Jeremy's Latest Sun Column

[RedMoon11]

It’s Worth the Old Rubber Glove to Get the All Clear


By JEREMY CLARKSON, Sun Columnist Published: 18th October 2014

I CAN’T understand why all women don’t spend all day making sure they don’t have breast cancer. It’s easy and, from the sound of it, quite good fun.

For men, things are a little more tricky because the cancer that nails 10,000 of us every year is to be found in the prostate.

And checking that for defects isn’t fun at all because... well, it’s a Saturday morning so let’s not go there.

There’s another problem, too, because even if you do have the inclination to ferret about in your gentleman canal, what exactly are you looking for?

And if you do manage to find it, how do you know what’s normal, and what’s not...?

This is why, on Tuesday, I went to have it checked by a doctor. It was easy.

I simply removed my clothes and lay on my side so he could put what felt like his whole head in my bottom for a good look about.

Afterwards I uncrossed my eyes and ungritted my teeth and figured that there’s no harm in checking on how the rest of me was doing.

Because nothing could possibly be worse than the prostate exam.

Oh how wrong I was.

They blew jets of cold air into my eyes, helped themselves to 16 pints of blood and then put me in a tube which took pictures of my brain, heart, lungs and arteries.

And then it was time to have a look-see at my colon.

This meant getting medieval on my ass.

They put a ball in it. Then they inflated it until it was about the size of a Space Hopper. Then they filled my bowel with 2.6 pints of water.

Then they told me to lie on my stomach in the MRI scanner for ten minutes while they took some snaps. Ten minutes doesn’t sound that long. It passes in a jiffy when you are reading a newspaper or watching a film.

But when you are upside down, suffering from an urgent need to relieve yourself, with a hose pipe sticking out of your bottom, ten minutes last for exactly 32 years.

And even after they’d pulled me out and I’d been to the lavatory and fainted a bit, the misery continued.

They put me on a treadmill until my calves were screaming, my thighs had turned to jelly and my lungs had actually come out of my nose.

And when I called a halt, after eight minutes, they said they had never seen anyone who had lasted for a shorter time.

My fitness, they said, was “atrocious”. Under subsequent questioning, I admitted to smoking two packs of fags a day and drinking a bottle of wine. And never doing any exercise because I work 75 hours a week and I’m always too knackered.

But — and this should give everyone hope — I’m fine.

My liver’s a bit fatty and my cholesterol level’s wonky but there’s very little furring of the arteries, my brain is grey, my lungs work and there are no lumps in my back passage.

It had been a terrible day. Uncomfortable. Disgusting. Painful.

And filled at the end with dire warnings about what will happen if I won’t start eating beans and walking up stairs instead of using the lift.

But to be given the all clear is a high that I can recommend to everyone.

You walk out of the medical centre, albeit in a slightly bow-legged fashion, feeling as though you don’t have a care in the world.

I celebrated by going to the pub and getting magnificently drunk.

---

- THE gigantic cruise ship which arrived in Britain this week is a landing pad for statistics.

It’s longer than the Shard is tall. There are 16 passenger decks. Each of its four bow thrusters generates 7,500 horsepower.

Passengers consume 2.3million litres of water every day. And after every voyage, 2,750 broken-hearted spinsters will disembark with a worrying bout of genital itching.

---

Pillage of the Banned

NOT even the most feverishly mealy mouthed fresh-air enthusiast can find a single health reason why smoking should be banned in public parks.

So, instead, they say they want it outlawed because they don’t like to see people smoking. They find it offensive.

Well I find joggers offensive, with their silly, puffed out cheeks and their holier-than-thou wrist- mounted heart monitors. So should they be banned as well?

There are plenty of people out there terrified of dogs. So let’s add them to the list.

Along with people whose number plates pertain to the Falkland Islands. They are very offensive, apparently.

Oh, and we mustn’t forget the animal rights activists, who must surely be deeply hurt when they see office workers sitting on the benches at lunchtimes eating their ham sandwiches.

We can’t have people eating piggies in public, so that sort of thing must also go.

My mum had a thing about people with tattoos, too. So, obviously, that would mean Samantha Cameron with that dolphin on her ankle would be banned from taking her kids to the park at a weekend.

And speaking of which, what about people who can’t have children? It must be hurtful for them to see all those little tykes playing on the swings while their proud mums look on...

You’re starting to get the problem here, I’m sure.

You can’t ban someone from doing something just because you don’t like it.

I mean, I don’t like Ed Miliband but that doesn’t mean I want him banned from speaking in public.

No, wait... hang on a minute...

---

- WE’RE always being told that crime doesn’t pay.

But that’s obviously not true in Italy, where figures just out show that a whopping 11 per cent of the country’s revenue comes from drugs, arms trafficking and prostitution.

By including this tsunami of cash in its annual report, Italy is now back in the black. And as a result of that, the euro is less shaky.

Strange, though, isn’t it, that a currency has to be saved by some swivel-eyed hooker on her back at a truck stop on the autostrada just outside Turin?

---

Bat and Bawl

AS we know, you may not build anything in Britain these days if the work is likely to cause any distress whatsoever to a newt or a worm.

And you especially can’t do anything if it would upset a bat.

Bats are seen as the most important creatures living in Britain today. And there are many laws designed to protect them.

Which is odd, since most scientists believe it’s bats that are the host creatures in which Ebola lives.

Funny, isn’t it?

We spend our lives looking after them – then the bastards repay our kindness by killing us.

---

- LAST month, I wrote in a blind fury about how many speed cameras I’d encountered on a drive from Whitby to London.

Well, it seems one of them got me. Sadly, I was going too quickly for the speed awareness course to be an option. Which means I’m getting some points on my licence. My first in 30 years.

Grrrrr.

---

- THE Argentine ambassador in London claimed this week that I’d fabricated the violence which erupted when the Top Gear film crew was hounded out of her country recently.

Really? Because I’ve looked at the footage on YouTube and it seems pretty real to me.

I’ve also looked at my Twitter account and it’s there for all to see.

The mob wanted to kill us.

And eat us.

She also says the Falklands War was triggered because the Royal Navy sank the Belgrano.

Er...


www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/suncolumnists/jeremyclarkson/6008710/Sun-columnist-Clarkson-on-old-rubber-glove-check-up-Its-worth-the-pain-of-checks-to-get-a-clean-bill-of-health.html

[RedMoon11]

Without the Brunels and Bransons, we’d all be living in caves

By Jeremy Clarkson

Published 10th November 2014



SINCE the Virgin spacecraft crashed in America last week, we have been told, constantly, that Sir Richard Branson is a self-serving egomaniac.

We heard his hilarious plan to give a bunch of silly rich people a moment of weightlessness, so they can feel a bit less fat, was inevitably going to end in disaster.

And that as a result, the whole project should be shelved immediately.

Really? Because where would humankind be if we’d given up when we encountered a problem? In a cave, most likely, cold and frightened.

All three astronauts on Apollo 1 were burned to death on the launch pad. So should we have given up on the idea of space travel afterwards?

Not gone to the moon. Not bothered with sat-nav, or the internet or all the things that are now possible precisely because Nasa didn’t give up.

What about Scott of the Antarctic? Should we have refused to do any more exploration of the planet after he and his men froze to death?

