gemini doesn't real y have anything.
To keep the weight down, the whole boat, even
the sail, is made from carbon fibre and so, having
gone to al that trouble and expense, they weren't
going to undo it with internal luxuries. The ten
meat machines who sail it are expected to use
their clothes for mattresses. And it doesn't even
have a lavatory.
We set off and, for five glorious minutes, I think I
saw the appeal of this sailing business. The sun
came out, the wind picked up and the mighty
yacht set off into the Bay of Biscay like a scalded
cock. Perched on one of the three hul s, 20 feet
clear of the iron-flat sea, I could scarcely believe
my eyes as the speedometer climbed past 30, 35
and then 40 knots. Using nothing but the wind
for power, we were doing nearly 50 miles per
hour. This was astonishing. Had I been an
American, I would have made whooping noises.
But then the wind died down again and we turned
for home. Except of course we didn't. This being
a sailing boat we had to endlessly tack back up
the estuary, turning what should have been a 2 5-
kilometre breeze into a 3-hour, 50-kilometre,
aimless, walking-pace slog.
There was nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing
to smoke and, no matter where I went, some
fantastical y good-looking hunk of sun-bleached
muscle trod on me and then shouted because I
was in its way. This, I think, is why the British have
largely given up with sailing.
Apart from a few crashing bores in blazers, the
rest of us have realised that, for getting round the
world these days, you can't beat an Airbus. Which
is also French. Dammit.
Sunday 2 September 2001
Why Can't We Do Big or Beautiful Any More?
With the England footbal team on the crest of a
wave and unemployment at an al -time low, it
should be a good time to sit back, put on some
Elgar and feel warmly fuzzy about being British.
Concorde is coming back, too, and soon it wil be
tearing across the Atlantic twice a day to remind
Johnny Yank that, once upon a time, we were
capable of unbelievable genius. Even NASA's
most respected engineers have admitted to me,
in private, that designing and building a
supersonic airliner was a greater technological
chal enge than putting a man on the moon.
So it's wonderful that once again Heathrow wil
rumble and shudder under the onslaught of those
massive Olympus jets. However, it's also a little
sad because you can bet your last cornflake that
the British won't have anything to do with man's
next great landmark.
The problem is that the twenty Concordes cost
^1.5 bil ion, which back then was an astronomical
fortune. Even today it would buy two Mil ennium
Domes. Yet despite this, the last five to rol off the
production lines were sold for just FFn each.
The whole project 'was driven by Tony Benn, a
man who was also responsible for getting the
hovercraft out of Cockerel 's shed and into the
Channel. In addition,
he helped to create ICL, Britain's answer to
America's IBM. When he was postmaster-
general, he pushed for the Post Office Tower
which, for twenty or more years, was London's
tal est building.
Denis Healey once said that Benn 'came close to
destroying the Labour Party as a force in
twentieth-century British polities'. And I bet he had
few friends at the Treasury either. But my God, he
knew how to make everyone feel good about
being British.
Today, however, the government doesn't give. It
simply counts the cost. Everything is measured in
terms of how many baby incubators it could have
bought or how many teachers it might have paid
for.
You just know that if Norwich city council were to
build a beautiful fountain in the city centre, the
local newspaper would find some bereaved
mother to come out from behind the Kleenex to
say the money should have been spent on speed
humps instead.
Part of the problem with the Dome was that
instead of making a monument that would stand
for al of time, they tried to make it a short-term
business proposition whose basic function was to
pay for itself. And while the London Eye has been
a resounding success, you know that its
foundations are rooted in someone's profit and
loss account.
Maybe this is a fundamental problem with
capitalism. Maybe the people of a country don't
get blanketed in the warm glow of national pride
unless they have a socialist at the helm.
Someone like Benn. Or the man who dreamt up
those Soviet May Day parades.
Certainly the communist cities I've visited do give
good monument.
However, to disprove this theory there is the
Grande Arche de la Defense in the not very
communist city of Paris. Had they fil ed the middle
with offices, the rental income would have been
boosted tenfold, but then they wouldn't have
ended up with something so utterly magnificent.
And what about the very non-communist US
Navy? There is no practical reason on earth why it
needs fourteen city-sized aircraft carriers. They
exist primarily to instil in the folks back home a
sense of security and national pride.
So I'm left facing the inescapable conclusion that
the lack of wil to build something worthwhile,
something beautiful, something bril iant, is a
uniquely British problem. Maybe we can't feel a
sense of pride in ourselves because we don't
know who or what we are any more.
The prime minister is a Labour Tory. There's a
mosque at the end of your street and a French
restaurant next door. We are neither in nor out of
Europe. We are famous for our beer but we drink
in wine bars. We are not a colonial power but we
stil have a commonwealth. We are jealous of the
rich but we buy into the Hello! celebrity culture.
We live in a United Kingdom that's no longer
united. We are muddled.
And this must surely be the only country in the
world that sees its national flag as a symbol of
oppression. So if you can't be seen as patriotic
for fear of being label ed a racist, you aren't going
to be desperately inclined to build something for
the good of the nation. Not that
you know what the nation actual y is or means any
more.
Our footbal team may be on its way to the World
Cup finals but we don't even have a national
stadium in which it can play home games.
Concorde is back in the air — but not because
the great white bird makes us al feel good. It's
back because the accountants at British Airways
have turned the white elephant into a dirty great
cash cow.
To combat this disease, I would like to see a fund
set up that does nothing but pay for great public
buildings, fol ies, laser shows, towers, fountains,
airships,
aqueducts.
Big,
expensive
stuff
designed solely to make us go 'wow'. I even have
a name for this fund. We could cal it the lottery.
Sunday 9 September 2001
Learn from Your Kids and Chill Out Ibiza-
Style
You
may
have
seen
various
Ibiza-style
compilation music albums advertised in the
middle of fairly highbrow television programmes
recently. And you may have thought that this was
as inappropriate as advertising knickers in the
middle of a footbal match. You are watching a
documentary about insects. You are intel igent.
The only Ibiza soundtrack that you're interested in
is the cicadas, not the mega-decibel noise
coming out of the clubs.
I mean, take an album cal ed The Chillout
Session which, according to the blurb on the
cover, is a laid-back mix of blissful beats and
chil ed-out house featuring Jakatta, Leftfield,
Wil iam Orbit, Groove Armada, Underworld and
Bent. Dotcom computerised e-music for the e-
generation. Or, to put it another way, rubbish.
And rightly so. It has always been the job of
modern music to annoy parents. When I used to
watch Top of the Pops in the early 1970s my
father's face would adopt the look of a man who'd
just been stabbed in the back of the neck with a
screwdriver. There was bewilderment and some
real pain, too, especial y during 'Bal room Blitz'.
This was a man who spoke the language of pop
music with the elan with which I speak French. He
used the definite article indiscriminately, talking
about the Queen
and the T Rex. He referred to the Rod Stewart as
'that man who sings while he's on the lavatory',
and once said of the Bil y Idol: 'You'd have thought
if he was going on television, he'd have put a shirt
on.'
He honestly and truthful y could not see any differ
ence at al between Rick Wakeman and Rick
Derringer. I could never believe it, but to his ears,
Mick Fleetwood and Mick Jagger were one and
the same.
And yet twenty years down the line, I found myself
in the same boat, unable to tel the difference
between the house and the garage. Techno, hip-
hop, rap. It was al the same to me. A col ection of
angry-looking young men with their trousers on
back to front, urging us to go out and kil a pig.
This is undoubtedly why Radio 2 became the
world's most listened-to station. Thanks to an
appealing blend of Terry Wogan and the Doobie
Brothers, it was a little haven of peace for the
fortysomething music lover who was terrified of
the noises being made on Radio 1.
However, if you listen exclusively to Radio 2, you
are isolated from the fast-moving world of modern
music. You become stuck in a Neil Young
Groundhog Day, endlessly buying After the Gold
Rush on CD and mini disc.
You don't watch MTV. You don't read the NME.
You don't see Top of the Pops any more. So, how
do you know when there's some new music out
there that you would like?
The record companies can't put flyers under the
windscreen wipers of every Volvo in the land, so
that's why
these Ibiza Chillout records are being advertised
in the middle of programmes you like to watch. It's
because they feature the type of music you would
like to hear.
You may not have heard of Wil iam Orbit but you
wil know his song wel because it's Barber's
Adagio for Strings. And while you may be
unfamiliar with Groove Armada, you'l be able to
hum along because you've heard their tune on
and
on
in
those
slow-motion
end-of-
championship slots on Grandstand.
Listening to this music is like having a length of
ermine pul ed through your head. If honey could
make a noise, this is what it would sound like. It
becomes the perfect soundtrack for your spag bol
and Chianti supper party.
Of course, you're not going to listen to it in the
same way that you listened to Steve Mil er's Fly
Like an Eagle in 1976. Back then, listening to an
album was a job in itself whereas this e-music is
acoustic wal paper, something you have on while
you do something else. In our language, it's Jean-
Michel Jarre meets Mike Oldfield, without the joss
sticks and the vinyl crackle.
Moby is particularly good. Buy I Like to Score
tomorrow morning and you'l never listen to
Supertramp again. You'l retune your car stereo to
Radio 1 and you'l put up with five hours of pig
kil ing for five minutes of the whale song.
And you'l start to hear other bands that you like.
Radiohead. Toploader. Coldplay. Dido. David
Gray. Stereophonies. You may have heard the
names over the past few years and you may have
assumed, as I did, that they banged garden
furniture into computers and
recorded road dril s for the benefit of your
children, but no. You'l hear melodies that wil
cause you to hum along. And none of them wil
encourage you to stab a policeman.
I've taken to buying their albums and it's wonderful
not having to stand at the counter in a record
shop being cal ed 'man' by the spiky salesman
because I want The Yes Album on CD.
But if middle-aged people are able to discuss the
latest mega-mix from Ibiza and the vocal range of
Joe Washbourne from Toploader then our
children wil have nowhere to go. We'l be in Ibiza
giving it large and, to rebel, they'l be on a
Hoseasons canal boat singing songs from The
Sound of Music.
Sunday 16 September 2001
Going to the Dentist in the Teeth of All
Reason
Left to its own devices, an elephant would never
die. It has no natural enemies. It is not prone to
riding a motorcycle. It has the metabolic rate of
granite. So, to ensure that the world was not
eventual y overrun by herds of immortal two-
tonners, nature put a time bomb in its mouth:
weak teeth. They are replaced with new ones
every ten years, but when the sixth set has worn
out, that's it. Game over for Nel ie.
Human beings are different. The enamel that
coats our teeth is not only the hardest substance
in our bodies but also one of the toughest and
most resilient concoctions found anywhere on
planet Earth.
Think about it. The oldest evidence of humanoid
existence was found three years ago just outside
Johannesburg. Named Little Foot, nothing much
remains. It's just a sort of fossil, except for the
teeth which loom out of the rock as fresh and as
shiny as they were when the poor creature lived,
3.6 mil ion years ago.
We see this al the time. Archaeologists are
forever pul ing dead priests out of fields in
Lincolnshire and declaring that they died during
the Reformation after being boiled in acid, burnt,
hung, drawn, quartered, crushed and then
quartered again for good measure.
Every bone is always smashed and rotten and yet
the teeth stil gleam.
So why, then, has the government recently
announced that it wil be al ocating ^35 mil ion to
help eradicate tooth decay? Why did it say that
poor children can now get free toothbrushes on
the National Health Service? Wel , it's because
the health minister who dreamt up these schemes
is cal ed Hazel Blears. This would make her a
woman. And that would make her completely
obsessed with other people's teeth.
When I was a single man I went to the dentist only
once, when I had toothache. He said al my teeth
would have to be fil ed except two, which would
need root canals. Then, after he had fil ed my face
with needles and Novocaine, he asked whether I
would like the work done privately or on the NHS.
'Oor's huh diffence?' I tried to say.
'Wel ,' he replied with a sneer, 'if you have it done
privately, the fil ings wil match your teeth. And if
you have it done on Mrs Thatcher, they won't.'
I had seen Mrs T's teeth so, poor as I was, I went
private.
For the next fifteen years I didn't go to the dentist
at al and it made not the slightest bit of
difference. I was not visited by the Itosis family
and their troublesome son, Hal. On the rare
occasions when I managed to get girls back to
my flat, they did not keel over and die when I
moved in for the first kiss. Some didn't faint.
Then along came my wife, who spends 60 per
cent of the family's GDP on electric toothbrushes
and 40 per
cent of her morning sawing away with floss. Also,
she sends me off for a dental check-up every six
months.
Why do I need to have a man poke about in my
mouth with a sharpened screwdriver when I know
that my teeth wil last about 50,000 years longer
than the rest of me?
Nobody dies of tooth decay. It's always some
other part of the body that gives up, but despite
this we don't go to the doctor twice a year
demanding a ful service. Come on, doc, there's
nothing obviously wrong but I want you to examine
every single bit of me minutely. I want X-rays and
then I want to see your hygienist, who wil spray
jets of ice-cold grit up my backside.
No, we go to the doctor only when something is
wrong and that's how it should be at the dentist.
Vanity is the problem. Nobody wil be able to see
if your spleen has a growth on it the size of a
cabbage, but when your molars go brown and
gingivitis takes your gums, that's a woman's idea
of hel on earth.
There are four different types of teeth. There are
canines which are used for tearing off lumps of
meat. There are incisors which are used for
cutting it. There are premolars for crushing it. And
there are American teeth which are used for
appearing in Hello! magazine.
You do not achieve American teeth with
toothpaste and regular flossing. Nor wil you have
the ful Victoria Beckham after a course of
bleaching at the dentist. No, to achieve teeth
which are way better than anything nature ever
intended, what you need is mil ions of pounds.
Smal wonder that in a footbal wal these days,
the vain and effeminate players put their hands
over their mouths rather than their testicles.
There are other drawbacks, too. I'm told that you
wil emerge from the operation not only looking
different but sounding like a different person as
wel . And there's no way of knowing before the
dentist starts work with his chisel whether you'l
emerge from the ordeal as Stephen Hawking or
Sue El en.
Al we do know is that people with American
gnashers al look exactly the same. If you are
horribly injured in an accident, they won't be able
to identify you from your teeth because they wil
have come from the same box in Beverly Hil s as
everyone else's. Think about the consequences:
you may spend the rest of time lying beneath a
gravestone which tel s passers-by that you were
Victoria Beckham.
Sunday 23 September 2001
Sea Duel with the Fastest Migrants in the
West
I've often thought as I've watched the police prise
yet another frightened little brown man with a
moustache from the underside of a Eurostar train:
'How bad must life have been at home for that to
have been better?'
According to the union that represents the immi
gration service, the ISU, there are now 1.2 mil ion
il egal immigrants living in Britain, and we know
ful wel , of course, how they got here. They were
ushered into the tunnel and into the backs of
trucks by the French police.
However, what I've always wanted to know is: how
the hel are they getting into Europe in the first
place? Where's the leak?
Wel , last week, I found it. Every month, thousands
of immigrants are being brought by the Albanian
mafia in fast boats across the 50-mile-wide Strait
of Otranto from Albania into southern Italy.
And what are the Italian police doing to stop
them? Wel , I had a good look round and, so far
as I can tel , the most important thing they have
done so far is buy themselves some real y cool
sunglasses. It's like a Cutler and Gross
convention.
And you should see their patrol boats. Forget
super-yacht al ey in Antibes. Forget the Class
One racers. The fastest, sleekest machines I've
ever seen are backed up to
the harbour wal in Otranto, rocking as the mighty
diesels are revved.
So, the police look good and they can go real y
fast. But unfortunately they can't go fast enough.
You see, the profits from smuggling people are
simply mind-boggling. The going rate for the one-
way trip is $800 (Ј540) per person, and with 40
people to a boat, that works out at $32,000
(about Ј21,600) a go. And a few $32,000 trips
buys you an awful lot of horsepower.
To combat this, the police are now al owed to
keep the boats they catch and use them against
the smugglers. Which means the mafia have to
build, or steal, faster boats to stay ahead.
Welcome, then, to the biggest aquatic race track
the world has ever seen. A race track where the
victors win the chance to spend the rest of their
days above a chip shop in Bradford, and the
losers end up dead.
Here's the problem. As soon as a mafia boat sets
off from Albania it is picked up by Italian radar
stations, which direct police boats towards the
target. But even if they can go fast enough to
catch up, then what?
You can't simply ask the driver to pul over,
because he won't. He's going hel for leather and
won't stop even when he reaches the beach. You
might be able to block him but then – and this
happens a lot – he'l lob the cargo of Kurds over
the side, and once they've drowned turn and run
for the lawlessness of home.
There's only one solution and that's to point your
80-mph boat at the mafia's 90-mph boat, and do
what your forefathers did when they were
Romans. Ram it.
This is spectacularly dangerous. Last year,
fourteen immigrants were kil ed when they were
hit by a police boat, and earlier this year, when
the mafia used similar tactics to evade capture,
three policemen died.
And real y, is the risk worth it? I mean, the poor
passengers on these boats sold everything they
had for their one shot at freedom, so what chance
do they have when they're sent back after 3 0
days in a holding station? They'l be penniless
and homeless in a country where, according to
the Italian police, there simply is no sense of right
and wrong. Just rich and poor.
And besides, the mafia is now running a
marketing campaign pinched, I think, from
Ryanair. If you get caught on your first trip, they
give you two more rides. But there are strings
attached — wel , chains, actual y. If you make it,
you'l owe them a debt; a debt that wil never be
repaid by hanging around on Regent Street
washing windscreens.
You're going to have to get into some serious
stealing and robbing to keep your benefactors
happy.
They're going to put your sister on the streets and
your daughters are going to be burnt with
cigarettes, whipped and put on the internet.
So what's to be done? We can't let them al in, but
by the same token it goes beyond the bounds of
human decency to keep them al out.
David Blunkett spoke last week about relaxing
the laws on immigrants, al owing people with a
special skil to get a work permit in Britain. Great,
but the people coming over on those boats are
not teachers and
computer programmers. Al they can do is strip
down an AK47 and milk a goat.
The danger is al they're going to learn while
they're over here is how to remove a Panasonic
stereo from the dashboard of a Ford Orion.
To stop this happening, we must go after the
people who put these poor souls in debt even
before they get here. We must go after the mafia.
Of course, 4,500 British troops have been in
Macedonia for months, trying to do just that. But
last week, as Tony Blair spoke about his dream
of waging an international war against terror and
injustice, the soldiers packed their bags and
came home.
And now the mafia wil be rubbing its hands with
glee, knowing that pretty soon half of Afghanistan
is going to rol up at the Albanian seaside . . .
Sunday 7 October 2001
My Verdict? Juries are As Guilty As Hell…
This week various civil-liberty types have been
running around as though they're on fire because
new government proposals would strip a
defendant of his or her automatic right to trial by
jury. The plans say that if you're charged with a
medium-level offence such as theft or assault or
doing 41 mph, then you would be tried by a judge
and two magistrates.
What's wrong with that? Whenever I meet
someone new I take in the little details, the hair,
the shoes, the eyes, and within five seconds have
decided whether I like them or not. In normal
everyday life it doesn't matter that nine times out
of ten I'm wrong. But it would matter a very great
deal if I were to make one of these lightning
decisions while serving on a jury.
The defence team could argue until they were
blue in the face that their client was in Morocco on
the day of the crime. They could show me tickets
proving that he was and wheel out David
Attenborough and Michael Palin as character
witnesses. But I'm sorry, if I didn't like the look of
the defendant's trousers then he'd better get used
to the idea of communal showers for a while.
I know people, people with bright eyes and clean
hair, who have done exactly the same sort of thing
while on jury service. They've told me afterwards
that they didn't
listen to a word that was said because it was
obvious, from the moment the defendant walked
in, that he was as guilty as sin: 'You could tel just
by looking at him. He had a beard and
everything.'
Furthermore, I know people who shouldn't be
al owed anywhere near a courtroom because,
quite frankly, the inkwel s would be more capable
of making a rational decision.
I heard a woman on a radio quiz the other day say
the two counties that border Devon are 'Yorkshire
and the Falkland Islands'. And the country is ful of
people who regularly, and quite deliberately,
watch soap operas. I once met a girl who thought
there were two moons and that mosquitoes could
burrow through wal s. As the law stands, she
could have been selected to try Ernest Saunders.
John Wadham, director of Liberty, the civil-
liberties group, said the abolition of juries
amounted to an attack on fairness in the criminal
justice system. But what, pray, is fair about being
tried by someone who thinks that insects can
operate Black & Decker two-speed hammer
dril s?
And what's fair about asking me to sit on one of
those fraud trials that go on for twelve months?
Wel , it won't happen. If I'm asked, I shal simply
misbehave in front of the judge on the first day
because, believe me, doing a month in clink for
contempt beats the hel out of sitting on a school
bench for a year listening to men in wigs arguing
about tax in a language I don't understand.
Unless a fraud case is clear-cut, by which I mean
the
white male defendant tried to cash a cheque in
the name of Mrs Nbongo, then no normal person
on earth could possibly be expected to reach a
fair and reasonable decision.
Think about it. A Cambridge-educated genius
spends fifteen years perpetrating a stunning
piece of tax avoidance. Then some of the best
legal brains in the country conclude that it was, in
fact, evasion. And who decides which side is
right? A bunch of people from McDonald's and
Kwik-Fit. You may as wel rol the dice.
Surely, therefore, it must be a good idea to let
judges decide for themselves whether a jury, even
in the crown court, would necessarily be a good
thing.
For sure there are some judges who can't get
through the day without dropping a clanger. Just
this week, someone who had been sent to jail by
magistrates for three months was released by a
judge who said, and I'm quoting now: 'Prison
doesn't do anyone any good.' But even a buffoon
as idiotic as this would know how many moons
there are.
Let's be honest. To qualify as a judge you must
have displayed, at some point in your life, an
above-average level of staying power. Whereas I
couldn't get even halfway through my libel lectures
at journalism col ege before I was fil ed with an
uncontrol able urge to fal asleep.
Al things considered, I think the use of judges
and magistrates wil make these new district
courts fairer, faster and cheaper. But there are
some aspects to the proposals that must have
been dreamt up by one of the
more stupid audiences on Who Wants to be a
Millionaire?
I can't see the point of mix 'n' matching the tone of
the judge's skin to that of the defendant, and I
real y can't understand the new ideas on so-cal ed
plea bargaining. The proposal is that the sooner
you plead guilty the more lenient your sentence
wil be. Come running out of the jewel er's
shouting 'It was me, it was me' and they'l let you
off with a light birching. But plead not guilty to a
judge who thinks you are and you'l be showering
with other men for the rest of time.
Stil , al this is likely to become law, so on that
basis I'd like to say that I'm going to London
tomorrow morning and wil be driving on the M40,
between junctions eight and one, at speeds in
excess of 95 mph.
Sunday 14 October 2001
The More We're Told the Less We Know
Every day we are bombarded with surveys that
tel us what the nation is thinking. These help
shape government and corporate policy. Yet the
people who are being questioned – you and me
— have no clue what we're talking about.
We drown these days under the weight of
information coming into our homes. We have the
internet and rol ing television news. We in Britain
read more papers than any other European
country. But the more we're told, the less we
know.
Think about it. When you are twenty you know
everything. But the more you travel, and the more
you learn and the more you read, the more you
realise that, actual y, the more you know, the more
you know nothing.
Take the war in Kosovo. As far as I could tel , it
was an absurd venture. A whole bunch of tribes
had been knocking eight bel s out of one another
since time began, when al of a sudden, NATO
decided, for no obvious reason, that the Serbs
needed a damn good bombing.
Confident that I'd got it al worked out, I voiced this
opinion to an American cal ed James Rubin. He'd
actual y worked with Madeleine Albright in the
Balkans and very probably had Slobodan's
number programmed
into his mobile. But what the hel , I'd had a few
wines and I was ready for a scrap.
And what a scrap it turned out to be. He may have
had al the information but I'd had al the Chablis.
So he destroyed me. He peeled my argument like
an orange. In boxing terms, it was like Lennox
Lewis going head to head with Charlotte Church.
Now we spool forward a few weeks to another
dinner party where I used Rubin's argument on
the man to my left. Unfortunately, he was an
American banker who, it turned out, had brokered
some sort of deal between the telephone system
in Serbia and the Pope. Once again I found
myself in the Charlotte Church role, reeling from
the twin hammer blows of reason and knowledge.
So, if you walk up to me in the street now and ask
whether I think the current campaign in
Afghanistan is a good or a bad thing, I shal have
to say that I don't know.
My gut feeling is that America should divert its
considerable resources to setting up a
Palestinian state, but since these views coincide
almost exactly with those that are expressed in
t he Guardian every day, it's almost certain I'm
wrong.
How wil I ever know, when al we get are
soundbites and speculation and surveys that tel
us that 107 per cent of the world think Tony Blair
is God? And o per cent think he's a buffoon on a
massive and dangerous ego trip. But then did you
know that 72 per cent of al statistics are made up
on the spur of the moment? Including that one.
So, on that basis, what do we think about the
euro? The surveys suggest that 80 per cent or so
are against, with about 18 per cent in favour.
Which means that only 2 per cent of the
population are clever enough to realise they
simply don't know.
Last year I thought it was as stupid as trying to
build the roof of the house before you'd built the
wal s. Then I spent the entire summer travel ing
around Europe from the Polish border with
Germany to the northwestern tip of Spain; from
Brest in Brittany to the tip of Italy. And I decided
that we have a lot more to learn from our
European neighbours than they do from us. Good
coffee, for instance. And better pornography in
hotel bedrooms.
'So,' said a girl I had dinner with last weekend,
'you'd let Poland in?' 'Yes,' I said. 'You'd let al the
eastern European states in?' 'Yes.' 'Including
Albania?' 'Wel , al of them except Albania,' I said.
'And Macedonia?' 'And Macedonia,' I conceded,
realising that after six months on a fact-finding
tour of the Continent, absorbing knowledge like a
sponge, I'd come home with a half-formed
thought.
It turns out, however, that before a state can join
the union, it must comply with a set of rules and
terms so complicated that they run to seventeen
volumes. And now I know that what I know is that I
know nothing at al .
Someone out there knows, but he's only ever
given three seconds on the evening news to
explain. So he comes up with a soundbite that
nourishes our quest for knowledge with the
effectiveness of a McNugget.
I have a similar problem with the environment. I
read more scientific studies than most and I've
always thought it's just a bunch of anticapitalist
nonsense to suggest that we're al going to
suffocate by next Wednesday. But last week I sat
in that thick brown smog that has turned the south
of France from the Cote d'Azur into the Cote de
Brun and thought: hang on a minute. This has not
been created by al the sailing boats.
By doing some research and giving it some
thought, I'd turned a firmly held conviction into one
side of an intercranial debate.
The inescapable conclusion to al this is that if you
have al the facts to hand, you wil see there are
two sides to every argument and that both sides
are right. So, you can only have an opinion if you
do not have al the facts to hand. This certainly
explains the Guardian.
Sunday 21 October 2001
Without a PR Protector, I'm Just Another Fat
Git
Wel , I'm back from holiday pink and perky, thank
you very much. But then, of course, you knew that,
because while I was away the Sunday Mirror ran
a picture of me on the beach in Barbados.
The accompanying story suggested that I was
celebrating my new Јi-mil ion contract with the
BBC, that I was staying at the world-famous
Sandy Lane hotel which costs Ј8,000 a night, and
that I have become fat. 'Pot Gear' said the rather
clever headline.
It was al jol y interesting except my contract is not
worth Ј1 mil ion, I was not staying at the Sandy
Lane and it doesn't cost Ј8,000 a night.
Furthermore, they completely missed the big
story. One of the biggest stories ever, in fact. The
reason why I'm so fat is because I'm pregnant.
Wel , that's what happens when you get shafted
isn't it? The problem here, of course, is that the
photographer never actual y came along and
asked why I was there, in which case I would have
told him the joyful news about my amazing new
baby. He just hid in a bush with a long torn lens.
Do I mind? No, not real y. It's quite flattering to
think my stomach is more important than a dead
Queen Mother and a war in the Middle East. But
what interests
me is that the next day another newspaper ran
some pictures of Gary Lineker on a beach in
Barbados. Fine, except that instead of describing
him as a jug-eared midget, they said he was a
lovely, adorable, happy-clappy family man.
Why? We both have the same employer. We
were both with our children, on the same island,
at the same time. Neither of us is known to the
people who wrote the stories. So why am I a rich,
fat git squandering licence-fee payers' money at
the world's worst hotel, while Lineker is a
churchwarden whose tireless work for charity has
resulted in thousands of orphaned children being
brought back from the dead, and ended several
smal wars.
Wel , I've made some cal s and it seems that Gary
employs a public relations person – a former
editor of the Sun no less — to create and mould
and manage press coverage. While I don't.
