Born to Be Riled Read online

  Now, strong-willed individuals can handle that. They can separate fact from fantasy. Michael Howard, however, obviously cannot. This wouldn’t be so bad if he was just a regular guy, but unfortunately he is the Home Secretary.

  Now, at some point he has been to see Robocop – a film set some time in the future, when the private sector runs everything and employs some morally questionable tactics to police cities. After I’d been to see it, I came out of the cinema marvelling at the director’s vision, and all the way home talked excitedly about that bit when Robocop shot a rapist in the testicles.

  Unfortunately, Mr Howard took a different view. While the rest of the audience was urging Robocop on in his war with the greed-is-good merchants of 1999, Michael was hatching a plan. Over the years, his government has privatized pretty much everything it can lay its hands on, so why not go further? Here was a film about a privatized police force – maybe it would work here. So last month, Mr Howard declared that he wanted to see the police service freed from non-essential tasks.

  Naturally, the Police Federation and every motoring organization from the Tufty Club up is furious because they know what’s coming. Everyone knows what will motivate the traffic police if they are privatized. Shareholders. People in suits. The faceless minority that was actually happy to see Rover become German.

  At the moment, on a clear sunny day, Britain’s traffic police can just sit on their pig perches or back at base, playing cards. But when you introduce shareholders into the equation, they’re going to have to make a profit.

  Someone will have to pay for their wages, so the money will have to be raised from people caught doing 71mph up the M4. We’ve seen how the privatized parking enforcement agencies operate, so can you imagine what a privatized traffic police force will be like?

  Behind every tree, there’ll be a man with a moustache and a hairdryer. And you can forget all about a caution, because someone will have to pay for the fuel he used to chase you and the time you’ve spent chatting.

  The only good thing is that to keep costs down, the suits will buy their officers cheap, slow cars. Tool around at 120 and there’s no way that Roboplod in his Proton will get close. Well, not until you get to the next toll booth, anyway.

  Yes, speeding is a minor misdemeanour and Howard is right to call the enforcement of it a ‘non-essential task’, but what about drinking and driving? Is that a minor offence which the police shouldn’t bother with? And if it is, why do they spend so much money every Christmas on television commercials telling us that it isn’t? And do they really think a profit-led police force will tell people to stop doing something that feeds its coffers?

  No, they’ll want us to speed and jump lights when we’re pissed, or they won’t keep their bloody shareholders happy.

  Now, when BT, British Gas and all the rest were floated, I was standing in line waiting for a slice of the action, but when we’re offered a chance to buy some of the police, I’ll be at home watching television. And I urge you to do the same.

  That will keep the share price way down. And then, for a month or so, let’s all stick absolutely to the letter of the law. Let’s not put a single foot wrong. We’ll go straight and starve them to death.

  Think about that, and smile.

  Ferrari’s desert storm

  We don’t have roads like this in Britain. Coming off the roundabout it plunges, arrow straight, into the heart of the Arabian desert for mile after unrelenting mile.

  It doesn’t really go anywhere special and so there’s not much traffic, but even so the oil-rich local authority has made it super smooth, and with two lanes in each direction.

  Nature has helped out the safety because on either side there is soft sand which will firmly and sternly bring any errant car to a halt.

  That’s the hardware, but the software is even more impressive. Up front, there’s a Ferrari F40 which the owner has modified so that its turbocharged engine now gives a colossal 600bhp.

  As it rockets away from the roundabout, each gear change is signalled by a huge sheet of flame from the exhaust system. The Ferrari F40 is desperately fast in standard tune, but this one, in the half light of evening, is something really very special indeed. Fast is too small a word. Unbebloodybefrigginglieveable is nearer the mark.

  However, it is in my way. As its driver shifts from third to fourth, I can see him glancing in his rear-view mirror at the monster that will not be shaken off. As he hits fifth, I’m still there, a little closer now, and flashing my lights to warn him I’m coming through.

  This was my first ever drive in a Jaguar XJ200 and I simply couldn’t believe the size of its power. I knew this was a car built to be the fastest in the world – a record it held for a short time – but it had never really excited me before.

  It was just so damn big, and while I respected Jaguar for making it look odd and unusual, I always thought the overhangs looked wrong, like the wind had eroded some vital part of the car away.

  Plus, its miserable little six-cylinder engine – reputed to be the same unit that had been used in the Metro rally car – just didn’t send out the right aural signals.

  I still think all those things but there’s no getting away from the fact that it is unbelievably fast. I mean, it just loped past that F40 and kept on going to 195mph – the fastest I’ve ever driven.

  My previous record – 186mph – was achieved in a Lamborghini Countach and I vowed I’d never go that quickly again. It was terrifying, as the car bucked and writhed and shook and rattled. It was patently obvious that while the engine was capable of such things, the dear old car was not.

  But in the Jaguar, all was serene. Sure, the wind noise had built up to double hurricane speed, but all the seals stayed intact, the steering stayed calm and the suspension never felt like a pebble would put me in the desert, upside down and on fire.

  In fact, truth be told, the reason I slowed down was boredom, and also because I wanted to have a go in the other cars – the aforementioned F40, a Porsche 959 and the new Ferrari F50.

