And another thing--: the world according to Clarkson Page 5

  I think that’s quite funny, but of course those of a busybodying disposition won’t.

  And then they will point to the recent case of a captain who smashed his dredger into the pier at Hythe, having downed six pints of lager. The Methodist Mariners will also mention ‘drunken yobs’ on jet skis terrorising swimmers.

  All very worthy, I’m sure, but unfortunately the consultation paper also implies that ordinary sailors will be entangled in the legislation. And that would be a shame.

  Only the other day I went for a small sail. We set off at the obligatory 45 degrees, an angle at which it’s impossible to drink, as your glass keeps falling off the table. And anyway, every time you fancy a swig, the captain decides to ‘go about’ or ‘gybe’ and you have to rush around pulling the wrong rope.

  Still, at lunchtime, we parked, broke out the rum punches (it was Barbados) and spent the afternoon getting plastered in the sunshine. Is this not what sailing’s all about?

  Certainly, Olivier de Kersauson, the eminent French yachtsman, thinks that’s what the British do. He took me out on his huge trimaran a couple of years ago and explained why all the big races and records are won and broken by French and American people these days.

  It’s a far cry from 1759, when our navy pounced on the French fleet as it attempted to break the blockade. In the ensuing battle off Quiberon, Britannia really did rule the waves.

  But not any more, and de Kersauson thinks he knows why. ‘These days, you British all sit around in your yacht clubs, in your silly blazers, drinking gin and tonics. No one actually goes out there and sails,’ he said.

  So, new drink-drive limits for sailors may put us back on the map vis-à-vis the Jules Verne Trophy, but there must be more to it than that.

  What, though? It’s not as if Britain is out of step with the rest of the world. So far, only Finland has placed alcohol restrictions on sailors but no one has been arrested yet because the police can’t think how the law might be enforced.

  We’d have a similar problem here. It would, inevitably, be the job of the Hampshire police to cruise around on the Solent, but I feel sure that senior officers could find better things for the force to do than harass Colonel Bufton Tufton for taking a sherry on his Fairline Targa 48.

  Furthermore, who would be deemed responsible? Certainly, if I were to be apprehended by the River Filth while weaving out of Cowes harbour, I’d say my completely sober five-year-old daughter was in charge. Then I’d invite them to go away and catch some burglars.

  There are a quarter of a million shipwrecks off the coast of Britain, and almost all of them were caused by one of four things: incompetence, bad weather, the French, or the Germans. Banning alcohol from the high seas to save lives is therefore pointless.

  Perhaps it was dreamt up because the infernal health-and-safety, fresh-air, vegetarian Nazis are running out of ways to make our lives miserable on land. But why is it being seriously considered?

  To get an answer, we need to think about the potential punishment. You cannot remove a sailor’s licence if he’s found to be drunk because he doesn’t have one.

  And you cannot realistically send Bufton Tufton to jail for sailing while under the influence of Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

  The only realistic punishment is a fine and there you have the appeal for Tony’s slack-jawed sidekick in No. 11. Explain that drinking and sailing must be outlawed ‘to save children’s lives’ and watch the money come rolling in. It’s the speed-camera syndrome. Tell us that speed kills, then ‘tax’ us when we’re caught proving it doesn’t.

  That said, I would be enormously peeved if I were the winchman on a rescue helicopter, dangling on a rope in atrocious weather trying to save the skipper of an upturned yacht who kept saying ‘You’re my best mate,’ and, ‘I f****** love you.’

  There is a way round this one, though. Rescued sailors who turn out to be drunk should be made to pay for the cost of plucking them to safety. This way, the fine would serve a purpose and there’d be no need for pricey police patrols.

  What’s more, the freedom of the open seas would still be a blessed relief for those who, like me, increasingly believe we’re no longer living in a free country.

  Sunday 18 April 2004

  We used to work to live, then we gave up living

  There is no doubt that, economically speaking, the country’s in rude good health at the moment. We have lower unemployment than most other major industrialised nations, we have among the highest house prices in the world, we are drowning in venture capital, and we are all fat.