And this, I think, is the root cause of al the recent
aggravation with Naomi Campbel and the Mirror,
the stories about Les Dennis and Amanda
Holden, and whoever it was went off with the
captain of Blackburn Rovers. No wait. One of
them was a drug addict, weren't they? I can't
remember.
The point is that pretty wel al celebs live behind a
PR net curtain and enjoy the diffused light it
creates. They're used to the OK.'-type feature
where they're seen at home, cutting up a freshly
baked nut loaf with some shiny apples on the
coffee table. They only need rol a 2p piece into a
lifeboat-charity box at a pub and
they're painted in the papers the next day as a
sort of Paul Getty, but better looking and with
nicer breasts.
So when a paper catches them with a line of coke
up their schnozzers or a dead builder in the
swimming pool, it's like they've been thrust
through the curtain and are facing the real world
for the first time. It's nasty.
PR is nasty, too, but unfortunately it works. Not
only for celebrities but also for politicians. It alone
put a completely unprincipled man in No. 10, and
even more amazingly it kept him there.
Al those useless meddlers on the front bench
have been on PR courses to make them more
eloquent and better able to deal with the press.
Wel , al except one, of course, and as a result
he's projected as a fat, pugilistic twerp with two
Jags.
Big business uses it, too. Twice now I've attacked
the Vauxhal Vectra and twice the enormous
General Motors PR division has managed to spin
the story round so that I emerged as the vil ain of
the piece. Again. And he's fat, you know.
The thing is though that PR is not desperately
expensive. Press inquiries can be handled for
maybe ,Ј500 a month, whereas for Ј2,000 you
can expect to be given yourown personal halo
and some wings. So why, I wonder, do we not use
it in everyday life?
Night after night, my children go to bed angry with
me for one reason or another. Usual y because
I've made them go to bed. So why don't I get a PR
girl to do it forme: 'your daddy wants you to stay
up al night and eatchocolate, but mummy says
it's bedtime.'
Then when I inadvertently put al the crockery in
the tumble dryer — it happens — my PR person
could bury the bad news on a day when one of the
kids has fal en off a swing and cut her knee.
Late for a meeting? Ordered 2 mil ion paperclips
by mistake? Goosed the boss's wife at a
Christmas party? Al of these things can be spun
to your advantage if you get yourself your own
personal Alastair Campbel .
I'm certainly going to get a PR man when my new
baby is born. Because if I try to handle things
myself, I'l end up making a mess of it. I can
imagine the story in Hello! now: 'Jeremy Clarkson
invites us to his dirty house for the birth of his
fourth hideous child.'
Sunday 14 April 2002
Why Have an Argument? Let's Say It with
Fists
This summer the Albert Hal in London wil play
host to an evening of 'ultimate fighting'. Described
as an extreme test for mind and body, the
participants are bil ed as modern-day Roman
gladiators; except of course nobody gets eaten.
Ultimate fighting is an American import, natural y,
and the idea is that two men are locked in a metal
cage where they knock eight bel s out of each
other using whatever discipline happens to be
handiest at the time –kick boxing, kung fu,
wrestling, punching, judo. The only things which
are not al owed are eye-gouging, and anything
involving the groin or the throat. It does not say
anything about teeth, though, so who knows –
maybe someone wil get eaten.
Predictably, every wishy-washy liberal is up in
arms, with Derek Wyatt, the Labour MP, being
quoted as saying: 'We have been campaigning
against foxhunting, bearbaiting and cockfighting,
and this is the human equivalent.'
Wel now, Derek, that's not strictly true, is it? Ulti
mate fighters are not sitting at home with Mrs Fox
and the babies, Foxy and Woxy, when a bunch of
snarling dogs come bursting through the front
door. Nobody is forcing them into the cage. And
they are not kids from
sink estates either. There are three British
fighters; one has a degree in electronics from
Kent University.
Even so, a spokesman for the British Medical
Association said that it's a ghastly sport and that
the point is to inflict injury on an opponent, which
is wrong. No it isn't. If a man, of his own free wil ,
wishes to get into a ring and spend half an hour
being kicked and possibly eaten by another man,
then what business is that of yours, mine or Derek
Wyatt's?
I must say, at this juncture, that I don't like fighting.
I prefer passive resistance and, if that doesn't
work, active fleeing. Once a friend and I donned
boxing gloves 'for a bit of a laugh' and pranced
round each other making snarly faces. Then he hit
me in the ear and I simply could not believe how
much it hurt. 'Ow,' I said, in a rather unmanly way.
Then there was the time in Greece when a
swarthy fisherman punched me in the face. So
why didn't I hit him back? Wel , this is hard to do
when you are lying on your back in a dead faint.
Of course, the argument goes that war—war is
the preserve of the intel ectual y stunted whereas
the intel ectual y lofty prefer jaw-jaw. But consider
this: I could have jawed with Stavros for hours and
he stil would have hit me.
Only last night, in the pub, I found myself in the
middle of a huge argument. I was suggesting that
the Israelis real y had gone mad this time and that
those shots of the tanks in Jenin were no different
from the shots of German tanks in Warsaw. My
opponent, on the other
hand, was sympathetic to Ariel Sharon and felt
his actions were justified in the face of endless
Palestinian terrorism.
Neither of us was going to back down and so on
we surged. The whole evening was swal owed by
a tangle of twisted statistics, spurious historical
fact and eventual y, of course, that inevitable
descent into a spume-fil ed barrel of finger-poking
personal abuse.
That's the trouble with jaw—jaw. There can be no
winner. You are forced to go on and on for ever.
Or are you? Surely, if you want to make an
adversary see things your way — and that's the
whole point – then why not simply punch him?
Speaking with the benefit of experience, I assure
you that if it were a choice of backing down from
a firmly held conviction or being punched in the
face again, I would back down and whimper like a
dog.
I look sometimes at the politicians on Question
Time, endlessly trotting out statistics and five-
year plans in a desperate bid to make the
adversary look like a fool. But why waste time?
Let your opponent have his say, then hit him.
Certainly this would make the programme more
interesting. Imagine it. Oliver Letwin delivers his
piece on rising crime and how the Tories wil get
more bobbies on the beat. Then Stephen Byers
leaps over his desk and kicks him. You would
watch that, wouldn't you? I would.
I would especial y like to see Edward Heath biting
Denis Healey.
John Prescott has had a stab at it, literal y, and
his left
jab was widely regarded as the most interesting
feature of the last general election campaign.
Every week, at the moment, David Dimbleby
winds up Question Time by inviting people to get
in touch if they want to be in the audience, but if
we thought there was a chance of watching Ann
Widdecombe pul ing Glenda Jackson's hair, the
producers would be beating wil ing spectators
back with a stick.
There is something else, too. In the coming
weeks Sharon and Yasser Arafat may meet
around a table and talk about what can be done.
They wil conclude, after weeks and weeks, that
there is no common ground and that in 50 years
the Palestinians and the Israelis wil stil be
blowing one another to pieces.
So here's a thought. Ariel and Yasser, one on
one, in a cage at the Albert Hal . The winner gets
Jerusalem.
Sunday 21 April 2002
Speaking As a Father, I'll Never be a Mother
Bob Geldof, perhaps the second most famous
single dad in Britain, said last week that courts
need to understand that not al men are brutal,
indifferent boors who are incapable of raising
children.
An interesting point, especial y as it came on the
same day as the result of an unusual custody
battle in the Court of Appeal. Two parents, one a
high-flying City executive on Ј300,000 a year, the
other a ful -time parent who gave up work in the
early days of the marriage to look after the kids.
So who won? The one who gave up work? The
one who's looked after them night and day for the
past six years? Er, no. Even though it's the
mother who works, it's the mother who won. The
mother always wins.
Wel not always, according to the lone parent
group Gingerbread. It says that one in ten single
parents is a man and that, clearly, courts do
sometimes award residency orders to fathers. I'm
sure they do, if the wife is a drooling vegetable,
but I've never heard of it.
Indeed, the only two single fathers I know had the
job thrust upon them because their wives died.
The fact of the matter is this. You, as a man, can
put on your best suit and promise to read the
children Harry Potter stories until dawn but you'l
stil lose. Even if your
wife is sitting on the other side of the court
wearing an 'I love Myra Hindley' T-shirt.
I think I know why. Last weekend I was entrusted
with the task of being a single father for two days,
and frankly I'd have been better off doing
underwater knitting. I made a complete hash of it.
When my wife arrived home on Sunday evening,
way past the kids' bedtime, one child was
bleeding profusely, one had left home and the
other was stuck up a tree.
Things started to go wrong just after lunch on
Saturday. They might have gone wrong before
that but since I was locked in the office, writing,
with Led Zep II on the stereo, it's hard to be sure.
Anyway, they went wrong after lunch because the
dishwasher was ful and I'm sorry, but I simply do
not know how they work.
Oh, I can phase a DVD player so that six
individual speakers can be made to come on and
go off in whichever room I choose, but where do
you put the salt in a dishwasher? And wil any
form of powder do? Wel , not Coffee-mate, it
turns out.
So what about washing machines? Nope. I can't
work those either, and I've never seen the point of
a deepfreeze since I only ever buy what I want
now. Send me into a supermarket and I wil
emerge ten minutes later with a packet of
Smarties and a copy of GQ. The notion of buying
a pizza for the children's supper on Thursday
simply wouldn't enter my head. So the need for a
deepfreeze would never arise.
Am I alone with this white-goods phobia? I don't
think so. And I know for sure that I'm not the only
man in the world who cannot cope.
It isn't that I won't. I can't. In the same way that I
can't turn back time, or make a dishwasher wash
dishes. I therefore had to get the six-year-old to
wipe the three-year-old's bottom while I hid in a
bush at the bottom of the garden.
Saturday night, I made a mistake. I knew that I'd
have to get up at dawn, so did I get an early
night? Was I grown up and womanly about
things? No. What I did, in a manly way, was stay
up half the night watching a television programme
in which a group of twentysome-thing people, who
were marooned on a desert island, stood on a
log.
And then it was Sunday and everyone was
clamouring for Sunday lunch, just like Mum
makes. Impossible. Mums know, you see, what
potato does what. Jersey Royal. Placenta previa.
Maris piper. Lactate. These are Mum words.
I, on the other hand, had no clue that 'baking
potatoes' — wel that's what it said on the label —
could also be used for roasting. So we had
cauliflower instead and this, according to the
seven-year-old, wasn't quite the same.
Clearing up wasn't quite the same either,
because we didn't bother. Partly because the
dishwasher was stil unemptied and partly
because I had some fairly big plans to build a den
that afternoon. And this, I think, is the fundamental
difference between men and women parents.
Had it been me coming home on a Sunday
evening
after a weekend away, I'd have been greeted by
three children in their pyjamas, washed,
scrubbed, deloused and with their homework
done. The pots would have been cleaned and the
playroom would have gleamed like a pathology
lab.
But I'd sort of glossed over the boring bits, or
made a mess of them, and concentrated on
teaching my six-year-old how to drive round the
paddock on my new off-road go-kart, which is
strictly not to be used by under-sixteens. We'd
built a tree house, done joy rides on the old
tractor, fal en over a lot, had a water fight and al
fal en out.
To fathers, kids are fun. To mothers, they're a res
ponsibility. That's why it's so important to have
both. And it's also why, if there's no option, courts
have to side with the mums.
Sunday 28 April 2002
I'm Just Talkin' 'Bout My Generation, Britney
He was in a band famous for singing the line
'Hope I die before I get old'. And now he has.
John Entwistle may have been the quiet one,
standing at the back while Roger Daltrey and
Pete Townshend made merry up front, but anyone
who knows The Who knows he was probably the
only bassist in the world who could have kept up
with the manic Keith Moon, a man who rightly
cal ed himself 'the best Keith Moon-style drummer
in the world'.
More than that, if you listen to 'The Real Me' on
Quadrophenia, Entwistle uses the bass to create
a melody. And he wrote 'My Wife', which is one of
the best tracks on one of the best albums from
probably the best band the world has ever seen.
The Who were about to embark on a tour of
America. It would have been a sel -out. That's
because they were old, they'd been round the
block and they knew what they were doing.
Every week Steve Wright hosts a round-table dis
cussion on Radio 2 where people as famous as
Peter Stringfel ow come in to talk about the
week's new releases. Usual y they're absolute
rubbish, an endless succession of teenagers
reedily singing along to the
background accompaniment of what sounds like
a mobile-phone ring tone.
Take Britney Spears as a prime example.
Occasional y you hear what is obviously her own
voice but for the most part it's a computer
interpretation and, as a result, it sounds as if
she's coming at you via an answering machine.
What about Mary J. Blige, about whom everyone
seems to be raving. Frankly, I'd rather listen to a
pneumatic dril . She's nothing more than a
spel ing mistake — it should be Mary J. Bilge.
However, the other day they played a song that
was spel binding. 'At last,' I thought, 'here we have
a new talent that can actual y sing and a new song
that's going somewhere.' But I was wrong. The
song was 'Morning Dew' — which is old — and
the vocalist was Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin's
gnarled and wizened front man.
Admitting that I prefer Plant to Mary J. Bilge is
probably not al owed these days, any more than
it's al owed to say that you prefer the
Conservative Party to His Tonyness. Certainly I
know that I'm not al owed to say I went al the way
to Wembley last week to see Roger Waters, the
former Pink Floydist.
Indeed, lots of people asked where I was going
on Wednesday night and I couldn't bring myself to
tel the truth. 'I'm doing some canvassing for the
BNP in Burnley' would have sounded better. 'I
shal be downloading pornography from the
internet' or 'I'm going to kil a fox'. Anything except
saying I had tickets to see the anorak's anorak.
But do you know, it was bril iant. Bril iant and
properly loud. Rick Mason, as he was cal ed in
the Evening Standard's glowing review, guested
on 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun',
while Snowy White and Andy Fairweather-Low
gave it their al on the six strings. There was even
a drum solo.
Best of al , the songs were long, which meant they
had time to breathe. There was a beginning, a
fifteen-minute crescendo in the middle and a
gradual descent to the end. What's wrong with
that? Who says songs have to be fast? – not
Mozart, that's for sure.
I'm sorry to bang on about the Slow Food
movement again but most people seem to think
it's a good idea. These guys have decided that
Europe should be defined by long lunches and
that the American sandwich is nothing more than
fuel for the devil.
They want to see towns ful of coffee shops and
squares ful of people passing the time of day
with one another, not rushing off to make another
phone cal . For them, Vesta is the Antichrist, and
they are getting enormous support. Most people
like the idea of smal shops sel ing high-quality
local produce, even if the queue stretches out of
the door and it takes a week to be served.
Yes, a supermarket is convenient and a Big Mac
hits the spot when you're in a hurry but why does
music have to be this way? Why is three minutes
acceptable and twenty minutes pretentious?
Would 'Stairway to Heaven' be improved if they
cut out the bustle in its hedgerow? I think not.
They say that radio stations prefer short songs
and that
Bo' Rap, as Ben Elton cal s it, simply wouldn't get
any airplay if it were released today, but I can't for
the life of me work out why. Jimmy Young's an old
man these days and there's no way he could get
from his studio to the lavatory and back before
Britney was over. He needs a scaramouche in his
fandango if he's to stand a chance.
Maybe it's an attention-span thing. Music is now
the backdrop to our lives rather than an event in
itself. We put on a CD while we're doing
something else. I can't remember the last time I
put on an album and listened to it in a chair with
my eyes closed.
I shal be doing just that today, however. If you're
in Chipping Norton and you hear a strange noise,
it'l be me listening to 'Won't Get Fooled Again'.
And I won't be, either. I like 1970s rock music and
I'm not ashamed to admit it.
Sunday 30 June 2002
Chin Up, My Little Angel – Winning is for
Losers
My eldest daughter is not sleek. In fact, to be
brutal y honest she has the aerodynamic
properties of a bungalow and the coordination of
an American bombing raid.
She puts a huge effort into running. Her arms and
legs flail around like the Flying Scotsman's
pistons but despite this you need a theodolite to
ascertain that she is actual y moving forwards.
She's a bit of a duffer at the school's sports day.
Luckily, the school tries to operate a strict 'no
competition' rule. The game starts, children exert
energy and then the game finishes. This doesn't
work terribly wel with the 50-metre running race
but often there are never any winners and
consequently there are never any losers.
That's the theory, but round the edge of the sports
ground there's a communal picnic for parents. I
had been asked to bring along a potato salad,
which sounds simple enough but oh no. My potato
salad was going to be creamier and made with
higher-quality potatoes than anyone else's potato
salad. This is why I got up at 4.30 a.m. to make it.
Nobody was going to scoop my potato salad
quietly mto the bushes. Nobody was going to
make joke retching noises behind my back. I was
out there to win, to crush the competition like
beetles.
My daughter did not understand. 'You told me it
doesn't matter if I come last in the race,' she said.
'It doesn't,' I replied.
'So why,' she pressed on, 'are you trying to win a
competition for potato salads when there isn't
one?'
There bloody wel was. And a competition for
pasta salads, too. And quiche. But al of these
paled alongside the brownie wars.
Obviously, I chose the ones made by my wife but
pretty soon I was surrounded by a gaggle of
women. 'Try mine,' they said. 'Try mine.' It was just
like the old days when schools had teams and
competition and everyone crowded round
shouting: 'Pick me, pick me.'
I was never picked. I was always left at the back
like the spring onion in the bottom of the fridge:
'Oh do we have to have Clarkson, sir? He's
useless.'
I was therefore determined that no brownie
should be left out, but this wasn't enough. I was
being pushed to decide, publicly, whose was
best: my wife's with the creamy centre; the ones
made with chocolate that had been special y
imported from America; or the ones with pecans
floating in the middle. 'They were al lovely,' I said,
sticking to the spirit of the day.
What spirit? What's the point of protecting
children from the horror of failure on the sports
pitch when their parents are al giving one another
Chinese burns on the touchline? 'My brownies are
better than yours. Say it! Say it!'
I spoke last night to a man who bunged one of the
teachers 50 quid at his daughter's sports day,
saying:
'Look, if it's close for first and second, you know
what to do.'
The fol owing year his daughter wrote to him
saying: 'Dear Dad, please let me come where I
come. Don't try to bribe anyone.' He did as asked
and she came in second. But he wasn't finished.
He took the cup she won to the engravers and
had it inscribed with a big 'ist'.
It's not as if children don't understand the concept
of losing. Mine regularly have their stomachs
blown open byaliens or their heads kicked in by a
Russian agent.
Of course, you could be good parents and turn up
at sports day with a bowl of tinned prunes. You
could force your children to put the PlayStation
away and stick to Monopoly, which has no
winners and losers because nobody in the whole
of human history has ever had the patience to
finish a game.
Think about it. If your child has no understanding
of failure, how wil he cope when he walks round
the back ot the bike sheds one day to find his
girlfriend in a passionate embrace with Miggins
Major? There'l be a bloodbath.
Idon't want my children to be unhappy. ever. It
brokemy heart when, as predicted, emily was
last in her runningrace, thumping across the line
like a buffalo. I couldn'tbear to watch her fighting
back the tears of humiliation.
But what do you do? Wel , why not teach them
that losingis better than winning. certainly, it's
impossible nomakesomeone laugh if you've
come home first. 'So anyway,i got the deal, won
the lottery and woke up in
bed the next day with Cameron Diaz and Claudia
Schiffer.' That's nice but it's not funny.
Furthermore, arranging your face when you win is
impossible. You have to look proud but magnani
mous and that's hard even for Dustin Hoffman.
Michael Schumacher has been winning since he
was eight and he stil can't pul it off.
Al the funniest people in life are abject and total
failures. There's no such thing as a funny
supermodel or a successful businessman who
causes your sides to split every time he opens his
mouth.
This is presumably why I felt a certain sense of
pride as we trudged home from the sports day
picnic. Everyone else was carrying empty bowls
that had been licked clean. And me? Wel , my
bowl was stil ful of uneaten potato salad.
And I got a column out of it.
Sunday 7 July 2002
A Murderous Fox Has Made Me ShootDavid
Beckham
Let's be perfectly clear, shal we. The fox is not a
little orange puppy dog with doe eyes and a
waggly tail. It's a disease-ridden wolf with the
morals of a psychopath and the teeth of a great
white shark.
Only last month a foxy-woxy broke into someone's
council house and tried to eat a baby. I'm not
joking. The poor child's parents found their son's
face being mauled by one of these monsters as
he slept on the sofa. And worse, I woke up last
Tuesday to find a fox had pul ed Michael Owen's
head off. For fun.
Perhaps I should explain at this point that Michael
Owen is one of our new chickens, which were
bought, and it pains me to say this, because stuff
from the garden does taste better than stuff from
the shop. Even to a man who can't tel fish from
cheese. If I could, they'd get rid of Mr Dyslexia
and let me do the restaurant reviews as wel .
Certainly, I need the extra money to pay for my
new-found organic love affair. Pigeons have
eaten al my sweet peas, scale insect has
infested my tomatoes and now Michael Owen has
been decapitated.
The children were hysterical and blamed me for
not buying a secure henhouse. Obviously, I tried
to convince them it was al Tony Blair's fault, but it
was no good.
So I had to spend ,Ј150 on a hut that looks like
Fort Knox, and a further ,Ј100 on a cage for the
hens to run around in.
The next morning we skipped down the garden
like something out of The Railway Children. We
knew Daddy would be on the train and that
everything would be rosy. But it wasn't.
Sol Campbel was gone and finding out how this
had happened did not require much in the way of
detective work. My garden looked like Stalag Luft
I I after Charles Bronson had been let loose with
the gardening tools. One of the tunnels, I swear,
ended up in Burton upon Trent.
Even I was angry, so that afternoon I went to one
of those spy shops in London and blew ,Ј350 on
a
pair
of
infrared
night-vision
goggles.
Unfortunately they were made in Russia, which is
another way of saying: 'Made badly by someone
who's drunk.' So they don't work very wel .
At close range they're fine, but at anything more
than three or four inches everything's just a blur.
Certainly, if this is the best Russia can come up
with now, we real y didn't have anything to worry
about in the Cold War. Its tanks would have
ended up in Turkey after its air force had spent
the night bombing the bejesus out of the Irish
Sea.
However, if you concentrate hard you can just tel
what's an organic life form and what's a stone
mushroom. And so, as the last vestiges of
sunlight faded from the western horizon and the
sky went black, I was to be
found at my bedroom window with a 12-bore
Beretta at my side. Foxy-Woxy was going to die.
By one in the morning I'd nearly polished off a
bottle of Brouil y and it was becoming
increasingly hard to figure out what was what in
the green world of infrared. But, yes, I was pretty
sure there was a glow in the garden where before
al had been dark.
I made a mental, if slightly drunken, calculation
about where this was in relation to various trees,
before putting the night-vision goggles down,
picking up the piece and firing.
The next morning my wife was distressed to find
that her Scotts of Stow chair had been blown to
smithereens. And I'm afraid she could not be
persuaded that through night-vision goggles it
had looked like a fox. 'Maybe through beer
goggles,' she said.
So the next night I was forced to stake out the
garden sober. This meant I was stil awake and
alert at three when I noticed movement by the
cage. I raised the gun and once again the
serenity of the stil night air was shattered as the
weapon spat a hail of lead.
Over breakfast the next day there was a scream
from downthe garden. 'you f****** idiot. you've
shot david Beckham.' And I had. I tried hard to
convince thechildren that she'd been savaged by
vermin but it was no good. Luckily for the world's
police forces, there's a bigdifference between a
gunshot wound and a fox attack.
So now I've been banned from late-night sentry
d ut y andi'm stuck. i can't put poison down
because the dogs
wil eat it. And I can't use the dogs to get the fox
because Mr Blair wil be angry. What's more, I
can't simply let nature take its course, because
then al my hens wil be kil ed and we'l end up
eating
supermarket
eggs
and
dying
of
salmonel a, listeria or whatever it is they say wil
kil us this week.
This is what the metropolitan elite don't
understand: that the countryside is a complicated
place and that pretty soon they won't be able to
buy organic nut loaf because a bunch of foxes wil
have held up the delivery truck and eaten its
contents long before it reaches Hoxton.
The simple fact of the matter is this. I've tried to
do my bit. I've tried to become organic. And al I
have to show for it is a cockerel cal ed Nicky Butt
and a hen cal ed David Seaman.
Sunday 14 July 2002
I Bring You News from the Edge of the
Universe
For me, there is no greater pleasure than lying on
my back in the middle of a deep, black desert,
staring at the night sky. I simply love having my
mind boggled by the enormity of the numbers: the
fact we're screaming around the sun at 90 miles a
second, and the sun is careering around the
universe at a mil ion miles a day.
Then there's the notion that one of those stars up
there could have ceased to exist a thousand
years ago. Yet we're stil seeing its light.
Best of al , though, is that we're about 3,000 light
years from the edge of our galaxy — that's
17,600,000,000,000,000 miles. And yet, on a
clear night near Tucson once, I saw it. I actual y
saw it, and that was, please believe me, utterly
breathtaking.
I therefore quite understand why people are
drawn to the science of astronomy. Certainly, I'm
not surprised that after 40 years of fumbling
around, quite literal y, in the dark, Britain's
astronomers have just handed over Ј80 mil ion
and joined forces with the Europeans.
This means they now have access to the VLT
(which stands for Very Large Telescope) at the
ESO (which stands for European Southern
Observatory) in Chile. They wil also help build the
OWL (which stands for Overwhelmingly Large
telescope). And, boy, with al
these snappy acronyms, can't you just tel this is
basical y a GO. Which stands for German
Operation.
But let's be honest, since Galileo disproved the
Old Testament, astronomers have simply been
dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's. Only last
month, a meteorite shaved half an inch of ozone
from the Earth's atmosphere, and did they see it
coming? Did they hel as like.
Occasional y, they show us a photograph of some
cosmic explosion. But bangs without the bang
never seem to work somehow. Remember: in
space, nobody can hear you scream.
What's more, I need scale. I need something to
be the size of a 'double-decker bus' or a 'footbal
pitch' before I get the point. Tel me that they're
burning 20,000 square kilometres of rainforest
every day and I won't care. Tel me that they're
burning an area the size of Wales and I stil won't
care, but I'l understand what you're on about.
I'm afraid then that a photograph of Alpha 48///bBi
blowing itself to smithereens may be pretty, but
getting access to the camera cost Ј80 mil ion,
and that seems excessive.
So, what about the question of extraterrestrial
life?
Hol ywood has convinced us that the night sky is
ful of aliens watching HolbyCity. But the reality is
less romantic. The Seti organisation, which
searches for life in the universe, and which was
immortalised by Jodie Foster's film Contact, has
spent ^95 mil ion and seventeen years listening to
the night skies. And it has found absolutely
nothing.
However, let's say it does. Let's say that one day
some computer geek actual y picks up Coril ian
FM and let's say we get a message back to them
along the lines of 'Yoo hoo'.
Then what? At worst, the Coril ians wil beam
themselves to Earth and eat al our family pets.
'Hmm, Labrador – nice with watercress.' And at
best, they wil invite us over for drinks. Sounds
good, but how do you suppose we wil get there?
The space shuttle can only do 17,500 mph, which
is pretty fast in Earth terms, but for getting around
the galaxy you may as wel get out and walk. At
17,500 mph it would take 29 years for the shuttle
to get out of our own solar system which, in
cosmic terms, is about as far as your front door.
To stand even the remotest chance of getting to
wherever you're going before the crew dies, you
need light speed. But here too there's a problem
— the faster you go, the more time slows down.
This is a scientific fact. I spend my life driving
quickly, which is why I have a 1970s haircut.
So, if you could build something that did 186,000
miles a second, you would be out of the solar
system in 6 hours. But you'd end up in 1934.
Certainly, you'd arrive before the decision was
made to send you. Worse, you'd arrive before the
Coril ians *ent their invite and this would be social
death.
Real y, we know for a fact that humankind wil
never he able to travel at the speed of light
because to do so would mean travel ing
backwards in time. And this, in
turn, means our world of today would be ful of
people from the future. People would end up
marrying their own grandchildren. It would be a
mess.
Let's summarise then. Astronomers spend their
time lying on their backs looking at stars, but
what's the point? They can't spot meteorites that
are on a col ision course with Earth, and even if
they could, would we want to know? And if they do
find life out there, we wil never be able to pop
over and say 'Hi'.
However,
I
ful y
support
this
^80-mil ion
investment. Because if a sixteenth-century
astronomer using a tiny telescope was able to
prove the Bible wrong, think what damage could
be inflicted by today's astronomers with their
VLTs and their OWLs on the nonsense science of
astrology. Just ^80 mil ion to make a mockery of
Russel Grant – I'l have some of that.
