How Hard Can It Be?

by Jeremy Clarkson

  First of all, I’ll explain the rules of my experiment. I would continue to eat as normal and to sit down as much as possible during the day. There would be no jogging or cycling, and no low-fat yoghurt or weeds instead of chops and chips. The only change would be the drink.

  And the results are … drum roll, please … after seven days I have lost precisely 1lb.

  This makes no sense because if I really was getting through the equivalent of fifty fish fingers a day, you would imagine that after a week of no fish fingers at all I’d have the body mass index of Jon Bon Jovi and the torso of Willem Dafoe. And yet all that’s happened is that I’ve gone from 224 lb to 223 lb. At this rate of decline, I’d be about 657 years old before there’d be any visible difference at all.

  And am I prepared to go that long without a drink? Well, strangely, the answer is: probably, because actually it’s not so bad. I certainly see no point in cutting down on alcohol because drinking one glass of wine has about the same effect as adding one grain of sand to the Sahara desert. I don’t even notice it. So it’s either forty or none at all and I’ve gone for the zero option.

  DefCon 1.

  The first problem was finding something as enjoyable as wine to drink after a day at work. Water obviously is useless because it’s just liquefied lettuce. You may as well drink helium. So what I’ve done is rediscovered a fondness for Robinsons lemon barley water and, I have to say, it’s nicer than any claret.

  With that problem out of the way, we move on to the next – not drinking in the company of those who are. God, drunks talk gibberish, usually at a volume that can crack rock. Then they fall in the bin, blame Gordon Brown and emerge with a set of opinions that hovers somewhere between Genghis Khan and the Daily Mail. Trying to talk sensibly when all around have lost their heads, and their ability to sit on a chair, is like trying to do applied maths while being keelhauled. I’ve often wondered how my teetotal friends have managed to stay on the wagon when they are surrounded by booze and boozers. Now I know. You begin to see drink not as a relaxant or as a stimulant but as a problem that doesn’t screw with your waistline. Only your mind.

  There’s more good news. Last night I drove to London, had supper with friends and then did something I’ve never done before. I. Drove. Home. Again. Not with one eye in the mirror and my heart in my mouth. But with gay abandon and a reckless attitude to the speed limit. Come and get me, rozzers. Let me blow in your bag. Bring it on.

  Even better, I’ve started waking up feeling an unusual compulsion to draw the curtains and play table tennis with the children. I no longer have to spend the morning clinging on to things. And do you know what? I haven’t had a lumpy yawn for a whole week now. Perhaps that’s why I’m still fat. I’ve stopped vomiting.

  Of course I cannot imagine even for a moment that this will be a long-term experiment but I do recommend you give it a bash. Contrary to what the government says, you won’t lose much weight, but you really will feel – there’s no other word – ‘better’.

  If that sounds appealing, then I can assure you that giving up drink is a damn sight easier than the alternatives. Doing without roast potatoes, and skipping.

  What’s more, avoiding alcohol won’t make you a bore. It’ll make you the exact opposite.

  Sunday 26 April 2009

  Gordon the ass is stomping over everyone’s pets

  As Mr Darling and Mr Brown continue to ruin the economy, people are having to ponder on what they can no longer afford. And many, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Animals, have decided the family pet must go. Apparently thirty animals a day are being abandoned at the moment. Almost 60 per cent up on last year.

  This is understandable. I mean, if I had a tiger and I lost my job, I’d think seriously about getting rid of it. And it’d be much the same story if I had a whale or a bear of some kind. Certainly, I’ve made it perfectly plain to my donkeys that if Harriet Harman gets her way and I’m replaced on Top Gear by a Somalian lesbian, they’ll be off to the sausage factory.

  There is no doubt that some pets are extremely expensive to run. My labradoodle requires a professional shampoo and blow-dry after every rain shower. My golden lab is kept alive with nothing but cash. And the electricity bill for the fox-zapping fence that rings my chickens’ enclosure means that every egg they produce costs roughly £1m.

