Is It Really Too Much to Ask? Page 32

  To understand where all of this might end, you need to go back to the 1850s in what at the time was known as ‘darkest Africa’. British explorers stumbled on a tribe living on the tranquil northern shores of Lake Victoria. People had been living there for tens of thousands of years, assuming that they were the only people on earth. They had never met anyone from another tribe, let alone an Arab or a white man. And it was interesting to see how their society had developed.

  They had not invented the wheel or the plough. But they had invented beer. And they could carry it around in vessels woven exquisitely from reeds. They also had fine cloth and knew to wash their hands in the lake before eating. They had also come up with the idea of extreme violence.

  If a child was making too much noise over lunch, it would be beheaded. If it got up without clearing its plate? That was a beheading offence, too. Beheading was their society’s equivalent of the naughty step. It was also a cure for snoring, nagging or looking at someone in a funny way.

  It could be worse, though. You could have ended up as one of the king’s wives. They were kept bound on the floor and forced to drink milk for eight hours a day, non-stop.

  This ensured that when the head honcho fancied a spot of rumpy-pumpy, the girl he selected would be nice and fat. Kate Moss? She would have been beheaded before she’d reached puberty.

  Now remember, this was the middle of the nineteenth century. Elsewhere in the world there were steam engines and ladies with parasols taking tea in the park. People in India wore clothes made in Huddersfield. People in Louisiana drank tea from Ceylon. And yet in the middle of it all was a civilization in which you could be beheaded for talking with your mouth full.

  What stopped it was the arrival of other people. People who said, ‘Yes, cutting your daughter’s head off is certainly one way of teaching her not to use her fingers at meal times. But have you tried a stern word, or a smacked bottom, because where we come from that works quite well, too?’

  This argument is still relevant today. What do you think stops American police forces waterboarding pretty much everyone they take into custody? The answer has nothing to do with the inner goodness of a man’s soul. It’s the sure-fire knowledge that other people are watching.

  Why do you think Robert Mugabe is such a monster? Because Zimbabwe is cut off. He can do as he pleases because he doesn’t have people from other places raising an eyebrow and saying, ‘Are you sure?’

  Closer to home we have the Isle of Man. Because it’s not really in the EU and not really part of the UK and because people from abroad are viewed by locals as Romulan stormtroopers, it was 1992 before they stopped birching homosexuals in front of a baying mob. And why? Because that’s when satellite TV from other countries showed them that homosexuality wasn’t a lifestyle choice and that birching was a bit last week. Maybe one day soon its idiotic government will also learn that it can’t just go around confiscating people’s gardens.

  Most governments in the civilized world are constitutionally bound by checks and balances to ensure they don’t do something idiotic. And what are those checks and balances? They usually have fancy names but, actually, they all boil down to the same thing: other people.

  In Britain every single poll on the death penalty suggests that the vast majority of us would like to see the gallows reintroduced. And, of course, if we weren’t in the EU, a government would be free to bring it back.

  But what for? At first, it would be for premeditated murder and rape. However, with no one looking, how long would it be before we were hanging people for having a beard, or for shouting at meal times, or for being Peter Mandelson? How long before disaffected Muslim youths started disappearing? And before child molesters and bell-ringers were hung from lamp posts by lynch mobs?

  Take the case of Abu Hamza. Every fibre of your being wanted him gone and you didn’t really care where. If he’d ended up becoming part of a new flyover on the M6, you’d have been relieved. But would that have been a good thing? Really?

  We need to be in Europe, to trade with the Germans and holiday in France. We need to be Spain’s checks and Sweden’s balances. For the sake of decency and the advancement of science, we need to share ideas, to compromise, to be a team. We need to look after one another. Not the Greeks, though. They can get lost.

  7 October 2012

  Take another step, Simba, and you’ll feel my foldaway spoon

  When I was growing up I used to go on a great many bicycle rides and they were great fun. But, of course, you can’t do that any more because today cycling has been hijacked by thin-spectacled men from the marketing department, and as a result it’s become a ‘lifestyle choice’.