Or Dr Livingstone? Would it have been right to say, “Look. Africa is full of lions and disease, old chap. Best you stay at home and open a post office”?

Then we have the London Underground. When Isambard Kingdom Brunel was building the first tunnel under the Thames, it collapsed and six men died.

They were buried with dignity but work continued. And today, the 14million people who use it every year thank the Lord for that commitment.

Almost everything that makes our lives better today — planes, cars, travel, power and so on — had to be invented by people who risked their lives.

And often lost them.

The Nevada desert is a graveyard for countless test pilots who “pushed the outside of the envelope” too far in the Fifties and Sixties and “bought the farm” as a result.

Marie Curie died from radiation poisoning after her groundbreaking research into atomic energy.

Franz Reichelt died after his early attempts to make a parachute went catastrophically wrong. And who can forget Horace Hunley?

Well, most of us, come to think of it. So let me refresh your memory.

He was convinced that naval vessels could operate underwater. So he built a submarine. And was killed in it.

You may, of course, think that Branson’s space tourism project isn’t in quite the same league as nuclear power or the London Underground; that it’s nothing more than a publicity stunt that will only benefit a few pop stars.

But one day, when your great grandchildren are taking rides into space because it beats hanging around the local shopping centre, and they see the world for what it is — a lonely, vulnerable and beautiful blue speck in the vast ocean of nothingness — who knows? They may decide it’s worth taking care of.

So I say this to Sir Branson. Mourn the loss of your pilot. And then carry on.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/without-the-brunels-and-bransons-wed-all-be-living-in-caves/

[RedMoon11]

Russia has never made a good-looking car
By Jeremy Clarkson
Published 17th November 2014


Lada Riva… Not a pretty sight

IT’S odd. Russia has never made a good-looking car.

You don’t look at a Lada or a Zil and think “Mmmm. That’s a beauty”.

Their watches and cameras were never much cop either.

But their warplanes are way prettier than anything we make in the West and having studied pictures of the fleet that’s arrived this week off the coast of Australia, you have to say the same applies to their ships.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/russia-has-never-made-a-good-looking-car/

[RedMoon11]

Jack Not Banger to Rights

By Jeremy Clarkson

Published 24th November 2014



Banger race… Labourer Jack Cottle joined a Brands Hatch in a VW Polo

BACK in the summer, an extraordinary film appeared on YouTube.
A young man drove his girlfriend’s VW Polo through the pits at Brands Hatch, then – much to the surprise and horror of said girlfriend, who was in the passenger seat – went out on the track.
In the middle of a race. I watched it a couple of times and reckoned it had to be a fake. But lo and behold, it wasn’t. This week,the driver, a labourer called Jack Cottle, pleaded guilty to causing a public nuisance and was sentenced to eight months in prison.



On board… Jack’s girlfriend begs him not to go on the track

That seems awfully steep. Prosecutor Iestyn Morgan said drivers in the race would not have expected to encounter a car going much more slowly.
Really? I only ask because the drivers were in Beetles.
And there’s no way they could have kept up with a Polo, that’s for sure.



Confusion… The announcer can’t believe what he’s seeing


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/jack-not-banger-to-rights/


The video above comes from the Brands Hatch track in Fawkham, Kent. On Saturday, 14 June 2014, during a race of souped-up VW Beetles, 21-year old Jack Cottle drove his girlfriend's car onto the track. While he put the lives of his friends and the race participants in danger, Cottle regrets nothing.'You only live once and I live every day like its my last. Now I'm getting slated for being different.'

[RedMoon11]

I’m Sick and Tyred of Formula One

By Jeremy Clarkson

Published 1st December 2014



World champion… Lewis Hamilton’s win was great, but things need to change

IT is, of course, marvellous that Lewis Hamilton has won the Formula One World Drivers’ Championship for a second time. Hearty congratulations to the man for a sterling effort.
But now the after-show party is over, it’s time for the sport’s bosses to sit down and have a long, hard think about what must happen if it’s to survive as anything other than an opportunity for corporate bigwigs to wander around the paddock with a lot of important-looking passes around their necks.
It’s no good having one team with a car that’s miles faster than all the others because then it’s just a twohorse race, with various slower moving obstacles that need to be lapped occasionally.
And it’s no good having a steward’s enquiry every single time any of the drivers does something interesting.
Nor does it work if the cars shatter into a million pieces every time they bump into one another.
In short, they must be capable of surviving light impacts, which the drivers must be encouraged to have from time to time.
That way, when Lewis Hamilton wins the crown again, people will actually be awake to see him do it.

---

I’m rich… but I’m not THAT rich

I READ this week that I’m so rich, I have a flat in Fitzrovia and a fleet of cars including both a Lamborghini and a Ferrari.
Which is true, apart from the fact that I don’t have a Lamborghini or a Ferrari or a fleet of cars and that I don’t know where Fitzrovia is.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/im-sick-and-tyred-of-formula-one/

[RedMoon11]

*Sorry Jeremy eating and urinating are two different things. People, even babies, are allowed to eat in a big room out in public.*


Jeremy Clarkson: I’m just a knob fiddler
By Jeremy Clarkson
Published 8th December 2014  


Knob fiddler… Old car radios were hard to tune

I SPENT all of last week driving about in an old Jensen which, like many cars of the period, came with a medium wave radio that offered two choices: Radio 4 with a bit of crackle. Or just the crackle.

I spent every single journey with one hand on the wheel and one hand on the radio knob, turning it a trillionth of a millimetre this way and that to try and relocate the signal.

It made me wonder. How on earth did I ever develop such a profound and long lasting love for rock music? Because back in the day, I listened to it all on the crackletastic Radio Caroline. And Led Zeppelin must have sounded virtually identical to the Sty listics.

It probably explains why I went out and bought Atom Heart Mother by Pink Floyd. Because on the medium wave, even that sounded quite good.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/jeremy-clarkson-im-just-a-knob-fiddler/

[RedMoon11]

Jeremy Clarkson Recalls Top Gear’s Terrifying Argentina Ordeal

By Jeremy Clarkson

Published 15th December 2014



Top Gear gang are no strangers to controversy. But when Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May filmed the latest Christmas special, no one could have predicted they’d be chased out of Argentina. And all because of a number plate.

“We were going to travel through Patagonia – the southern bit of South America – as a goodbye to the V8 engine before it’s decommissioned,” says motoring guru and Sun columnist Jeremy, 54.

“We got three V8 sports cars and I wanted a Porsche 928. There were only two for sale in Britain – one was black, which doesn’t work well on camera, and one was grey, so we got the grey one.”

It was well into filming before anyone noticed the Porsche’s number plate: H982 FKL. Locals claimed it was a taunt about the 1982 Falklands War and the crew had to flee.


Fury … Porsche 928 with H982 FKL numberplate

“I’ve given up trying to tell people it was just a coincidence,” sighs Jeremy. “If Top Gear were abusive to foreigners, it wouldn’t be the world’s most-watched show.

“There was a huge, angry mob. Car windows were broken and some of the guys actually got hurt. Our security guard said: ‘We’re going to be killed.’ “‘We’re going to be killed.’

“Argentina’s London ambassador [Alicia Castro] said this was all fabricated, but she wasn’t there, we were, and when she watches the programme she’ll think: ‘Oh dear, it turns out I’m an idiot.’

