How Hard Can It Be?

by Jeremy Clarkson

  I’m pretty certain that if this scheme were introduced we’d have the makers of milk chocolate Bounty, Flora margarine and Kentucky Fried Chicken out of business inside a week.

  Sunday 9 March 2008

  Join me in a saucy oath to Britain

  A big and important lord has suggested that British schoolchildren should swear an oath of citizenship, perhaps in the hope that they’d put down their machineguns, stop stamping on old ladies and all become beefeaters.

  Unfortunately, if such an oath is to be introduced, someone’s going to have to decide on the wording. This means the government will have to set up an ‘inclusive’ committee that represents all of Britain’s ‘communities’. And can you even begin to imagine what that’d come up with?

  ‘I apologize for my country’s shameful involvement in the slave trade. I vow to be homosexual whenever possible and to burn anyone driving a Range Rover. Long live Al Gore and death to the infidel.’

  In these difficult times, it’s tricky to do better. In America, schoolchildren stand to attention every morning and say: ‘I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and burgers for all.’

  Sadly, that sort of thing wouldn’t work here because the flag’s seen by Channel 4 News as racist and God’s a hot potato. What’s more, we’d have to substitute ‘the Queen’ for ‘the republic’ and I’m afraid that’s a big no-no because, we’re told, she has little resonance if you’re a Lithuanian living in a tent in East Anglia.

  This might make you seethe. Perhaps you go all prickly-haired and teary-eyed when they start singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ at the Proms, in which case you might say: ‘Look. It’s jolly easy to say what defines us as a nation. The Daily Telegraph letters page. Frank Whittle. And all those bronze men with feathery hats in Trafalgar Square.’

  Hmm. Fine. But before you force every single child in the land to swear allegiance every morning to Major-General Sir Henry Havelock, you need to be aware that, if your skin is brown, Sir Henry probably killed your great-grandad.

  This brings us on to the biggest problem of them all. In America, it doesn’t matter whether you are a topiarist or a hedge-fund manager, a petrol-pump attendant in Arizona or a retired Jewish lady in Miami; everyone is united by the American Way. The country is seen as a place where you can get on, where you will be rewarded for hard work, ambition and drive. There is no sense of that here. In his first budget, Alistair Darling announced that if you’re too stupid and lazy to get off your fat arse and do any work, you will be given free loft insulation; and that, if you are honest, and industrious, you will be financially raped.

  There’s more. I listened last week to a debate on the Jeremy Vine Show in which callers suggested that the McCanns – whose daughter, remember, is missing – got so much press coverage only because they were middle-class. This was such awful, heartless twaddle, I was nearly sick with rage.

  It’s not just a class divide either. What common bond can be found between a Pakistani shopkeeper in Bradford and the people you see building Huf houses on Grand Designs? What unites a Filipino chambermaid in Abergavenny with Prince Andrew? Unless something can be found, the oath will remain an unrealized dream.

  Perhaps it’s a good idea to view Britain from the outside. How do foreigners see us? Well, as drunken football hooligans mostly, and I don’t think that’d work. Having children swear an allegiance to Millwall every morning is a nonstarter.

  A bestselling American book called The Geography of Bliss suggests that British people are unified by a general grumpiness. Eric Weiner, the author, says we don’t just enjoy misery; we get off on it. ‘For the British, happiness is a transatlantic import. And by transatlantic, they mean American. And by American, they mean silly, infantile drivel. Britain is a great place for grumps and most Brits, I suspect, derive a perverse pleasure from their grumpiness.’ I don’t disagree. But I can’t see us promising every morning in school assembly to remember that, while the weather might be nice now, it’ll almost certainly be drizzling and cold tomorrow. Unless, of course, we all catch cancer and die in the night.

  So what one thing cuts through the political correctness and leaves nobody feeling alienated in their own country? Something that unifies us all, something that’s recognizably British and universally seen as harmless, but also wholesome and good? You might imagine the answer is David Attenborough. But, sadly, people die. We need something that will be with us for ever.