  This means you can’t just buy a bicycle. You need lots of other paraphernalia as well.

  You need what’s called ‘kit’. A helmet with a built-in camera, brakes made from materials that aren’t even on the periodic table, some sideburns, a carbon-fibre boot mount for your car, some ridiculous energy bars and half a pint of special gel to keep your gentleman’s area zesty and fresh.

  And then, when you have all this, you will meet other people who’ve made the same lifestyle choice and they’ll explain that their gel is better than your gel and that their energy bars are more energetic. So you’ll have to throw all your stuff away and upgrade immediately.

  It’s the same story with fishing. Gone are the days when you could splosh about, netting sticklebacks. Now, you have titanium rods and a range of neoprene waders. If you want to hold your head up on the river, you’ll be forced by your bank manager to sell all the natty golf-bag attachments you bought during your recent flirtation with the men of Pringle.

  All you need to shoot a pheasant is a gun and some cartridges. But, of course, that’s not true because today you need to turn up looking like a cross between King Edward VII and Pablo Escobar. And in addition to the fancy-dress costume you’ll need noise-cancelling headphones, leather wellies, some care-in-the-community fingerless gloves, a pair of yellow sunglasses, a Range Rover and the ability to talk for hours about the weight of the shot in your cartridges. This means the cost of each pheasant you bring down is approximately £1 million.

  It doesn’t seem to matter, though. For many men nowadays the thrill of buying a new hobby-related gadget far outweighs the thrill of actually doing the hobby. And absolutely nothing proves this more than a trip to see the big five in Africa.

  I’ve just spent a couple of weeks over there with a handful of colleagues who I know from experience travel the world armed only with jeans and T- shirts. Unless they’re in the Arctic Circle, in which case it’s jeans, T-shirts and an anorak.

  When they go to China none of them feels the need to dress up like Chairman Mao. When they’re in Japan they don’t wear kimonos and slippers. And in France none of them comes down to breakfast wearing a beret. But in Africa they all take leave of their senses and turn up dressed like the zipped and Velcroed love children of Bear Grylls and Joy Adamson. And that’s before we get to the kit.

  One night a hippopotamus came into the camp, and like any sentient being I was mesmerized by the stupidity of its ears and the idiocy of its noises. But no one else even looked up because they were all engrossed in Richard Hammond’s new torch.

  When it comes to holding my attention, a torch is right up there with a knitting needle or some lettuce.

  But this one was somehow amazing because it had come from an African adventurer’s kit shop. Along with Hammond’s trousers, which had many pockets for his foldaway cutlery, his compass and, bizarrely, his massive knife.

  Now I can see why you might need a knife when you are carving the Sunday joint or chopping vegetables. But why would you need such a thing in Africa? Do people really imagine that they will be attacked by a lion? It’s nonsense because a) lions are too busy sleeping or having sex to attack people, and b) even if one did, do you think you’d have the presence of mind to unzip your special knife pocket, retrieve the blade and stick it into a bit of the beast that might some
how make a difference?

  Hammond was not the only one to have succumbed to the marketing man’s spell. Our minicam operator had plainly overdosed on the gullible pills because he arrived with a head torch that shone a red light.

  ‘It doesn’t attract insects,’ he said from inside what looked like a beehive.

  His other new toy was a hammock that featured a shaped bottom section and a ribbed mosquito net on the top. It had probably cost about £2,000 and looked very sleek and impressive. But as he climbed inside on the first night, he discovered as the rain started that while it kept the flies away, it was not waterproof.

  Shoes were another big thing among the chaps. It seems that people in the outdoor pursuits industry have it in their minds that in Africa there is very little gravity, so to anchor yourself in place you need to be sporting footwear that weighs the same as a small house.

  Plus, because they’ve also decided there is almost no friction in Africa, the soles must be made from chunky grooved rubber that appears to have come from the tyres of an earth mover.