Sunday 21 July 2002
Go to the Big Top: It's Better than Big
Brother
What on earth are you al doing in the evening
these days? I see television viewing figures so I
know you're not in front of the box and I also know,
because pubs are closing down at the rate of one
a day, that you're not in the boozer.
You can't al have Sony PlayStations, so new
technology isn't the answer, and obviously you
aren't at the theatre or there would be no need for
Arts Council grants.
I thought perhaps you might al be out dancing but
I read in the papers last week that Cream, the
rave club in Liverpool, has seen attendances
quartered in the past ten years. Judging by the
pitiful sales of books these days, you're not curled
up in front of the fire reading.
In fact, if you add up the official y produced num
bers of people who do the usual stuff in the
evening – drinking, cinema, theatre, eating out,
watching television, having sex and reading – you
are left with an eerie conclusion. Every night
twenty mil ion people do absolutely nothing.
This week I became one of 'the disappeared'.
First of al I am stil largely preoccupied with
finding and murdering the fox that's kil ing my
chickens and second I went to the circus. And
neither, thanks to various
animal rights organisations such as Born Free,
the RSPCA and the Labour Party, are listed as
official y recognised pastimes.
I'm dimly aware of having enjoyed traditional big-
top circuses when I was little, apart from the
clowns, who were downright scary, but I'm also
dimly aware that such circuses were sort of
outcast a couple of years ago when Mary
Chipperfield was found guilty of being rude to a
monkey.
I think this was probably sensible. I don't normal y
agree with the RSPCA since I believe it is the
duty of an animal to be on my plate at supper time
but, that said, it's hard to condone wanton cruelty.
And circuses were cruel. They had boxing
kangaroos that were plainly off their heads, and
animal-rights activists were forever opening up
cages to find that the elephants had eaten their
own dung and the tigers had bitten off their own
tails. If they'd given a fox some cannabis and told
it to jump through hoops of fire, that would have
been fine. Foxes deserve to be humiliated. But
there's something hideous about watching a lion,
the king of the jungle, standing on one leg in a
tutu.
There was something equal y hideous about the
'modern' circus which replaced the Chipperfield
original. This usual y involved a message of some
kind and the message was usual y about
Margaret Thatcher: 'Next up tonight, ladies and
gentlemen, Dave Spart, who wil use mime to
explain the relationship between pol tax and
apartheid.'
Not exactly family entertainment, and nor were the
French and Canadian alternatives, which tended
to feature dwarfs juggling chainsaws.
It real y did look, as the new mil ennium dawned,
as if the circus had been buried for good. Even
the Dome, which was the biggest top of them al ,
reinforced that. So what was I doing in a tent last
week?
I have no idea but I can tel you that, as live
entertainment goes, it blew Darcy Bussel into the
hedgerow and rhe Rol ing Stones into the middle
of last week.
It was cal ed Gifford's Circus and it was held in a
tent of a size that would be familiar to anyone who
has camped out on Everest. There were no
clowns in terrifying suits and they had not
plundered the Kalahari for .mimals. In fact the only
four-legged entertainment came right at the end
when a dog, belonging to someone in the
audience, sauntered into the ring and got its
lipstick out. It was that kind of show.
They had two jugglers from Ethiopia, who are
appar-endy on the verge of taking a world record
with their back-to-back routine. And they had
Ralph and Celia, who came on in Victorian
bathing costumes and played what appeared to
be a game of aerial twister. Did you know it was
possible to stand on one leg with a woman
balanced on your nose? No, I didn't either.
I don't want to sound like some tweedy duffer who
thinks television is the devil's eye, but there was
something uplifting about this simple rural
entertainment. Believe me, watching a man
taking off his trousers on a tightrope is amazing. I
can't even do it in a bedroom without fal ing over.
It was uplifting because it was so
'up close and personal', and so smal and so low-
budget that you could see there was no
computerised trickery.
Isn't that what you want from entertainment —
seeing people do things you cannot do yourself?
Big Brother? Give me the big top any day. If you
are one of the twenty mil ion dispossessed who
stare at a wal every night because you can't think
of anything better to do, give the local circus a try.
I think you'l like it.
I was going to finish up at this point with
something edgy and sharp. Something a little bit
cool and now. But in the spirit of the piece I wil
leave you with this:
A goat goes into a jobcentre and asks in perfect
English for some work. The slightly amazed clerk
has a look through his files and says he could try
the circus.
'The circus?' says the goat. 'Why would the circus
want a bricklayer?'
Sunday 28 July 2002
The Nit-picking Twitchers Out to Ground
Britain
House prices are teetering on the edge of a
bottomless hole and pretty soon anything with
less than six or seven bedrooms wil be worth
less than its contents.
There's a very good reason for this. As far as I
can tel , every single house in Britain is on the
flight path for one of the government's proposed
new airports. No vil age is exempt. No dale is
deemed too beautiful. No town is too smal or
inconsequential. Even Rugby, apparently, needs
four runways, six terminals and 5,000 miles of
chain-link fencing. Nottingham, too, and Exeter –
everywhere does.
The thinking behind this is worryingly simple. The
government, fresh from its success with the
Mil ennium Dome and the River of Fire, has
worked out that no people in Britain flew on
commercial airlines in 1901 ind 180 mil ion did in
2001. So, using the same sort of maths that
brought us Gordon Brown's shiny new overdraft, it
reckons 500 mil ion people wil be landing and
taking off from British airports in 2030.
That's half the population of China. It's twice the
population of America. It's everyone in Britain
using i plane ten times a year. And that seems
unlikely somehow.
Stil , if you reckon half a bil ion people wil be
needing
a runway within 28 years, it's easy to understand
why every field in the land is currently earmarked
as a potential airport.
This has led to a biblical outbreak of Nimbyism.
Councils affected by the proposal to build a
massive new airport on the Kent marshes took
the government to court last week, saying the
extra noise should go to Gatwick. So now, we can
be sure, the people of Sussex wil be fighting
back.
This wil turn Tunbridge Wel s into the West Bank.
It'l be father versus son, mother versus daughter,
neighbour versus neighbour. And it wil al be
completely pointless because, let me explain right
now, there is no way in hel that an airport wil ever
be built on the Medway marshes.
First of al , since London swel ed up to the size of
Belgium, Kent is as inaccessible as the South
Pole or Mars. Given the choice of going on
holiday via an airport in the middle of the Thames
estuary or staying at home and beating myself
over the head with a brick, I'd stay at home.
Of course, they could get round this by building
better road and rail links but what they could
never get round is the most fearsome
organisation in the entire world. In a straight battle
between this lot and Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden
would end up kil ing himself to escape from the
hounding. It can nit-pick a man to death from 400
paces. It never gives up. Its members are
terminators. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you . . .
the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
The twitchers have pointed out that the Medway
marshes are home to the country's largest
heronry and that is pretty much that. A simple
avocet would have done the trick but they've
come up with a whole herd of herons so one
thing's for sure; there wil be no Kent airport.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about some
environmental protesters in China who had
wheeled out a dolphin to try to stop the massive
Yangtze dam. And Chinese officials had got
round the problem by shooting it.
But that wil never happen here. The mere fact
that we have this consultation shows how
democratic we've become. Now everyone has
the chance to object. As a result, nothing wil
happen until the end of time. No matter where the
government selects, there wil always be a slug or
a beetle or a butterfly.
What we need at a time like this is someone who
can machete their way through the eco-twaddle.
We need someone who can shove the
government's projections back up Alistair
Darling's new hole czar. We need a realist at the
helm. And I can think of nobody better qualified
than me.
Video conferencing and emails take up less time
and involve less risk for businessmen than being
chased across the Atlantic by heat-seeking
missiles. So I can see, in the ful ness of time, a
dramatic fal in the demand for business travel.
However, there wil be a significant increase in
the number of people travel ing for fun. And, as I
said earlier,
it won't be fun if they have to set off from a mudflat
on the Medway or a business park in Rugby.
You have to leave via London and — contrary to
the claims made by Stansted, which is in
Bishop's Stortford, or Gatwick, which is in
Brighton — the capital has only one airport:
Heathrow.
The government's proposals seem to cal for one
new short runway but what good is that? Build six
new long ones and be done with it. They wil be
able to handle the bigger planes that are coming.
Heathrow is more accessible than any other
airport in Britain and nobody living nearby can
complain because it was there before they were.
They're al deaf anyway but six planes landing at
once are not six times louder than six planes
landing one at a time.
However, best of al , the RSPB can't object
because any birds native to the reservoirs of
Staines were long since sucked into the Trent
engine of a passing 777 and shredded.
Sunday I December 2002
Cricket's the National Sport of Time Wasters
I understand that England recently lost a game of
cricket. Good. The more we lose, the more our
interest in the game wanes and the less it wil
dominate our newspapers and television
screens.
Cricket – and I wil not take any argument — is
boring. Any sport which goes on for so long that
you might need a 'comfort break' is not a sport at
al . It is merely a means of passing the time. Like
reading.
Of course, we used to have televised reading. It
was cal ed Jackanory. Now we have Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, which is much better. Things
have moved on, but cricket has not.
I'm not sure that it can. Even if Nasser Hussain,
who is the captain of England, were to invest in
some new hair and marry Council House Spice
(aka Claire Sweeney, the ex-Brookside actress
turned Big Brother contestant), it wouldn't make
any difference.
Nobody is quite sure how cricket began, though
many people believe it was invented by
shepherds who used their crooks to defend the
wicket gate to the sheep fold. This would certainly
figure because shepherds had many long hours
to while away, with nothing much to do.
The first written reference to cricket was in 1300,
when Prince Edward played it with his friend
Piers
Gaveston. And again, this would figure. Princes,
in those days, were not exactly rushed off their
feet.
Cricket was spread around the world by British
soldiers who found themselves marooned in
godforsaken flea-bitten parts of the world and
needed something to keep them amused, not just
for an hour but for week after interminable week.
Today Australia dominates the game – which
furthers my theory. Of course they're good at it.
They have no distractions. And the only way we
can ever beat them is to round up the
unemployed and the wastrels and give them al
bats. Certainly, they'd feel at home in the pavilion.
It's exactly the same as sitting in a bus shelter al
day.
Let me put it this way – is there a sound more
terrifying on a Sunday afternoon than a child
saying: 'Daddy. Can we play Monopoly?'
Like cricket, Monopoly has no end. The rules
explain how you can unmortgage a property and
when you should build hotels on Bond Street but
they don't say, and they should, that the winner is
the last player left alive. And what about Risk?
You make a calculation, based on the law of
averages, that you can take the world but you're
always stymied by the law of probability and end
up out of steam, throwing an endless succession
of twos and ones in Kamchatka. Stil , this is
preferable to the modern version in which George
W. Bush invades Iraq and we al die of smal pox.
Happily, my children are now eight, six and four
so they're way past the age when board games
hold any
appeal. Given the choice of mortgaging Old Kent
Road or shooting James Bond on a PlayStation,
they'l take the electronic option every time.
Then there are jigsaws, which I once had to
explain to a Greek. 'Yes, you spend a couple of
weeks putting al the pieces together so you end
up with a picture.'
'Then what happens?' he asked.
'Wel , you break it up again and put it back in the
box.'
It's not often I've felt empathy with a Greek, but I
did then. And it's much the same story with
crosswords. It scientists could harness the
brainpower spent every day on trying to find the
answer to 'Russian banana goes backwards in
France we hear perhaps', then maybe mankind
might have cured cancer by now.
Crosswords, like jigsaws and cricket, are not
real y games in themselves. They are simply tools
for wasting nme. And that's not something that
sits wel in the modern world.
We may dream of living the slow life, taking a
couple of hours over lunch and eating cheese until
dawn, but the reality is that we have a heart attack
if the traffic lights stay red for too long or the lift
doors fail to close the instant we're ready to go.
Answering-machine messages are my particular
bugbear. I want a name and a number, and that's
it. I don't havetime to sit and listen to where you'l
be at three andwho you'l be seeing and why you
need to talk betore then. And even if I do pick up
the phone personal y, I don't want a chat. I'm a
man. I don't do chatting. Say whatyou have to
say and go away.
British film-makers stil haven't got this. They
spend hours with their sepia lighting and their
long character-developing speeches and it's al
pointless because we'd
much rather watch a muscly American saying:
'Die, m **********r '
Slow-cooked lamb shanks for supper? Oh for
God's sake, I'l get a takeaway.
Cricket, then, is from a bygone age when people
invested their money in time rather than in things.
And now we have so many things to play with and
do, it seems odd to waste it watching somebody
else playing what's basical y an elaborate game
of catch.
Please stop watching — then it wil go away.
Sunday 8 December 2002
Have I Got News… I'm Another Failed
Deayton
Over the years I've always said no to appearing
on Have I Got News For You. Actual y, that's not
true. I haven't always said no, because they only
asked once. However, had they asked again, I
would have said no again.
There didn't seem to be any upside. I would sit
there, dripping like cheese in an old sock, while
Ian Hislop, Paul Merton and Angus Deayton
skated
elegantly
around
their
careful y
choreographed and heavily scripted routine.
Like pretty wel everyone, I knew how the show
was put together. Throughout the week, a room
ful of the brightest writers in the land would crank
out jokes and then on studio day the presenters
would hone and perm them to perfection.
The guests? Wel they'd be like snotty kids,
strapping themselves into a Spitfire and going up
there, alone, against an entire battle-hardened
German squadron. Yes, they might fire off a few
bul ets but they'd end up ful of holes.
However, when the cal came through a couple of
weeks ago to sit in the main chair, I needed
smel ing salts.'what, be the quizmaster? Me – the
car bloke?'
This was like being asked to run the state
opening of
parliament. I'd have the team on my side, making
sure the throne was gold enough and that my
crown wouldn't fal off. 'Yes. Just yes.'
It was a bit disappointing that the evening before I
was due to record I had been invited to go out
with four jol y attractive women who'd spent the
previous few weeks learning how to be strippers
and who needed a man to accompany them on a
tour of London's lap-dancing venues.
Normal y, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
couldn't have dragged me from that opportunity.
But attempting to fly on HIGNFY with a hangover
and no sleep was not sensible, so I was in bed at
11 o'clock in my smart pyjamas with the bunny
rabbit ears.
In the morning a motorcyclist brought round the
finished script on a purple cushion. It was very,
very funny. And apparently quite simple, too. I just
had to sit there, waiting for Paul and Ian to finish
their prepared verbal tennis, then I would read my
gags from the autocue, pick up the cheque (with a
forklift truck) and go home.
Er, wel , it's not quite like that.
I arrived at the studios at 9.30 in the morning to
find that Geoffrey Robinson, the former
paymaster-general, had been charged with a
selection of motoring offences. Plainly, this was
good material. So half the script was thrown away
to make room, and then the trouble started.
Obviously the three scriptwriters, headed by
snake-hipped Jed, wanted to dwel on the white
powder that
had al egedly been found in Robinson's car,* but
the lawyers said it would be better to cal it a
substance. A substance? That was no good. A
substance could be something on the bottom of
his shoe. So after an hour or so everyone agreed
that it could be cal ed a 'mystery powder'.
So where were Paul and Ian while this was going
on? Wel , to be blunt, they were at home, in loose
robes. They didn't breeze in til six. And do you
know something? They had not seen a script;
they didn't even know who the guests were.
Al they see before the show, and I mean half an
hour before the tape-players start to turn, are the
photographs to which they are asked to come up
with captions and the four people in the odd-one-
out round. They had the same amount of
preparation as the guests.
Let me tel you something else, too. I had always
imagined that after twelve years of being
professional y cynical they would be cruel and
bitter and combative.
But they were like parents before a school sports
day. 'Don't worry,' they kept saying, 'do your best.
It's notthe winning.' They were so kind that they
nearly managed to shut down the hydrants in my
armpits.
And God they're quick. I would ask a question that
I know they had never seen or heard before and
they'd be off, with a top-of-the-head banter that
left me breathless. I wish you could have seen the
ful hour and
* These al egations later proved to be completely
unfounded, and no charges were ever brought.
40 minutes that they recorded rather than just the
29 minutes that was transmitted.
I'm sorry to sound so gushing but Paul is properly
funny. And crammed into that tiny head, Ian has
an encyclopaedia.
I should explain that they real y do care about win
ning. Which is odd because, from where I was
sitting, the scores seemed to mount up in an
entirely arbitrary fashion. I have no idea why Paul
ended up with sixteen and Ian with eleven. So far
as I could work out, they both got nought.
And me? Wel , I spent most of the evening
reading from the autocue when I should have
been looking at the notes on my desk. I forgot to
ask two questions completely, I lost my earpiece
so I couldn't hear the instructions from the gal ery
and at no point did I ever know who was
supposed to be answering what.
Doubtless it wil al have looked seamless on
television – they even managed to make sense of
Boris Johnson. But the simple fact of the matter is
that 7 mil ion people wil have watched my
performance and thought: 'Nope. He wasn't as
good as Angus Deayton either.'
I agree. And nobody ever wil be.
Sunday 22 December 2002
Home Alone Can be the Perfect State for a
Child
Just last week I left my children, aged eight, six
and four, at home alone. I only needed to buy the
papers and it was just too much of a faff to find al
their shoes and get them in the car when I'd only
be gone, at most, for five minutes.
Of course I was in a total panic about it. Sure, I'd
asked the neighbour to keep an ear out, I'd
written down my mobile phone number and I'd
explained where the gun was, and how it could be
speed-loaded should someone unsavoury come
to the door.
But despite these extensive precautions I stil
came back expecting to find them either in the
fire or in white slavery in Turkmenistan.
So, like everyone else, I was horrified to learn this
week that two mothers had left their kids at home
while they went off, not for the papers, but for a
holiday.
One woman had arrived at Manchester airport
where she found her son needed a passport
(yeah, right), so she'd put him in a taxi and sent
him home. The other hadgone skiing. dreadful.
what's the world coming to? Something must be
done.
However, let's stop and think for a moment. The
children left behind were eleven and twelve and,
while thismay seem young to those of us of a
forty-ish
disposition, we have to face the fact that today
eleven is the new seventeen.
If I'd been left at home alone when I was eleven,
I'd have been dead of hunger or electrocution
within the hour. Come to think of it, if I were left at
home aged 42 there'd be the same result in the
same sort of time frame.
We might like to think of an eleven-year-old as
some newborn foal, al slimy and incapable with
wobbly legs, but it's not that long ago that eleven-
year-olds were skil ed in the arts of mining and
pickpocketry. And nothing's changed.
Today, most eleven-year-olds can make a roach,
hotwire a car, outrun the police, fight an entire
army of aliens, drink a bottle of vodka without
being sick and operate a digital satel ite
transceiver. So they should have no trouble at al
with a microwave and a tin opener.
Certainly, most eleven-year-olds are far better
able to fend for themselves than most eighty-year-
olds. And the state has no qualms about leaving
them al by themselves for week after
interminable week with no pension and no
reliable means of reaching the lavatory on time.
Can an eighty-year-old program a television or
understand packet food? Can an eighty-year-old
afford the heating bil s? Not usual y.
Of course an eleven-year-old cannot afford
heating bil s either but at least he can hack into
the power company's accounts and adjust his bil
to nought.
Furthermore, you should put yourself in the shoes
of the eleven-year-old. At home. Alone. Over
Christmas.
For an eighty-year-old this is hel on earth, but for
an eleven-year-old it's about as close to heaven
as you can get while your heart is stil beating.
No hirsute old ladies queuing up to kiss you on
the mouth. No Queen's broadcast to the nation.
No sprouts. No Boxing Day parties with people
'from the vil age', no need to wait until Christmas
morning to play with your new Xbox game, and no
need to worry that someone might want to watch
television instead.
No need to open presents which you know are
jumpers. No being dragged off to church on
Christmas Eve. Put your feet on the furniture, dig
out Mum's X-rated videos, wonder who Joe
Strummer was and set the garage to loud.
And because you can eat what you want, where
you want, with your fingers, while slouching, and
with your elbows on the table, there wil be no
family rows and no volcanic explosions as, for the
only time in a whole year, a family is forced to
coexist in a smal space for a long time.
I don't want to be bah-humbug about this. I love
the idea of a Christmas around the tree, watching
my children unwrap their presents and settling
down after lunch to watch Steve McQueen on his
motorcycle. But those days are gone and they
won't be back.
Let's not forget that today is the past that people
in the future wil dream about.
The fact is that I'm with my children for a
maximum of fifteen minutes a day, and this is no
match for the constant bombardment they get on
Radio i from Sara
Cox and the Cheeky Girls. I want my eight-year-
old to be a good girl. But over Christmas I learn
she wants to be a 'teenage dirtbag baby'.
So, I suspect the mother who goes to Spain over
Christmas without her bolshie, prepubescent,
monosyl abic, baggy-trousered son wil have a
better time as a result. But maybe the boy would,
too.
Of course, giving independence to the pre-teens
may sound sad, horrific even, like a return to
Dickensian times. But if we accept they're
capable and social y active at ten or eleven, it
might also get the government out of a hole.
Because while the state may be unable to afford
to pay pensions, parents could get support from
their children by sending the ungrateful,
mol ycoddled spoilt little brats up some chimneys.
Sunday 29 December 2002
Ivan the Terrible is One Hell of a
Holidaymaker
A recent survey found that the British are the most
hated of al the world's holidaymakers, but to be
honest it's hard to see why.
For sure, a group of electricians from Rochdale
on holiday in Ibiza might be a bit noisy, and they
may be sick on the municipal flowerbeds from
time to time, but us — you and me — in our
rented farmhouses in Provence, we're no bother
at al . We eat the local cheese. We drink the local
wine. We say 'bonsou to the postman every
morning. We're as good as gold.
The Germans, on the other hand, make terrible
bedfel ows. Mainly because when they're around
there are no beds left. Ever since we were
introduced, social y, by package holidays in the
1960s, we've known that when it comes to
antisocial buffet-hogging pigheadedness on
holiday, the Germans are in a class of their own.
But not any more. I've just come back from Dubai,
where I spent some time at Wild Wad, an
enormous water park where you sit on the inner
tube from a tractor andthen get knocked off it in
101 new and exciting ways you'd never thought
of.
There were, as you can imagine, fairly long
queues for the better rides, but hey, that's okay.
We could
handle the wait. We're patient. We're British. And
that means we're the best queuers in the whole
world.
Oh no, we're not. We spend ten minutes queueing
for a No. 27 bus and we think we know it al . But
believe me, compared with the Russians, we
know nothing. They spent 70 years queueing for a
loaf of bread and they know every trick in the
book. Time and time again I'd blink, or bend
down to talk to a child, and that would be it. A
man-mountain would nip in front.
And I was loath to cough discreetly and tap him
on the shoulder, since the shoulder in question
was invariably enlivened with some sort of
special forces tattoo. A baby being torn in half by
two bul dozers. A dagger in a kneecap. That sort
of thing.
Let's be honest, shal we. These guys were in
Dubai. They were spending probably Ј1,000 a
day on their hotel rooms. They had digital
cameras that made the Japanese look backward
and satphones that could steer the space station.
And you don't get that sort of hardware, or
holiday, by writing poetry. They were mafia, and
that meant they were ex-KGB or Spetsnaz.
Only last year I heard of a Russian holidaymaker
in the south of France. Like so many visitors to
the Cote d'Azur, he was drawn to a vil a on the
coast and went to see an estate agent about it.
'Pardon, monsieur,' said the estate agent. 'Mais
il n'est pas possible de visiter cette
maisonparcequ'elle n'est pas a vendre.'
This obviously displeased the Russian because
the fol owing morning the estate agent was found
buried head down on the beach, with just his feet
sticking
out of the sand. And that's the thing about
Russians. We wear a No Fear T-shirt. They wear
the look in their eyes.
And that's why I chose not to laugh at their
swimming trunks. However, I'm home now so I
don't mind tel ing you they were hilarious. Like
Speedos but without the style, and a bit tighter.
Stil , they were better dressed than their wives.
Elsewhere in the world the thong bathing suit is
the preserve of Peter Stringfel ow or size-eight
girls. In Russia it is also worn by people who are
eight tons or 80 years old.
Now I'm told that there are some extremely
beautiful Russian girls. But obviously they're al on
the internet, because the ones in Dubai were like
turnips.
Except one, who was like nothing on earth. Let's
start with her breasts, which were not vast. Vast is
too smal a word to convey the scale. When her
boyfriend, who had a tattoo of two hammerhead
sharks eating a man's eyes on his forearm, chose
them from the catalogue, he'd probably been
tempted by the ones marked 'massive'. But in the
end he'd gone for the top of the range. The ones
known in medical circles as: 'Oh, my God. They're
moving towards us.'
The area underneath them had its own micro-
climate. And yet they were not the first thing I
noticed about the girl to whom they were
attached.
The first thing I noticed were her lips, which were
so ful of col agen she looked like an orang-utan.
An orang-utan with a pigtail.
And two ful -scale models of the R101 in her
bikini
top. I spent such a long time looking at her that
when I looked back again, half of Ukraine had
slipped in front of me in the queue.
Eventual y I did get a ride, though, in a sort of big
canal where giant waves came along every so
often and made you go upside down. It was fun
until I crashed into a woman who had obviously
eaten so much pizza she'd begun to look like one.
Either that or she'd been to Chernobyl for her holi
days. Each wave removed not so much a layer of
skin as a lump of it.
There's something else about the Russkies, too.
They made no effort to smile or chat. At least the
Germans are happy to come over and apologise
for their country's conduct in the war. The
Russians stil look like they're fighting it.
Sunday 12 January 2003
In Terror Terms, Rambo Has a Lot to Answer
For
Do you remember the television show Dallas? If
you do, you might recal a character cal ed Cliff
Barnes who was a bit of a loser, a bit of a joke.
He was in the oil business, like his father. He was
born and raised in Texas. He became known on
the international stage . . . Remind you of
anyone?
Just a thought. Anyway, after the skyscraper
business in New York, Cliff talked at some length
about the long memory of the American warrior
and how no stone would be left unturned in the
search for the men responsible and in particular,
Osama bin Laden.
Finding the men responsible was never going to
be easy, since they were buried under a couple of
mil ion tons of rubble.
But it turns out that finding bin Laden was even
harder.
They had a good look round Afghanistan and a
cursory sweep of Pakistan but now, obviously,
someone's lost the big atlas because they seem
to have given up and decided to have a war with
Iraq instead.
So does this mean that Ozzie is off the hook? No,
not a bit of it, because he is now to be hunted
down by the world's most fearless and
monosyl abic soldier.
Yes, the CIA with its sophisticated spies in the
sky
failed to find him. And even though they blew up
every cave from Iran to Turkmenistan, the
American air force failed to kil him. So now it's
time to wheel out the human nuke.
Enter, with a firebal in the background and his
locks flowing in the wind, Sylvester Stal one, who
announced last week that Rambo, the 1980s
superhero, is set to return.
And guess what? He's off to Afghanistan to stab
some Taliban and mastermind a plot which
brings bin Laden to justice.
This is likely to be tricky since the last time we
saw Rambo, back in 1988, he was fighting with
the mujahi-din against the Russians in a film that
was dedicated, and I quote, 'to the gal ant people
of Afghanistan'.
I actual y took the trouble of watching Rambo
///last week and, with the benefit of hindsight, it
was hysterical y prophetic. There's this marvel ous
scene when an American colonel is berating his
Russian captors with these fine words: 'Every day
your war machine loses ground to a bunch of
poorly armed and poorly equipped freedom
fighters.
'The fact is you underestimated your enemy. If
you'd checked your history, you'd know that these
people here have never given up to anyone.
They'd rather die.'
Now we know that Hol ywood is capable of some
howlers. Who can forget U571, in which a brave
American submarine crew captured an Enigma
decoding device from the Nazis and won the
war?
Then there was Pearl Harbor, in which a brave
Ameri-
can pilot, flying a superior American fighter plane,
won the battle of Britain and won the war again.
I know what you're going to say: that in films, dra
matic licence is more important than rigid
historical fact.
We leave the historical fact to our politicians, like
Tony Blair, who famously told Cliff how the
Americans had stood bravely at our side during
the Blitz.
However, most people do not read newspapers.
They change channels when the television news
comes on. And they do not snuggle up at night
with a nice Simon Schama. They get their history
and current affairs from the cinema, and that's
why the people who make films bear some
responsibility for the course of world events.
I wonder, for instance, how much money Noraid
might have raised if the IRA were not ceaselessly
portrayed in Hol ywood films as genial, whiskey-
swil ing freedom fighters with a real and noble
grudge against the wicked colonial British.
Time and again we saw Richard Harris in a smart
overcoat giving presents to children while
marauding gangs of British squaddies drove their
armoured Land Rovers over a selection of prams
and pushchairs.
So when the boys came round your bar with the
col ecting tins, wel , hey dude, have a dol ar.