  And then we get to the horses. I have spoken to my wife about turning them into glue but she maintains they are not luxury items at all, and that the only reason she burns the various equine bills is because they are too trivial and small to file away and keep.

  Hmmm. They have sweet itch constantly and as a result are always draped in yashmaks that must cost £800,000 each. Plus they need new shoes every two days, and a visit from the psychiatrist every time they see a paper bag in a hedge. And that’s before we get to the fact that their absolute favourite food is the wooden post-and-rail fence that keeps them in the paddock. In a single night, they can eat about 500 yards of it. And fencing is unbelievably expensive to replace. To stop them doing this, I have painted the new sections with a virulent chilli oil, but it turns out that what they like even more than wooden fencing is wooden fencing smothered in chillies.

  I would estimate that the cost of keeping the horses where they belong, preventing Brer Fox from eating the hens, running a lab to hatch the eggs, blow-drying the dogs and retrieving the sheep that ramblers like to chase into the sea at my holiday cottage is about £4 billion a year. I definitely spend more of my earnings on animals than on my cars. Far more.

  And so I can quite understand why someone who has been made redundant might turn to his wife and say, ‘Honey. I’m sorry. But the llamas have to go.’ I noted last week that Harrow school, presumably suffering, like everyone else, from Darling and Brown’s insanity, is having to sell its enormous collection of butterflies. Which have been dead for a hundred years.

  However, I was extremely alarmed to see that someone had abandoned a tortoise. I’m not joking. He was handed in to a rescue centre in Bolton because his owners couldn’t afford to run him any more. Now, leaving aside the question of why Bolton needs a tortoise rescue centre, we really must ask how bad things have to be before you say, ‘Well, I’m sorry, kids, but Tommy the tortoise has to go.’ I realize, of course, that it’s much easier to abandon a tortoise than various other animals. You’re forever reading about people who’ve driven from Scotland to abandon their dog in Exeter and three weeks later it’s homed and is back on their doorstep. Cats can do this as well. Unless you drown them first. Whereas a tortoise cannot. Take it to the end of the road, and even if it has a homing gene, you and your children will be six feet under before it’s back.

  However, I can’t see the point of getting rid of one in the first place. Experts say that tortoises require a diet that contains just the right balance of calcium and phosphorus and that they should be provided with a heated kennel. Then they undermine their authority by saying that tortoises can dig under fences or climb over them and are vicious. I think maybe they’ve got tortoises somehow muddled up with prisoners of war.

  The fact is that a tortoise is unbelievably easy to keep. Sure, it may not be very cuddly, it’s completely useless at retrieving sticks and it won’t bark at burglars, but even if it loses a leg, there’s no need to call the vet: simply attach a caster, which can be bought for £2.49 from B&Q.

  Apparently the tortoise that was handed in at the Bolton centre had kidney stones because of dehydration. Again. Not a problem. Just give it some water. It doesn’t even need to be Hildon or Evian. What’s more, tortoises are tough little bastards.

  When I was a kid I had two. Gilbert and Squeak (Sullivan and Bubble died) both escaped one night into a neighbouring field of wheat, where they survived a combine harvester and the burning of the stubble.

  Naturally, I have a tortoise today and I have calculated how much he costs to keep every year. In the summer he lazes about in the garden eating dandelions, and in the winter he sleeps so
soundly that I use him as a chock for my classic Mercedes. The final bill, then, is nought. Actually, it’s less than nought because without him I’d have to get the Merc’s handbrake repaired. Henry is in fact saving me money.

  And best of all, he will live to be 1,000, which means we won’t face the same sort of sobbing we had from the children when the vet, for just £30, said the pet mouse had a tumour and would surely die.

  For many reasons, then, the tortoise is the ideal recessionary pet. Your other animals, I’m afraid, will have to be left on the central reservation of the M5. It’s something I’ve known for a while. The sort of socialism being practised now by Darling and Brown ultimately kills people’s dogs.

  Sunday 3 May 2009

  Change fast, before we all gag on the fabric of British life

  Last week a million dewy-eyed fools were celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Mini, the small car that symbolizes everything that’s been wrong with Britain since Hitler poisoned his dog.