  When pushed, many experts credit Gordon Brown for the endless parade of good news stories, thanking the good Lord that we have his canny, cunning, dour, Presbyterian, wily, Scottish hand on the tiller.

  Rubbish. Britain’s metamorphosis from lame duck to golden goose has nothing to do with Brown and everything to do with your eating habits at lunchtime.

  In the olden days, people used to go to the canteen on the dot of one to unwind with mates over a plate of something big in pastry. Now everyone gets their lunch from the Grab ’n’ Go shop.

  Do they have Grab ’n’ Go shops in Italy? I rather think not. Over there, they’re still downing a couple of bottles of wine at lunchtime, and then sleeping it off until six.

  If we do go out for lunch in Britain, it’s only an excuse to get some more work done. And so is dinner, and so, increasingly, is breakfast. In fact, we’re running out of meals over which we can do deals. Soon, people will be buying and selling products over a midnight feast.

  And who drinks at lunchtime any more? The other day, in a Notting Hill restaurant, where people were planning TV shows and new ad campaigns, I ordered a glass of wine, and a deathly hush descended.

  ‘I could never drink wine in the day,’ said my horrified guest. ‘I’d never get anything done in the afternoon.’

  And there you have it. Back in the early 1980s you worried about your performance at work because you knew that if you were kicked out, you’d be jobless until the end of time.

  But now people worry about their performance at work because, unlike the continentals, we no longer work to live.

  We live to work, and you can’t function properly with a glass of Chablis swilling around your arterial route map.

  Ten years ago you knocked off at 5.30, irrespective of what you happened to be doing at the time. Shops went in for half-day closing. You always took your holidays, and if you felt a bit peaky you went to bed for a month.

  Oh, how times have changed. Now, when the guys on Top Gear call a car firm in the sticks at 7 p.m. and get a message saying, ‘I’m sorry, the office is closed for the day,’ they slam the phone down and spend the rest of the evening muttering about what they call ‘provincial sloppiness’.

  People go to work, having been savaged by Bengal tigers. If you catch ebola, you must get the deal done before your liver liquefies. And half-day closing? Now, you can buy arugula at 3 a.m. seven days a week.

  Today, and this has nothing to do with Mr Brown or his warmongering boss, the entire British workforce suffers not from absenteeism but presenteeism. When I began in local newspaper journalism, it was 1978 and the country was a complete shambles. Dead rats, big piles of rubbish and a limited choice of crisp; salt, vinegar, or neither. And I was happy to contribute to the general feeling of malaise by working a 3½-day week.

  No really, we were out of the door on a Thursday lunchtime when the paper went to bed, and we didn’t start again until Monday.

  If the news editor wanted me to cover a parish council meeting in the evening, I’d spend the whole day harrumphing and lobbying my union representative to get me time off in lieu. Now, I work seven days a week, every week.

  And how did Gordon Brown effect this change? Well, it’s hard to say really, since he was on paternity leave at the time.

  How can this make the country strong and prosperous, for crying out loud? A dad’s role in the birth of a child is to ensure the infant has the right number of
fingers and toes, then get back to work. If we all took a week off to mop up baby sick and do night feeds, we’d be back to 1978 in a jiffy.

  It’s not just blokes, either. My wife, who is also my manager, found time during her third caesarean operation to discuss a new contract she’d been sent that morning. I’m not joking. She was lying there, with her stomach open to the elements and needles in her spine, wondering if 15 per cent of the back end was good enough, or if she should push for 20.

  That’s the sort of attitude that has made the country strong. We work now, all the time, even during childbirth. We go out at night with Borg-style mobile phone headset attachments in case the office wants to get in touch, and as a result we make more money, which we spend at a greater rate than at any time in history.

  And are we thanked? No. Brown comes back from his paternity leave, or his six-week summer holiday, and lets it be known that it’s all down to him. Yeah, right, and victory in the First World War was all down to the generals.