They no doubt did much the same after they saw
Rambo III and now they probably feel like a
bunch of chumps.
Who knows? Perhaps the young men of Algeria
saw k, too, and thought: 'My, those Afghans look
brave
and fearless. We must join forces with them as
soon as possible.'
I learnt the other day that one of the ancient
enemies of the Afghans wrote a poem about
them: 'May God deliver us from the venom of the
cobra, the teeth of the tiger and the vengeance of
the Afghan.'
Stal one would be wel advised to remember that
as he puts Rambo IV into production. Because if
this film is as stupid and as irresponsible as its
predecessor, it might just provoke some 'freedom
fighter' to drive his 'holy war' into the side of the
Sears Tower.
America is not invincible — but unfortunately Cliff
probably doesn't understand this.
In the world he comes from, you die and then a
few years later you come back to life in the
shower.
Sunday 19 January 2003
House-Price Slump? It's the School Run,
Stupid
So the value of your six-bedroom country house
with its six-acre garden has fal en from Ј6 mil ion
to ^600,000 in the past six days. Country Life
magazine is chock-ful of advertisements for
properties that have been on the market for
months. Huge discounts are there for the taking.
Andhow do you double the value of a
gloucestershire house? Simple. Put in carpets
and curtains.
According to the experts, this meltdown in the
shires is because nobody's job is safe in ECi and
City bonuses aremuch smal er than usual. real y?
wel , first let's findoutwho these 'experts' are.
When a former public schoolboy moves to
London, hisoptions are limited. the bright ones
end up in banking, while those who are only one
plum short of a fruit saladdo stockbroking. those
who are mildly daft end up in insurance and those
who are borderline idiotic wind up behind the
counter in Hacketts.
That leaves Rupert. He needs a job where he can
weara suit or else he won't get invited to the right
drinks partiesin fulham. but rupert cannot add two
and two withoutfal ing over. rupert thinks tim
nice-but-dim b adocumentary. so rupert is an
estate agent. that makeshim an expert on house
prices.
Now Rupert reckons that it's al fal ing apart in the
countryside because he met some chap at a 'do'
last week who had just been fired from Goodyear,
Stickleback and Bunsen Burner. 'Poor chap. Was
going to buy a house in Hampshire. Now he can't
afford it.'
Oh dear, Rupert, you are wide of the mark. Sure,
City bonuses affect the market, but only slightly
and only in Surrey. How many City boys are there
in Alnwick or the Trough of Bowland? Scotland,
too, is far beyond the reach of a commuter train –
as is the West Country. How, pray, do City
bonuses affect the price of a recent barn
conversion in Milford Haven?
I live in what Taller magazine once cal ed the
country's 'G-spot'. I am less than an hour from
Notting Hil but by the same token I'm only five
miles
from
Jil y
Cooper
Central
in
Gloucestershire. This is the Cotswolds and
thanks to a local wildlife park there are more
white rhinos up here than there are City boys.
So if it's not people in stripy shirts tightening their
purse strings, what has brought the whole market
to its knees?
Wel , I know five families who live within three
miles of where I am sitting now. Each has a
substantial wisteria-softened eighteenth-century
house with a pool, views that would make Elgar
priapic and enough land to control their own sight
lines. And al of them are moving out.
This has nothing to do with hunting. Since none of
these people ride, none of them care. Nor does it
have anything to do with foot-and-mouth. They
may
own land, but only so as to stop anyone doing
anything with it.
Furthermore, it has nothing to do with the closure
of the local bank or post office. These people
have Range Rovers and staff to post their letters.
So why, then, are they leaving in such vast
numbers that suddenly the countryside has
become a forest of 'for sale' signs?
It is the school run. Their children go to school in
Oxford, which is eighteen miles away. During the
day it is a 25-minute drive, which is not ideal but
it's bearable.
However, in the morning it's an hour and a half
and that is simply too much. The children need to
be up at 6.30 a.m. and in the car by 7.15 a.m.
They have to eat their breakfast out of
Tupperware containers on the way. It's even
worse at night because they don't get home until
six. By the time they've done their prep, their
music practice, had supper and a bath, it's
bedtime. That is no life for a six-year-old.
So while the parents may be blissful y happy in
their Cotswold stone palaces, they are moving
into the centre of Oxford for the sake of their
children's sanity.
To cure this, the local council, which is borderline
insane when it comes to roads, wil undoubtedly
fol ow in the footsteps of London and impose a
congestion charge, which wil add Ј100 a month
to the already significant school fees.
It wil argue, of course, that the children should go
on the bus, but they are six years old, for crying
out loud – whatever Uncle Ken Livingstone says.
So then the local Nazis wil argue that they
shouldn't be going to school so far away. True,
probably, but that is a decision people can make
on their own. They don't need some woman with a
bicycle knitted out of bits of her husband's beard
to make the decision on their behalf.
What's to be done? The solution is simple. There
are five families, each with two children, each
doing the school run every morning. Why not club
together to buy a minibus? The cost is minimal, it
can go in the bus lane so the time saving is
immense, you are happy, the eco-beards are
happy and that just leaves Rupert.
Rupert is not happy because his friends in the
City are stil losing their jobs, but the country-
house market has repaired itself overnight: 'Gosh.
This analysis business is harder than I thought.'
Exactly. Stick to breathing. It's the only thing
you're any good at.
Sunday 26 January 2003
The Lottery will Subsidise Everything,
Except Fun
There's some doubt about whether the country
can afford to back a bid for the Olympics in 2012.
The money, we're told, would be better spent on
the bottomless pits of health and education.
Oh, for crying out loud. We are the fourth-richest
country in the world. If the Greeks can organise a
fortnight of running and jumping, then for God's
sake why can't we?
Sure, the ^5 bil ion it would cost to host this big
sports day would pay for an awful lot of baby
incubators withplenty left over to house the
refugees and fit new hips to every old lady in the
country. But that's like spending al your surplus
family income on insurance andpiggy banks. just
occasional y you've got to say 'what the heck' and
bugger off to Barbados for a fortnight.
What we need is some job demarcation here. We
let the government look after the dul , worthy stuff
and thenwe have a separate organisation solely
concerned with making us feel good about living
in this overcrowded, grey and chil y island. It won't
be al owed to buyhips so nobody can complain
when it doesn't.
The national lottery should have been that
organisat i o n , butsadly it's more dour and
Presbyterian than Gordon Brown's drinks cabinet.
It has a remit to provide funding in six areas. First,
there's 'the arts', which in principle is far too noble
and which in reality means pumping money into
smal black-and-white films about an Asian
woman who does nothing for a year.
Then there are charities, sports, projects to
celebrate the mil ennium (they mucked that one
up) and health, education and the environment.
Why? Why use our fun money to pay for more
bloody baby incubators – that's the government's
job.
My real betenoire, however, is the final category.
Nearly 5p in every lottery Јi (Ј300 mil ion a year)
goes on 'heritage'. If you don't know what that
means, here are some of the organisations
applying for grants.
The Royal Parks Agency wants Ј428,000 to
conserve and restore Bushy Park, by Hampton
Court. Nope, sorry, tel the Queen to pay for it.
Then we have the Museum of Advertising and
Packaging, which wants Ј948,000 to pay for
some new buildings. What? Al the richest people
in the country are in advertising and packaging.
You want Ј948,000? Go and see the Rausings.
Here's
a
good
one:
Age
Concern
Northumberland would like Ј38,900 for a project
cal ed Meals on Wheels for Garden Birds. No, no,
no, no, you can't have it –it's too dul .
The list of applicants runs into the thousands and
while there's no list of who gets what in the end,
you can use the search engine. I started by typing
in 'multi'
and 'cultural' and the poor computer nearly
exploded. "Church' had a similar effect.
Why is lottery money being used to restore
churches? The church is richer than royalty. It's
even richer, I'm told, than Jonathan Ross. If it
needs a few bob to replaster a nave or two, it
should think about bringing in bigger audiences.
And if it can't put enough bums on seats, it should
think about packing up. Or performing only in
Germany. That's what Barclay James Harvest
did.
But why is lottery money being used for 'heritage'
in the first place? Maintaining the fabric of the
country is surely the responsibility of the
government. Lottery money should be spent on
building new stuff designed only to make us feel
good.
The government buys the baby incubators, which
are "useful'. The lottery buys us statues, which are
'amazing'.
Take Parliament Square in London. It's an island
surrounded on al sides by three lanes of snarling
diesel engines. You can't get to it and there's no
point in going anyway unless you want to while
away an afternoon looking at the guano on
Winston Churchil 's hat.
It is therefore the perfect place for lottery money
to be spent on a huge new fountain.
In this country, most people's idea of a fountain is
some cherub having a wee.
Last year the Fountain Society gave its award for
best newwater feature to sheffield for its cascade
in the Peace Gardens. It's good, especial y at
night, but (comparatively peaking) it's a bit of a
Dimmock.
Think of Vienna where crystal ine water gushes
from every hole in every paving stone, or Paris
where giant cannons fire tril ions of gal ons into a
frenzy of rainbows under the Eiffel Tower.
In Dubai you have the seven-star Burj Al Arab. It's
the best hotel in the world, more flunkies than an
Edwardian tea party, rooms the size of Wales,
food to stump A. A. Gil and views from the top-
floor restaurant of F-15S lining up on their
Baghdad bomb runs. It has everything.
But al anyone who has been there talks about is
the fountain in the lobby.
Fountains can do that. Everyone loves a fountain
and Parliament Square is the perfect place to
build the mother of al water features.
The 'heritage' lottery fund could easily afford it —
although the Museum of Advertising and
Packaging might be disappointed – and there
would stil be enough left over for an observatory
in the Peak District, a latticework bridge of ice
and light over the Mi, an Angel of the South and,
with a bit of saving, a dirty great Olympic stadium
in 2012.
Sunday 2 February 2003
The Shuttle's Useless, But Book Me on
theNext Flight
Momentous news. George Bush has said
something sensible. At a memorial service for the
seven astronauts who died last Saturday he said:
'This cause of exploration and discovery is not an
option we choose; it is a desire written in the
human heart.'
Fine words. But this is America, a country where
nobody is al owed to die of anything except
extreme old age, and only then after a lengthy
public inquiry. So instead of ploughing on with
more journeys of'exploration and discovery', the
space shuttle has been grounded.
The message is clear. They're tel ing us that the
crew's safety is paramount, but if that's the case
why does the space shuttle have no ejection
hatch? That may sound ■By but back in i960 the
boffins didn't think so, because theysent a chap
cal ed Joe Kittinger to an altitude of 102,800 feet
in a helium bal oon. That's almost twenty miles up,
by the way, and to al intents and purposes is
space.
Once he reached the correct height he opened
the doorof his capsule . . . and jumped. moments
later he became the first man to break the sound
barrier, without a plane,as he tore past 714 mph.
The thickening air slowedhim gradual y until, at
17,000 feet, he opened his
main parachute, landed gently in the New Mexico
desert, had a cigarette and went home for tea.
A couple of years ago I met the guy — he now
flies an aerial-signwriting biplane in California –
and he was absolutely convinced that if the shuttle
had had an escape hatch the crew of Challenger
would be alive today.
But what of Columbia'? NASA officials say they
wil leave 'no stone unturned' in their quest to find
out what went wrong. It's hard to know precisely
what this means. Bush said he would leave 'no
stone unturned' in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
So on that basis NASA wil probably look under a
few rocks in eastern Texas and then declare war,
for no obvious reason, on France.
Piecing Columbia together again and trying to
figure out what went wrong is a PR stunt. Plainly,
in a 20-year-old craft that's been to space 28
times there is no design fault. Whatever went
wrong was an accident and even if they do work
out what it was, it won't stop accidents
happening. They could cure cancer but people
would stil die of heart attacks.
The law of averages now says that there wil be a
shuttle crash every ten years.
The law of probability says that if you launched
one tomorrow it would be fine. But there won't be
a launch tomorrow. And the way people are
talking there might never be a launch again.
Some say there's no need for manned space
flight any more. Others point at the space station
and say it's a scientific red herring. And inevitably
the Guardian asks
how many baby incubators could be bought with
the $15 bil ion {fy.i bil ion) that it costs to keep
NASA going every year.
This makes me so angry that my teeth itch.
Columbia was named after Columbus, for crying
out loud: what if he'd decided not to cross the
Atlantic because it was a bit scary?
Then you have Chuck Yeager. In 1963 he was
presented with a Starfighter NF 104. He knew
that when the nose was angled up by 30 degrees
then air no longer passed over the tail fin and that
it would spin. He knew that the ejector seat fired
downwards. He knew that it was cal ed the
Widowmaker by other pilots. But he stil tried to fly
one into space. That doesn't make him a hero. It
makes him a human.
Yes, I know the shuttle's only real role these days
is to service the space station and yes, I'm sure
that seeing whether geraniums can flower in zero
gravity wil only slightly increase our insight into
the workings of the universe. But we're missing
the point. What the space station does is not
important. What matters is the fact thatwe can
build such a thing.
It'sthe same story with the shuttle itself. i've been
to thefactory in louisiana where they refurbish the
giant fuel tanks that are fished from the ocean
after each mission. I've been to one of the rocket
tests up the road in Stennis and it's like listening
to the future.
I'veeven been al owed to sit in the cockpit of a
shuttle and press buttons. Yes, it's ugly and yes,
it's expensive. Butnever forget that this machine
generates 37 mil ion
horsepower and is doing 120 mph by the time its
tail clears the tower.
Remember, too, that the temperature on its nose
as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere is hotter
than the surface of the sun.
The shuttle – one of the most intriguing and
awesome technological marvels of the modern
age — is America's only worthwhile gift to the
world.
Would I put my money where my mouth is? Would
I climb aboard if they launched one tomorrow?
Absolutely, without a moment's hesitation.
And I would do so with some other unusual y wise
words from Bush ringing in my ears. 'Each of note
1 knew great endeavours are inseparable from
great risks and each of them accepted those
risks wil ingly, even joyful y, in the cause of
discovery.'
Sunday 9 February 2003
When the Chips are Down, I'm with the
Fatherland
Fol owing the rousing anti-war speech made by
Germany's foreign minister last week, I would like
to proclaim that from now on 'Ich bin ein Berliner'.
Yes, I know this actual y means 'I am a doughnut'
but it gets my point across perfectly wel . And my
point is this . . .
When was the last time you heard one of our poli
ticians talking so very obviously from the heart?
Fuel ed by passion rather than a need to keep on
the right side of his party's PR machine, Joschka
Fischer laid into Donald Rumsfeld, slicing through
the American nonsense with a very simple and
very effective 'I don't believe you'.
Over the years I have said some unkind things
about the Krauts, but from now on, and until I
change my mind, the teasing wil stop. So sit
back, slot a bit of Kraftwerk into your Grundig,
light up a West, take a sip of your Beck's and let's
have a canter through some of the Fatherland's
achievements over the years.
We think Trainspotting was clever but let's not
forget that back in 1981 two chaps from Stern
magazine wrote an immeasurably more powerful
drug movie cal ed ChristianeF. And while I'm at it,
Das Boot was a much better submarine film than
Morning Departure, in
which
Richard
Attenborough's
upper
lip
momentarily unstiffened for no discernible
reason. In fact, Das Boot is probably the best film
ever made.
What about comedy? It's often said that the
Germans don't have a sense of humour, but look
at it this way. They may laugh at desperately
unfunny stuff such as Benny Hill and Are You
being Served?, but who made it in the first
place?
Then we have music. Quite apart from Haydn,
Handel, Brahms, Beethoven and Bach, can you
think of a better pop tune than Nena's '99 Red
Bal oons'? Bubblegum with a political undertone,
and you never got that from Bucks Fizz.
Other things that the Germans gave the world
include contact lenses, the globe, the printing
press, X-rays, the telescope and Levi-Strauss;
and chemistry lessons would have been a lot less
fun were it not for the Bunsen burner.
What else? Wel , it was Frank Whittle who
invented the jet engine, there's no doubt about
that, but the Luftwaffe had jets in its planes long
before we did.
Similarly, the Americans and the Russians spent
most of the 1960s fighting to gain supremacy
over one another in space, but both were using
German scientists and German rockets.
Got a Range Rover? That's German these days
and so is the new Mini, the new Bentley, the new
Rol s-Royce,
the
new
Bugatti,
the
new
Lamborghini and al new Chryslers. The Rover 75
is German, the entire Spanish car industry is
German and by this time next
year I bet they'l have Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Lancia
and Fiat as wel .
Out in the Middle East, German soldiers may be
a bit thin on the ground but the planes we're flying
are largely German and let's not forget our SA80
rifles. They were designed and built in Britain but
they didn't work, and al of them have had to be
fixed by Heckler & Koch. Which is German.
I don't know very much about footbal but I do
know that the result in 1966 and the 5-1 drubbing
in Munich were freak occurrences. Normal y their
players make ours look disabled. And it's the
same story in tennis, motor racing, gliding,
invading Poland and skiing.
In fact, the only way we can beat the Germans at
sport is by inventing games which they're too
clever to play. Such as cricket, for instance, and
that ice thing where women do the vacuuming in
front of a kettle.
I should also like at this point to explain that I'd
walk over Kate Winslet's head to get to Nastassja
Kinski.
Of course, when it comes to food the Germans
are rubbish. We're much better thanks to our top
chefs like Marco Pierre White, Angus Steak
House and Raymond Blanc.
Eurosceptics are forever asking who we want
running the country: Tony Blair or a bunch of
unelected German bankers. Wel , since I'd rather
have a weevil than His Tonyness, I'd have to go
for the bankers.
Let's face it: if a German Tube train grazed a wal ,
lightly injuring a handful of people on board, they'd
tow it away, replace the damaged track and have
the network
up and running by morning. Also, when their
roads are coated with a thin veneer of snow, they
send out a fleet of snow ploughs. The notion that
you might be stuck on an autobahn for twenty
hours because of inclement weather is utterly
preposterous.
So what that they al like to belong to a club —
there's a society in Cologne 'for the appreciation
of the Irish postal service' — and so what if you
aren't al owed to mow your lawn on a Sunday.
Given the big choice of being ordered about by
Gerhard Schroder, or Rumsfeld, I wouldn't
hesitate for a moment.
America likes to talk about how it saved Europe
from tyranny twice in the past century. True, but
let's not forget that they were unbelievably late on
both occasions. Predictably, the Germans were
as punctual as ever. I like that in a man. I like it in
a nation, too. And that's why this week I am mostly
a doughnut.
Sunday 16 February 2003
Save the Turtles: Put Adverts on Their Shells
It's been a bad week for the world's wildlife with
the news that macaque monkeys have joined a
list of 300 species in which the females are
known to prefer girl on girl action to proper sex
with a male.
It was also revealed that the formidable
leatherback turtle has been put on the
endangered list. But because the turtle spends
most of its life half a mile below the surface of the
sea, scientists have been unable to say whether
the scarcity of numbers is due to rampant
lesbianism or ruthless Mexican tuna fishermen.
Either way it's a shame because the leatherback
has been around for 100 mil ion years.
Indeed, some of the more aristocratic examples,
such as the Leather Back Smythes for instance,
can trace their family trees back to a time when
the seas were patrol ed by plesiosauruses. And
that beats the hel out of the Fitzalan-Howards
who go back only to 1066.
So what's to be done? Wel , I've often argued that
the best way to kick-start a dying species is to
start eating it. No, real y. If someone could
convince the Observer housewives of Hoxton and
Hackney in east London that the best way to put a
sheen back in their hair was a daily bowl of giant
panda chunks, someone, somewhere,
would figure out a way to get the lazy sods
breeding again.
However, I'm not sure this would work with a
leatherback. I've eaten snakes, dogs, smal whole
birds in France and crocodiles, but Tommy Turtle
is my line in the sand. I don't care if turtles turn out
to be the antidote for cancer, I'm not eating even
a smal part of one and that's that.
Don't worry, though. I do have a suggestion which
should help in these troubled times. I suggest that
we use their shel s as advertising hoardings.
Why not? In the olden days, advertisements were
limited to books, television and town-centre
hoardings, but now you find them everywhere.
Every time I log on to the internet, I'm asked if I
would like a bigger penis (yes, but not if it comes
with a virus), so why not advertise on the back of
a turtle? It moves slowly up the beach and is
watched intensely by lots of people who may wel
be interested in buying, say, a new pair of
binoculars.
Think. The nozzle of the petrol pump urges you to
buy a Snickers bar when you are in the Shel shop
and, as you queue to board a plane, the airport
tunnel is festooned with reasons for switching to
HSBC. It seems that the decision on where to put
your money has now come down to finding out
which bank manager can make hand signals in
Greece without causing offence.
Then, when you get off the plane, the luggage
trol ey advertises al the new and exciting ways of
getting to the
city centre. Even the back of a parking ticket is
now a mini-hoarding.
In the days of George Dixon, phone boxes were
boxes m which you found a phone.
But not any more. Now they are ful of
advertisements for young asylum ladies from
Albania as wel , curiously, as posters which talk
about the advantages of having a mobile phone.
Have you been in a London taxi lately? The
undersides of the foldaway seats carry
advertisements
tel ing
you
to
put
an
advertisement there. I got a mailshot last week
asking me to sponsor a child. Does that mean
some poor African orphan has to walk around
with 'Watch Jeremy Clarkson' on his forehead?
Advertisers have bought up every square inch of
everywhere where people stand stil . I went to a
pub the other day which had adverts in front of the
urinals and it's the same story in lifts, cinemas,
Tube trains and, I presume, buses.
Fancy chil ing out in some remote beauty spot
where you can get away from the hurly-burly of
consumerism? Forget it. Chances are you'l find a
bench complete with a plaque advertising some
dead person who also liked to
there.
In town centres, every hanging basket and
roundabout is sponsored, although on the open
road things are better. Advertisers are banned
from putting hoardings within sight of a motorway,
but don't think you are safe. If Melvyn Bragg's arts
programme on Radio 4 becomes
too incomprehensible and you flick over to
Classic FM, pretty soon you'l be brought down to
earth and invited to buy your very own garden
furniture.
The only problem is that the sheer number of
people needed to find places for these adverts,
and the even bigger number needed to sel the
space, means that in the end there'l be nobody
left to make anything worth advertising.
I went to Sheffield last week and was horrified to
note that the vast steelworks have been pul ed
down to make way for an equal y vast shopping
centre which, presumably, can exist only because
al the people who used to make knives and forks
are now employed advertising the shopping
centre.
Soon advertising agencies wil be the only
businesses left. That's bad for the economy but
irrelevant as far as the turtle is concerned. He
doesn't care whether it says Corus on his shel or
Saatchi Cohen and Oven Glove. Just so long as it
says something.
Sunday 23 February 2003
Give Me a Moment to Sell You Staffordshire
Boo. Hiss. Ref-er-ee. In last week's controversial
Country Life pol to find Britain's nicest and
nastiest counties, Staffordshire was named the
worst place in al England.
At first I assumed that being a Country Life
survey it would have nothing to do with the real
world. I thought they would have counted the
number of monogrammed swimming pools in
each county, divided that by the availability of
arugula and added the number of hunts to come
up with Devon as a winner.
But no. They've been quite thorough, looking at
house prices, the weather, the efficiency of the
local council, the quality of the pubs, tranquil ity,
the arts, the lot. And they ended up with a list that
had Devon, Gloucestershire and Cornwal at the
top (Cornwal ? Have they never seen Straw
Dogs'?) and Staffordshire at the bottom.
Now I admit that Staffordshire is a bit like one of
those lost cities in Egypt. We know it to be there.
We can seeit on maps. And it's written about in
books. But nobody knows where it is exactly.
Plus, it's ringed by places of such horror that even
Indianajones would think twice about trying to go
there.he may have faced runaway bal s and
poisoned
darts in his quest for the lost ark but should he,
one day, mount an expedition to locate the
ancient city of Stafford, he wil have to go through
either Wales, Birmingham or Cheshire. Grisly.
I know where Staffordshire is because I spent
most of my most interesting years there. I went to
school about half a mile from it, my virginity went
west in Yoxal , I got my first speeding ticket on the
A3 8 outside Barton-under-Needwood, and it was
in Abbots Bromley that I learnt how to be
chemical y inconvenienced, how to be thrown out
of a pub, how to be chucked by a girlfriend
without blubbing, how to drive fast, how to do
everything that matters, real y.
No, honestly. In the Coach and Horses I learnt that
it was possible to snog a girl and play pool at the
same time. You don't pick up a trick like this in
Tiverton, that's for sure.
I remember, too, going home from parties in
those misty dawn mornings that were a hal mark
of that baking summer of 1976. Across the
Blithfield Reservoir on the boot of some girl's
mother's Triumph Stag, Bob Seger's Night
Moves on the eight-track. That was Staffordshire
and God it was good.
So when I saw the result of the Country Life
survey I was horrified.
Staffordshire worse than Hertfordshire? Worse
than Essex? Worse than East Sussex and even
Surrey? Rubbish. If Kent is the garden of
England, then Surrey is its patio.
Staffordshire, however, is one of its lungs. The
rol ing
farmland near Uttoxeter, replete with wisteria
vil ages, is as delightful y English as anywhere in
the country and the Cannock Chase on a damp
autumn morning, with the dew in the ferns, is like
Yosemite, without the cliffs to fal off or the bears
to eat you.
Actual y, to be honest, it's not like Yosemite at al ,
but there is a lot of wildlife. Deer. Deer. More
deer. If you're real y lucky, you might catch a
glimpse of a great crested Lord Lichfield
stomping about the woods. And where does the
Duke of Devonshire live? Derbyshire, that's
where.
Mind you, he's about the only thing that has come
out of Devon. I'm struggling now to think of
anything in my house that was made there. And
you could spray the county with machine-gun fire
without hitting a single musician, artist or rock
band. You wouldn't hit a pheasant either. The
bloody things are al far too high.
Whereas Staffordshire is the birthplace of your
lavatory bowl, the Climax Blues Band, Dr
Johnson, al your crockery and Robbie Wil iams.
It's also home to my oldest friend, who has the
best name in the history of speech: Dick Haszard.
And even better, his uncle's a major.
I was explaining al of this to the man who edits
my column. There was lots of puffed-up
indignation and rutting. So we agreed that I
wouldn't write, as planned, about that Swiss yacht
winning the America's Cup and chat I would write
in defence of Staffordshire.
Sadly, though, I can't. The problem is the towns.
Stafford. Lichfield. Stoke.
They're al ghastly. And it's al very wel having the
Cannock Chase, but it's named after Cannock,
which would be the worst town in the world were it
not for Burton upon Trent. Rugeley is a power
station. Tamworth is a pig, Newcastle under
Lyme is just confusing and Uttoxeter is hard to
spel . Al you can buy on the high street in any of
these places is a house or a hamburger, and at
night al any of them offer is a polyurethane tray of
monosodium glutamate and the promise of
coming home with a beer bottle sticking out of
your left eye.
I stil maintain that it's not the worst county. I'd far
rather live in Staffordshire than Surrey but, and
this is a serious point, trying to argue that you'd
have a good time there because I did 25 years
ago is daft. Nearly as daft, in fact, as those
professional Scousers who from their piles on the
banks of the Thames stil maintain that Liverpool's
the greatest place on Earth. Wel , if that's the
case, Cilia, why don't you push off back to
Walton?
Sunday 9 March 2003
A Quick Snoop Behind the Queen's Net
Curtains
Last week the Queen of England very kindly
agreed to break off from her waving duties and
lend a hand with a television programme I'm
making about the Victoria Cross.
And so on Wednesday I slipped into a whistle
and went to Buckingham Palace to see some
prototype medals she'd found in a cupboard.
Sadly, I never met my new researcher but I did
have a snout around the state rooms, which
provided a rare insight into the life of the royals.
First of al , I've never real y understood why the
richest and most powerful of the world's royal
families has to live behind a Coronation Street,
working-class veil of net curtains. There are no
nets at Versail es, for instance. But it turns out
they are weighted at the bottom and designed to
catch flying glass should someone set off a
bomb.
That's something you and I don't have to worry
about, and nor do we have to share our house
with 500 staff, most of whom, it seems, wil one
day take the tabloid shil ing and spil the beans on
your toiletry habits.
Then there's the bothersome business of guests.
Last week the new president of Albania was
scheduled to
make a twenty-minute visit. Imagine what that
must be like.
Going to meet him off the Eurostar and trying not
to look surprised when he emerges, not from the
carriage, but from a hidey-hole underneath the
bogies.
Then she's got the weekly visits from His
Tonyness. They probably weren't so bad when he
was a new boy but now it must be awful y wearing
to have to cal him sir and kiss his shoes al the
time.
Mind you, he's nothing compared with the
ordinary people. Pretty wel every day a bunch of
hand-wringing do-gooders goes to the palace for
an official function of some kind, and every single
one of them, no matter how worthy they are, wil
feel an almost uncontrol able urge to nick
something.