  I do not wish to dwell on cars here but it’s important to stress that, back in 1959, for all sorts of oily reasons, the little Austin was very clever. France had its Citroën 2CV. Germany had its Volkswagen Beetle. Russia had its ox. And we had the Mini, the best-packaged, most fun personal transport module of them all.

  And then the British did what the British did best. Nothing. The Mini was therefore crap by 1965, but despite this it was still being made as the twenty-first century dawned, by which time it was as out of date as a Norman keep. And I have the distinct impression that, if BMW hadn’t bought the company, it would still be churning them out today. Gramophones in a flatscreen world.

  It’s much the same story with the Land Rover. Designed just after the war, it is still being sold to farmers and the British Army, where it sits in the modern theatre like a medieval trebuchet. So why hasn’t it been replaced with something that has space for a driver’s shoulder? Oh, because that would be like tearing down Anne Hathaway’s cottage. It’s part of the fabric of British life.

  Of course it is. Anything becomes the fabric of your life if it hangs around long enough. Your old dog with its anal warts. The leaky pipe in your spare room. Even syphilis can become part of the fabric of your life if you don’t go to the doctor’s.

  Look at the Royal Navy. Tony Blair announced in 1998 that we needed some new aircraft carriers. But there was so much fannying-about that the contract to get the process going wasn’t signed until 2008. Ten years later. You’d imagine of course that before the ink on the paperwork was dry, the companies charged with building these new carriers would be up and running. But no. Here we are in 2009 and there’s still no keel. And of course, pretty soon, parliament will turn round and explain that our old carriers, which chug around on one engine to save fuel, have become part of the fabric of British life and, as such, cannot be decommissioned.

  Look round the back of any public building and you’ll note the plumbing, and the paint, was installed in about 1951 and has not been upgraded since. Battersea power station is still there, producing no power, or indeed anything at all. And the next time you’re in a London taxi, wonder why the rear suspension has to be made from corrugated iron. I’ll tell you why.

  Because it’s always been made that way.

  I was examining some photographs of Sandringham House this morning and, oooh, it’s a monster. It should be pulled down immediately and replaced with something much more attractive. But can you even begin to imagine the hullabaloo if Mrs Queen even mentioned such a thing? Even when change comes, it’s half-arsed.

  I mean, look at the House of Lords. Mr Blair, the great modernizer, decided it was unfair to have the country ruled by people whose only qualification for the job was a great-grandad who’d killed lots of Turks. So did he abolish it? Did he hell. He just replaced the Bufton Tuftons with a bunch of people whose only qualification is a hatred of meat and a chip on the shoulder. And what plans are in store for London’s next bus? Why, it’s a bloody Routemaster.

  A particular bugbear for me is the red phone box. It was cramped, draughty, prone to vandalism and used mostly as a lavatory. So we should have rejoiced when mobile phones made it redundant. But oooh no. You can’t get rid of London’s red phone boxes.

  And there’s the problem. If we form an emotional attachment to every single thing that comes into our lives, pretty soon the whole country will become clogged up with stuff that doesn’t work any more.

  Woolworths was a classic case in point. When it went out of business, everyone ran around saying it should be saved because it was ‘traditional’. No it wasn’t. It was a terrible shop, selling awful things that even ghastly people didn’t want to buy. Woolworths was useful only for sheltering from a Second World War bombing raid.

  You should look around your house for more examples of this stupid sentimentality. For sure, your dining-room table may have originally belonged to your grandfather. But if the legs have woodworm and the surface contains traces of diphtheria, then why not replace it with a new one? Just because something is old, it is not necessarily good. The Victorians, for instance, couldn’t paint horses. They always looked like Devon Loch, with their legs sticking out all the wrong way. So why have a Victorian hunting scene in your lavatory when Hallmark can sell you something that is better for less? Of course, I would not suggest we erase all of history from the British landscape. And certain things that should be preserved cannot be displayed in a museum or encapsulated well enough in a history book. Burford, for instance, or the Queen. But we, as a nation, must stop getting teary-eyed about the death of something we hold dear. The wet British summer. The traditional ketchup bottle. The long-playing record. The busby.