Everywhere we’ve filmed in the past has reported increases in tourism afterwards – but the Argentinians have passed up that opportunity by attacking us. It’s the last place on earth people will want to go.

“They ruined what would have been a very jolly Christmas jaunt, but we’ve still made a bloody good programme that will show what really happened.”
Now he’s safely recovered, Jeremy’s looking forward to Christmas at home.

“I get given pants, socks and more socks,” he says drily. “When I buy gifts, budget covers a multitude of sins. You can use a lot of thought and make a nice pressed flower, but buying a watch is quicker.”

And will he help cook Christmas dinner? Jeremy smiles: “Only if people want to be poisoned.”

WATCH IT! Top Gear Patagonia Special Sat 27 & Sun 28 Dec Times vary BBC2


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/jeremy-clarkson-recalls-top-gears-terrifying-argentina-ordeal/

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson: I’ll Save Sinking Duck

By Jeremy Clarkson     
Published 22nd December 2014


I’ll save ‘em… Duck amphibious tourist attraction

LAST year, the so-called Duck amphibious vehicle, which is used as a tourist attraction in various places around the UK, did not cover itself with glory.

One sank while it was being towed across Liverpool docks, then, a few months later, in exactly the same place, another one didthe same thing.

And then there was an incident in London when a Duck, rammed with sightseers, caught fire on the Thames. Now investigators say these vehicles, which date back to World War Two, are not really up to the job.

The operators should not despair though.

If they want a truly brilliant replacement, they can simply put an outboard motor on the back of a Nissan pick-up truck. It worked for me.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-ill-save-sinking-duck/

[RedMoon11]

Don’t Quit Fags, Pray For Expensive Petrol

By Jeremy Clarkson  
Published 27th December 2014



OVER the next few days we will all be wishing our friends and family a happy New Year, then promising to give up booze for January and fags for ever. Which means it won’t be happy at all.

And then Poland will be invaded, and we all know what went down the last time that happened.

I know we’re all supposed to be cheery and upbeat as we celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus and look forward to the New Year’s new broom, but from where I’m sitting, it’s hard to raise a smile.

I worry about this oil business. Demand is down across the globe as the economic woes continue to stifle growth.

But America and Saudi Arabia have decided to keep on pumping the black gold out of the ground as though demand wasn’t down at all.

This over-supply has lowered prices and yes, that’s good news in the short term because it means cheaper heating bills and more spare cash for chocolate and crappy flowers at the petrol station.

But low prices put Russia in a pickle because 68 per cent of the foreign currency it earns comes from oil.

Taking its revenue down from $174billion to $95billion will result in queues for bread, leaky shoes and lots of black and white photographs of women with faces like warty turnips foraging in the woods for berries.

This may sound like payback for all of Russia’s crimes in the past but it’s not sensible. Because Russia is a big bear — and you don’t poke bears with a stick.

Especially when the circus master is President Putin, who doesn’t seem to have an end game. He just wants to be popular, and he is — phenomenally so.

Russians love him.

He’s screwed the oligarchs, he’s annexed the Crimea, he’s posed topless on a horse and now he’s taunting America and Europe by continuing to send guns and bullets to Ukraine.

It’s like he’s competing in a TV talent show to find Russia’s most popular man.

So what’s he going to do about the low oil prices?

God knows, but you can be the answer isn’t “take it on the chin”. It was economic warfare against Germany and the bread queues that resulted which prompted Hitler to invade Poland.

So what’s to say Putin doesn’t do exactly the same thing?

And what would we do about that? Last time we sent our children into a war that lasted five years and cost millions of lives.

This time … ?

So my recommendation come January 1 is simple. Do not give up the fags or the booze. You’ll need them to stay cheerful. And pray for higher petrol prices, because that seems to be the only way to keep the bear quiet and in its box.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/dont-quit-fags-pray-for-expensive-petrol/

---

Happy New Year

By Jeremy Clarkson
Published 27th December 2014



I WOULD like to finish this, my final column of 2014, by wishing everyone a very happy New Year.

Except for the driver of the Logicoll van – I know your registration – who carved me up on the M25 last week.

And the Argentinian ambassador.

She can go fooey


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/happy-new-year/

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson: Are we allowed to offend? Or aren’t we?

Jeremy Clarkson's question in light of Charlie Hebdo response

By Jeremy Clarkson

Published 19th January 2015



AFTER the H982 FKL debacle in Argentina, many commentators said that because Top Gear had offended the locals, we deserved the reprisals.

Strange then that just a month later, the very same commentators were saying that the cartoonists on Charlie Hebdo magazine were perfectly entitled to offend whoever they liked.

Right. So, since a new series of Top Gear starts next week, it’d be handy to know.

Are we allowed to offend? Or aren’t we?


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-are-we-allowed-to-offend-or-arent-we/

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson: Boob Cover-Up Is Chest Not On

By Jeremy Clarkson     Published 24th January 2015

AS news began to circulate that The Sun had dropped Page 3, many people were puzzled. “How will that work?” they said.

“Will it just go from the economic stuff on Page 2 straight to Page 4? Or will it be just blank?”

Then came even more amazing news. The page would survive but it would no longer feature a topless young lady.



All over Hackney and in council offices throughout the land, ladies with hairy armpits were jubilant.

“We’re jubilant,” they said. “We hated seeing these happy young girls whose breasts are so much better than our half-filled hot water bottles”.

But then they got a shock. Rumours of the Page 3 girl’s death had been exaggerated.

And thank God for that, because without it, where else would a young chap go to see what his friend’s mum used to look like without clothes on?

Seriously. When I was growing up, every single one of the BBC’s Plays for Today featured an up-and-coming actress, showing everyone who’d tuned in that she had a pubic triangle like a Welcome Home door mat.

I thought Helen Mirren was allergic to fabric until I was about 26, and that’s before we get to Susan Penhaligon in A Bouquet of Barbed Wire. That show used to make me go cross-eyed. But television today is like a Methodist Bible reading.

You occasionally catch a whiff of nipple in the early stages of a ratings-hungry American drama but after that, it’s all turtleneck jumpers and tights.

And British drama hasn’t seen a pube since Joni Mitchell went west, leaving alone a gentleman’s sausage.

It’s much the same story on the high street. Not that long ago, the top shelves of every newsagent’s were wall-to-wall smut. But now it’s all in brown-paper wrappers behind the counter. With the cigarettes and those, nudge nudge, fireworks that the council don’t know about.

At festivals in the Sixties, not wearing clothes was sort of the done thing, but now you go to prison if you take your clothes off in public. The naked rambler is there now.

Even art’s got its puritanical hat on. The old paintings in a gallery feature lots of naked ladies whereas all the new stuff is just a lot of squiggles and spots.

Of course, you may well argue at this point that these days, people can get their bosom fix on the internet and that’s true. But for how much longer?

Already Sky has announced that porn sites will be blocked and that to get them, you’ll have to ring a helpline and say, “Hello. I’m a massive pervert”. Other providers are set to follow suit, and then of course we have Instagram which spends most of its time taking down pictures of Chelsea Handler, topless on a horse.

t’s weird. They will let us see a shirtless President Putin, on a horse. But not Ms Handler.