I did. Over the years I have been to hundreds of
houses and have never once felt the need to
pocket a teaspoon or an inkwel . But over a cup
of tea in the palace's music room, I was
overcome with a Herculean bout of kleptomania. I
had my eye on the harpsichord but anything would
have done. A cup. A saucer. A milk jug, even.
Staff, I'm told, keep a watchful eye on visitors but
what do you say when you see a leading Rotarian
shove a royal teapot in his pocket? How on earth
do you ask for it back, diplomatical y? I mean,
he's going to know that you know that it didn't get
in his trousers by accident.
And what's more, when Denise Van Outen
boasted that she'd nicked an ashtray while on a
trip to the palace
Mrs Queen couldn't very wel prosecute. It would
seem mean, somehow. The same goes for the
old biddies who pick flowers while at the garden
parties. Even Prince Philip has never been heard
to yel : 'Oy, Ethel! Leave that orchid alone.'
Gravel, apparently, is what most people steal.
Handfuls of it. Although my biggest problem with
the loose shale that covers the courtyard was
resisting the urge to do a handbrake turn on it.
The worst thing, though, about living in the palace
is the decor. The Queen is the only person alive
who watched that Michael Jackson shopping trip
to Las Vegas and thought: 'I've got one of those
vases.'
The whole thing is a symphony of gloomy portraits
of unsmiling ancestors with splashes of pure
ostentation and gilt. In the main corridor pink and
gold Eltonesque sofas clash violently with the
bright red carpets.
It's a Neverland kind of Derry Irvine hel and,
unlike anyone else, the Queen can't watch an
episode of Homefront and think: 'Right. I'l knock
through here, fit a natural wood floor, some
Moroccan-style scatter cushions and top it al off
with a bit of rag-rol ing on the ceiling.' She's stuck
with it.
She's stuck with her job, too, endlessly waving
and asking people to hand over the teapot. Of
course, theoretical y, she stil has the power to
start a war, though His Tonyness is capable of
doing that on his own these days, and she can
stil dissolve Parliament.
This brings me on to my biggest point. Imagine
having the power to send that braying bunch of
ne'er-do-wel s
from the Palace of Westminster home, and not
doing it.
Not even for a bit of fun, during a party. Whatever
you may think of the Queen she has wil power,
that's for sure.
You may argue that the pain of being a queen is
eased by her vast fortune. This may be true. But
what can the poor dear spend it on? A
speedboat? A Lamborghini? She's not Victoria
Beckham, you know.
Some say she should be replaced with a
president. But who, at a cost to the nation of just
82p per person per year, is going to live in what
amounts to Liberace's wardrobe, and spend their
days making smal talk with stuttering and sweaty
two-bit Third World politicians whose entourage
is hel -bent on nicking the carpet?
You'd need to be mad to volunteer for al this. But
then presidents usual y are.
Sunday 16 March 2003
Who Needs Abroad When You Can Holiday
in Hythe?
What a week. With the blossom in the trees and
the sun on our backs, the nation kicked off its
shoes, sat back and split its sides at photographs
of those holidaymakers in Italy, al cold and
shivering under their umbrel as.
There was, however, a fly in the blueness of it al .
Normal y when the sun puts his hat on someone
on the weather forecast wil tel us precisely how
long we can spend outside without catching
cancer.
This week, however, the Ministry of Misery came
up with a new idea. On Wednesday it announced
that the warm weather may cause smog in the
south-east and that this may lead to breathing
difficulties.
Oh, for God's sake. What kind of sad, friendless
person peels back his curtains on the sort of days
we had last week and thinks: 'Oh no'? Wel matey,
whoever you are,just because you spend al
weekend in the darkest corner of your mother's
attic, downloading photographs of naked ladies,
doesn't mean we have to as wel . So get back to
your internet and leave us alone.
This kind of thing doesn't happen in Italy or
France. Andeven in the land of the healthy and
the home of the safeyou aren't warned on the
radio to stay indoors whenever it stops raining.
What you get there is: 'It's a
beautiful morning in the Bay Area. We're
expecting highs in the upper twennies. Here's the
J Geils Band.'
What we get is: 'It's a beautiful morning in the
southeast. We're expecting thousands of people
to choke to death. Stay indoors. Stay white.
Here's some Morrissey.'
However, despite the best endeavours of the
kil joys, the pleasant weather did set me thinking.
Was it right to laugh at the 1.8 mil ion people
who've gone away for Easter? Can you real y
have a good holiday here at home?
Those of you who spent Good Thursday in a jam
are probably thinking: 'No, you cannot.' But
actual y, spending two hours in traffic listening to
the radio is better than spending two hours
checking in at an airport. In a jam nobody wants
to look in your shoes, for instance.
There are some drawbacks, though. Wherever
you go in Britain some clown on a two-stroke
microlight wil spend the day 100 feet above your
head, battling pointlessly and noisily against a
four-knot headwind.
But let's not forget that the Lonely Planet guide
voted Britain the most beautiful island on earth.
There's variety, too. Readers of the Sun can go to
Blackpool or Scarborough. The reader of the
Independent can go to Wales, the readers of
Taxi magazine can go to Margate. Readers of
the Observer, al of them actual y, can take their
Saabs to one of those wooden fishing cottages
on Dungeness, where they can spend a week
pretending to be Derek Jarman and having angst
about the nuclear power station.
And readers of the Daily Mail? Wel , they can go
to their cel ars to avoid fal ing house prices,
murderers and
whatever plague it is that's going to kil them this
week.
So what about you, readers of the Sunday
Times'? Wel , obviously, you have Norfolk and
Rock to play with, butif you fancy something
different – very different — may I suggest the
Imperial Hotel in Hythe?
As is usual in British south-coast provincial
hotels, the heating was turned up far too high, the
carpets were far toopatterned and the chef had
ideas far above his station. the menu was ful of
things nestling on other things.
But don't be fooled. Don't think this was just
another British hotel that threw in the towel when
cheap package holidays started in the 1960s.
No, this place presented me with one of the most
bewitching nights of my entire travel ing life.
The dining room, for instance, featured an altar —
and, on the far wal , some curtains, behind which,
I can only presume, there was an oven. So when
the older guests, so prevalent here on the south
coast, drop dead in the soup, they can be
cremated on site. 'You check in. We check you
out.' Maybe that's the Imperial's motto.
I must also mention our waitress. She was a
pretty little thing who laughed, and I mean like a
drain, whenever anyone spoke to her.
After dinner she took me into a broom cupboard
— I felt a Boris Becker moment coming on but
sadly it was notto be. She needed to explain, she
said, that she was joyful because she has Jesus
Christ Our Saviour inside her. Lucky old Jesus.
The bar was ful of dead pensioners, a group who
said they were 'tri-service people' but were
actual y 00 agents,
and al the German baddies from Die Hard,
who'd arrived on the lawn in a helicopter.
I therefore went to the lounge and guess what I
found? If it had been a Roman orgy or a Ku Klux
Klan meeting, I wouldn't have been surprised, but
in fact there were 50 soldiers from the Chinese
army in there. You don't find that sort of thing in
Siena.
So wil I be taking my summer holiday at the
Imperial? No, not real y. The Lonely Planet is right
to say Britain is the most beautiful island on earth.
But only as a place to live.
The most beautiful island to take a holiday on is
Corsica.
Sunday 20 April 2003
We Have the Galleries, But Where's the Art?
The opening of Charles Saatchi's new gal ery in
London seems to have highlighted a problem.
There are now so many gal eries dotted around
Britain that there simply isn't enough art to go
round.
We saw this first with Bilbao's Guggenheim
Museum, which sits like a big golden hat on the
unkempt head of this otherwise unremarkable
industrial city in northern Spain. It's an astonishing
building, which is a good thing because the
exhibits inside aren't astonishing at al .
When I went a couple of years ago there was a
triangle, a very smal maze and a frock. Further
research has revealed that the most popular
exhibition ever staged there was for customised
motorcycles.
Now the disease has spread. Al over Britain the
dark satanic mil s, which fel into disrepair when
the empire crumbled, are being turned into art
gal eries. That may sound like a good idea at a
meeting. But exactly how much art is there in
Gateshead? Or Walsal ?
Oh sure, rural pubs often encourage us to
patronise 'local artists'. So we pat them on the
head, cal their work 'amazing', ask where they
got the idea to paint with their eyes closed and
then run for our lives.
The fact is that most of Britain's art is hung in the
vaults of Japanese banks.
The rest is at the Tate or the National. So while
it's jol y noble to turn a former duster factory in
Glossop into a gleaming blend of low-voltage
lighting and hol y flooring, there is going to be a
problem finding stuff to put on the wal s.
The curators could turn to New York artist
Maurizio Cattelan, whose recent works include a
life-size sculpture of the Pope flattened by a
meteorite that has supposedly crashed through
the roof of the gal ery. Then there's his replica of
the Vietnam war memorial in Washington, DC,
inscribed not with the names of dead soldiers but
with every defeat suffered by the England footbal
team.
There is, however, a problem with Cattelan's
work. Next month, someone is expected to pay
more than Ј200,000 for his 8-foot rabbit
suspended by its ears. Were the buyer to be
Walsal Borough Council, it's fair to expect some
kind of voter backlash.
As I keep saying, everything these days is
measured in terms of how many baby incubators
or teachers it could have bought. As a result, if a
council spends Ј200,000 on a dangling bunny it's
going to find itself in the newspapers, that's for
sure.
Even Saatchi struggles. Obviously unable to
secure a nice painting of some bluebel s by a
local artist, he has fil ed his new gal ery with al
sorts of stuff" that to the untrained eye is food,
bedding, waste and pornography.
At the opening party he got 200 people to lie
naked outside the doors and such was the
unusualness of it al that Helen Baxendale, the
actress, said she was nervous
about talking to Tracey Emin 'in case she wees
on me or something'.
Inside guests could feast their eyes on a pickled
shark, a room half-fil ed with sump oil and a
severed cow's head ful of maggots and flies.
The high-profile nature of al this provides some
hope for the owners of provincial gal eries – they
need only trawl their local butchers and
fishmongers to fil half the space — but it's not so
good for you and me.
The trouble is that thanks to Saatchi — and, to a
certain extent, Laurence Llewelyn-Bo wen —
there's a sense that you can put anything on your
wal s at home and it wil do. But it won't.
I, for instance, have a very nice little picture in my
sitting room. It's of some cows on a misty morning
by a river. I know this because it was painted by
someone whose deftness with a brush meant he
could represent cows and mist and a river.
Unfortunately, it gives off a sense that I'm not
moving with the times. So real y I should take it
down and nail one of my dogs to the wal instead.
Or maybe I should frame the Sunday joint and put
that up.
It's hard to know what to do. I could go for a pic
ture of Myra Hindley that was painted using the
dingle-berries from a sheep. But it would almost
certainly cost Ј150,000.
With my flat in London I went for a look that's
clean and clinical and minimalistic. Bare wooden
floors and bare wal s painted in one of those new
colours that's nearly Barbie pink but not quite. If
you were to
photograph it and put it in a design magazine, it
would look fantastic and people would pay ^5 to
come and look round.
But every time I walk through the door I always
think: 'God, this place could do with some
furniture.' The people living below probably think it
could do with some carpets, too.
There's another problem. It's al very wel
subscribing to the 'design' phase we are going
through at the moment, but soon there wil be
another phase and then you'l have to throw away
your hardwood floors and start again.
It isn't so bad when your trousers become dated
because it's only Ј50 for a new pair. But when you
need a whole new house, that's a different story.
Which is why my misty cows are staying. Real art,
like real jeans, never goes out of fashion. You'l
never hear anyone say: 'That Mona Lisa, she's so
last week.'
Sunday 27 April 2003
You Think SARS is Bad? There's Worse Out
There
As viruses go, SARS is pretty pathetic. It's hard to
catch and not very powerful.
Despite the horror stories, 90 per cent of those
who become infected go on to make a ful
recovery. On balance, then, it's probably sensible
for schools in Britain to stay open and for
aeroplanes to carry on circling the globe.
However, what if it were Ebola? Since this
filovirus was first identified in 1976 it has become
a bit of a joke. Reports at the time said it
dissolved fat and lots of Hurley/Posh surgical y
enhanced women thought it might be a fun
alternative to liposuction. I'm just as bad. Every
time I go to the doctor I always tel him I've caught
Ebola just for a laugh.
Actual y, it isn't very funny. It attacks your immune
system – but unlike HIV, which lets something
else come along and kil you, Ebola keeps on
going, charging through your body with the
coldness of a shark and the ruthlessness of a
Terminator.
First your blood begins to clot, clogging up your
liver, kidney, lungs, brain, the lot. Then it goes for
the col agen – the glue that holds your body
together – so that your skin starts to fal off.
Usual y your tongue fal s out, your eyes fil with
blood and your internal organs liquefy
before oozing out of your nose. Except for your
stomach. You vomit that out of your mouth.
It's not an exaggeration to say that Ebola eats you
alive and then, to make sure you don't die in vain,
it finishes you off with a huge epileptic fit,
splashing eight pints of massively infectious
blood al over anyone within 20 feet or so.
Nobody dies of Ebola with dignity and very few
victims get better. Unlike SARS, the most virulent
strain of Ebola, cal ed Zaire, kil s 90 per cent of
those who get it.
Now at this point you are probably thinking: so
what? There is no Ebola in the world at the
moment. Oh yes there is, but despite a twenty-
year, multi-mil ion-dol ar hunt nobody has been
able to find where it lives. Some say the host is a
bat, others say it's a spider or a space alien. Al
we know is that occasional y, and for no obvious
reason, someone comes out of the jungle with
bleeding eyes and his stomach in a bag.
Tests have shown that the virus is simple and
ancient. It has probably been hanging around
since the days when Rio de Janeiro was joined at
the hip to Cameroon. Over the years, therefore,
it's reasonable to assume that it has kil ed
thousands of people. But because it kil s so fast it
could never travel. Now, though, with Zaire
connected to the worldwide web of airline routes,
an infected person could reach London or New
York before he knew he was il .
We saw this with Aids. Who knows how long this
had been hanging around in the jungle, playing
jiggy-
jiggy with monkeys? When they paved the
Kinshasa Highway that bisects Africa from east
to west and the trucks started to flow, Aids burst
into the world and, 25 years later, about 22 mil ion
people were dead.
It may be that in years to come, when Aids has
kil ed more people than the First and Second
World Wars combined, historians wil look upon
the building of this road as the most significant
event of the twentieth century.
HIV, remember, is another pathetic virus. It can
live for only twenty seconds in the air, it travels
from person to person only if they engage in
vigorous sex, and it takes ten years to do to a
person what Ebola manages to do in ten days.
SARS has shown us just how devastating the jet
engine can be as a carrier. A doctor gets poorly
in a Hong Kong hotel and within weeks there are
outbreaks al over the world. Even Canada got
itself on the news.
Like HIV, SARS is also difficult to catch. Ebola is
easy. In the 1990s scientists in America put an
infected monkey in a cage on one side of a room
and a healthy monkey in a cage on the other. Two
weeks later the healthy monkey was dead.
Fol owing a spate of Hol ywood films, most
people believe the human race is at greatest risk
of annihilation from a giant meteorite or some
kind of religious nuclear war. But if Ebola ever
gets on a plane, experts say that 90 per cent of us
wil be dead within six months. It is known in
America, where they are good at names, as a
"slate wiper'.
This is why I'm slightly nervous about the world's
reaction to SARS. We like to think that
governments have contingency plans for every
conceivable disaster. But I got the impression
over recent weeks that a lot of people have been
sitting around in rooms saying 'ooh' and 'crikey'
and 'you can't do that – think of the shareholders'.
What we need is a scheme that would al ow
scientists and medical experts to impose, at a
moment's notice, a total ban on al flights and a
global curfew. But who would run such a thing?
The World Health Organisation doesn't even have
big enough teeth to take a bite out of that political
colossus Canada.
The Americans? I fear not. Any disease that has
a fondness for eating stomachs would head there
first. Besides, if they can't find Saddam and
Osama, what chance do they have of finding
something so smal that there could be a mil ion
on the ful stop at the end of this sentence.
So it's the United Nations then. We've had it.
Sunday 4 May 2003
Mandela Just Doesn't Deserve His Pedestal
It seemed like a foregone conclusion. A panel of
arty types was asked by a local council whether a
statue of Nelson Mandela should be erected in
Trafalgar Square, right under the portals of the
South African embassy.
Astonishingly, however, this week they said that
no, it shouldn't. Now a selection of Labour MPs
and Ken Livingstone have written to the Guardian
to express their dismay.
I'm rather pleased. If we're going to have a Nelson
theme in Trafalgar Square, I would rather see a
bronze of Elvis wannabe Ricky Nelson, or the old
tax dodger himself, Wil ie Nelson. Actual y, come
to think of it, what I'd real y like is a stone
immortalisation of the Nelson's Nelson, the
Brazilian racing driver Nelson Piquet.
As you can see, my objections are not based on
jingoistic principles. There are 30,000 statues in
London and numbered among these are Gandhi
in Tavistock Square and Abraham Lincoln in
Parliament Square. I seem to remember there's a
bronze
of
Oscar
Wilde
kicking
around
somewhere, too.
Also, I have no problem with any attempt to erect
some powerful symbol about racial harmony slap
bang in the middle of what was once the centre of
the empire.
But if this is the goal, then I think we might be
better off with a statue of Paul McCartney and
Stevie Wonder. It could even be a musical statue
serenading passers-by with the duo's 1982 hit,
'Ebony and Ivory'.
I have to be honest. I have a problem with
Mandela. I know that he has become a symbol of
democracy's triumph over evil and a hero to
oppressed people everywhere, and I'm sure that
Livingstone and Co. are right to say that mil ions
of people would like to see this 'great statesman'
immortalised for al time in the middle of London.
But he's not Gandhi, you know. You may like what
he represents — I do – but if you peer under the
halo of political correctness that bathes him in a
golden glow of goodness you'l find that the man
himself is a bit dodgy.
Back in the early 1960s he was the one who
pushed the ANC into armed conflict. He was
known back then as the Black Pimpernel. And his
second marriage was to Winnie, who's now a
convicted fraudster and thief with, we're told, a
penchant for Pirel i necklaces.
Furthermore, since his release from prison and
his eventual rise to the presidency Mandela has
had some extraordinary things to say about world
affairs.
He's deeply concerned, for instance, about the
plight of one of the Lockerbie bombers and has
expressed support for both Gadaffi and Castro.
Indeed, he has singled out Cuba, praising it for its
human rights and liberty. I'm sorry – what human
rights, what liberty? Perhaps he should go to the
Cohiba night-
club and ask one of the twelve-year-old
prostitutes which way her parents voted.
Once, while defending his decision to share a
stage withthree puerto rican terrorists who shot
and wounded five us congressmen in 1954,
Mandela said he supported anyone who was
fighting for self-determination. The IRA, the
Chechens, Shining Path? Whatif i started a
movement to bring about independence for
Chipping Norton; what if I blew up council offices
in Oxford and shot a few policemen — could I
count on Mandela's support?
What of the people who hijacked those airliners
on 11 September? They would almost certainly
have argued that one of their goals was self-rule
for Palestine. So does he think their actions were
justified? Confusingly, he doesn't.
I simply don't understand why the Nobel academy
gave him a peace prize or why Charlie Dimmock
and Alan Titchmarsh gave him a new garden.
And I don't see why he should be given a statue in
Trafalgar Square, either. If we're after someone
who stands up for the oppressed, what about
Jesus? I feel fairly sure that he never blew up a
train.
However, what I would like to see is something to
commemorate Frank Whittle. Here we have a
man whose invention — the jet engine – turned
the world into a vil age. And by bringing us closer
together, who knows how many conflicts he has
helped us to avoid?
More than that, who knows what might have hap
pened in the Second World War, if only the air
ministry
had listened? For year after year the ministry
ignored Whittle's invention, even refusing to pay a
Ј5 fee to renew his patent in the 1930s.
Of course, in the latter stages of the war, when it
saw jet planes shooting down V-2 rockets, it
staged a serious about-face. Whittle was
knighted, given a CBE, a KBE and Ј100,000. He
was also promoted to air commodore. But he
knew that Britain could have had jets before the
war broke out and that, as a result, mil ions of
lives could have been saved. In disgust he went to
live in America, where he died just seven years
ago.
Coventry remembers its most famous son by
having a statue in the town of Lady Godiva. I'm
told that Whittle has a bust in the RAF Club in
Piccadil y but that's not good enough. He should
be in Trafalgar Square. And it won't cost that
much, either, since he was only 5 feet tal .
Sunday 11 May 2003
In Search of Lost Time, One Chin and a Life
When I was a child time used to pass with the
languid sultriness of a saxophone solo. Every day
the sun would amble through the cloudless sky as
though it were being propel ed by the gentlest of
summer breezes. And then, in the winter, perfect
crisp snow would settle and not melt for what felt
like 40 years.
At school I remember spending those long, warm
evenings listening to those long, warm songs on
Dark Side of the Moon.
One of the tracks seemed to suggest that time
passed quickly and that unless I got out of my
chair, took off my Akai headphones and did
something with my life, ten years would flash past
and I'd stil be 'kicking around on a piece of
ground in my home town, waiting for someone or
something to show me the way-e-yay'.
What a lot of nonsense, I thought. We received no
drug education back then but we didn't need it.
Pink Floyd were a living, breathing example of
what recreational pharmaceuticals did to the
mind. Ten years, as anyteenage boy knows, is a
century.
Pretty soon, I was 23 and time was stil 'flexing
like a whore', floating round and round as though
it were a seedpod caught in the gurgling eddy of
a mountain
beck. If anything, there was even more time in my
twenties than there had been in my childhood,
largely because I wasted so little of it by sleeping.
However, when you get to 33, everything
changes. Time straps a jet pack to its back, lights
the afterburners and sets off at Mach 3. The sun
moves across the sky as though God's got his
finger on the fast forward button. Blink and you
can miss a whole month.
This was hammered home on Thursday night,
when I met up with a dozen friends for a pizza at a
favourite old haunt of ours in Wandsworth. We
used to go there a lot, in the early nineties, which,
we al agreed, seemed like only yesterday.
That's weird, isn't it? No one ever says when
they're twenty: 'Gosh. It only seems like yesterday
that I was ten.' But my God, the time from when
your dreams are smashed and you realise you'l
never be a fighter pilot to the moment when your
body starts to swel up and fal to pieces real y
does go by with the vim and vigour of a Kylie
song.
When I was 20 my friends and I went to the pub.
When I was 30 we stil went to the pub. Nothing
ever happened. Nothing ever changed. But then,
al hel broke loose.
One of us moved to France, one died, one
divorced, one has taken up golf, one (me) has
grown six new chins, one has had a lung and
most of his bottom removed, one is in a never-
ending custody battle with his ex-wife, who seems
to have been taken by the breeze of insanity, and
two were moved from their penthouse
flat by social services to secure accommodation
in Uxbridge . . . for absolutely no reason at al .
Ten years ago we used to leave that restaurant
whenever we ran out of money or, more usual y,
when the cel ar ran out of wine. On Thursday we
al left at eleven because we were tired.
I woke up at eight the fol owing morning to find I
had three more chins and a terrible hangover.
And by the time that had gone another 30 years
had whizzed by.
I cannot believe how fast time goes now. I leave
the Top Gear studio, write this, say hel o to the
children and then I'm back in the studio again. It's
like God has taken the job of marking time from
Oscar Peterson and given it to the mad drummer
Cozy Powel .
It's amazing. On Saturday afternoons we used to
play Bask, simply to pass the time until the pub
opened again. I had the space in my life to read
books and not only listen to Pink Floyd songs but
work out what they meant. I drove fast, only for fun.
Now I drive fast to keep up with the clock.
I read with despair about people who give up
London thinking that when they're far from the
Tube and the expectant wink of a computer's
cursor they can float through the days like
dandelion seeds. It doesn't work because 'where
you are' isn't the problem. It's 'when you are'.
In the olden days you got married in your teens,
had children in your twenties, made a few quid in
your thirties, enjoyed it in your forties and fifties
and then retired in your sixties.
Now, you do nothing in your teens, nothing in your
twenties and by the time you're 40 you're on the
employment
scrapheap,
a
seven-chinned
hasbeen with a spent mind and man-breasts.
This means you have to cram your whole life into
your thirties.
And that's why it passes at 2,000 mph.
Wel , I'm 43 now and I want the saxophone back. I
want to lie on my back, chewing grass, thinking of
nothing but what my final words might be.
My dad did that and came up with: 'Son, you've
made me proud.' Adam Faith kept on charging
and ended up with: 'Channel 5 is al s***, isn't it.'
An apology. Last week I said that jets were
shooting down V-2 rockets at the end of the
Second World War. Many people wrote to say it
was V-is. I should have checked, but I didn't have
time. Sorry.
Sunday 18 May 2003
In Search of a Real Garden at the Chelsea
Show
Every week I strap myself into a monstrously
powerful car and hurtle round a test track in a
blaze of tyre smoke and noise. It's a constant
battle with the laws of physics, and that's a
dangerous game to play. One day, inevitably, it'l
end in tears.
Stil , in a good week the television programme
that results attracts 3.7 mil ion viewers, making it
the second-most watched show on BBC2.
Interestingly, and rather annoyingly, we're beaten
b y Gardeners' World, in which a man cal ed
Monty Don moves soil from one place to another
and gets al excited about his new compost heap.
What's more, so far as I can tel , he speaks
mostly in Latin.
We see a similar sort of thing with live events.
Whi le thevibrant london motor show, with its
bikini-clad lovelies, coughed up blood for a few
years and then died completely, the Chelsea
Flower Show continues to be a hugeattraction.
this year, it even managed to attract me.
I needed a fountain and perhaps a statue for a bit
of garden that I've just paved.
I like paving. It doesn't need mowing and unlike
grass, which is vindictive, it doesn't give me hay
fever on purpose.
Unfortunately, at Chelsea this year, the most
impressive water feature on display was the sky,
so everyone was forced into a tent ful of flowers.
Flowers bore me.
They do nothing for 50 weeks of the year and then
on the other two they continue to do nothing
because you planted them somewhere that was
too hot, too shady, too high up or too near sea
level. And the soil was wrong too. And the wind.
Happily, the people weren't boring at al . At a
motor show you queue with men cal ed Ron and
Derek for a pint of brown in a plastic glass. At
Chelsea they give you champagne every time you
stop moving and you get to see Cherie Blair in
real life.
I was also interested to note that the whole event
was quite smart. It's al sponsored by bankers on
the basis, I suppose, that if people are interested
in shrubs at Ј3,000 a pop, they might have a bit of
floating lol y that needs licking into shape.
However, because it's smart, everyone was in a
suit, which meant it was hard to spot the bankers
coming. Is it Rowan Atkinson? Is it Prince
Andrew? Oh bloody hel , it's a bloke from Merril
Lynch with news of his Swiss supersava scheme.
I escaped by seeking out the garden that had
been done by people in prison. I don't get this.
We're forever being told that prisoners are only
al owed out of their cel s for a moment's man-love
in the showers, yet every year at Chelsea one
nick or another turns up with a ful -scale model of
Babylon.
How, when they're not al owed outside? And
where
do they get the soil? No real y, if I were one of the
guards, I'd have a look under the stove because I
bet they'd find Charles Bronson down there in
'Harry', the Great Escape tunnel.
Eventual y it stopped raining and I went outside to
look at the statues. Why are they al of Venus?
How come every single sculptor sits down with a
block of stone and thinks: 'I know. I'l do that bird
with no arms.' Why can't someone make a statue
of Stalin? Or Keith Moon?
And if they do an animal, it's always an otter.
Come on. You're artists. Use your imagination. If
it has to be an otter, make it Ring of Bright
Water's Mij, with a shovel in the back of its head.
In fact, why not make a statue of Hitler beating an
otter to death. That's something I'd buy.
Then I got to the fountains. Oh deary me. Some of
themwere very clever. the silver and purple
waves with a gentle cascade tippling down their
flanks were marvel ous and wil undoubtedly look
good when theyend up where they belong: in the
foyer of a businessmen's hotel at Frankfurt
airport.
The thing is, I like a fountain to roar, not tinkle.
What I wantin my back garden is the niagara on
viagra, and despite extensive searching, Chelsea
couldn't help.
In fact, I saw nothing there that had any relevance
a t all.i stopped for a moment to admire one
flower bed that wasfil ed with crushed blue glass.
it looked wonderful, a cheerfulalternative to the
dreary brownness of soil or bark.
I was just about to plunge my hand into the
blueness for a feel when a man leapt out of
nowhere. 'I wouldn't do that,' he warned, showing
me his hands, which looked like they'd been
through a bacon slicer. So what possible use is
glass, then, as a substitute for mud? Unless you
want to chop your dog's legs off?