  The only thing I can think of is HP Sauce. The label features the Palace of Westminster. It contains no meat, which will keep Paul McCartney happy. It can be used to enliven a Melton Mowbray pork pie, and bring a sheen to coins of the realm. And, best of all, it absolutely defines the British. The French have their frogs’ legs. The Japanese have their whales. We have our brown sauce. We are the only people on earth who eat it.

  Yes, I know it’s made in Holland these days by an American company, but so what? Finally, I have the oath. ‘I pledge allegiance to the sauce of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and to the nation for which it stands, one sauce, in two distinct flavours, with nourishment and joy for all.’

  Or we could drop the whole scheme and try to remember we’ve gone for a thousand years without an oath so why the bloody hell do we need one now?

  Sunday 16 March 2008

  Ruck off, you nancy Aussies

  You can never rely on the French. All they had to do was go to Cardiff last weekend with a bit of fire in their bellies and they’d have denied Wales the Six Nations Grand Slam. But no. They turned up instead with cheese in their bellies and mooched about for eighty minutes, seemingly not at all bothered that we’ve got to spend the next twelve months listening to the sheepsters droning on about their natural superiority and brilliance.

  Or worse. Give them a Grand Slam and the next thing you know, all our holiday cottages are on fire.

  There are, of course, other reasons I hoped the French would win. I’d rather live in France than Wales; I’d rather eat a snail than a daffodil; I’d certainly rather drink French fizzy wine; and I’d much rather sleep with Carole Bouquet than Charlotte Church. However, as the match unfurled I found myself supporting the Welsh. Even though they seemed to have only three players – Jones, Jenkins and Williams – they were just so damn enthusiastic. And there was no doubt their excellent performance was lifting the spirits of the supporters. This made me feel warm and gooey because, like all civilized beings, I truly enjoy seeing a downtrodden people being given a crumb of something that makes them happy.

  I was in Wales last week and it was pretty depressing. The place has more speed cameras and more roadworks per square inch than any other nation on earth. It also has more pebble-dashed housing and more rain too. The only cheer is that children there are given free toothbrushes on the NHS, but this doesn’t seem quite enough, somehow, to make up for the shortfalls. That’s why I’m delighted to see them walk off with a nice cup. Well done, all of you. You beat the civilized world, fair and square. And now, having got that out of the way, we need your help …

  The problem is that far, far away, in a sinister place called Australia, there is dirty work afoot. They are trying to change the laws of rugby so that it becomes less about mud, fighting and severe spinal injuries and more like ballet. In other words, more like the delicate nancy-boy running game that they play. This must be stopped.

  In football there are seventeen laws – or eighteen if you count the unwritten stipulation that you must be a wet fart to play it in the first place – whereas in rugby there are twenty-two laws. And that’s before you get to the subclauses and subdivisions that conspire to make the whole thing more complicated than the assembly instructions for a space shuttle. I know a great many rugby fans who claim to know what’s going on out there, but that’s just the beer talking. The fact is that no one does. And yet despite this the game works.

  We saw examples of the two extre
mes in Wales’s game against France last weekend. In a scrum towards the end of the match, the Welsh forwards simply steamrollered the Frenchies clean off the ball. It was an exquisite demonstration of power. And then, moments later, some ugly little ginger burst out of nowhere and ran the length of the pitch in an exquisite demonstration of speed. You will find this mix in no other game on earth except, I think, American football. But it’s hard to be sure because every time anything happens they cut to an advertisement for Budweiser.

  The Australians now say that handling should be allowed in a ruck, that there need not be an even number of players from both teams in the lineouts and that rolling mauls can be dragged down. No, don’t worry. I don’t know what any of it means either. They are already playing games over there in which quick lineout balls need not be thrown straight, and all players except the scrum-half have to be 5 metres behind the rear foot. It’s all mumbo jumbo – and how they can understand this when they can’t even get to grips with the basics of eating indoors and call an afternoon an ‘arvo’ is beyond me.