  With that in mind, I think there should be a national referendum, maybe with an accompanying TV show, where participants are invited to nominate one thing from British life that should now be put in the dustbin. I’d like to kick things off by nominating the Labour party.

  An apology: last week, I said the tortoise was an ideal pet because it costs nothing to keep and will never upset your children by dying. Unfortunately, on Monday, perhaps because we spent nothing on it, ours did just that

  Sunday 10 May 2009

  Okay, you’ve got me bang to rights – I’m a secret green

  Last week, in this newspaper, I was outed as a recycler, a man who composts his tea bags, eats wasps and spends most of his days tutting in supermarkets at the Day-Glo orangeness of the carrots. Or, to put it another way, a damned hypocrite.

  Well, I’m sorry, but if the newspaper is going to publish these accusations, then I am surely allowed to reply. Yes, I do recycle. Yes, I do eat wasps, if they’ve burrowed into my apples. And yes, I do get so angry in supermarkets that often I leave my half-filled trolley in the spices aisle and come home empty-handed.

  There’s more. On Wednesday I spent most of the morning demanding to see the manager of a restaurant in which each individual sugar lump was wrapped in its own plastic sleeping bag. ‘Why,’ I wailed, ‘do you buy sugar this way?’ Using plastic to wrap sugar just means more litter and ultimately less diesel for my Range Rover.

  And there’s the problem. Because these days the rules state that you are either completely green or you are not green at all. The whole movement has been hijacked by lunatics who want everyone to live in crofts and Facebook trees.

  Excuse me, but I have yet to be convinced that man’s paltry 3 per cent contribution to the planet’s bank of carbon dioxide affects the climate. And furthermore, I do not share the view that a rise in global temperatures is necessarily a bad thing. For instance, I believe a parrot would be a more interesting Cotswold garden bird than a sparrow.

  As a result, I’m still the same man who dreams of running amok on the set of Mamma Mia! with a large-calibre machinegun. I’m still the man who wondered what my dead tortoise would taste like. And I’m still the man who lights his patio heater in April and leaves it burning non-stop till Bonfire Night.

  However, I am also the man who
likes to poke restaurant managers in the forehead when they bring me individually wrapped sugar lumps. And I will continue to fill supermarket trolleys and then leave them for some halfwit to unload again after I’ve stormed out in disgust at the sheer quantity of entirely unnecessary packaging.

  Wal-Mart reckons that a third of all consumer waste in America comes from packaging and says it is committed to reducing its use by 5 per cent. That sounds noble, but why only 5 per cent? Why not completely? Why do we have to buy apples in a polythene bag? Why do all toys have to come in their own moulded plastic display box? And why, if they do, does the plastic have to be of such thickness that many car firms would not even use it to make a bumper? I recently bought something called a Black Widow slingshot. It’s a catapult that fires ball bearings with devastating force. I was very much looking forward to blatting a few pigeons with it. But I cannot get through the plastic case in which it was sold. Scissors just break. My Strimmer became jammed. And dynamite is ineffective. I would very much like to meet the man who chose to seal his product this way, and kill him.

  The list of my issues is endless. Why is milk served in a plastic thimble and not a jug? What’s the matter with greaseproof paper for sandwiches? Why do hotels serve jam in one-cubic-inch jars? And why do DVDs come in an impregnable Cellophane wrapper? It’s not like they’re going to rot.

  It’s not just packaging either. I am particularly partial to a radish, and as a result I grow my own, in my own vegetable garden. Well, obviously, I don’t grow them. A man does. But it’s my bit of land and I’m the one who nourishes it by composting coffee grounds and old copies of the Guardian. Anyway, the radishes I grow may be full of worm holes and covered in mud but pop one into your mouth and it feels like your tongue is stuck in a gin trap. Peppery is too sprightly a word to describe the savagery of their kick. This is how a radish should be. And watercress.