I went home that night a bit dejected. And my
mood darkened when I reached the house. Two
years ago I planted a mixed hedge to separate
my paddock from the road. It was just getting
going, the little whips had become mini toddler
trees.
But some berk in an untaxed, uninsured Sierra
had lost control on the corner and smashed the
whole thing to pieces. Damn the boy racers.
Damn them al to hel .
I feel sure the bods at Chelsea could advise me
on a new hedge. A bonsai perhaps, which needs
watering with Chablis every fifteen minutes and
grows best if set in dappled shade on a bed of
uncut diamonds.
Sunday 25 May 2003
To Boldly Go Where Nobody's Tried a
DumbRecord Before
It'sstarting to look like australia maintains a
modern navy only to pluck hapless British
explorers from their tiny upturned boats.
Last week an Aussie frigate sailed thousands of
miles to rescue two chaps who were attempting
to row across the Indian Ocean. No, I don't know
why either, but as far as I can tel , one of them got
a headache from a freak wave and decided to
cal it a day.
And who can forget the epic tale of Tony
Bul imore who started to eat himself after his
yacht capsized in the Southern Ocean. Luckily,
he'd only gnawed his way through half of one
hand when HMAS Adelaide steamed into view.
It al sounds very Boy's Own but the Australian tax-
payers are starting to get a bit cross, and I can't
say I blame them. Their navy was involved in the
recent bout of Middle Eastern fisticuffs and has a
torrid time patrol ing the waters off Darwin in an
endless search for desperate Indonesians who've
been drifting on cardboard for fourteen years with
nothing to eat but their fingernails.
Then, every fifteen minutes, they have to break off
andsail 1,500 miles in rotten weather, and at vast
expense,
to
rescue
some
weird-beard
Englishman who's down to his last Vesta.
The problem is that humans have already climbed
the highest mountains and sailed on their own
through the wildest and loneliest stretches of
ocean. But though the records have gone, the
world is stil ful of Chichesters and Hil arys and
Amundsens.
As a result, these people have to think of stupider
things to quench their need for a spot of
frostbitten glory. So, they insert a few sub-clauses
into the record and set off from Margate to
become the First Person Ever to Pogo-Stick
Round the World – Backwards.
Did you see base camp in the Himalayas last
week? It was a smorgasbord of dopamine and
lunacy, with people in sil y outfits from al four
corners of the globe. 'Yes, I'm attempting to be
the first Chinese person to climb Everest in a
tutu.'
'Oh real y. I shal be the second Peruvian ever to
go up there in a scuba suit but I'm hoping to be
the first not to come back down again.'
Then we have a chap cal ed Pen Hadow. Plainly,
it's in his biological make-up to have icicles in his
eyes, so he has to go to the Arctic. But what
record is left to beat? We've had the first person
to drive to the North Pole, the first person to walk
to the North Pole unaided and, probably, the first
to jog there, from Russia, in a kilt. But Pen wasn't
going to be defeated before he'd even set off.
So he pored over the record books and spotted
an opening. Eureka! He would become the First
Person
Ever to Trek to the Geographic North Pole from
Canada, Unaided.
This meant skiing, clambering and swimming
through open water, while towing a 300-lb sled.
But he made it, a point verified by the tourists who
wil have watched him arrive from the warmth of
their helicopters and their cruise ships.
Sadly, though, he wasn't able to make it back
and, as a result, some poor Canadian pilot who
was just sitting down to a nice moose sandwich
with his family had to effect a daring and
spectacular airborne rescue.
This is my biggest beef about explorers today.
When Shackleton's boat was crushed by the ice,
he didn't think: 'Crikey, it's a bit nippy out. Let's
get the Argies on the sat phone and have them
bring a destroyer.' No, he ate his dogs, sang
some songs, rowed like bil y-o and emerged from
the event an enduring national hero.
Now compare this with the case of Simon Chalk.
Last year he had to be rescued when his rowing
boat bumped into a whale. And now he is
attempting to become the Youngest Person Ever
to Row from Australia to an Island Nobody's Ever
Heard Of, On His Own.
I know someone has already rowed the Pacific so
I have no idea why we're supposed to get excited
about some bloke who's rowing a much shorter
distance, and in some style by al accounts.
According to the BBC: "He wil run out of drinks
on day 85 and after that he wil have to survive on
water.'
I'm sorry. What drinks? Was he mixing himself a
little gin and French after a hard day's tugging?
This sounds like the kind of record I'd like to
attempt: The Most Luxurious Crossing of the
World's Smal est, Warmest Ocean, Eating Only
Quail's Eggs and Celery Salt.
Meanwhile, I have a suggestion for al of you who
are only happy when you have gangrene and only
feel alive when you're less than an inch from
death. Stop messing around in your upturned
bathtubs in the southern oceans. If you real y have
to perform endurance trials at sea, do it near
America.
Then when it al goes wrong, it'l be the US Navy
who'l come to the rescue.
And if an American naval vessel is employed
picking up Mr Scott-Shackleton who was
attempting to swim underwater from San
Francisco to Tokyo, it won't be able to rain cruise
missiles down on whatever unfortunate country
George W. Bush has heard of that week.
It's win—win for Mr Templeman-Ffiennes. If he
succeeds, he becomes the First Person to Cross
the Pacific on a Bicycle. If he fails, he saves the
world.
Sunday 8 June 2003
Beckham's Tried, Now It's My Turn to
Tamethe Fans
If there's any more fighting on the terraces, the
England footbal team wil not be al owed to take
part in the Euro World Olympic Championship
Cup 2004.
This came as a bit of a surprise because I
thought footbal hooliganism had gone away. I
thought the stands were al ful of families saying
things like 'Ooh, look at Michael's dribbling skil s'
and 'Gosh, have you seen David's new Alice
band?'
But it seems not. Things are apparently so bad
that President Beckham addressed the nation
recently. No, honestly, that's what it said in the
papers – that he "addressed the nation'
appealing for calm in the run-up to whatever
championship it is that we're going to lose next.
It's a good time then to pause a while and think a
little bit about why people fight and how they
might be stopped from doing so.
The other day I was staying in a northern town. I
shan't say which one because the local
newspaper wil spend the next six months
pil orying me, so let's cal it Rotherhul castlepool.
Anyway, opposite the hotel was a nightclub and
outside that was a lengthy queue of people who,
despite
the chil , appeared to be as-near-as-makes-no-
difference naked.
It seemed odd queuing to get into a nightclub at ii
p.m. when, obviously, it was ful . And it was going
to stay ful , surely. Nobody leaves a nightclub at I ,
not when the nearest one is 40 miles away in
Donfieldgow-on-Trent.
I was wrong. Every few minutes two more lads
would come flying out of the door in a flurry of fists
and torn T-shirts. After they'd been calmed down
by some kicks from the bouncers, two more
people were al owed in.
I watched this for a while and began to speculate
on what might be causing so many fights in there.
Drink? Girls? Drugs? Gangsterism? I think not. I
think the root cause of the problem was
unintel igence.
I'm told that if al creatures were the same size,
the lobster would have the smal est brain. Al it
knows to do is eat and snap at something if its
pint is spil ed.
Wel , this is what you find in northern nightclubs.
Someone looks at your girlfriend, you hit them.
Someone looks at you, you hit them. With real y
stupid creatures, any stimulation whatsoever
provokes a lobster response.
My older children have the mental age of eight–
and seven-year-olds, because they are eight and
seven years old. So they hit each other pretty
much constantly. When the boy refuses to give his
big sister a Pringle, she doesn't yet have the
vocabulary to formulate a reasoned argument. So
she whacks him.
We see the same story in America. As a
relatively new
country, ful of relatively daft people, it doesn't
have thewisdom or the experience to construct a
sensible response. so when it's prodded, it
lashes out with its jets andits aircraft carriers.
I've never hit anyone, f may not have the mind of
John Humphrys or the nose of Stephen Fry, but
even I, with my six O levels, know that if I punch
someone, theywil punch me right back. And that,
because this willhurt, it's best in a tricky situation
to run like hel .
Only once was this not an option. A girlfriend had
been pinned against the wal by a wiry, tattooed
man whose speech was slurred by a combination
of drink and being from Glasgow. He wanted very
much for her to kiss him.
So what was I to do? The sensible answer was
'nothing' but I feared a terrible row when we got
home so havingweighed things up for a while, I
tapped the drunken Scotsman on the shoulder
and said, as politely as possible: 'Excuse me.'
He whirled round, his eyes ful of fire and his
hands bal ed into steel-hard fists. But the blow
never came. 'Christ, you're a big bastard,' he
said, and ran off. It was theproudest moment of
my life.
Infact, i have only ever been hit once. it was a big,
rounded, ful y formed punch to the side of my
head and nwas landed by someone who was
Greek, right in front ot two policemen. Who then
arrested me for being beaten up. Like I said. Daft
as brushes, the lot of them. Butwould the greek
have punched me in the first place if nobody had
been looking?
Are fights like the light in your fridge? Do they go
on when nobody else is there? Or does there
have to be an audience to both light the spark
and then pul the opponents apart when things
turn ugly and the claret starts to flow?
I've just been outside to speak with my builders
who know about such things and apparently in al
their years they've never heard of what they cal a
'one-on-one'. Two blokes, jackets off, fighting to
settle something quietly round the back of the
pub.
So if the England footbal team want to avoid
trouble at future events they have to play without
an audience, live or on television. And it'd
probably be for the best if President Beckham,
clean living and wel meaning though he may be,
stops addressing the nation.
In fact it's probably best if he leaves the nation
altogether — before someone kicks a boot into
his other eye.
Sunday 15 June 2003
The Unhappiest People on Earth? You'd
Never Guess
In a recent survey to find the happiest people in
the world, the super-smug Swiss came out on
top. Just 3.6 per cent of the population realised
that having a punctual bus service and someone
else's teeth are not the be al and end al of life
and said they were dissatisfied with their lot.
Whatever. The most interesting finding is to be
found at the bottom of the table: the country with
the most unhappy people.
I would have gone for Niger. I went there once, to
a smal town in the middle of nowhere cal ed
Agadez, and it was pretty damn close to even
Lucifer's idea of hel on earth. You could almost
taste the hopelessness and smel the despair.
There were no crops to tend and no factories to
work in.
There was a shower, around which the town had
been built, I suppose, and there was a table
footbal game which seemed to amuse the
children – even though the bal had been lost long
ago.
It was a desperate place but, it seems,
somewhere is worse. Finland, perhaps? It's a
sensible thought. You are apparently in the First
World with your mobile phone and your pretty
daughters but you spend al winter being
frozen to death and al summer being eaten alive
by mosquitoes the size of tractors.
I can't imagine that I would be terribly happy living
in Afghanistan, either, though I dare say there is
some satisfaction in going to bed thinking: 'Wel ,
at least I wasn't shot today.'
When you come to think about it, the list of
countries where you have an excuse to be
unhappy is huge. I have never been to that
featureless moonscape that's now cal ed
Somethingikstan but I can't imagine it's a barrel of
laughs. And I'm not sure I would like it in Brazil,
either, having to walk around in a thong to
demonstrate that I had nothing about my person
worth stealing.
Then there's that swathe of misery that stretches
along the Kinshasa Highway in the middle of
Africa. A land of flies, starvation and HIV.
A land that undermines a British social worker's
idea of poverty. However, the pol found that the
people who are less satisfied with life than
anyone else are . . . drum rol here . . . the Italians.
Oh, now you mention it, it's obvious. Whiling away
those long, warm summer evenings in the Tuscan
hil s with some cheese and a bottle or two of
Vernaccia di San Gimignano. La dolce vita? It's
Italian for 'the ungrateful bastards'.
Even if we poke about in Italy's dark and secret
places, we don't find much to complain about.
The Mafia has been on the wane for the past ten
years, and how can anyone complain about Silvio
Berlusconi's al eged
corruption when they themselves need a
backhander to get out of bed in the morning.
Besides, our prime minister is much worse. He
has made a complete hash of everything and now
he has started attacking cross-dressers, sacking
men for wearing tights in the House of Lords.
Despite this and the drizzle and the awful pub
food, only 8.5 per cent of us say we're unhappy.
What's more, while extremism is on the rise in
Britain, it's now a damp squib in Italy. With
immigrants making up just 2.2 per cent of the
population there, the far right cannot get much of
a toehold and while there are a few communists
dotted around here and there, they tend to be
one-cal Bolsheviks. Certainly it's been years
since there was a real y good fist fight in
parliament.
Italy's youngsters complain, apparently, about
having to live at home until they are 72 but that's
because they spend al their money on suits and
coffee and Alfa Romeos rather than mortgages.
Of course, I can see that there are drawbacks to
life in Italy.it must be annoying to have to post
your letters in Switzerland if you want them to
stand any chance of arriving,and I would quickly
become bored with being killedon the autostrada
every day.
Then there's the problem of your wife. One day,
yo u knowwith absolute certainty, you wil come
home from work to find that the ravishing beauty
you married and saidgoodbye to that morning is
waddling up the street in ablack sack with
breasts like six sacks of potatoes.
Plus, we think the Germans have no sense of
humour, but Hans does at least find some things
funny – people fal ing over on banana skins and
Benny Hil , for instance.
Luigi, on the other hand, doesn't even laugh at
bottoms. In a country where style is everything
a nd la bella figura dictates what you eat, what
you wear and how much you drink, there is no
room for the helplessness of mirth. As a result,
there's no such thing as Eduardo Izzardio or Tone
di Fawlty.
I don't think this is quite enough, though. Worrying
about your wife bal ooning and not being able to
laugh at your unreliable postal service are not the
end of the world, and having a dodgy prime
minister is normal.
STOP PRESS: I've just read the result of another
survey which says Britain is one of the most
dishonest countries in the world. So when 91.5
per cent of us said we were happy, plainly we
were lying.
Sunday 22 June 2003
Welcome to Oafsville: It's Any Town Near
You
The other night a man from the Campaign to
Protect Rural England went on the news to say
that housing estates in Ledbury are just the same
as estates everywhere else and that al traces of
local character are being lost.
'Look,' he said, pointing at the executive homes
over his shoulder, 'we could be anywhere from
Welwyn Garden City to Milton Keynes.'
'Pah!' I scoffed, reaching for the remote control.
"What's he want? Al houses in Somerset to be
made from mead and freshly carbonated vil age
idiots? And al houses in Cheshire to be built out
of gold and onyx?'
I agree that Bryant and Barratt charge through the
countryside with the destructive force of a double-
barrel ed shotgun, and I welcome any move that
eats into their profit margins. If they are forced to
make houses in Barnsley out of coal, that's fine by
me.
But having spent the week on a mammoth tour of
England, I can assure you that there are far
bigger problems to be addressed. I would go so
far as to say that today provincial Britain is
probably one of the most depressing places on
earth.
Of course, there are worse places, places where
you can starve to death or be eaten by flies. But
this is a wealthy country with many widescreen
television sets,
and that's what makes it al so depressing: the
sense that it could be so much better.
It's not the vil ages or the countryside that are
wrong. It's the towns, with their pedestrian
precincts and the endless parade of charity
shops and estate agents.
At night boys, with their baggy trousers and their
big shoes, scream up and down the high street in
their souped-up Vauxhal Novas. There is nothing
you want to see. Nothing you want to do.
You wade knee-deep through a sea of discarded
styro-foam trays smeared with bits of last night's
horseburger to your overheated chintzy hotel
where, in exchange for Ј75, they give you a room
where you can't sleep because of the constant
background hum of people coupling or being sick
outside.
It's almost as though every council in the land has
become so engrossed with their war on the car
that they spend al their time and money on speed
humps and traffic-calming pots of geraniums.
They seem to have lost sight of what the town is
for: shopping, chatting, being a pack animal.
There are exceptions, usual y towns and cities
with universities, such as Oxford, but for the most
part urban Britain is utterly devoid of any
redeeming feature whatsoever.
And that's before we get to the people. Who are
they, with their faces like pastry and their legs like
sides of beef? And what on earth do they say to
the barber to end up with such stupid hair?
They come from nothing, live a life enlivened only
by a twice-yearly visit to some hairdresser who
takes the mickey, and then they die so quietly that
they're not even remembered with a plaque on a
park bench.
I'm not kidding. In the Third World you wil see
hopelessness etched onto people's faces but in
provincial Britain it's gormlessness.
In the papers and at your house people discuss
the euro and Iraq. But you get the sense that in
Britain's town centres they simply don't care
about anything. They drink, they eat, they mate,
then they die. They might as wel be spiders.
Scottish Courage, a brewery, is to be
commended for launching a new type of drink to
ease the misery. It's a bottle of Kronenbourg sold
with a shot of absinthe, a bright green
hal ucinogen that is 50% proof.
Banned by many countries throughout the
civilised world, though not the Czech Republic
and Britain, it was a favourite tipple for al the
maddest artists. Van Gogh was reported to have
drunk the stuff before cutting off his ear. Oscar
Wilde said: 'After the first glass, you see things as
you wish they were. After the second, you see
things as they are not.'
This then is the perfect solution for life in
provincial Britain today. One glass and you
imagine you're not in Hastings at al . After the
second you imagine that you are in fact in St
Tropez and that the monosyl abic fizzy-haired girl
you've just pul ed won't give you something nasty
to remember her by. After the third, your hair
starts to look normal.
Experts say that mixing lager and absinthe is like
drink-
ing Night Nurse and Ovaltine and that its sole
purpose is to get you drunk. So what? I see
nothing wrong with that.
Al over northern Europe people drink to get
drunk, but in Reykjavik, the biggest drinking city
anywhere, they don't come out of the clubs for a
vomit and a fight.
In Stockholm the city centre is not buried under a
styrofoam mountain every morning.
I do not understand why this should be so here.
Maybe, deep down, there's a sense that Britain
had fulfil ed its obligations to the world by 1890
and that now we're like a nation of spent matches,
serving out our time in IT or by changing the
crabby sheets at the local overheated hotel.
Whatever, I certainly have no answers. But
building speed humps certainly won't help. And
nor, I suspect, wil worrying about the gable ends
on houses in Ledbury.
Sunday 29 June 2003
If Only My Garden Grew As Well As the Hair
inMy Ears
There are many signs of middle age: hair growing
out of your ears, a waistband that wil not stop
expanding no matter what you put in your mouth
and an increasing bewilderment at the noises
made by Radio i.
But the seminal moment when you know for sure
that you have become old is when you look out of
your bedroom window and say: 'Ooh good, it's
raining.' This means you are more interested in
your plants looking good than getting a tan and
looking good yourself.
For 43 years I have sneezed my way through the
British summer, swigging from bottles of Piriton
and gorging on handfuls of Zirtec. But hay fever
has never dampened my enthusiasm for those
lazy days in the garden, listening to men surge by
on their motorbikes.
Mainly this is because I've never real y had a
garden in the accepted sense of the word. Too
much sun and too little chalk in the soil have little
or no effect on rubble and weeds. Now, however,
with a veritable forest growing out of my ears, I
have become interested in maybe having a
herbaceous border here and a weeping pear
there. So I was interested to read about the olive
trees of southern Italy. In the war so many were
chopped
down for firewood that the government imposed a
ban, saying they could not be uprooted without
permission from Mussolini.
When the war ended the law was never repealed,
so the trees grew older and older.
They became fat and tufts of hair began to
appear from their knots. What's more, the fruit
they produced became worse and worse to the
point where it could be used only in paraffin
lamps.
Then along came Charlie Dimmock. Suddenly,
everyone in northern Europe decided they would
like a century-old olive tree in their garden. A
booming black market was the result, with
Bavarian bankers paying up to Ј3,500 f°ra
'gnarled designer' tree to enliven their Munich roof
terrace.
Inevitably the tree huggers are up in arms and, for
once, I'm with them. What's the point of paying
Ј3,500 for something that I guarantee wil be
dead within six months?
This is the one thing I've learnt during my short
spel as a gardener: everything dies. Two weeks
ago I spent Ј500 on a selection of plants for my
conservatory after the last lot were kil ed by scale
insect. On Sunday I went to London for the day,
and when I came home at night it looked as if the
American Air Force had been through the place
with some Agent Orange and napalm. 'You
should have left the windows open,' say the
experts. So you leave the windows open, which
means your plants survive. But, sadly, your video
recorder and PlayStation do not.
Because someone with a Ford Fiesta haircut and
baggy trousers wil walk in and help themselves.
Things are no better outside. Keen to have instant
results, I laid some turf the other day and my life
became consumed by where the sprinkler was
and where it needed to be next. Please God, I
would wail as the sun girded its loins for another
blistering day, have mercy. But there was no
mercy, no rain, and now my new turf looks like
that sisal matting in the Fired Earth brochures.
You sit in the garden only when it's sunny, but you
can't relax because you know the sun is a 5-
tril ion-ton nuke and by the time you go indoors at
night every living thing out there, except the
thistles, wil be dead.
I bought some plants with red flowers which stood
tal and so erect that they seemed to have been
fertilised with Viagra. After one day in the
sunshine they had keeled over and nothing I have
tried wil make them stand up again. I've watered
them, not watered them, read them poetry, played
them Whitney Houston records and shown them
pictures of the Prince of Wales. But it's hopeless.
I had a tree surgeon round yesterday to talk about
the mature trees that are dotted around the
garden. Unbelievably, I have to maintain these
things in case some vil age kids try to climb them
and a branch breaks. That's true, that is.
His report was shocking. The lime is dying quite
fast. The poplars are pretty much dead already
and the sycamore, with a trunk that's ful y 12 feet
in circumference, has some kind of incurable rot.
So it wil spend the
next ten years dropping boughs on passing
motorcyclists who'l then sue me for negligence.
He has stripped it right back so now it's virtual y
naked. But even this tree porn has failed to perk
the wilting red plants back into life. The oak? That
was doing quite wel . I think in the past seven
years it had shot up by a mil ionth of an inch. But
it's hard to be sure because the other day a cow
ate it. That's nothing, though. The honeysuckle
has strangled the cherry. Clematis has suffocated
the copper beech and ivy has asphyxiated one of
the silver birches. It's like The Killing Fields out
there.
What about my latest purchase? Six weeks ago I
wrote about failing to find a statue of Hitler kil ing
an otter at the Chelsea Flower Show. Now I've
bought a lump of Canadian driftwood which, I'm
assured, died 400 years ago.
Knowing my luck, the damn thing wil come back
to life.
Sunday 6 July 2003
Men, You Have Nothing to FEAR But
Acronyms
Thursday should have been a great day. I was
with the Royal Green Jackets in a smal German
vil age cal ed Copehil Down which is to be found
thirteen miles from anywhere in the middle of
Salisbury Plain.
I was part of an eight-man team charged with the
task of storming a wel -defended house, shooting
everyone inside and getting out again in under
fifteen minutes.
The rules were simple. I was to stick with my
buddy unless he got wounded in which case I was
to leave him behind. Marvel ous. None of that
soppy American marine nonsense in the British
forces.
So, dol ed up like Action Man, I had the latest
SA80 assault rifle slung over my right shoulder
and, in my trouser pockets, a clutch of grenades. I
was going to kick ass, unleash a hail of hot lead
and do that American war-film thing where I point
at my eyes, then point at a wood and then make a
black power sign, for no reason.
Unfortunately, things went badly. They had asked
me to bring along the explosives which would
blow a hole in the side of the house, but I forgot,
which meant we al had to climb through a
window. It turns out that it's amazingly easy to
shoot someone when they're doing this.
I was shot the first time in the sitting room and
again
on the stairs. Then some burly commandos
picked me up and shoved me through a trap door
into the attic.
Wel , when I say 'through', this is not entirely accu
rate. My embarrassingly significant stomach
became wedged in the hole, which meant my
head and upper torso were in the loft with three of
the enemy while the rest of me and my gun were
on the landing below. And believe me, it's even
easier to shoot someone when they're in this
position than when they're climbing through a
window.
Happily, because everyone was firing blanks, I
wasn't real y kil ed. Although my buddy probably
wished I had been a few moments later when I
threw a grenade at him, blowing most of his legs
off.
The problems with doing this sort of thing are
many. First, we were al wearing exactly the same
clothes and ful warpaint so my buddy looked like
everyone else.
And second, there are so many levers on an S A
80 that every time I wanted ful y automatic fire, or
to engage the laser sights, the magazine fel out.
But worse than this is the army's insistence on
talking
almost
exclusively
in
acronyms.
Throughout the firefight the house had echoed to
the sound of mumbo-jumbo, none of which made
any sense at al . 'DETCON WOMBAT' shouted
someone
into
my
earpiece.
'FOOTLING
REVERB' yel ed someone else. Rat-a-tat-tat
barked the enemy's AK47 and beep went my
earpiece to signify I had been shot again.
Things were not explained in the debrief. This,
said the colour sergeant, had been FIBUA
(Fighting in
Built-Up Areas) and we had done FISH (Fighting
in Someone's House). Clarkson, he didn't need to
point out, had been a FLOS (Fat Lump of S***).
Needless to say, this was al being filmed for
television and my director was thril ed. 'It was
great,' she said. 'Good stuff for OOV. Al we need
now is a PTC or two, a BCU, then an MCU and
we're done.'
Done we were, so I asked the colonel for
directions out of Germany and back into
Wiltshire. 'Sure,' he said, starting out wel . 'You go
right at Parsonage Farm, right at the church . . .'
and then he blew it: 'and you'l be at the Vetcom
Spectre Viperfoobarcomsatdefcon.'
'You mean the exit,' I said.
'Yes,' he replied, and in doing so exposed the lie
that acronyms were invented to save time. They
weren't. They were invented to make you feel part
of a club and to exclude, in a sneery mocking sort
of way, those who aren't.
How many times have we seen the president in
American films ordering a man in green clothes
to go to Defcon 3? Hundreds. And do you know
what — I stil have no idea what this means, or
which way the numbering goes. Even now, if
someone told me to go to Defcon 1, I wouldn't
know whether to launch the nukes or cancel lunch.
The trouble is that everyone's at it. After my day of
FISH I drove to London and hosted an awards
ceremony for the world's top bankers. The
organisers had written a speech which I delivered
to the best of my ability even though I had no idea
what any of it meant. It was ful of
FIRCS and CUSTODIES and NECRS, and to
make things even more complicated I'd say UBS
had had a good year on the FIRM and everyone
would fal about laughing. I felt excluded, an
outsider. Which is the point of course.
When someone uses an acronym they want you
to ask what they mean so they can park an
incredulous look on their face: 'What, you don't
know?' Then they wil look clever when they have
to explain.
A word of warning, though. Don't try this on tele
vision or you wil hear the presenter ask the
cameraman to fit the strawberry filter. This is a
device reserved for crashing bores who've driven
a long way to appear on the box and who don't
want to be told that they're not interesting enough.
It means: 'Set the camera up. But don't bother
turning it on.'
Sunday 13 July 2003
Red Sky at Night, Michael Fish's Satellite
isOn Fire
I rang the Meteorological Office last week and
asked something which in the whole 149 years of
the service it has never been asked before. 'How
come,' I began, 'your weather forecasts are so
accurate these days?'
Sure, there have been complaints from the tourist
industry in recent months that the weathermen
'sex up' bul etins, skipping over the sunny skies
anticipated in England, Scotland and Wales and
concentrating instead on some weather of mass
destruction that they are juicily expecting to find
on Rockal .
That's as maybe, but the fact is this: weather
reports in the past were rubbish, works of fiction
that may as wellhave been written by Alistair
MacLean. And now they aren't.
We were told that the heatwave would end last
Tuesday, and it did. We were told that
Wednesday would be muggy and thundery as
hel , and it was. When I woke up on Thursday,
without opening the curtains I knew to put on a
thick shirt because they had been saying for days
that it would be wet, cold and windy.
It is not just 24-hour predictions, either. Now you
are told with alarming accuracy what the weather
wil be like in two or even three days' time. So
how are the
bods in the Met Office's new Exeter headquarters
doing this?
The man who answered the telephone seemed a
bit surprised by the pleasantness of my question.
But once he had climbed back into his chair and
removed the tone of incredulity from his voice, he
began a long and complicated explanation about
modern weather forecasting.
At least I think it was about weather forecasting. It
was so difficult to fol ow that, if I am honest, it
could have been his mother's recipe for baked
Alaska.
In a nutshel , it seems that they get hourly reports
from meteorological observation points al over
the world. These are then added to the findings
from a low-orbit satel ite that cruises round the
world every 107 minutes, at a height of 800 miles,
measuring wave heights.
Other satel ites looking at conditions in the tropo
sphere and the stratosphere chip in with their
data and then you add sugar, lemon and milk and
feed the whole caboodle into a Cray
supercomputer that is capable of making about
eleventy bil ion calculations a second.