  Sunday 25 April 2004

  You’re all on probation, this is the British nation

  A survey last week revealed that the top 10 things that best define Britain are roast beef (which will give you CJD) fish and chips (which aren’t available any more), the Queen, Buckingham Palace, cooked breakfast, the Beatles (half of whom are dead), Constable (who’s completely dead), the Houses of Parliament, Marks & Spencer and drinking tea.

  Is this why half of eastern Europe is on its way here over this weekend: because they fancy a cup of tea? Because they want a new pair of underpants? Because they like to start the day with a hot meal?

  I can only assume that the people who responded to this survey are living in the past or living in Worthing. Anyone who’s seen a newspaper recently would come up with some very different ideas about what defines Britain. With apologies to E.J. Thribb, I’m going to have a stab:

  The Tipton Three, deep-fried brie

  A difficult charter renewal for the BBC

  Hospital rashes, endless train crashes

  And a spot of closing-time thuggery.

  Everyone’s at university so you can’t get a plumber but school leavers are getting dumber and dumber.

  Footballers are roasting, cars are coasting and exactly when will we get some summer.

  Teenage girls with ‘juicy’ on their arse and let’s not forget the Tony Martin farce.

  Provincial chefs cooking, traffic wardens booking, sneak into the bus lane when no one’s looking.

  The cameras will catch you if you go too fast, buildings are never meant to last, here comes a soap star with her knickers on show, too much sex, Beckham’s bloody texts, and the one-eyed mullah refuses to go.

  We suck up to the Yanks, we’ve closed all the banks, and everyone talks like an EastEnder.

  Our idea of a real night out is a complete and utter bender.

  When the world was in trouble, we were there in a trice, we’ve beaten the Germans solidly twice.

  But now in battle our guns don’t work and the guys on the subs have started to shirk.

  We still like to think we’re a major world power, but in a war today we’d barely last an hour.

  Yet again the Social failed to come up with the goods, government scientists dead in the woods, cockle-pickers, rate-capping bickers, and the CCTV defeated because the thieves were in hoods.

  Plus we’re happy to sit and work at the bureau, but there’s no way we’re having that bloody euro.

  No one makes things any more, it’s all call centres; what a bore.

  By day the streets are full of PC bull, at night they’re full of lads on the pull.

  You can’t post a letter, it won’t get there at all, and bosses are sued should a worker fall.

  Talk proper on telly and Cilla will call you a nob and you daren’t go out because of the mob.

  Dido’s warbling on Radio 1, and now what’s this?

  Oh, Concorde’s gone.

  I’m a celebrity and I want to get out, have your face altered, get a trout pout, be famous for doing nothing at all, get called a hero for kicking a ball. While you, dear reader, are out chopping logs, the whole damn country’s going to the dogs.

  You like to think in your middle-class home that all is well, apart from the dome.

  But the whole place is wounded and the wound’s starting to swell.

  The Band-Aid’s failing and it’s beginning to tell.

  I therefore have a message for you, if you’re arriving here to begin anew:

  France is wonderful, France is best, from Alsace in the east to Brest in the west.

  Their wine and fizz are second to none and remember the footie they’ve recently won.

  Their cheese is completely out of sight and St Tropez’s a lot better than the Isle of Wight.

  They’ve sunshine and châteaux and tits on the beach.

  When you’re down in Provence, life’s really a peach.

  Go there instead and leave us alone.

  We’re rubbish, you know it, we’re pared to the bone.

  If you don’t believe me, consider this tome:

  We may have ID cards – but we’re fresh out of bards.

  Sunday 2 May 2004

  Comrade Clipboard won’t let me crash the car

  Making Top Gear used to be easy. I would drive a car round some corners, spin its wheels on the gravel, make a couple of cheap sexual metaphors and then garnish the result with a spot of Bruce Springsteen. Today, though, things are very different.