So what’s the next Wonderbra advert going to be? A picture of Eva Herzigova in a polo-neck jumper, saying “Goodbye Boys”.

I accept that in this day and age, all those dolly birds on the grid of a Formula One race look a bit last week but girls, or men, voluntarily taking their clothes off — nope. That’s fine.

Especially if the girls or men look healthy and not like they’ve just come out of a concentration camp.

I genuinely believe there’s nothing wrong with nudity.

But there is something deeply troubling about those who have a problem with it.

TOP GEAR RETURNS TO YOUR SCREENS AND, FOR THE FIRST TIME, IT WILL BE BROADCAST SIMULTANEOUSLY AROUND THE CIVILISED WORLD. AMERICA GETS IT A DAY LATER.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-boob-cover-up-is-chest-not-on/

---

Clarkson: Someone’s Winding Warden’s Up


 

THE rules say you have to display your parking ticket in the front windscreen.

And this chap has. Somewhere.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-someones-winding-wardens-up/

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson: Weather Warning Was Storm In Teacup

By Jeremy Clarkson

Published 31st January 2015



CAN you imagine what would have happened if a terrorist had managed to close every road and shut down the entire public transport system in New York? Well, that is exactly what America’s weather forecasters did this week.

They said a snow storm of unparalleled hugeness was on its way. They said 30in of snow would fall and that the city would grind to a halt. They spoke of a white hell.

To prepare for the onslaught, the city’s safety-obsessed authorities initiated a total shutdown.

Then it turned out the forecasters were wrong.

We see the same problem over here. Our forecasters like to think that what they do is a matter of national importance. They invent new words like thunderbomb and exaggerate everything so they can be moved from the end of the news to the start.

Every single day they tell us we are facing ice chaos and a big freeze, and I sit there thinking, ‘Well, of course we are, you blithering idiots. It is bloody winter’.

Over the years, I have experienced every type of weather it is possible to imagine. I have been to the North Pole where it was minus 60C (-76F) and Death Valley in California where it was over 50C (122F).

I have been in a hurricane and fog so thick it had a taste. And you know what? I coped.

This is because I am a human being. And human beings know that in the winter, they need a coat, and in the summer, they do not.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-weather-warning-was-storm-in-teacup/

---

Clarkson: Shut Up About Speed… Mend Our Potholes



AS you settle into your seat on a British Airways flight you are told by the pilot that your safety is his No1 priority.

Which of course is rubbish.

Your safety is the responsibility of the company that made the plane and the computers in air traffic control.

BA’s priority is to get you as quickly and as comfortably as possible to your destination.

And it’s the same story on the roads. Getting to where you’re going safely is down to the people who made your car and the person who gave you a driving licence.

Not some a*** in Whitehall who only ever sees the world from the back of his chauffeur-driven Toyota Prius.

The current motorway speed limit is ridiculous. It’s a Bronze Age law that has no place in a fast-moving wifi gigabyte world where time matters more than ever before.

Seventy miles an hour was selected at a time when cars could barely go that fast anyway, and took about two miles to stop. But those days are gone.

The Highway Code tells us that it takes 240ft to stop from 60mph. Which would have been about right in 1963.

But if you watch Top Gear tomorrow night, you will see that a modern car can stop from 60mph in just 75ft.

The Government then is using incorrect data to decide how fast we can go.

And to make matters worse, it is now allowing police forces throughout the country to litter the motorways with a new type of hidden speed camera.

We’ve had motorway speed cameras in the past but they were only stitched on when the limit was lowered for some, usually spurious, reason.

The new ones though — they will be on all the time.

This means that even when the traffic’s light and the weather is fine, you will no longer be able to trundle along, as you do now, at 85 or 90.

In Kent, where the cameras are already up and running, 700 drivers have been caught in just eight weeks.

It’s stupid. These cameras are being installed to enforce a law that is muddle-headed and completely out of date. It would be like fitting polling stations with cameras to catch women voting.

The Tories said when they came to power they would end the war on the motorist. But with these new cameras, they have made it nuclear.

And that’s because the Transport Secretary is a man called Patrick McLoughlin, who used the number of road accidents in his constituency as a reason for abandoning Tory plans to increase the motorway speed limit.

But his constituency is the Derbyshire Dales where there are no motorways.

What’s more, he went to an agricultural college, then became a miner.

Which means he almost certainly knows nothing at all about ceramic brakes, or active bonnets, or any of the modern electrical devices that make modern cars so safe.

Putting him in charge of the roads is like putting me in charge of the Royal Ballet. I wouldn’t have a clue what I was doing.

Which brings me back to where I began. Safety is not the No1 priority for Mr McLoughlin. His job is to mend potholes and shut up.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-shut-up-about-speed-mend-our-potholes/

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson: Strike’s A Breath Of Fresh Air

By Jeremy Clarkson

Published 9th February 2015


Strike… London’s roads were delightfully quiet

ON Thursday, London’s roads were delightfully quiet and traffic free.

In the afternoon, I cycled to see some friends a couple of miles away and not once did I feel that my life was in danger.

What’s more, the air felt clear and fresh.

For once, I didn’t feel like I was breathing an unholy cocktail of nitrogen dioxide and soot.

And then I remembered, the bus drivers were on strike.

I have no idea what their beef is this time and I can’t be bothered to find out. But I hope that whatever it is, it’s completely unresolvable.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-strikes-a-breath-of-fresh-air/

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson: Paint Speed Cameras Puce If You Want

By Jeremy Clarkson
Published 16th February 2015

Speed cameras… The colour is not the issue

ROADS Something-Or-Other said this week that the sly new speed cameras being installed on Britain’s motorways may well be painted yellow to make them more visible.

And what? Does he think we’re going to be happy with that? Because I’m not. I don’t care if you paint them puce, matey boy, because the colour is not the issue.

We were told speed cameras would only be placed at accident blackspots and Britain’s motorways are not blackspots at all. They are, in fact, the safest roads in the world.

Well, they are now. But as soon as everyone starts jamming on their brakes when they see a camera, it’ll be a different story.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-paint-speed-cameras-puce-if-you-want/

---

Clarkson: Fag Ban A Drag On Cops

Good idea, but completely impractical

By Jeremy Clarkson
Published 16th February 2015

Fine… For those caught smoking in cars

THE Government has introduced new legislation which will stop people smoking in their cars if children under the age of 18 are being carried as passengers.

Those caught flouting the new law, which comes into force on October 1, will face a £50 fine.

Good. Excellent. But hang on a minute.

How on earth can police officers – who are already forced to spend six hours a day filling in health and safety forms and the rest learning how to climb a ladder – possibly be expected to catch offenders? You need an eagle eye to see if someone is holding a cigarette at the wheel and superhuman powers of deduction to work out if the people in the back are 17 or 19.

And what if it’s the kids who are doing the smoking? That’s what makes this law idiotic.

Because it’s impossible to enforce.

You may as well make it illegal to not wash your hands after using the lavatory.

Very commendable but in the real world, outside Westminster, completely impractical.


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-fag-ban-a-drag-on-cops/

[RedMoon11]

Twitter

Clarkson: Mirror's Top Gear figures are wrong

Hit show's ratings are in fact UP

By Jeremy Clarkson                  Published 03 March 2015


Top Trio... Clarkson and co. are back for a new series

ACCORDING to a report in something called the "Mirror", the current series of Top Gear is attracting a million fewer viewers than the last series, 12 months ago.