This system, soon to be updated with an even
cleverer computer, has been operational since
the middle of the 1990s, which does beg a big
question: what was the point of weather
forecasting before it came along? Everyone was
jol y cross with Michael Fish when he didn't see
the 1987 storm coming. But it turns out that he
had no satel ites and no computers, just a big
checked jacket.
Big checked jackets are no good at predicting
the
weather. Nor, it seems, are those mud 'n' cider
bods who tramp around Somerset with big
earlobes and a forked twig. Back in the spring a
gnarled old Cotswold type told me that because
of the shape of the flies and the curl of the cow
pats we were in for a lousy July. My gleaming red
nose testifies to the fact that he was wrong.
Then you have people who say you can tel when
rain is coming because the cows are lying down.
Not so. According to my new friend at the Met
Office, cows lie down because they are tired.
There are some pointers. Swal ows fly differently
when there is thunder about, and high clouds
have tails pointing to the north-west when you are
about to get wet.
Furthermore, red sky at night signifies that hot,
dusty air is coming while red sky in the morning
shows it has gone away.
However, using the natural world as a pointer is
mainly useless because it is good for showing
only what weather there is now, which you know,
or what is coming in a minute. Pine cones, crows
and especial y otters do not know what pressure
systems are prevalent in the Atlantic, or where
they are going.
Then I said to the man from the Met, what if a low-
pressure area suddenly veers north for no
reason? The computer must occasional y get it
wrong. It does, apparently, but there are six senior
weather forecasters at the Met Office who decide
whether to believe it or not.
Now that has to be one of the bal siest jobs in
Britain today. The most powerful computer is
tel ing you that
two and two is five. And you have to say, 'No, it
isn't.'
There is, however, a worrying downside to the
accuracy levels of this man and machine combo.
The British are known throughout the world for
moaning about the weather. It is one of our
defining national characteristics. It is not the
variety we hate, though. That is a good thing. It's
the unpredictability. When you turn up at royal
Ascot in a pair of Wel ingtons and the sun shines
al day, it is annoying. And it is the same story if
your summer dress gets al soaked and see-
through at Henley.
What happens if the unpredictability is removed
from the equation? If you know what the weather
wil be like on Tuesday you'l be able to organise
a barbecue knowing that the sun wil be out. Then
what wil you talk about?
Inadvertently,
those
computer
geeks
are
unpicking the very fabric of everything that makes
us British.
Sunday 20 July 2003
I Wish I'd Chosen Marijuana and Biscuits
OverReal Life
Right. You've got to take me seriously this
morning because I am no longer a jumped-up
motoring journalist with a head ful of rubbish. I am
now a doctor. I have a certificate.
Yes, Brunei University has given me an honorary
degree, or an honoriscausa, as we scholars like
to cal it. So now I am a doctor. I can mend your
leg and give you a new nose. I am qualified to
see your wife naked and design your next fridge
freezer. I think I might even have some letters
after my name.
Sadly, they don't send doctorates through the
post. So last Monday I had to go to the historic
Wembley Conference Centre near the North
Circular where they gave me a robe and floppy
hat that made me look like a homosexual.
The whole event was designed to run like
clockwork. I had been told weeks beforehand
about every last detail, including how many steps
there were between the entrance and the stage.
I knew why of course. I'd be entering as a normal
man, a thicky, and I had to be told there were 21
steps or I might stop halfway, thinking I'd made it.
On the way out, as a ful y fledged doctor of
everything,
there were no instructions at al . It just said
'procession out'.
In between, a man in a robe read out half a mil ion
names, most of which seem to have been a
col ection of letters plucked from a Scrabble bag,
and the students filed past the chancel or, an
endless succession of beaming brown and yel ow
faces, col ected their degrees and set off into the
world.
I was deeply, properly, neck-reddeningly jealous.
Dammit, I thought, sitting there in my Joseph coat
and my Elton hat. Why didn't I do this?
You should never regret any experience, but my
God, it is possible to regret missing out on one.
And that's what I did, 25 years ago when I
decided there were better things to do at school
than read Milton.
I used his books as bog rol s and as a result lost
my shot at paradise: university.
Yes, things have worked out pretty wel since —
they even gave me an honorary degree for
dangling around under Brunei's suspension
bridge. Yet there is a chink in the smoothness of it
al . Wel , more of a chip real y, on my shoulder.
I am sure a university education wouldn't have
made the slightest difference to my professional
life. From what I can gather, students spend their
three years after school either on an island off
Australia pretending to study giant clams, or
being pushed down the high street in a bed. Or
drunk.
Certainly I learnt more in my three years on the
RotherhamAdvertiser than some of those
students who were at Wembley on Monday.
One, I noted, had studied the ramifications of
having sex in prison while another had spent her
time looking at the correlation between life in
Bhutan and life in Southal .
But I'm no fool. Not now anyway. And I know that
even the sil iest university course is more fun than
putting on a tie every morning and working for a
living.
When I was nineteen, I was trawling the suburbs
of Rotherham for stories, listening to fat women
tel ing me their kiddies' heads were ful of insect
eggs and that the council should be doing
something about it.
Oh sure, I was paid Ј17 a week, which covered
my petrol and ties. But I was acutely aware that
half of my earnings was being taken away and
given to students who were spending it on
marijuana and biscuits. While you were settling
down for an evening's arguing at the debating
society, I was poring over my South Yorkshire/
English translation book, desperately trying to
work out what Council or Ducker was on about.
While you were being bol ocked for missing your
eighteenth lecture in a row, I was being hauled
over the coals for misreading my shorthand notes
and as a result getting my report of the inquest
disastrously wrong. And al you had to do to set
things right was sleep with your tutor. I could not
solve my problem by sleeping with the libel judge.
When you've been educated by the university of
life you arrive at the top completely worn out.
Real university, on the other hand, gives you a leg
up so everything is less exhausting.
Then there is the question of friends. I know
people who went to university with Stephen Fry
and Richard Curtis and Boris Johnson. Let's not
forget that Eric Idle, John Cleese and Graham
Chapman were at Cambridge together, and what
must a night out with that lot have been like? More
fun, I should imagine, than a night out with the
friends you made while stocking shelves at
Safeway.
Let me try to intel ectualise it for you. At the begin
ning of the ceremony in Wembley the Vice-
Chancel or of Brunei addressed the audience
saying that there are 50 institutions in Europe that
go back more than a thousand years.
There's the Catholic Church, the parliaments of
Britain, Iceland and the Isle of Man and a few
quasi-governmental organisations in Italy.
Al the rest are universities. They work. And I
missed out. And to my dying day I shal regret it.
Sunday 27 July 2003
I've been to Paradise … It was an Absolute
Pain
'No.' That's what I said when the producers of a
programme about the jet engine asked if I'd like
to fly round the world in five days.
'Yes.' That's what I said when they pointed out that
we'd be breaking the journey with a day on the
beach in somewhere cal ed Moorea, which is a
smal tropical island five minutes from Tahiti.
On paper, French Polynesia sounds like one of
the most exotic idyl s anywhere on earth, a
col ection of 120 or so islands dotted over an
area of the south Pacific that's the same size as
Europe. In reality, it takes 24 hours to get there
and it's not worth the bother.
At the airport everyone from the customs man to
the bus driver gave me a necklace of flowers, so
that by the time I arrived at the hotel and
conference centre I looked like a human garden
centre and had a spine the shape of an oxbow
lake.
Here, after they'd given me another necklace or
two, they wanted to know about breakfast: not
what I wanted, but whether I'd like it delivered to
my room in a canoe.
And therein lies the heart of the problem with al
these pointy lumps of volcanic residue that were
pretty much a secret until the jet engine came
along. It doesn't matter whether you're talking
about Mauritius or the Maldives,
Tahiti or the Seychel es. They are al the same:
completely overdone.
Al of them are advertised in the brochures with a
picture of what I swear is the same palm tree. You
must have seen it: the horizontal one, wafting its
fronds gently over the turquoise waters and white
sand of pretty wel everywhere.
Then there are the hotels, with their increasingly
idiotic ways of giving you a taste of life on a
tropical island.
This means sharing your bath with half a hundred
weight of petals and finding your bog rol folded
into the shape of a rose every morning and
having a mono-grammed Hobie Cat moored to
your own manservant. Is that what it was like for
Robinson Crusoe? How do you know? Because
when you're there, one thing's for sure, you won't
set foot outside the hotel grounds.
To complete the picture, the staff are dol ed up in
a ludicrous facsimile of what once, perhaps,
might have been the national dress. Even the
blokes in Tahiti had to wear skirts, and to
complete their humiliation they had to walk up and
down the superheated sand al day in bare feet.
Unless of course they were trying to deliver a
mountain of bacon and eggs, in a canoe, on a
choppy sea, without letting it blow away or go
cold or fal into the water.
Smal wonder they behaved like everything was
too much trouble. Give the poor bastards some
shoes, for crying out loud. And some strides.
Did I mention the dolphin? As a unique sel ing
point
the boys in Tahiti had caught themselves a big
grey beasty which spent al day on its back, in a
lagoon, being pawed by overweight American
women with preposterous plastic tits and unwise
G-string bikini bottoms. 'Would you like to see his
penis?' asked the man in a skirt when I climbed
into the water.
No. What I'd like to do is spear you through the
heart with a harpoon and let the miserable thing
have a taste of freedom. But instead I tickled its
bel y and whispered into its ear: 'Cal that a penis,
acorn crotch.'
Thinking that this sort of thing is giving you a taste
of life on a tropical island is as sil y as thinking
you can get a taste of beef from licking a cow. On
a real tropical island, like Tom Hanks in
Castaway, you have to smash your own teeth out
with ice skates and talk to footbal s, and there are
insects, huge articulated things with the head and
upper torso of a hornet and the rear end of a wolf.
I stayed at one hotel, can't remember where,
where they made the locals trample about in the
flower beds al day with Volkswagen Beetle
engines on their backs spraying the bushes with
insecticide.
Occasional y one of the poor chaps would gas
himself to death, or catch his skirt in the
machinery, and have to be carted off. But soon
there'd be another in his place. And for what
purpose? To sanitise paradise? It didn't work. So
far as I could see, the spray seemed to make the
insects a little bit bigger.
Don't be fooled by the sun either. It may look nice
in the pictures, dipping its feet into the sea after a
hard
day warming the solar system, but in reality it'l
cause you to sit in the shade al day until you look
like a stick of forced rhubarb. And it'l melt the
glue in the spine of your book, al owing the last
ten pages to blow away just before you get there.
There's no respite at night either. You won't be
able to sleep with the air con on, it'l be too noisy.
And you won't be able to sleep with it off because
then al you'l hear is the squeals of the
honeymoon couple in the authentic bungalow next
door.
Only once have I been to a tropical beach that
was completely unmolested. It was in Vietnam
and it was perfect. Except that after twenty
minutes or so I wanted a girl in a skimpy ao dai to
bring me a cold Coke.
And there's the thing. We dream the tropical
dream. But we're built to live in Dewsbury.
Sunday 31 August 2003
Eureka, I've Discovered a Cure for Science
A report in the paper last week said that the world
is running out of scientists as pupils opt for 'easy'
subjects like media studies rather than difficult
ones like the effect of fluorocarbons on
methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosyl
glutamylseryl eucylphenylalanylalanylglutaminyl eucyl
lysylglutamylarginyl ysylglutamylglycylalanylphenyl
anylvalylprolylphenylalanylvalylthreonyl eucylglycy
laspartylprolylglycylisoleucylutamylglutaminylseryl eu
cyl ysylisoleucylaspartylthreonyl eucyl . . .
Sadly, I shal have to cal a halt to the actual name
of this natty little protein at this point because I'm
paid by the word. And I don't want to get to the
end of the column having written only one. It
il ustrates the point neatly, though. Which would
you rather do? Hang around in Soho, drinking
skinny lattes with Graham Norton, or emigrate to
somewhere like Durham and spend your life
teaching hydrogen how to speak?
That's not such a sil y idea because underneath
the report about a shortage of scientists was
another which said that a professor of acoustics
at Salford University has proved that, contrary to
popular belief, a duck's quack does echo.
Though only faintly.
Who gives a stuff? Apparently, the professor in
question was trying to solve the problem of
echoey public address systems in churches and
stadiums. But quite what the duck has to do with
this, I have no idea. I mean, what's he going to
do? Give the vicar's job to a mal ard?
Elsewhere in the world, other scientists have
been monitoring 25 sites in America's Great
Basin. And they've found that the pika, a smal
and useless relative of the rabbit, is not coping as
wel as might be hoped with global warming. Oh
dear.
Here at home, scientists have discovered that
children who gorge on fizzy drinks in the morning
have the reaction times of a 70-year-old. Only, I
should imagine, if the fizzy drink in question is
champagne.
Ooh, here's a good one. Two British teams of
medical researchers have generated a human
cel . Sounds spooky, so should we be worried?
Not real y. They say this is the first step to growing
replacement livers, but this seems a trifle
farfetched since there is no way of tel ing a cel
what to become. You may hope for a liver and
end up with an ear. Only God can decide, and
thanks to science al his representatives on earth
are soon to be replaced with ducks.
I know it must be depressing when Greenpeace
rol s around on your important and juicy
discoveries, like GM food, but why have you
spent so long determining that women who take
pain-kil ers at the time of conception are more
likely to miscarry? Even you, in your freezing lab,
must realise that conception cannot happen
unless something takes the headache away first.
It gets worse. In America, scientists have spent
$1.2 m (^750,000) of public money trying to prove
that conservatives are nutty. In Canada, they've
studied 2,000 Pisceans and determined they're
not al wetties who are stil crying over Born Free.
And in Hol and, they're examining a prehistoric
slug that has no brain or sex organs to see if it's
some kind of evolutionary missing link. Unlikely, if
it doesn't have a penis or a womb.
For heaven's sake people, where's the next
Concorde? Where's the pil we can live on
instead of food, and what about the dog in a
space suit we were promised by Valerie
Singleton? Put your ducks away and do some
thing useful.
With this in mind, I went to see Professor Kevin
Warwick in the cybernetics department of
Reading University last week. He has built what
looks like a radio-control ed car but in fact it's a
robot that has the intel igence, he says, of a wasp.
If you turn its power supply off, it wil look for more,
in the same way that a wasp wil look for food.
And it can be programmed to buzz around your
head al day too.
Warwick is so obsessed with artificial intel igence
he recently had a plug surgical y implanted in his
nervous system. Then he hooked himself up to a
computer so, as he moved his hand in New York,
a robotic hand back home in Reading moved too.
And his point is? Wel , I had no idea until he told
me that he'd had his wife's central nervous
system hooked up to the web too. Now that . . .
that boggles the mind.
The possibilities of feeling what your wife feels,
and vice versa, have to be one of the most
exciting breakthroughs since . . . since . . . ever.
And imagine being tapped into the brain of a
computer at the same time. Working on the G-
spot and a system to beat the gee-gees
simultaneously.
My enthusiasm was curbed somewhat when
Warwick explained that a man/machine hybrid
might not be satisfied with the governorship of
California and could, perhaps, decide one day to
wreak a trail of destruction across the world. I
suggested that machines are never scary
because you can always turn them off but he
smiled the smile of a brainbox and said, simply:
'Real y? How do you turn the internet off then?'
If he has a point then maybe a dearth of scientists
over the coming years is no bad thing. Because it
would only take one to put down his duck for five
minutes and destroy the planet.
Sunday 14 September 2003
Why the Booker Shortlist Always Loses the
Plot
A couple of months ago I wrote about books here.
It was the time of the Hay Festival, which is like
Glastonbury only quieter, more dusty and without
Rolf Harris.
Jil y Cooper had hit out at the intel ectual
snobbery of it al . 'There are two categories of
writers,' she said at the time, 'Jeffrey Archer and
me, who long and long for a kind word in the
Guardian, and the others who get al the kind
words and long to be able to do what Jeffrey and I
do.'
Wise words. But not wise enough, it seems, for
the panel of judges who selected this year's Man
Booker Prize shortlist.
Joint favourite to win is a book cal ed Brick Lane
by Monica Ali, which is centred on the letters
exchanged between two sisters, one of whom
lives in Bangladesh and one who came to
London for an arranged marriage.
Now I haven't read it, and I never wil , but I think
we can be fairly sure that neither of the sisters wil
have a torrid affair with an unsuitable rogue cal ed
Rupert.
So what of the other joint favourite? That's from
Margaret Atwood, who has got her, I suspect,
voluminous knickers in a tangle over Monsanto
and its GM food development. Oryx and Crake,
her book, is unlikely to be a comedy.
It's also worth mentioning Damon Galgut's The
Good Doctor, which is about a young medic who
finds himself posted to a tribal homeland in South
Africa. Is he dive-bombed by F-15 fighters? Is the
Nimitz sunk? Don't hold your breath.
I have just finished a book by Philip Roth, one of
the most revered highbrow authors, and it was
astonishing. It's about the owner of a glove factory
in New Jersey whose daughter came off the rails
a bit.
I ploughed on through page after page of
undeniably beautiful prose dying to know if he'd
get his daughter back. But al I got was more and
more agonising until it just stopped.
It's almost as though Roth rang the publishers and
asked: 'How long would you like my next novel to
be?' And when they said 250 pages, he said, 'Oh
good, I've finished.'
Before this, I read Gulag by Anne Applebaum,
which was mainly a letter to other people who've
written about the Soviet camps, saying they were
al wrong. Wrong, do you hear.
But worst of al was Stupid White Men by the
Stupid White Man himself, Michael Moore.
After the first chapter – an interesting account of
how George Bush stole the presidency — it
degenerated into an adolescent rant from a
student bedsit, circa 1982. Thatcher, Thatcher,
Thatcher. Big companies. Thatcher. Rainforests.
Governments would rather spend their money on
another bomber than education, and why do we
fear
black men when every bit of suffering in our lives
has a Caucasian face attached to it?
He droned on and on and I couldn't take anything
he said seriously because in the introduction,
before the eco-friendly, power-to-the-people
garbage real y started to splash onto the page, he
criticised the British for privatising 'formerly wel -
run public entities' – like the rail network.
What? British Rail? Wel run? You stupid, fat, four-
eyed, grinning, bearded imbecile. He even
admitted that he dropped out of col ege because
he couldn't find anywhere to park. You should
have gone on the train, if you love them so much.
I could heap scorn on Moore until hel freezes
over –but back to my point. A book needs more
than beautiful sentence construction, a left-wing
take and wry observation. It needs, more than
anything else, a story. With a story, you have the
most powerful of emotions: hope.
You 'hope' Clint Thrust manages to abseil from
his Apache gunship successful y and that the third
world war is averted. You 'hope' that the heroine
meets the hero on the bridge at midnight and they
al live happily ever after. You 'hope' that the
dream to live in Provence works out.
Sure, I got plenty of hope from Philip Roth. I spent
the entire time hoping the glove maker would get
his daughter back, but it was dashed by the
sudden appearance of the ISBN number.
In Stupid White Men I hoped the author would fal
out of a tal building, but that never happened
either.
My wife reads books the size of Agas about
women in beekeeper hats who spend 50 years in
Peru looking for a lost bracelet. Man Booker
books, in other words.
Sometimes I snatch them away and ask: 'What
do you hope happens next?' and I always get the
same answer: 'Nothing real y.'
She can take a year to read something, whereas I
like a book that becomes more important in my
life than life itself.
When I was in the middle of Red Storm Rising by
Tom Clancy – which was not selected for the Man
Booker shortlist — you could have taken my liver
out and fed it to the dog. And I wouldn't have
noticed.
Which brings me to Yellow Dog, by Martin Amis.
It's awful, apparently. Reading it, said Tibor
Fischer, the novelist, who reviewed it in the Daily
Telegraph, was like your favourite uncle being
caught masturbating in the school playground.
His views were shared by the Man Booker judges
who have left it out of'the final six'. I bet it's
fabulous.
Sunday 28 September 2003
Look in the Souvenir Shop and Weep for
England
Picture the scene. We were in France having
lunch at Club 5 5 on the beach in St Tropez and I
was explaining to my children just how good the
French are at cheese and wine.
And then it happened. Having tried the Brie and
declared it to be delicious, my nine-year-old
daughter looked up and, out of nowhere, asked
the most impossible question I've ever faced.
'Daddy,' she said, 'what are the English good at?'
Now I've been ready for some time for her to say:
'I know I came out of Mummy's tummy but how did
I get in there in the first place?' I've been
preparing for that one. But: 'What are the English
good at?' It took me so completely by surprise
that I suddenly felt the need to shove a fish's head
into her mouth.
'Wel ,' I stammered. 'We, er . . . we're good at . . .'
For some extraordinary reason Harold Shipman's
name came into my head. 'Murdering people,' I
suggested. Wel we are. We've even started
exporting our murderers. But I think that in a world
murdering league, sinister Belgium is stil at No. i.
I had a quick canter round al the usual suspects:
footbal , cricket, tennis, motor racing and so on,
and could come up with nothing. So I moved into
the world
of innovation and again drew a blank. Our big
polythene bal oon tore. Our Euro fighter doesn't
work if it's chil y. Our trains are not quite as fast as
they were before the Second World War when
they were named after ducks such as the mal ard.
I'm having a crisis about being English at the
moment. I was in Berlin last week, the day after
Mr Blair had been to see Schroder and Chirac
about Iraq, and it was strange walking around the
Fatherland apologising to everyone for my
country's conduct in the war.
Speaking of which, did you know that HMS
Invincible has to limp around the world on one
engine because the Royal Navy cannot afford the
fuel for two? How frightening is that?
But this is symptomatic of a serious problem.
Beneath the surface, everything is half cocked.
Have you, for instance, inadvertently walked
through a staff-only door into some back
staircase in any public building? It's unbelievable.
Miles of institutional paint dragging plaster off the
wal s. Huge puddles on the floor, some of which
smel of rain and some of which don't. Unshaded
light bulbs smeared with melted moths from the
1940s. Broken hinges. Notice boards bearing
news of retirement parties. Tick if you want to go.
No one has.
On Thursday night I watched a fabulous
programme about the building of London's
sewers. They were constructed in 1856 and have
been almost unmaintained ever since. There are,
apparently, 186,000 miles of sewers in Britain
and in 2002 only 241 miles were mended or
replaced.
British Airways is run by an Australian and the
English footbal team is managed by a Swede.
Vodafone, Lloyds TSB and the British bid to run
the Olympics are now al being run by Yanks. And
according to my friends in the City that's now
almost exclusively American too.
To get an idea of the scale of the problem, next
time you're passing through Terminal i at
Heathrow check out the souvenir shop, the last
chance visitors have to take home a taste of
England.
Every airport has one of these. In Detroit, Ford,
GM and Motown al run gift shops where you can
buy toy cars and posters of Martha Reeves. In
Iceland you can buy a nice jumper or a book
about waterfal s. In Barbados they do a selection
of hot sauces. In Canada they'l sel you a cute
dead seal. 'Squeeze its tummy and real blood
spurts out of the wound on its head.'
In New York I bought a limited-edition plastic
statue of a fireman carrying a buddy through what
looks like some chips and ketchup but is in fact
bits of the Trade Center. It's cal ed Red Hats of
Courage.
But at Heathrow al you can get is a flavour of
what Britain used to be. The reality is that today's
bobby wears a flak jacket and doesn't venture
onto the beat without a belt ful of mustard gas.
But at the airport shop you're offered a teddy bear
dressed like Dixon of Dock Green.
Can you imagine the gift shop at Charles de
Gaul e offering visitors dol s in berets with onions
round their necks? Or the Australians sel ing
bears in convict suits with chains round their feet?
Here, you half expect to find Winston Churchil
dressed up as a beefeater and a talking Sir
Walter Raleigh dol in a London taxi. 'Awight guv.
'Ave a fag. Cor lummy.'
Then there's the Queen. How many other
countries try to sel tourists crockery featuring a
picture of their head of state? A Berlusconi bowl?
A Putin plate? I don't think so.
Here, though, they were obviously so desperate
to fil the shelves with something — anything —
that they wil even sel you a plastic Union Jack.
How desperate is that? Even Luxembourg
doesn't have to resort to sel ing you a flag.
But of course if the gift shop wanted to represent
England today accurately, it'd be tough. Everyone
would be going home with a Harold Shipman
mug.
Sunday 5 October 2003
Eton – It's Worse than an Inner-City
Comprehensive
Oliver Letwin announced last week that he would
rather beg on the streets than send his children to
an inner-city state school. He is an old Etonian.
Predictably, every whining, thin-lipped, pasty-
faced, shapeless socialist from one end of
Haringey to the other is on the radio moaning and
groaning and general y having angst. 'Oh, it's not
fair,' they wail. Damn right. It's not fair either that
you've got a face like a slapped spaniel. But
that's life, loser. Get used to it.
Actual y, I don't think old Etonian Oliver went far
enough. There is no end to the things I would do
to keep my children out of an inner-city state
school. I'd rent my car to a minicab firm, my
bottom to an internet downloader and my spare
room to a family of Azerbaijanis.
Nothing, nothing annoys me more than people
who sacrifice their children on the altar of political
ideals. The notion that you would send your kids
to a drug-addled, bul et-ridden comp to be taught
by a lout in a bomber jacket because you 'like,
you know, don't believe in private education'
makes my liver fizz.
I'm not alone either. Every day the M40 is chock-
ful of families, their meagre possessions
strapped to the roofs of their cars, fleeing from
the horror of state education
in London. I even have one of them staying in my
house right now.
She's not looking for a house here in the
Cotswolds. That'l come in time. What she's
looking for first is a school where her son can
learn to add and subtract in the old-fashioned way
with cakes and sweets. Rather than: 'If you stab
Johnnie and he loses three pints of blood, how
many pints wil he have left?'
The problem is that the debate on education
cannot be taken seriously when it is opened by an
OE like Letwin. Did you see him at the
conference last week? Iain Duncan Smith was on
the stage, fumbling for his autocue, some berk in
a suit three sizes too big was trying to get the
osteoporotic audience to its gouty feet every
fifteen seconds and there, in the front row, was
Eton-educated Letwin, who appeared to be
sitting on an electrical socket of some kind.
His face had gone a funny shade of purple and
his whole head was rocking about so wildly that at
one point I real y thought it was in danger of
coming off.
Letwin is a funny sort of cove. I sat next to him at
dinner once and found him charming, amusing
and about 9 inches tal . Also, he is so clever that
you get the impression that he's teetering al the
time on the edge of slipping into Latin.
Certainly we know by his appearance on
Newsnight before the last general election that he
has a fondness for togas.
None of this matters, though. He could decide to
address the National Al otments Society in
Aramaic. He
could decide to go everywhere for a week on one
leg. Buteverything he does is overshadowed by
where he went to school. you just know how his
obituary is going to read:
'Mr Oliver Letwin, who was educated at Eton,
exploded today. Onlookers described how his
head became so ful of knowledge that his face
turned purple andburst.
"Stephen Fry told him a little-known fact about
Homer and it was the final straw. There simply
wasn't enough storage space for any more
information in his brain," an Eton-educated doctor
said later.
'Mr Boris Johnson, another old Etonian, was
devastated. "Ego sum gutted," he said.'
Say someone went to Eton and everyone
assumes you're dealing with a sneering man with
floppy hair whose elder brother is in the army.
And while we were at school learning about John
Donne, the boys at Eton, of course, learnt how to
run overmembers of the working class and how,
by speaking very loudly, there is no need for
French.
There was also a famous essay written on the
subject of poverty by an Eton pupil: 'The father
was poor. The mother was poor. The children
were poor. The butler was poor. The cook was
poor. The projectionist was poor.the chauffeur
was poor.' real world? it stops just outside
Windsor and starts again in Slough.
But this caricature isn't true. You can no longer
walk through the door simply because your
surname is longer thanthe average chemical
symbol.
You need to be very, very bright. And what's
more, two of my bestest friends went there in the
1970s. And they've turned out al right(ish).
But the stigma is stil there.
We're never told that 'Newsnight is presented by
Jeremy Paxman, who went to Malvern.' And nor
does the announcer ever say: 'And now Jonathan
Ross, who went to some godforsaken hel hole in
Leytonstone.'
My wife has put my son down to go to Eton but
this wil happen over my dead body and al the
bits I've rented out to keep him away from the
state schools in Lambeth. I know that he would
have a great education for five years but he'd
have to spend the next 50 being an old Etonian.
At a comprehensive school he'd be better off
because it would be the other way round: five
years of being knifed fol owed by 50 great years
of being able to get a dart out of his eye without
blubbing.
Sunday 12 October 2003
A Giant Leap Back for Mankind
Like most middle-aged people, I don't know
where I was when John F. Kennedy was shot. But
I do know where I was when the Air France
Concorde crashed into a Paris hotel. And I know
where I'l be next Friday: on board the world's only
supersonic airliner as it makes its final scheduled
flight from New York to London.