  The new series returns to your screens tonight, but in Tony Blair’s weird world the sheer effort of getting it there would have defeated Hercules.

  You see, the problem is that, while we weren’t looking, an insidious coup has taken over all our main institutions: schools, government, television stations, the police and even the army. Yes, it’s not the head teacher or the general who’s in charge any more; it’s that quiet little man (or woman) in the bad jumper, the one nibbling away at his (or her) one-world, fair-deal polenta crisps.

  As a result, the gallery at a modern television studio is like the bridge on an old Soviet submarine. Even the director is now under the direct control of a political commissar whose sole job is to make sure that nobody falls over, trips up or says anything which might possibly cause offence.

  So, during the recording on Wednesday, when one of the presenters used the phrase, ‘taking the mickey’, the lights went up, the shutters came down and the cameras were turned off. With klaxons blaring, we surfaced, special forces took the presenter away and now he, and his family, are living with Ron Atkinson and Robert Kilroy-Silk in a Siberian gulag.

  Why? Well, we’ve known for some time that n***** is the fourth most offensive word in the English language and, of course, saying all Arabs are terrorists is as silly as stripping in front of a webcam. But now someone has decided that ‘taking the mickey’ might upset the Irish.

  In fact, the Mickey in question has nothing to do with Micks in general. It’s an abbreviation in cockney rhyming slang for Mickey Bliss. Taking the mickey is therefore an inoffensive way of saying taking the piss.

  But there we have the problem with political commissars. They are not bothered about truth or accuracy: they’re there to right the wrongs perpetrated by Oliver Cromwell and General Dyer at Amritsar, and to find all the little problems that Health and Safety have missed.

  Ah yes. Health and Safety. For one programme in the new series, each presenter bought a car for less than £100. We filmed a series of tests to prove they were roadworthy and reliable. As a finale, we decided to show their integrity by driving them into a brick wall at 30 mph.

  Can you see a problem with that? I couldn’t. It’s not as if we were asking black or Irish people to have the accident on our behalf. But that didn’t concern the political commissar, who called in Health and Safety, who thought we were taking the mickey.

  We promised we wouldn’t sue if we were injured. Our wives promised they wouldn’t sue if we were killed. We produ
ced letters from the head of safety at Volvo, saying there was no danger whatsoever, and we talked to James Bond stuntmen, who agreed. But Health and Safety were not interested. They knew, because they’d read about it in the Guardian, that crashing a car into a wall at 30 mph was dangerous, so they insisted that we spent £8,000 – of your money, I hasten to add – moving fuel tanks, employing paramedics and buying neck braces.

  Great. If we abandoned the project, we’d have wasted the money already spent. If we went ahead, we’d be wasting even more on ludicrous safety features that every expert said were simply not necessary.

  I offered to stage the crash in my free time and to employ a camera crew myself. I said that I would give the resulting footage to the BBC for nothing. But the political commissar referred to his little red book, smiling that cruel KGB smile, and said, ‘No.’

  In the end we went ahead, crashed the cars on his terms and, as a result, had no money left to make any more items. Result: a show where nobody was hurt. But a show that nobody wants to watch.

  It gets worse. Before anything can be transmitted these days, you have to fill in a compliance form which makes sure that you’re complying with every single piece of PC nonsense, no matter how stupid or trivial. The trouble is that, by the time you’ve done this, and the health and safety form, you have no time left to film the programme.

  Actually, you don’t even have time to fill in the forms because usually you’re away on a course, watching safety films of Anthea Turner catching fire. I thought that it would make the cornerstone of a great show – When TV Stars Combust – but apparently it’s supposed to demonstrate how things can go wrong.

  My latest plan is to take part in some Siamese banger racing. You race in pairs with your car chained to your partner’s. I knew Health and Safety would have a fit but, long before they could step in, the plan was quashed by the party commissars. ‘We’re worried about using the word Siamese,’ they said. ‘Could you call it “conjoined” banger racing?’