Well actually, that's not true. Even though Top Gear is transmitted at the same time as that ratings colossus Call The Midwife, Top Gear's viewing figures are actually UP.

I think the Mirror has a problem with maths.

Perhaps that explains why its opinion polls keep suggesting Ed Miliband will win the election with a majority of five million seats and the Tories will be wiped off the face of the earth.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-mirrors-top-gear-figures-are-wrong/

---

Clarkson: Hope for Fernando Alonso

By Jeremy Clarkson    Published 09 March 2015


Alonso... There's hope of a full recovery

THE news from Spain all sounds very frightening.

According to sources close to Fernando Alonso, he came round from his "weird" crash during F1 testing and thought he was a 13-year-old go kart racer.

My sources tell me he thinks he races for Ferrari and has no memory of switching last year to McLaren.

Whatever, he is plainly concussed and that sounds very frightening.

It IS frightening. I remember well the awfulness in the wake of Richard Hammond's jet car crash as doctors struggled to put his head back together again.

But, and I hope this gives Fernando's family and friends hope. Richard did get better and soon he was back to his normal, irritating self.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-hope-for-fernando-alonso/

[RedMoon11]

SO WE LOSE THE TIGER... BUT GAIN ACID-SPIT SNAIL

NOT SUSPENDED BY THE SUN: Jeremy Clarkson talks about nature’s battle against extinction

By Jeremy Clarkson  Published 16 March 2015


Is the big beast on its way out? PHOTO: Getty

I THINK it’s fair to say that nature made a mistake when it invented the dinosaur.

It was too big, too violent and with such small and puny arms it was never going to be able to operate heavy machinery or even enjoy a bit of special “me” time.

So one day all the dinosaurs died — and now, many years later, no one mourns their passing.

And yet here we are, getting all dewy-eyed about the tiger, which is now teetering on the brink of extinction.

Or the polar bear, which is left with nothing but several million square miles of habitat to call home.

But let’s be honest. These big, imposing creatures have no place in a world that has moved on.

As a species, we no longer think it’s acceptable to die in a car crash or from a curable disease.

We’ve even got to the point where we think that no disease should be incurable.

And yet we think it’s fine to share our planet with an animal that wants to eat us.

But in the modern, risk-averse world of health and safety, it isn’t.


Hydrothermal vent snail full of hot acid

The fact is that you can start as many campaigns as you like and call on the support of politicians from all sides, but the day must come when you have to wave goodbye to the big monsters and move on.

Don’t be too disheartened by this, though, because a report out this week tells us that in the past year alone, scientists have discovered 1,451 new species in the planet’s oceans.

That’s four every day.

One of the most exciting is the Indonesian psychedelic frogfish, which has an in-built jet engine that allows it to squirt water out of its anus to get moving, after which it turns into a ball and bounces along the ocean floor.

I admit that it’s not as interesting as a tiger.

But it could well be more amusing to have as a pet.

Then there’s the skeleton shrimp, which lives off the beaches of California.

However, much like the people who live on the beaches of California, it seems to do absolutely nothing at all.

I’m not sure the carpet worm is that amazing either.

But the hydrothermal vent snail looks like it could be a good laugh because it’s somehow able to turn cold sea water into hot acid.

Which it then shoots out of its face. You see my point? We lose one animal and we get another. The world turns.

It’s all lies I tell you

AS you may have heard, I’ve been suspended by the BBC following a fracas at a North Yorkshire hotel.

I don’t intend to dwell here on what happened then or what will happen in the future.

I’m sure you’re as fed up with the story as I am.

But there has been one Press report this week that was so wildly inaccurate and wrong that I feel I have to speak out in my defence. The Times newspaper said I had been seen using a bus.

I can assure you that things are bad. But they are not that bloody bad.

One of the things that has cheered me is how many people have expressed support in the last few days. I’m touched and grateful.

---

— AROUND half a million people speak Welsh and, as a result, road signs in Wales are posted in English and Welsh.

So does that mean the road signs in certain parts of West London should be posted in English and Polish?

---

— IT now seems likely that Chelsea will win the Premier League this year, making them the best team in England.

But Wednesday proved that the best team in England isn’t even as good as a ten-man outfit from France.

Rita’s neckline is sweeter


No complaints about Rita's neckline. PHOTO: Wireimage

THERE seems to be a trend in the world of ladies’ fashion at the moment for extremely plunging necklines, such as that on Rita Ora’s dress at the Brits.

I’m not complaining about this at all, obviously.

But I do feel slightly sorry for those who feel duty-bound to go out dressed in – and I’ve researched this very carefully – two bits of ribbon.


Singer Tom belts out a classic. PHOTO: Topham

My main concern is that the plunging fashion will soon spread across the sex divide and that the Tom Jones unbuttoned look will make a return.

I’m not sure I could pull that off.

Green’s talking ballots

SPEAKING on the BBC’s Question Time programme this week, the leader of the Green Party, whose name I’ve forgotten – cough cough, I’ve got a cold – said that 26 per cent of people would vote for her if they thought she had a chance of winning the General Election.

So what she’s saying is that even if they thought she had a chance of winning, she still wouldn’t win.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she wants to turn all of the country’s Army bases into nature parks.

— THIS weekend the Liberal Democrats will be meeting to discuss their exciting new plans to cut speed limits on British roads to 10mph.

Quite how this will be achieved I’m not sure, since many speedos these days don’t register speeds below ten.

But it doesn’t matter anyway, since most experts predict the Lib Dems will not actually win any seats at all in the forthcoming election.

Probably because their voters won’t make it to the polling booth in time.


Lewis Hamilton behind the wheel of his Mercedes. PHOTO: AP

— THE Formula One season roars into life in Australia this weekend and, as usual, there have been a raft of important rule changes you need to know about.

This year, the sex-aid nose cones are banned, which means the car has less downforce, which will lower cornering speeds. The engines are largely unchanged but each driver can now use just four in the course of the season, rather than five.

But if these regulations are breached, the penalties are less severe.

And speaking of penalties, the stewards can now impose... losing the will to live yet? Yeah, me too.

So let’s cut to the chase. Mercedes will win. The end.

---

— GOOD news. It seems that global warming was not caused by your car or by the patio heater at your local boozer.

Scientists announced this week that the real culprit was a 17th century sailing boat.

It took the smallpox virus to North America and so many people died as a result that farms were abandoned to nature. The endless new forests that resulted lowered the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

And now, presumably, it’s normalising. So we can all relax.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/so-we-lose-the-tiger-but-gain-acid-spit-snail/

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson: If you use public transport, you will catch a disease

By Jeremy Clarkson        Published 23 March 2015


Clancy... Clearly doesn't take public transport

I’VE said many times in the past that if you use public transport, you will catch a disease. And now it seems I was right.

A woman from some kind of cosmetic skin centre has announced that as you sit
on the bus, looking down
at a phone or whatever, gravity is dragging the skin off your face.

And every time you touch it, you are smearing it with germs that you’ve picked up from the seats.

This means that you can get on a bus looking like Abbey Clancy and get off ten minutes later looking like the Elephant Man.

Or it could just mean that the woman who makes this claim simply wants to get
the name of her company
in the paper.