As I step off, the temptation wil be strong to say:
'That was one smal step for a man. But one giant
leap backwards for mankind.'
It's hard to think of past examples where human
beings had the technology to progress but held
back. Maybe AD410, when the Romans pul ed
out of Britain, but not since. It's not in our nature to
snuff out the fire.
We went to the moon and now Beagle 2 is on its
way to Mars. We invented the steam engine and
replaced it almost immediately with internal
combustion. We went to America in three hours . .
. and now we can't any more. It doesn't make
sense.
When the British and French governments
decided to commission a supersonic jet liner in
1962, the engineers had no clue how such a thing
might be achieved. Sure, they had jet fighters up
there in the stratosphere, doing more than twice
the speed of sound, but these were being flown
by young men with
triangular torsos in G-suits. The politicians were
talking about putting overweight businessmen up
there, in lounge suits.
Friends at NASA have told me that the
technological chal enge of making a Mach-2.2
passenger jet was greater than putting a man on
the moon. Those rocket boys get al teary-eyed
about their beloved Apollos. But when you
mention the Concorde, their eyes dry and they
nod, slowly and reverential y.
That's because life beyond the 750-mph sound
barrier is seriously hostile. There's the friction,
which generates so much heat that planes swel
by up to a foot.
There's a spot on Concorde's dash that, in flight,
is so hot you could fry an egg on it. Then there's
the shock wave, a phenomenon of such ferocity
that it jams the hydraulics and freezes the
controls.
Toward the end of the Second World War, pilots
who put their Spitfires into a dive often lost control
and could not pul up. They didn't know it at the
time but a supersonic shock wave, the source of
the sonic boom, was to blame. It sat on the
trailing edge of the wings, preventing the ailerons
from moving. To get a plane to fly through the
sound barrier, this shock wave has to be tamed.
Of course, you can't let the supersonic savagery
anywhere near those delicate Olympus engines.
The air has to be slowed down before it's al owed
into the intakes and past the spidery blades.
To make things even more complicated, there's
the bothersome business of fuel consumption and
reliability.
A typical fighter jet of the 1960s, the Lightning, for
instance, was out of juice after about 45 minutes.
And it needed up to two weeks of maintenance
after a sortie.
Concorde had to fly in that cruel place, where the
air is as destructive as a nuclear blast, for 4,000
miles. Then it had to turn around and come home.
The Americans failed with their Supersonic
Transport because they aimed for Mach 3 and
the exotic materials needed to withstand the heat
at this speed weren't commercial y available back
then. The Russians were more realistic with their
Tupolov but it failed because it only had a range
of 1,500 miles.
It's worth remembering that Concorde was built
by trial and error after error. Men wearing
Brylcreem and store coats, endlessly lobbing
paper darts down the wind tunnel in Filton.
Make
no
mistake,
Concorde
was
an
extraordinary technological achievement. Almost
certainly, one of the greatest.
And not just technical y but political y. France and
Britain couldn't even agree on how it should be
spelt. They final y decided that it should end in an
'e', in the French style, but then Macmil an fel out
with de Gaul e and dropped the letter.
It was Tony Benn, the then secretary of state for
industry, who solved the matter by declaring it
would be 'e' for England, 'e' for Europe and 'e' for
ententecordiale.
Benn saved Concorde over and over again. He
even had to fight the Americans who, in a fit of
sour grapes,
tried to ban the plane on the grounds that its sonic
boom would knock over their cows.
They kicked up such a stink that, bit by bit, the
world began to lose confidence in the plane. One
by one, the sixteen airlines that had ordered
Concorde began to cancel until just two were left:
Air France and BO AC.
Knowing that the plane was destined to be a
commercial disaster, Benn had to cajole the
Treasury and the French until, on 21 January
1976, the scheduled services began. For the first
time, paying passengers could fly so fast they
could watch the sun rise in the west and arrive in
America before they left home.
The cost to the British taxpayer was astronomical:
Ј1.34 bil ion. Even in today's money, that would
nearly get you two Domes.
But, astonishingly, the white elephant became a
cash cow. Even though this exotic plane arrived
as Freddie Laker began to take the working
classes to New York for Ј59, it regularly flew
three-quarters ful and made Ј20 mil ion a year for
BA.
From my point of view, in a Fulham flat, Concorde
was simply a device that prevented me hearing
the second item on the six and ten o'clock news.
Twice a night the hum of central London would be
drowned by the crackle from those massive
engines. And twice a night the entire city would
look up. Familiarity never bred indifference.
And then. As I stepped off" a Royal Navy Sea
King helicopter in York my phone rang to say
Concorde had crashed into a Paris hotel.
My reaction was the same as yours. Initial shock
that was only slightly lessened when we found out
it was an Air France bird and the people on
board were not British. Usual y, in an accident of
this kind, we mourn the people who have died.
But this time it was different. For the first time
since Titanic we mourned the loss of the machine
itself.
The great white dart. The machine that reminded
Londoners twice a day how great we once had
been. The plane that was 40 years old but stil at
the cutting edge of everything. It was not invincible
after al .
It never had been, actual y. On one BA flight from
New York to London one of the engine intakes
refused to budge, increasing the drag and
therefore the fuel consumption. The captain
ignored the advice of his engineer and number
two that they should land at Shannon in Ireland to
refuel and cruised over the middle of London,
arriving at Heathrow with enough juice for 90
seconds more flight. It ran dry while taxiing to the
stand. Joan Col ins never knew how close she
came to being a permanent fixture in the
wreckage of what had once been Harrods.
After the Paris crash and 11 September, public
confidence in Concorde dried up. I flew on it for
the first time last year and couldn't believe how
empty it was.
There were lots of things I couldn't believe,
actual y. Like how smal the windows were, and
where in such a tiny fuselage they found space for
such an extraordinarily wel -stocked wine cel ar.
And how noisy it was in the back. But most of al I
couldn't believe the surge of
acceleration as it cleared Cornwal and the
afterburners took us up past 1,000 mph.
Unless my children become fighter pilots, they'l
never feel that surge.
No company or government in the world is
currently undertaking serious work on a
supersonic airliner. There's talk of Gulfstream
building a Mach 2 business jet and there are
whisperings about a 'scramjet' plane that could
get from London to Sydney in two hours.
In the early 1990s, British Aerospace and
Aerospatiale held secret talks about developing a
22 5-seat aircraft that could get across the
Pacific at Mach 2.5. But when the proposed cost
of such a thing worked out at fy bil ion, they
decided to build a double-decker bus instead.
Do you think Columbus would have reached
America if he'd concerned himself with the
bottom line? Do you think Armstrong would have
walked on the moon or Hil ary on the top of
Everest? Was it profit that took Amundsen to the
South Pole or drove Turing to invent the
computer?
Compounding the problem is a sense that the
First World has pul ed so far ahead of the Third,
the money would be better spent helping others to
catch up. For every pound spent on human
advancement, there are a thousand bleeding
hearts saying the money could have been spent
on the starving in Africa. I see their point.
But what I cannot see is the human thirst for
improvement being extinguished by the bean
counters. No individual company or country could
afford to develop a plane that's significantly better
than Concorde, so maybe
what's needed is a ring-fenced global fund for the
greater good. A fund that undertakes the work
business won't touch, hunting the skies for
asteroids, searching the seas to find a cure for
cancer and fuel ing our quest to go faster and
faster.
Or maybe the days of mechanical speed are
over. Why go to America at the speed of sound
when, with an internet connection and video
conferencing, you can be there at the speed of
light? Why go at al ?
Maybe planes are about to fol ow in the footsteps
of the horse. When the car came along, the horse
didn't go away. It simply stopped being a tool and
became a toy.
A show jumper. A playmate for twelve-year-old
girls.
If you can communicate instantly with anyone any
where the only reason to travel is for fun, for your
holidays. And given the choice of doing that at
Mach 2 or for .Ј2, I know which I'd choose.
Perhaps, then, this is not a step backwards.
Maybe Concorde dies not because it's too fast
but because, in the electronic age, it's actual y too
slow.
Sunday 19 October 2003
What a Wonderful Flight into National Failure
Not much wil get me out of bed at 4.30 a.m. in
the morning. Especial y when I've only climbed
into it at 3.30 a.m. But when you've got one of the
hundred tickets for the last flight of Concorde … I
even had a shave.
They seated me right in front of the lavatory, or
Piers Morgan, editor of the Daily Mirror, as you
know him, and between a future hedge
investment broker and an American who'd paid
$60,000 to be there in some kind of eBay charity
auction.
One of the girls flying was completely horrified at
the guest list. 'There aren't even any press,' she
said. 'Wel ,' I said, hurting just a little bit, 'that
tubby bloke's from the Independent. And then
there's the Mail, the BBC, ABC, NBC, ITN, PA,
CNN, Sky, the Sun,
the Guardian and the
Telegraph.'
'But where's HelloR' That's what she wanted to
know.
There'd been talk of Elton John turning up and
maybe George Michael too. But in the end al we
had was a woman in a wig whom I recognised
from a film cal ed The Stud, and someone who
used to be married to Bil y Joel.
The rest? Wel there was the chairman of every
company from the Footsie, al of them a little bit
northern,
a little bit florid and, dare I say it, a little bit heavy
around the middle.
Despite the weight, Concorde heaved itself into a
crystal New York morning at 7.38 a.m. and
banking hard – but not so hard that our Pol Roger
Winston Churchil champagne fel over — pointed
its nose at the rising sun and went home. For the
last time.
I was, it must be said, in the mood for a party but
this is hard in what's essential y a Mach-2 veal
crate. It is possible to leave your seat but you wil
not be able to stand up properly and then you wil
have to sit right back down again when the drinks
trol ey needs to get past.
As we hammered through Mach 1, I asked the
hedge-fund man what it was like to go through the
sound barrier for his first, and everyone's last
time. But he'd nodded off.
The American was deep in monologue with
himself. There are no television screens — to
save weight — and I'd left my book in my bag.
Concorde was not real y designed as a party
venue. Unlike the 747 with its larders and its
video games, it is a child of the 1950s, a time
when you were expected to make your own
entertainment. So I did. I lobbed my drink over
Morgan.
British Airways were keen that this, the final flight,
should not be seen as a wake but rather a
celebration of 27 remarkable years.
And to be honest, there was a celebratory mood
both in the departure lounge and on the tarmac,
where al the
pilots of the other early-morning flights sent
goodwil messages.
However, at 3.24 p.m. local time, as we dropped
back down to Mach 0.98, the mood changed. As
everyone realised that we had been the last
people to fly faster than the speed of sound
without a parachute, it was as though a veil of
sadness had been draped over the cabin.
Over London we couldn't help noticing the land
marks of modern Britain. The Dome.
The Mil ennium Bridge. The traffic jams. The
Mirror offices. And here we were in the last
reminder of how great and innovative we had
once been. And we thought: what's going to
remind us now?
There was applause as the wheels touched down
but in the next 40 minutes, as they unhooked the
power and the crowds took photographs, we may
as wel have been at a funeral. The drink had
flowed but the veil, by this time, had become a
blanket.
I don't feel sorry for the chairmen who wil now
need seven hours to get across the Atlantic. It
was, after al , their meanness that caused this
final flight in the first place.
I don't feel sorry for the nation. It's our own fault
that we don't make machines like this any more. I
don't even feel sorry for the people who'd
struggled to keep Concorde flying these past few
years: they'l al get other jobs.
I do, however, feel sorry for the machine itself. It's
sitting in its shed now, wondering what it's done
wrong. Why did it not fly yesterday and why is
there no sense
that it wil fly today? Why is nobody tinkering with
its engines and vacuuming its carpets?
And what was that last flight al about? Why were
so many people taking photographs and why,
after 27 years, did every single one of Heathrow's
30,000 employees turn out to watch it do what it
was designed to do?
I like to believe that a machine does have a heart
and a soul. I like to think of them as ordinary
people think of dogs. They cannot read or write or
understand our spoken words. But they
understand what we'd like them to do in other
ways. Go left. Go right. Go faster. Sit. Lie.
So go ahead. Think of Concorde as a dog that
you've had in the family for 27 years. Think of the
way it has never once let you down. And how
thril ed it is when you feed it and pet it and take it
out for a walk.
And now try to imagine how that dog would feel if
you locked it up one night. And never went back.
Sunday 26 October 2003
The Peace Game in Iraq is Jeuxsans
Frontieres
You probably thought, as I did, that Iraq had been
conquered by the Americans and that Tony Blair
had been al owed to take and hold the equivalent
of Bournemouth.
In other words, you thought it was a two-country
coalition.
But no. Back in February, President George W.
Bush
announced
that
despite
the
best
endeavours of the cheese-eating surrender
monkeys, he had gathered together 30 like-
minded countries and that this 'force for good'
would bring peace, goodwil and Texaco to Iraq.
Unfortunately, the 30 countries he had assembled
did not include Germany, Russia or China:
nations with proud fighting histories and lots of
submarines. No. He ended up with an
extraordinary col ection including Estonia, which
did have an army in 1993. But lost it.
No, real y; the Estonian army was ordered to
capture a Russian military town but the soldiers
decided this was an unpleasant way of earning a
living and went off, on their own, to fight organised
crime instead.
Today Estonia has conscription but most young
men get around this simply by not turning up. I
don't blame them. What's the point of spending a
year play-
ing soldiers when the most frightening thing in
your country's military arsenal is the general's
dog?
A few years ago the Germans, the Finns and the
Swedes had a whip-round and gave their tiny
neighbour some uniforms, a couple of patrol
boats and a Piper aircraft, but as for guns — wel ,
the Estonians have an Uzi they bought from the
Israelis.
In a conflict with Iraq, Estonia would have been a
pleasant but fairly useless al y. As would
Azerbaijan, which joined the coalition even though
it, too, lost its army fourteen months ago and it
hasn't turned up yet in Iraq.
President Heydar Aliyev had tried to make life
bearable for his troops and even set up a
charitable foundation so they could be paid. But
as winter drew in last year the soldiers left their
barracks, saying they were sick of living without
heat and with only an hour of running water a day.
Stil , at least Bush could rely on Honduras. Sure,
its adult population is the same size as
Sheffield's and yes, most people live in houses
made from sugar-cane stalks. But there is a
modern, wel -equipped army and I'm sure the
special jungle squad' would have been useful in
Iraq's desert.
As it turned out, however, the Hondurans never
turned up. Nor did the Japanese, who were
planning on sending 1,000 peacekeepers. In the
wake of last week's big bomb, the Japanese
decided it would be better if they just stayed at
home. India and Turkey fol owed suit.
South Korea is also unwil ing to commit, but I
guess
it's hard to worry about events 10,000 miles away
when your next-door neighbour is pointing a
thermonuclear weapon through your letter box.
As a result, the team of nations in Iraq looks as
though it has been picked by the primary school
kid who got to go second. France won the toss
and nicked al the big, good players leaving Uncle
Sam with the Ukrainians who spend 30 per cent
of their GDP on the military (47p), the Romanians
who are busy training the new Iraqi police force,
the Hungarians who have sent 140 logistics
experts, the New Zealanders who have sent
some bandages, and the Bulgarians who,
presumably, look after the umbrel as.
The Czechs sent 400 policemen but the men
have got notes from their mothers and wil be
going home next month — and it's likely to be the
same story with the Italians, who are always up for
a fight. Until it starts.
I think everyone with their head screwed on the
right way round knew that it would be jol y easy for
America's enormous military machine to topple
the Ba'ath party in Iraq, even without the
Honduran jungle squad and Estonia's second-
hand patrol boat.
But we also knew it would be very hard to sort out
the mess afterwards. And sure enough, every
time the Poles or the Dutch rebuild a water pipe
or a power station, half a dozen Talibans drive
their Toyotas into it.
It took nearly 80 years to pacify Northern Ireland,
where there are only two factions, while in Iraq
there are about 120, who can al trace their
vendettas back to the Garden of Eden.
To make matters worse, there's not much
cohesion among the occupying forces either. One
minute a burly Australian comes into your house
looking for nuclear weapons, the next a Ukrainian
pops round to see if you'd like a job in the police
force — and then you get shot in the face by a
Shi'ite because a Sunni saw you talking to a
Norwegian sergeant about that Bulgarian bird in
the wireless section.
Meanwhile, the 130,000 Americans with their
Apache gunships and their limitless supply of
money are bogged down, trying to work out if
Saddam Hussein had anything more dangerous
in his chemical cupboard than aspirin.
The war is over, said Bush. Wel , you may have
stopped playing, matey, but trust me on this: what
you have left behind are 187 different teams al
playing different games on the same pitch.
Sunday 16 November 2003
The Juries are Scarier than the Criminals
One day, many years ago, when I was a trainee
reporter on a local newspaper in the socialist
republic of South Yorkshire, a woman telephoned
the newsdesk to say her house 'were disgusting'.
I went round, and sure enough it was very dirty
and ful of equal y dirty children, some of whom
belonged to the cal er.
She wasn't sure which ones exactly, but she was
very sure of one thing: cockroaches were
burrowing into her head, through her ears, and
laying eggs behind her eyes.
She wasn't mad. But she was thick. Thick enough
to believe she was thin enough to wear a
miniskirt. And thick enough to believe her head
was ful of maggots when, in fact, it was ful of
nothing at al .
She wasn't unusual, either. Every day back then I
would meet people who knew only to eat when
hungry and lash out at anyone who they
suspected might be 'looking at them'. People, in
other words, with less capacity for logical thought
than a dishwasher.
They haven't gone away. Just the other night I was
watching a police programme. A young man had
been apprehended after he was seen driving
erratical y and he was, not to put too fine a point
on it, incapable of either coherent thought or
coherent speech.
When the policeman asked if the car was his, he
looked like he'd been asked to explain the atomic
properties of lithium. He had the IQ of a daffodil,
the conversational ability of a cushion and the
intel igence of his mother who, at the time, was
standing outside the police car shouting 'Oi, pig!'
over and over again.
And yet because this man wasn't a vet or a vicar
he could be selected for jury service. Yup, this
man, and the woman with cockroach eggs in her
forehead, are deemed bright enough to
determine the outcome of what might wel be a
multi-mil ion-pound fraud trial.
Now you may not have noticed, but in between
the end of the last parliament and the Queen's
speech, when everyone was focused on the big
issues of foundation hospitals and university
funding, the government was struggling to shove
through its new Criminal Justice Bil .
The held view is that trial by jury is the
cornerstone of British democracy and if you take
it away the whole building wil come crashing
down.
But actual y, when push comes to shove, you don't
give a stuff about democracy. If it means getting a
few more burglars off the street, damn fairness
and decency.
What you want is a system that works. In the wee
smal hours you can admit that previous
convictions should be made known to the court
before the case is tried.
You also know that the jury system is a farce.
How can you let a woman who thinks she has
insects in her head decide whether it's legal to
move a pension fund through the Cayman
Islands? In certain parts of
Somerset I suspect that imbecile and embezzle
sound exactly the same.
And it's not just fraud either. Back in the olden
days when a man was accused of stealing a goat
you listened to people who'd seen him do it and
made up your mind.
But now you have to have a basic grasp of
forensic science.
I can see why Labour MPs are so concerned.
They must see many idiots in their surgeries. But
the ones who go to a surgery are the gleaming
white tip of the iceberg. I'm talking about the sort
of people who have no clue what an MP is or
what he does; people who you thought existed
only in a Viz cartoon.
The Tories should be concerned, too, though. I
know one upright shires lady who sat on a jury
and said afterwards: 'Wel , I could tel the little
devil was guilty. You could tel the moment he
walked into the court.'
A jury is supposed to be made up of your peers,
and peers means someone who is equal in
standing or rank. Wel , I'm sorry, but on that basis
the man with the al egedly stolen car on television
the other night could only be trusted to try plants.
Terrifyingly, my equal, in terms of someone who
writes about cars and occasional y appears on
television, is Stephen Bayley. And I wouldn't want
to be tried by him either.
At the moment a jury trial has nothing to do with
democracy and everything to do with sheer blind
luck. But what do we replace it with?
The judge? Ooh, no. Professional jurors? What
sort
of person's going to sign up for that? It wouldn't
even work, I fear, if we tested the heads of those
cal ed.
Because al the bright, intel igent people would
pretend to be stupid so they could go home.
I think you may be worried where this is going to
end. There's talk at the moment of al owing
television cameras into the courts. So how long
wil it be before the viewers at home are asked to
'press the red button now' and vote? You read it
here first.
Sunday 30 November 2003
They're Trying to Frame Kristen Scott
Donkey
I've had a horribly busy week and quite the last
thing I needed was a directive from the European
Parliament that I must get passports for my three
donkeys.
I tried to argue that I have no plans to take them
abroad, or even out of their paddock, but it was
no good. Council Directive 90/426/EEC says that
anyone with any horse, mule or donkey must get a
passport. At twenty quid a go.
This was going to be a pain in the backside.
Geoff, my grey donkey, is so stubborn that he
won't even go into his stable, so how in the name
of al that's holy was I supposed to get him into
one of those photo booths?
I suppose Eddie, who's a playful soul, might have
been up for it but then he'd have pul ed a sil y face
every time the flash went off. And let's not forget
the beautiful Kristen Scott Donkey who, when the
pictures were delivered, would have stood there
in tears saying 'they make my nose look too long'.
It turned out that the European Union had thought
about this and decided that instead of
photographs a simple silhouette drawing would
suffice. This makes life easier but I am a trifle
worried that silhouettes aren't a terribly good
means of identification.
First of al , if I attempted to draw the outline of a
donkey, it would end up looking like a dog.
Everything I draw looks like a dog.
My vet says this is no problem so long as I get the
markings in the right place.
'But what if my donkey has no markings?' I asked.
'Quite,' he said. Smal wonder that Princess Anne
cal ed the whole scheme a 'nonsense'.
So what, you might be wondering, is happening
here? Why has the EU decided that al equine or
asinine species, except those which live in the
New Forest or on Dartmoor, must have a photo
ID?
Wel , and I promise you're not going to believe
this, the idea is that each passport wil carry
details of the animal's medical history. This way
you'l know at a glance if it has been fed harmful
drugs, should you decide to eat it.
Oh good. So, if one day I suddenly come over al
peckish and decide that Geoff's front leg would
go wel with the veg and gravy, I'l be able to make
sure that his previous owner did not feed him a
drug that would make me grow two heads.
I think it's worth pausing here for a moment. You
see, over the years I have eaten a puffin, a snake,
a whale (wel , a bit of one), a dog, a crocodile and
an anchovy. But I would sooner eat a German
than tuck into my donkeys. And I don't think I'm
alone on this one either.
For sure, there are problems when a horse dies.
You are no longer al owed to bury it in your
garden, so you must rely on the local hunt to come
and take it away.
But what happens when hunting is banned?
Is the EU saying that we have to break out the
carving knife and warm up the sauce?
I don't think so. In Britain we have a line in the
sand when it comes to what we wil and what we
wil not put in our mouths. We wil eat rats, so long
as they're cal ed 'chicken madras'. But we wil not
eat horses.
Unfortunately, however, the line in the sands of
Europe is a little further away.
And consequently those buggers wil eat anything.
In France you often find horse on the menu and in
Germany, as we discovered last week, it's not
against the law to eat your dinner guests.
Furthermore, I know they make salami out of the
few donkeys in Spain that have not been hurled to
their deaths from the nearest tower block.
Over there across the water there is perhaps
some argument for equine passports.
Being able to tel if the horse had been on 'horse'
at some point in its life would be reassuring. You
need to know if the pony's been smacked before
it's smoked.
But do you believe for one minute that the farmers
of Andalusia are actual y going to act on the EU
directive? Or do you think the letter wil simply be
fed to the mule?
That was my first reaction, I must admit. I thought
it was a stupid joke and if I did nothing it would go
away. But no. It turns out that in Britain, the only
country in Europe where we don't eat Mr Ed or
Eeyore, local authorities wil be employing ass
monitors to scour the
countryside for unregistered donkeys and horses.
And owners wil be fined for non-compliance.
Again. Can you see that happening in Europe? I
can't. I've seen those massive aquatic vacuum
cleaners that Spain cal s a fishing fleet pul ing into
the port of La Corufla and unloading fish about 2
mm long. And there wasn't an EU inspector within
a mil ion miles.
I can't even see it working in Germany. The
Germans love a rule more than anyone, but when
they tried to introduce a similar scheme a few
years ago only 50 per cent of the nation's horses
were registered. And al the inspectors who were
sent out to check on the others mysteriously never
came back.
Sunday 7 December 2003
All I Want for Christmas is a Ban on Office
Parties
It is traditional at this time of year for newspaper
columnists to say how much they despise just
about everything to do with Christmas. Sadly, this
is not an option for me.
Natural y there are one or two minor irritations. I
don't, for instance, like it when someone throws a
model aeroplane in your face the moment you
walk through the door of Hamleys. And my wife
and I have an uncanny knack of buying one
another the same thing every year. It's why we
have two video cameras and two dogs.
But mostly I get on wel with Christmas. My fairy
lights work straight out of the box. My tree does
not drop needles. I don't eat or drink too much. I
like getting long letters in cards from people I
haven't seen al year. I enjoy the enforced
bonhomie of New Year's Eve.
I find it satisfying to wrap presents. I like turkey
curry in February. The Great Escape is always
worth watching. I don't have any relatives who wet
themselves over lunch. I love seeing the children's
beaming faces at 5 a.m. I see nothing wrong with
Christmas jumpers. I am grateful for my new
socks.
I adore Boxing Day drinks parties. I think school
nativity plays are funny. I don't get stuck in traffic
jams
leaving London. I don't get in a panic about last-
minute shopping and I don't find it even remotely
stressful to be with the family for a few days.
That said, there is one feature of Christmas that
fil s me with such fear and such dread that I
genuinely shiver whenever it is mentioned. It is the
damp log in the fire, the mould on the smoked
salmon, the advertisement in the Queen's
speech. It is . . . the Works Do.
When I was a schoolboy my mum and dad had a
toy factory and, starting in January every year, the
staff would each save iop a week for the annual
yuletide knees-up.
By July they would have enough for the prawn
cocktail and by September they were dizzy with
anticipation about the first glass of Baileys. I
never understood why.
I stil don't. The notion that you turn off your com
puter at 6 p.m. and at 6.01 p.m. are making merry
with people you don't like very much over a
beaker of Pomagne seems odd.
They are not your friends or you would have seen
them social y at some point during the year. So
why think for a moment that the evening wil be
anything other than hel ?
Christmas in Britain these days is almost
completely ruined by the office party.
The streets become ful of ordinary people who
have suddenly lost the ability to walk in a straight
line. And the atmosphere in every restaurant is
firebombed by the table of 60 who order food not
for its taste but its aerodynamic efficiency.
What's more, for the past week it has been
impossible
to get anyone on the telephone because they're
either choosing an outfit or finding a restaurant to
ruin or having their hair done ready for the Big
Day.
I swear some people put more effort into the
office party than they do into the family event a
few days later. Last year the Top Gear Christmas
knees-up was organised, as is the way with these
things, by someone who is nineteen.
So I ended up in a throbbing basement, looking
at my watch every few minutes and thinking: can I
real y go at 10 p.m.? This year I'm not going at al .
So that's the first thing. Never, ever let the firm's
outing be organised by the most junior member of
the team because their idea of a good night out
— lots of vomit and sil y hats — is likely to be far
removed from yours.
You think you have nothing to talk about with the
man who drives the forklift in the warehouse, but
you have even less in common with the office
juniors.
Your house plants, for instance, are alive — but
you can't smoke any of them.
There is more food in your fridge than booze. You
hear your favourite songs when you're in the lift
and, while you stil like to see the dawn, you prefer
to have had a night's kip beforehand.
There is another problem. Wherever the office
juniors are, al they talk about is where they're
going next. Wherever you are, al you want to do
is go to bed. And they say, the day afterwards,
'I'm never going to drink
that much again.' You say, 'I just can't seem to
drink as much as I used to.'
The second thing about the works party is sex. A
survey this week revealed that 45 per cent of
people have had it away at the Christmas do.
Why? You sit opposite the plump girl for 48
weeks and it never once occurs to you that she is
interesting. So how come, after one warm wine,
she only needs to put on a paper hat to become
Jordan?
Even this year's Sunday Times party is likely to
be a nightmare, but for a rather unusual reason.
You see, the BBC recently said that its staff were
to stop writing columns for newspapers. Andrew
Marr, John Simpson and our very own John
Humphrys are affected.
Me, though? The BBC is not bothered. My
opinion, it seems, is irrelevant and worthless. And
I'm sure that Humphrys wil be duty bound to bring
that up.
Sunday 14 December 2003
notes
Note1
the Columbia astronauts