  They all belong to the same guy, who uses them infrequently and insures them even less. The Jag wasn’t even registered, while the 959’s service history suggested, wrongly, that it was still the property of the Sultan of Oman.

  Whatever, it was a mouthwatering selection of machinery to find in a lay-by, especially when I could choose what to drive next.

  I drove all of them in turn and found myself marvelling at how national characteristics shine through even in the quest for speed. The Italian duo were lively and vocally active. If they’d had arms, they would have waved them about as they pootled along.

  The Brit was a heavyweight; leather-lined and rather calm. In town, it was as unruffled as an embassy dinner. This was a car that would know its fish fork from its dessert wine.

  And then there was the German, the 959, which tried to achieve world domination by a dazzling array of computerized goodies. Ordinarily, I have no trouble figuring out even the most bizarre dashboards but in the 959 there are dials and knobs that are meaningless.

  One light was winking away, warning me that the pressure in the rear off-side tyre was a little low. It was all very impressive, but so is a dentist’s drill.

  And therein lies the problem. I actually had the time and the inclination to think about these things as I roared around in the desert in four of the most exciting cars the world has ever seen.

  The trouble is that there were no passers-by to enjoy the looks and the sense of occasion. If there had been, then it would have been a built-up area and I’d have been doing 30.

  And that’s the other hassle. Speed in itself is not exciting. As you sit in a Boeing, are you thrilled that it’s ripping up the sky with a 500mph orgy of big numbers? No, and it’s the same deal in a straight line on a straight road in a car. Two hundred mph. So what.

  What matters is acceleration and handling, an ability to take corners as though they’re not there, and this is why the Ferrari F50 has been so well received by th
ose who know. It’s light, and simple, like a choux pastry in a world full of suet pudding.

  Small boys may argue that its top speed of 206mph means it is slower, and therefore less good somehow, than the 237mph McLaren F1. But that is nonsense.

  The Ferrari is built to take corners and it only uses that ex-Formula-One V12 engine for dealing with the rather tedious straight bits.

  It seems that, once again, Ferrari has got it right.

  Killjoys out culling

  1995 saw the start of a new trend which began like a cancer, undetected and not remarkable.

  Nissan announced that its really rather good 300ZX would not be imported any more because the cost of making it comply with new noise and exhaust regulations meant it was no longer viable.

  So what? It was a nice car sure, but it was like losing a distant acquaintance, a bloke who you used to see in the pub from time to time. There are lots of other blokes in the pub.

  Then word crept out of Italy that Bugatti had financial difficulties, and that production of the turbocharged V12 EB110 had ceased. This was a bit more serious.

  But let me assure petrolheads everywhere that in 1996 things are going to get a whole lot worse.

  By far the most significant casualty is the Ford Escort Cosworth. Launched in 1992 amid reports that there were now more car thieves in Britain than motorists, it was burdened with whopping insurance premiums, and Ford didn’t help matters by making it rather expensive.

  So far, they’ve sold 7000 and that, in Ford’s book, is just not enough. It’s an interesting point this, but if you pick up a dictionary in Ford’s headquarters, you’ll find the word ‘sentimentality’ has been deleted.

  No really, it’s true. Ford owns 25 per cent of Mazda and it too has started 1996 with an announcement that by far its best car is off to God’s recycling bin.

  The RX7 was a Japanese car that didn’t look Japanese. It’s what the E type would have looked like today and, with its turbocharged Wankel engine, it could go like stink too.

  There was no room inside for anyone over 2ft 6in but that didn’t really matter. I used to enjoy my rare sightings of this oriental Batmobile – only 150 were sold in Britain – but not any more.

  And it’s the same deal with the Volkswagen Corrado. Here was a handsome coupé which could provide a driving experience that was almost sexual. No car costing less than £20,000 could even get close, but last I heard it was coughing up blood and looking a bit green around the air intakes.

  I am also concerned about the health of the Dodge Viper. There’s talk of new hardtop versions but I’ve heard that the roadster is about to be axed. It seems that each one sold costs Chrysler a few quid, and that in business this is a ‘bad thing’.

  Other cars causing concern include the Lamborghini Diablo, the Honda NSX and the Lotus Esprit.

  You’re starting to get the picture. Fast, truly exciting cars are being killed off so that pretty soon the officers will all be gone, leaving us with a field full of enlisted men.

  The people with green hair are winning, and this is more baffling than an early Genesis lyric.

  When I was 18, I had many big ideas which neither my housemaster nor parents would take seriously. I was a stupid and spotty person with a predilection for cap-sleeved T-shirts and ELP, and I was therefore daft. Almost daily, I was told, ‘No Clarkson, you are a fool and you may not wear training shoes for school.’

  But today, people with army jackets and odd hair decide to live in trees, and yet we think they have something intelligent to say. If I was a reporter charged with the task of talking to these morons, my first question would be, ‘If you’re so bright, how come you aren’t running Unilever?’

  Newbury is being strangled by traffic jams. Local traders are watching their businesses go to the wall. The environment suffers as trucks and diesel cars sit belching their carcinogenic fumes into primary school classrooms.