Which is why I’m not going to tell you what it is.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-if-you-use-public-transport-you-will-catch-a-disease/

[RedMoon11]

JEREMY CLARKSON: A DRIVING DOG NEARLY KILLED ME

Ex Top Gear star recalls horrifying moment racist dog took charge of his car

By Jeremy Clarkson  Published 28 April 2015



MANY people seem to have been amused and surprised that a dog drove a quad bike on to a busy motorway this week. But I’m not.

A few years ago, while holidaying in the Caribbean, I was adopted by a dog who would not leave my side.

He slept in my room at night, sunbathed with me during the day and sat happily on the passenger seat of my rented Kawasaki Mule.

But there was a problem. He was a racist.

This meant that every time we drove past a black guy, which happens quite a lot in the Caribbean, he went nuts, jumping up and down and scampering about, barking like a mad thing.

And he once became so overexcited he leaped down into the footwell, stood on the accelerator and then jammed his head in the steering wheel.

I could reach neither the brake nor the ignition key and, as a result, had to sit there with a nutty dog in complete control of my destiny. I’d like to tell you that he was a brilliant driver. But he wasn’t.

And as a result, after ten seconds of sheer blind luck – and a bit of screaming from me – we left the road and hit a tree.

NB: Image above is artist's impression and not actual horror hound!


www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/jeremy-clarkson-a-driving-dog-nearly-killed-me/

[RedMoon11]

CLARKSON: DRUNK? BURGER OFF, PAL

By Jeremy Clarkson Published 11 May 2015


McTest... Customers are being breathalysed in the fast

WE moved a little closer to becoming a police state this week with the news that a branch of McDonald's in Cambridge has been breath testing late-night revellers who want a McMeal at two in the morning.

One man who failed the test was turned away and afterwards there were claims it was a violation of his human rights.

Too right. I'm with him on that because I know that when you've overdone it, there is nothing on God's green earth quite as good as a Maccy D. And surely to God, McDonald's knows it too, otherwise what's it doing keeping its branches open till that time in the morning? Who do they expect to come through the door? Some nuns? Everyone in a city centre at 2am is drunk. They've gone out.

They've had a good time. They've poured their cash into the local economy. And now they need some blotting paper.

It's idiotic to turn them away because without a burger to soak it up, the alcohol that's been consumed will be converted in the stomach into sick, which will then come out of the drinker's mouth and go all over the trousers of the person sitting next to him on the bus.

It's also been reported that Cambridge United has started breath testing fans who stewards think may be drunk.

Drunk? At a football match? Oh no. So what's next? Will landlords have to breath test customers to make sure they haven't had a drink? Or will we all rise up as one and say to the interfering busybodies who dream up these ideas: "Will you please leave us alone?"

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-drunk-burger-off-pal/

---

CLARKSON: DANGER DRONES WILL KILL
By Jeremy Clarkson Published 11 May 2015


Trouble... It won't be long before someone is seriously hurt by one of these

AN American tourist who used a drone to capture aerial footage of Windsor Castle when the Queen was in residence told police he didn't think he'd done anything wrong.

Really? So Hank, if you flew your drone over the White House when Mr Barack was at home, would you see nothing wrong in that either? For me, it's not the privacy issue with these drones.

If someone flies such a thing over my house, I won't call the police. I'll simply shoot it down.

No. My biggest worry is that these airborne circular saws are prone to crashing.

We used drones a lot when I worked on Top Gear and it was always the same story.

We'd get five minutes of good footage then everyone had to run for their lives as it went out of control and came hurtling back to earth.

One of these days, a supposedly harmless video drone is going to cut a bystander's head off, you mark my words.

---

BECAUSE I forgot to organise a postal vote for the election on Thursday, I had to make a 140-mile round trip to fill in my ballot paper.

I was very cross with myself but not half as cross as I became in the actual booth when it turned out that I'd left my spectacles in London.

God knows who I voted for. In many ways, I hope it was the Greens.

I'm sure they'd appreciate all the petrol I used to give them what, in Chipping Norton, was almost certainly their only vote.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-danger-drones-will-kill/

[RedMoon11]

CLARKSON: "NOBODY WANTS TO END UP IN A BEAVER"

By Jeremy Clarkson   Published 18 May 2015


Nice beaver?... The beaver is back in Scotland

IF Scotland ever does decide to go it alone, the McPeople will face many challenges, chief among which is beaver.

Until recently, there wasn't any beaver at all in Scotland, but it's back, and people are saying that's good.

I'm not sure though, because some of the beaver that's been reintroduced to the Highlands will grow to be a staggering four feet in length. It's possible they will be violent too. Only this week, a woman in Russia was savaged by a beaver and there have been reports from around the world of people being attacked. It's terrifying.

Because nobody wants to end up in a beaver and ... oh I think I've gone far enough with this one.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-nobody-wants-to-end-up-in-a-beaver/

---

CLARKSON: TESLA FOUNDER LITERALLY SHOOTING FOR THE STARS
By Jeremy Clarkson    Published 18 May 2015


Elon Musk... Wants to send satellites into space

WITH Sir Richard Branson working hard on a spaceship that can take tourists into orbit, and Elon Musk, above - the man behind Tesla - now offering to take satellites into the heavens for a fraction of the usual cost, NASA is starting to look a bit "last week".
Its space shuttle has been retired, the Martian probes have revealed the Red Planet is pretty much what we thought it would be, and there are no plans to visit the Klingons any time soon.

So to try to make itself look a bit more glamorous and exciting, it says it is working on an engine that will propel a ship through space at 450million miles an hour.

At this speed you'd get from Earth to the moon in a tenth of a second.

Hmmm. It all sounds very Star Trekkish but if a spaceship were to set off at such a rate, what would happen to the people inside? Certainly, they'd fall over.

And then I suspect they'd sort of disintegrate.

There's another issue, too. According to the British boffin who originally conceived the so-called EmDrive, it doesn't really work.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-tesla-founder-literally-shooting-for-the-stars/

---

CLARKSON: WHY YOUR TRAIN WILL NEVER BE LATE AGAIN
By Jeremy Clarkson   Published 18 May 2015

Brighton to London... Never late again

LAST year, the rush hour 7.29am Brighton to London Victoria train operated by Southern rail failed to arrive on time ... once. That's quite an achievement, to be late every single day.
But now the company has come up with a novel way of being more punctual.

It has simply told customers that, from now on, the service will always be three minutes late.

Which means that when it arrives late, it will officially be on time. Brilliant.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-why-your-train-will-never-be-late-again/

[RedMoon11]

CLARKSON: May is hedgehog killer, not you

By Jeremy Clarkson    Published 26 May 2015



EXPERTS announced this week that
the hedgehog population in Britain has fallen from a peak of 35million to just
a few hundred thousand.

Needless to say, they blame you for the decline, saying that your car and your fenced-off garden are responsible.

However, this is nonsense. Only two per cent of Britain has been built on. The other 98 per cent is full of fields and woods and moorland. The fact is this. Hedgehogs are in trouble because they are being torn to pieces and eaten by badgers.

And we can’t do anything about
the rampaging disease-riddled badger population because of Brian May.