  But what I do understand is that, all of the law changes, and there are about 6,000 of them, are designed specifically to take the scrum out of the game. This is important in places such as Sydney. Get that lot into a bending-over position with a bunch of other hunks and you’d never pull them apart. What’s more, when you have spent upwards of A$700 on a haircut and colouring, the last thing you need is to spend eighty minutes with your new highlights rammed up a Welshman’s muddy bottom. Well now, look, Bruce. If you want to mince about on a pitch, falling over every time anyone goes near your Botox, give up with the Aussie laws nonsense and play the same wetty-footy that’s seen in the rest of the world. If on the other hand you want to play a man’s game, quit your whingeing – that’s our job – and get stuck in. Changing the laws because you’re no good in a scrum would be like us saying that the winner of a cricket match should be the team best at saying ‘The rain in Spain’.

  Happily, despite some support from New Zealand, the Aussies are unlikely to garner much sympathy from their other southern-hemisphere colleagues, South Africa, who did rather well out of the current laws in the last World Cup.

  But to make the Barbie Boys give up, we must ensure there’s a united front up here in the developed half of the world. That means Jean Claude, Iueeaneuauun, Mick, Leonardo and William Wallace coming together, united as one, and reminding our Australian friends that if it weren’t for Nigel they’d still be scorpions and snakes.

  Sunday 23 March 2008

  Time to save the world again, lads

  You may imagine as you sit back this morning all toasty-warm, thanks to your underfloor heating, and sip on a cup of freshly ground coffee that you want for nothing; that everything that can be invented is already in the shops, on sale for £4.99.

  You have a telephone that can send pictures to your sister in Australia.

  You have a thing for removing the stubborn lid from a jar of pickled onions. You have pills for when you have a headache and pills to keep you unpregnant when you don’t.

  Certainly, if I were a modern-day Caractacus Potts and I were sitting in my shed wondering what to come up with next, I’d be suicidal with despair. And a bit murderous every time I thought of that bastard Trevor Baylis, with his bloody wind-up radio.

  Maybe I would eventually hit upon the idea of turning someone’s foreskin into a spare pair of eyelids, but guess what? Someone’s already come up with that as a method for helping burns victims.

  When we have reached a point at which a human ear can be grown on a mouse’s back, and we have built so many bridges that we are reduced to connecting the tiny Humberside villages of Barton and Hessle just to give the construction companies something to do, it’s easy to sit back and relax. In fact, though, we are about to enter an age when engineers, designers and men in sheds everywhere will be needed more than ever before. Because one day soon the oil and gas will run out – and the only alternatives being suggested right now are coming from people who smoke way too much cannabis. Like the tide, man. And, you know, the wind is totally, like, sustainable.

  If we want to keep the world warm, lit and moving, this is genuinely alarming. Especially, as I discovered last week, when 351,000 engineers are qualifying every year in China, and India is churning out a further 112,000. Meanwhile Britain is producing just 25,000. And most of those have names like something from the bottom of a Scrabble bag and a ticket on the next plane to South Korea.

  You may wonder why this is relevant. I mean, if there is going to be a replacement for oil, who cares what country is responsible? Certainly it’s hard to imagine people sitting around in Budapest saying that unless Hungary gets off its arse the world will die. So why should we be worried in Britain? Why don’t we let Mr Ng or Mr Patel get on with the work while we get back to what we’re best at these days? Hiding our kids under the bed, mostly, and stabbing one another in pubs.

  Hmmm. This is all well and good, but unfortunately Mr Ng and Mr Patel couldn’t invent a brown paper bag even if you gave them 300 years and a million billion pounds. Oh sure, I’ve heard the stories about how ancient China had rockets and went to the moon 5,000 years ago, but I’ll let you into a little secret. It’s all a big bag of rubbish. They haven’t even discovered the chair yet so I doubt very much they’re even halfway to particle-collector shields in space.