  Americans are very easily conned by the outdoor leisure industry’s marketing powers, which is why they turn up at every hippo watering hole looking as though they’ve just stepped off the set of Daktari. I realize, of course, that American tourists are always more interesting than whatever they’re looking at, but in Africa’s game reserves they are absolutely hysterical. I saw one with a canvas drinking canteen. What use would that be on a holiday where you are never more than 30ft from a fridge?

  I’m not saying that all hobby-related kit is useless. Obviously you can’t jump from a balloon in outer space wearing a blazer and slacks, and you can’t dive to the bottom of the deepest trench in the ocean in a suit and tie. Sometimes equipment is necessary. But if you are going for a walk, or going on holiday, or going for a bicycle ride, trust me on this: it isn’t.

  21 October 2012

  So, the Scouts came to earth in a reptilian space plane, right?

  Many state-educated people have it in their heads that life for those in Britain’s public schools is a deeply weird potpourri of silly uniforms, brutal sport and endless lessons about tax avoidance and the benefits of offshore slavery. In Latin.

  I sympathize with all this, of course.

  You see those Eton boys poncing about in their frilly shirts and their frock coats and because you have no idea what goes on behind the closed doors, you’re bound to think they’re all a bit mad, bad and dangerous.

  It’s the same story with Scientology. We have a vague idea that if you follow its principles, you will be able to fly an F-14 upside down and sleep with Kelly McGillis. On the downside, however, you have to believe that humans were transported to earth millions of years ago in a DC-8-like craft by a tyrant ruler of the galactic confederacy. This is hard to swallow, of course, because the DC-8 was a jet. And jets don’t work in space.

  At this point we should move on to Mitt Romney. I am told that it is not possible to take anything he says seriously because he is a Mormon and, of course, I nod sagely even though – if I’m honest – I really don’t have a clue what Mormons do. Are they the ones who can have nine wives but no blood transfusions? Or is that the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

  You see the problem. We get snippets of information about these organizations and they worry us. Ignorance makes us afraid. That’s why I have a morbid fear of the Freemasons. As I understand it, you may not progress beyond the rank of constable in the police unless you are a member. Which means that every single senior officer has to really believe that if he explains the secrets of the handshake, his tongue will be torn from its mountings and thrown in the sea.

  This is why when I’m talking to a sergeant I’m always a bit frightened. Because, thanks to the small amount of knowledge I have about his lodge meetings, I think he is a loony.

  But I reserve my greatest fear and trepidation for people who are, or who have been, Scouts. In the olden days, Scouting was very obviously a harmless pursuit. You’d see them in the woods from time to time, tying knots and rubbing sticks together, and then once a year they’d emerge from the treeline and offer to rub grit into your car in exchange for a shilling.

  Now, though, we never see them at all. However, like the ebola virus, they’re still out there in their millions. And we have scant idea of what they’re up to …

  Their leader in Britain is a man called Bear Grylls, a survival expert who stays in hotels and likes to be attacked at night by friends and colleagues in wildlife costumes.

  More importantly, we heard last week that Scouts are no longer permitted to use nicknames. That is very sinister. Scout chiefs say that nicknames can lead to bullying and argue that this is in some way a bad thing. I disagree.

  Bullying gives a man a spine. It forces him to address his issues and work out what he’s doing wrong. I was bullied for two straight years at school and I like to think it toughened me up and made me realize that you can’t go through life being a hopeless, quivery-bottom-lipped, unfunny prig.

  In the early days this is what Scouting was all about. It prepared boys for life as adults. It made them strong and practical. They knew what to do when they were attacked by a fox. They knew that if they worked they would be rewarded. They also knew how to keep Scout masters out of the tent at night. So when you left the Scouting movement you were more of a man than if you’d never joined.

  But now that your comrades are no longer allowed to call you ‘Chubby’ or ‘Ginger’ or ‘Slob Boy’, you will be weak and unprepared to deal on your own with life’s little crises, so you will have to rely on the authorities to settle your disputes.