He therefore is responsible for the hedgehog issues, not your decking and not your Hyundai i20.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-may-is-hedgehog-killer-not-you/

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson: Goddam! Queen of the Jams

By Jeremy Clarkson   Published 01 June 2015


The Queen... Causing tailbacks

I MET with an American this week who'd flown over to talk about ... well, you can guess.

When he arrived at the meeting he was extremely flustered. "Goddam," he said. "It's taken two hours to get from Heathrow into London. Two goddam hours!!! All the roads are closed because there's something going on with your goddam queen."

"Ah yes," I replied.

"That should be the state opening of Parliament."

He looked confused, so I explained. After some yeomen have checked the Houses of Parliament's cellars to make sure they are not full of gunpowder, the Queen travels from her palace in a horse-drawn coach to the House of Lords, where she is greeted by many men in tights and wigs.

Here, she is taken to a small room where she is fitted with a crown that's passed by the Queen's Bargemaster (Obama doesn't have one of those, that's for sure) to the Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain's office (nor one of those).

Inside the chamber, she sits down and another man in tights is sent off to get all the Members of Parliament, who slam the door in his face. To show they don't care about the Queen.

But they do, actually, so eventually they come out and follow another man in tights into the Lords, where everyone walks around backwards.

My new friend was completely baffled by all this and said: "So I sat in traffic for two goddam hours because someone was slamming the door on a man in tights?" Yes.

"Well, that's a stupid system," he said. "Why don't you just change it?" I'm afraid I didn't really have an answer to that.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-goddam-queen-of-the-jams/

[RedMoon11]

CLARKSON: SELF-DRIVING CARS NOT TO BLAME FOR CRASHES, SAYS GOOGLE

By Jeremy Clarkson   Published 08 June 2015


Not at fault... Well, that's what Google says anyway

GOOGLE says its new self-driving car was never to blame in any of the 12 accidents it's had while being tested.

That reminds me of Jasper Carrott's old mother-in-law joke. "She's been driving for 40 years and has never had an accident. But she's seen thousands.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-self-driving-cars-not-to-blame-for-crashes-says-google/

---

Clarkson: Hungry Kate Moss lost her rag? That reminds me of someone...

By Jeremy Clarkson    Published 15 June 2015



It seems possible that Kate Moss flipped while on an easyJet flight this week because she was hungry.

Hmmm. I'm a big fan of Kate but to lose your rag just because you can't get something to eat is unforgivable.

Oh, hang on a minute ...


www.sunmotors.co.uk/uncategorized/clarkson-hungry-kate-moss-lost-her-rag-that-reminds-me-of-someone/

---

DOWNSIDE TO DIANA'S UPSIDE


Diana Ross... Good for the soul

SCIENTISTS have discovered that listening to classical music in general, and Verdi in particular, can reduce your blood pressure.

This may be so, but I must say that there's no song on God's green earth that could reduce my blood pressure quite as effectively as Upside Down by Diana Ross.


Not good for the soul... Taylor Swift

Because if I ever hear it again, I will cut my own head off, which will reduce my blood pressure to about no pounds per square inch in 20 seconds flat.

Taylor Swift's We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together is another.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-downside-to-dianas-upside/

---

MEAT IN A FLAT-PACK


To much info... Vets want new labelling on grub

BRITISH vets have called for meat to be labelled so customers know whether the animal was stunned before being killed.

They say that 72 per cent of customers want to know how the animal died. Well, I'm one of the 28 per cent who's not bothered.

Seriously, I just don't care whether the cow was unconscious or not when it was murdered, just so long as the steak on my plate isn't still moving. Once, at a restaurant in South Africa, the menu said "Chicken, flattened with a brick".

I felt this was too much information.

"Sheep, run over by a Volvo." That wouldn't work either.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-meat-in-a-flat-pack/

[dit]

Jeremy sums up his time on Top Gear - 20th June 2015


imgur.com/a/vwZmh

[flatin5th - Knight of the NC]

and sums it up very well indeed!

[RedMoon11]

Jun 20, 2015 16:08:40 GMT dit said:

Jeremy sums up his time on Top Gear - 20th June 2015


imgur.com/a/vwZmh

It's now posted on Sun Motors too

CLARKSON: I'LL WATCH THE LAST SHOW WITH A TEAR IN MY EYE

EXCLUSIVE: Sun columnist Jeremy Clarkson remembers the magic moments of Top Gear

By Jeremy Clarkson  Published 22 June 2015


Jeremy and the boys brave the currents of Burma PHOTO: BBC/Ellis O'Brien

LAST week, the offer finally came.

The BBC had been hopping awkwardly from foot to foot for about a month.

But over a cup of tea in a Mayfair hotel, a senior executive came straight out and said it. “Would you consider going back to Top Gear?”

While I was thinking of a tactful way of saying, “I’d rather eat my own head”, I got a text from Chris Evans saying, “Hope you don’t mind but...”. And the rest is history.

Which means that next weekend, you will get to see the last ever Top Gear presented by Hammond, May and me. The last one put together by the real guts of the show, its editor Andy Wilman.

I’ll be watching with a tear in my eye because, my God, it’s been one hell of a ride.

The best bit? That’d be making the Botswana special.


The boys take in the sights (and the beers) in Botswana PHOTO: BBC

It was early days for the show and it was the first time we’d set out to make a one-hour adventure film, driving 1,000 miles across terrain in cars that were completely unsuitable.

One night, we made camp on the edge of the gigantic salt pans, lit a fire and, as the sun went down, drank several million gallons of beer.

We drank so much, in fact, that Hammond and I decided it would be a good idea to put the freshly severed head of a cow in James’s tent.

And then we could film him being eaten by one of the animals that had been attracted by the scent.

That was it really. That was the moment when I realised Top Gear was going to be more than a show about cars.

That was the moment when I realised it was going to work.

It didn’t though, not to begin with.


It didn't seem bad so I went to lunch... I couldn't believe it when news said Hammond was critical PHOTO: BBC

The viewing figures never really took off until the day Hammond came back to work after his Big Crash.

That was the worst of times. It was a sunny Wednesday afternoon and I was driving round Hammersmith roundabout when the phone rang.

It was Andy Wilman who said, “Richard’s had a big one.”

At first, it didn’t seem too bad. Cuts and bruises. That sort of thing. So I went to the launch of Gordon Ramsay’s book in London and then drove home to Oxfordshire.

I woke at 6am the next day, turned on the television news and couldn’t believe what they were saying. “Critical condition. Touch and go.”

God it was awful, standing by his bed, about 42 minutes later.

His terribly bloodshot eyes were pointing in different directions, he was fitting and writhing about and I remember thinking, ‘Crikey, he’s got an enormous p*nis.’

Amazingly though, just four months later, he was back on TV, not that he remembers that, or any of the live shows we did in Johannesburg a few weeks later. Those were tough times.

But on the upside, when I see him now with his wife and two daughters, I do feel the most amazing sense of relief. And a bit of gratitude too because it was his battle to survive that catapulted Top Gear into the nation’s consciousness.

It did something else, too. It cemented a weird bond between the three of us.

I can’t think of anyone in the world who I would like to socialise with less than James May. Apart from Hammond, of course. But I do enjoy their company enormously at work.

And that’s odd because we all lead very different lives.