  Then there’s India, which I can’t take seriously until its air force has some planes with fewer than three wings. Yes, they have nuclear missiles – but could they actually hit Islamabad with them? ‘I very much doubt it,’ said an Indian professor chum of mine recently. ‘I’m not even certain we could hit Pakistan.’

  The fact of the matter is this: while the Germans can claim to have come up with the car, the Italians with electricity and the French with flight, everything else that has ever mattered in the whole of human history has come from a man in a shed in Britain. Everything. The internet, penicillin, the mechanical computer, the electronic computer, steam power, the seed drill, the seismograph, the umbrella, Viagra, polyester, the lawnmower, the fax machine, depth charges, scuba suits, the spinning jenny … I could go on, so I will. Radar, the television, the telephone, the hovercraft, the jet engine, the sewing machine, the periodic table … It doesn’t matter what field you’re talking about – from submarine warfare to erectile dysfunction. The world always turns to Britain when some fresh thought is needed. And with only 25,000 engineers coming out of our universities every year, I fear the world may be doomed.

  Of course, you may imagine that the giant economy that is America will ride in on a horse and save the day, but don’t hold your breath. They got through the sound barrier only thanks to us; they stole the computer from under our noses; and they got into space only thanks to the Germans, who knew about rockets only because our Spitfires had made mincemeat of their Messerschmitts. The Americans? Pah. Left to their own devices, I doubt they could build a pencil.

  Sir James Dyson, who makes purple vacuum cleaners of such immense power that they can suck up rugs, mice and even medium-sized children, is so worried about the situation that he’s opening a new academy, which will be called the Dyson School of Design and Innovation.

  Backed by Rolls-Royce, Airbus and the Williams Formula One team, it will be open to 2,500 fourteen–eighteen-year-olds in 2010. I’m thinking of enrolling my kids now, because – hell – even if they fail to come up with an alternative to oil and their time at the academy comes to naught, they can always make a fortune in life. As plumbers.

  Sunday 13 April 2008

  Potato heads are talking rot on food

  A sinister government agency called Wrap (We Rape and Pillage) has spent vast lumps of our money to determine that, in Britain alone, we throw away 5.1m potatoes every day. Apparently this is so morally reprehensible that we should all commit suicide. Hmm. So we have one part of the government telling us that if we continue to eat too much we will become fat and everyone will explode. And now we have a
nother part telling us that we have to finish everything on our plates because it’s wrong to throw food away.

  Is it, though? Of course, eco-mentalists argue that rotting food gives off methane gas – a global-warming agent twenty-three times more powerful than carbon dioxide. So a potato, casually discarded because you had too many biscuits with your afternoon tea, will cause every polar bear to suffer an agonizing death, crying for its mother and thrashing about in boiling seas. Yes, an unused maris piper will kill the planet more quickly than a Chinese power station.

  Funny that, because when I suggested recently that cow farts were creating more global warming than a flock of Range Rovers, environmentalists were quick to point out that methane breaks down so quickly it isn’t really an issue. Now, apparently, it is. Except, of course, it isn’t – because if you leave a potato in the ground it will rot. If you dig it up then throw it away the council will put it in a landfill site. Where it will rot. And if you eat it, it will come out of your bottom, go to a sewage works and end up in the ground. Where it will rot.

  In other words the only way you can prevent a spud from turning into a huge poisonous cloud of suffocating gas is to call the US air force and ask it to carpet bomb the potato-growing flatlands of Lincolnshire with Agent Orange. Who knows? Maybe this is why the government recently announced a proposal to abandon Norfolk to the sea. As payback for the county’s farmers, whose produce is primarily responsible for the sea’s tempestuousness in the first place.

  Of course if we ignore the environmentalists – and we should – an army of Fairtrade lobbyists then ride into the argument, claiming that all the food we don’t eat could be shipped to, oh, I don’t know – Biafra. I give them the same argument that I gave to my mother at meal times forty years ago. ‘How? In an envelope?’