  There’s more. Jews, Muslims and Buddhists are all welcome but you are not allowed to join if you are an agnostic or an atheist. How mad is that? The movement’s leaders argue that this is in the sprit of Robert Baden-Powell’s demand that members believe in a higher power.

  Hmm. So why are gays allowed in? I can’t imagine he’d have approved of that. He didn’t even like foreigners very much.

  This is the big problem for Scouts. We hear about the hypocrisy and the nonsense. But other than that we know very little. So we fill in the blanks ourselves, assuming that in America it’s a front for the neo-Nazis and that in Britain it’s a division of the Liberal Democrats, only with more on-message sustainability and inclusivity.

  Happily, however, I have a solution. Twenty years ago the Scouts’ bob-a-job week was abandoned for fear that little Johnnie – known until then as Fatso – might fall foul of health and safety legislation or get sued by a little old lady for fire-hosing her cat to death.

  There was an attempt earlier this year to bring it back. It was called ‘community week’ and it saw Scouts planting wild flowers and retrieving shopping trolleys from canals. But, I’m sorry, to take the mystery out of Scouting it’s not good enough to have members in a faraway lock, doing what prisoners should be doing.

  We need them at our doors, with pockets full of scrumped apples, offering to clean our shoes and sweep the chimney for 5p. We need to encounter Scouts in our daily lives, helping old ladies across the road and petting guide dogs.

  It’s the same story, in fact, with all the world’s esoteric organizations. Opus Dei, the Masons, UKIP, Tom and John at the Scientologists, Eton, the European Union, the Salvation Army. All of you. Come round this evening and clean my shoes. Not the Jehovah’s Witnesses, though. I’ve had enough of you already. You can stay at home.

  28 October 2012

  This lanky git will call you what he wants, ref – you blind idiot

  For the sake of English football Manchester United always need to win. Which is probably why, in last weekend’s top-of-the-table clash, the referee set about sending the entire Chelsea team off for wearing blue clothes. And then, when that didn’t work, he awarded a goal to a player who was so offside he might as well have been standing in Bristol.

  As a Chelsea supporter I was very cross about all this. Indeed I spent most of the game
wondering what the ref in question would look like without a head.

  Today, though, I feel rather sorry for the stupid, blind idiot because it has been alleged that during the game he made derogatory remarks about John Obi Mikel. It was also suggested earlier in the week that he had called Juan Mata a ‘Spanish t***’. (Clue: not ‘twit’.)

  I would imagine that this sort of thing has been going on in football since someone inflated a sheep’s pancreas and discovered that jumpers could be used for goalposts. But suddenly it isn’t allowed any more. So the ref has been suspended and is being investigated for a racially aggravated offence by Plod. In other words, the sharp-elbowed group hug of inclusivity has now landed in the middle of a football pitch.

  Football is not croquet. The stands are visceral and ugly places full of rage and hatred. And standing in the middle of it all, trying to keep order, is the referee. Until 2001 he was an unhappily married amateur called Keith who used a Saturday-afternoon kickabout to get back at everyone who had made his working week so dreary and miserable. I do not know a football referee. I’ve never even met one. And I bet you haven’t, either.

  Today Premier League refs are professionals on more than £70,000 a year. But, I’m sorry, that’s not enough.

  Dentistry is bad. You live in a fog of halitosis waiting for the day when you accidentally catch AIDS. And I can’t imagine it’s much fun being a North Sea trawlerman either. You spend all day in a fish-scented cloud of diesel smoke, vomiting, and when you get home a bureaucrat tells you to throw the six cod you caught back into the sea.

  But worse than both these things – worse even than being a dentist on a trawler – is the job of a Premier League referee. No. 1) you have to wear shorts. No. 2) there is a very great deal of running about. And No. 3) every single person in the entire world would like to eviscerate you, in front of your family, on the internet.