  Common sense dictates that a bypass should be built, but no… a few not-in-my-backyard locals have teamed up with a bunch of women who like to breast-feed sheep in public, and there’s going to have to be a re-run of the Somme to get the bulldozers through.

  The trouble is that a bypass means that cars and trucks will be able to travel more quickly, and ‘quickly’ in 1996 is a dirty word, like ‘profit’ was in 1979. We are forever being told by imbeciles that they want people to think of speed in the same terms as drunken driving.

  And they’re winning. According to a report a reader sent in, I see that Buckinghamshire County Council is to recruit thousands of volunteers to drive around at or below the speed limit to slow everyone down.

  More amazing still, the local police force is backing the scheme where interfering busy bodies and pensioners will tootle around country lanes in their Austin Maxis at 7mph.

  To these people and their green-haired brethren in Berkshire the fast car is a symbol of all that’s wrong today, but what they just can’t understand is that fast cars don’t have to be driven quickly. I have been known to go past schools in my 145mph Jaguar at 15mph.

  The trouble is that this is a common-sense argument and that do-gooders with their politically correct shoes don’t have any common sense. Arguing with people as stupid as this is like arguing with a mug of tea.

  Flogging a sawn-off Cosworth

  For three reasons, I’ve always had my doubts about Prince Charles. First, it’s said he talks to plants – a singularly unrewarding experience, because all they do in return is die. Mind you, my plants also die when I don’t talk to them, when I water them and when I don’t water them. My garden is a herbaceous version of Fred West’s cellar.

  Second, he believes in all sorts of alternative medicine which, from personal experience, I know to be nonsense. I have had a man stick needles in my ears to cure hay fever, but I sneezed so much they all shot out. And when I have a hangover, I could eat dock leaves till the cows come home but you just can’t beat a Disprin.

  And third, he is separated from the world’s second most beautiful woman.

  Against this sort of background, it is easy to see why I was on Urquhart’s side in To Play the King.

  But now Prince Charles has shown himself not only to be a decent cove, but also the kind of leader that this country needs. Unlike John Major, he obviously has rather more than two pubic hairs in his underpants.

  In fact, he must be hung like a horse because he has actually dared to take on the tiny, tiny minority of homo-sexualists who sit around in Camden telling everyone else not only what they can and can’t say, but also what they can and can’t think.

  Time and again in recent years I’ve been cornered by these wishy-washy liberals who think that the motor car is the seven-headed beast from Revelation, and there’s been no way out. My passion is killing the planet and they’re on the moral high ground, wagging their fingers.

  Well, now the future King of England has given me a royal seal of approval to fight back.

  So here goes. Women can’t drive. Immigrants need to take a driving test before being allowed on the roads in Britain. Old people should have to hand in their licences at the age of 65.

  And when I meet someone I know to be homosexual I can’t help staring at their bottom, wondering.

  But most of all, that American boy who went round Singapore spray-painting cars got what was coming to him. Apparently he’ll be scarred for life. Diddums. My heart bleeds.

  In pubs throughout the land and on every golf course, people are whispering to one another about how they think flogging is a good thing.

  When I left the house the other morning to find that someone had sawn the rear spoiler off my Escort Cosworth during the night, I was speechless with rage. To the casual observer, my body language suggested that I had inadvertently spilled some sulphuric acid in my lap.

  Now, the politically correct say that the thief, when apprehended, should be taken to court, addressed by his Christian name and let off with a stern warning. I want him beaten to within an inch of his
life, and everyone I know who has had a car vandalized thinks the same way.

  Apparently, a radio station did some kind of straw poll about that American vandal and found that 97 per cent of its listeners think the Singapore authorities treated him fairly. The other 3 per cent, by the way, had beards. Yet if anyone says ‘bring back the birch’ on television or in the papers, they’re labelled as far right extremists. So no one dares do it. Political correctness has stifled discussion and debate in this country to the point where 97 per cent of the population daren’t voice an opinion in case someone from the Camden thought police is listening.

  But now, thanks to Prince Charles, you can go home tonight, beat your kids, eat a rare steak, go out in your V8-powered car, sleep with a woman without using a condom and then have a Capstan Full Strength. In other words, you should do what you’ve always done.

  Only now you’ve no need to be embarrassed about it.

  Weather retort

  Someone once suggested that Britain is the only country in the world to have weather. Everywhere else has a climate.

  But here in the Cotswolds, in the last two weeks, we’ve had an ice age, a plague of frogs, mice and fog so thick you’ve needed a chain saw to get out of the drive in the morning. Today, the locals are expecting locusts.

  For 15 years I lived in London and every day it was the same: 57 degrees and a bit of drizzle round tea time. I’d forgotten what extremes can do to a man, and his car.

  Yes, we had burst pipes too, and it was a nuisance, but this was a flea bite compared to what was happening in the drive.

  On the day when it dipped to minus 20 in Glasgow, it was minus 68 here and the weather people were talking about freezing rain. Well what we got in Oxfordshire was a sort of see-through gravel which encased my Jaguar in an ice shell.