You have a man who takes a pencil sharpener to bed to “look at it” and a man who doesn’t like food with bits in it and a man who thinks everything can be solved by shouting, and yet somehow when you put us all together, it works.

Our motorbike trek across Vietnam was an example of that. I was in a foul temper from the moment we set off.

I don't like bikes but James was in his own little world with a colander on his head PHOTO: BBC

I don’t like bikes and from the get-go, I knew we had bitten off more than we could chew.

It was a struggle to keep the convoy of film crews and support staff going which meant there was precious little time in the day to get the cameras out and film something.

I was seething.

Richard couldn’t find anything he could put in his mouth, not even the fried earwigs I found for him at one restaurant, and James was in his own little world with a colander on his head.

And yet, the show is regarded by most as one of the best we ever did.

The North Pole adventure wasn’t easy either. I had to share a tent with James who at night, became a 6ft sinus.

I shared a tent with James who, at night, became a 6ft sinus PHOTO: BBC

I moaned about this so much that on day six, he came at me with a shovel saying he was going to bury it in my head.

And there was the stone-throwing mob in Argentina. And the armed rednecks in Alabama.

And the altitude sickness that cut down two sound recordists in Chile.

Richard broke his wrist in Burma, James was hospitalised in Syria and I dinged my ribs in the ’Nam. Everyone on that show bled for it. Literally and often.

It wasn’t all stressy though. Sailing those homemade jet-ski bikes across Ha Long Bay in Northern Vietnam was as good to do as it was to look at. And some of the drives were pretty epic too.

My favourite? Crossing the Atacama Desert in a ruined Range Rover. It couldn’t do more than 45 or the differentials would explode and I couldn’t do less than 45 or I wouldn’t make the overnight halt before dark. Which was an issue as I had no working headlights.

Crossing the Atacama Desert in a ruined Range Rover which couldn't do more than 45mph PHOTO: BBC

I also adored driving a BMW Gran Coupé from our recent cattle-herding exploits in Australia to the farm about 40 miles away.

The sun was going down, I had a beer on the dash, it had been a very successful day and the private road was made from gravel which meant I was power-sliding constantly. For an hour. Bliss.

Oh yes, and then there was the time when I drove the then new Land Rover Discovery to the top of a remote mountain at the top of Scotland. That was biblical.


I drove the new Land Rover Discovery to the top of a remote Scottish mountain. That was biblical PHOTO: BBC

The crew, however, enjoyed it a bit less because I cadged a lift back to England in the helicopter that we’d been using for filming, and it was so noisy in there I didn’t hear my phone which, by the time I got home, was rammed with messages from the frozen camera teams saying, “You’ve flown off with the Land Rover’s keys, you f***ing idiot.”

The best car I ever drove was the Lexus LFA, especially when the policeman escorting me through Arizona said over the radio: “You can open her up a little bit here if you like.”

Moments later, I was doing 186mph. “I didn’t mean that much,” he said later.

The best guest? That would be Ranulph Fiennes, whose interview was so spellbinding we dropped one of the films from that week’s show to make it longer. But that said, being hugged three times by Cameron Diaz was up there too

Ranulph Fiennes' interview was so spellbinding we dropped a film from the show to make it longer PHOTO: BBC

The best bollocking? Tricky. There were so many. But my favourite was when TV boss Danny Cohen said that by naming my dog Didier Dogba, I’d been racist.

I still laugh about that now.

I’ll miss the BBC, I really will. Because for every silly idiot, there were ten good guys who are mad and wonderful and good at what they do. But I won’t miss making a car show.

Because other broadcasters are available so I don’t have to stop doing that. See you on the flip side.


A scene from the last ever Top Gear, on BBC2 on June 28 PHOTO:BBC

 
www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-ill-watch-the-last-show-with-a-tear-in-my-eye/

[RedMoon11]

Glasto... where middle-aged go to live in a tent
Sun Columnist Jeremy Clarkson says Glastonbury is not a music festival

By JEREMY CLARKSON, Sun Columnist

published 27 June 2015



Glastonbury is now an in-tents experience

GLASTONBURY is billed as a music festival but even though I’ve never been and I’m not there now, it’s obviously no such thing.

Imagine. You’re in a band. You’ve served your time. You’ve opened at the Swindon Wyvern. And slept in a Transit van with someone called Keith.

Then you hit the big time and for the past few years you’ve been performing to thousands of diehard fans at gigs all around the world.

And now you’re at Glastonbury, in front of a load of people who are stoned, drunk, covered in mud and sleepy.

Many only know who you are if they close one eye and concentrate.

So, are you going to give it your all? Or are you going to go through the motions, and then get back to the bar as quickly as possible to tell everyone lots more interesting stories about yourself?

Quite.

Back in the day, when T. Rex were there and revellers got free milk, Glastonbury was very much a music festival.

But now it’s just an excuse for middle-aged people to live in a tent for a weekend and take drugs which are 5,000 times stronger than they were when they last imbibed in the Seventies.

Medics say that this year, with rain forecast, they are prepared to deal with an epidemic of trench foot. How middle-aged is that? It’s only one down from gout.

And what of the kids? Well, tonight they’ve got Burt Bacharach and tomorrow, yes, it’s Lionel Richie.

Which is probably why they will spend the whole weekend in a muddy puddle, wondering where their tent is, and their mobile phone and their friends. And who smoked the last of the dope.

Last year I went to see Roger Daltrey and Wilko Johnson at the tiny Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London. Now THAT was music.

That was two guys who know what they’re doing, doing it. In front of an audience who paid attention. I don’t doubt that Glastonbury is a laugh and I love its success. But it’s not a music festival.

It’s just an excuse for a load of middle-aged, middle-class people to spend much longer than is natural in the lavatories, pretending they are 18 again.

---

— MAKERS of a condom which changes colour if either partner has some kind of disease say the breakthrough will help cut the number of sexually transmitted infections.

Hmm. I don’t want to get too biological here but how would you know your condom was changing colour during the actual event?

And why would you care anyway since you are, er, using a condom.

---

— FOR the first time in 30 years, I went on a tubular railway in London this week.

I was told by friends it’d be quick, easy, cheap and efficient. But it turned out to be hot, cramped and a tiny bit slower than using the car.

If moles could drive, they would. I’m no different.

---

F1 GAVE JENSON A BRAKE

By Jeremy Clarkson   Published 29 June 2015


To the back... Button should have been back in Canada

ALL year, Jenson Button has been flying round the world to drive a Formula One car which is about as fast as an Anglepoise lamp. Only less reliable.

To try to rectify the problem, the McLaren team and Honda, which supplies the engine, decided to make a few changes.

Good, yes? No, apparently. In Formula One these days you aren't allowed to make your car faster, so at the Austrian Grand Prix last weekend, poor old Jenson was given a 25-place grid penalty.

It was a huge punishment, made even worse by the fact that he'd qualified in 17th. So there were only three cars behind him.

Technically, then, he should have gone back to Canada - home to the previous race - and started from there.

www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/f1-gave-jenson-a-brake/

---

Alfa Romeo will seduce you

Not a BMW but you'll want one


No BMW... Not as good as a 3 series

SINCE I currently have no televisual outlet for my love of cars, I must take up a bit of space here to tell you about a new Alfa Romeo.

It's a four-door saloon called the Giulia and it will be much worse than the BMW 3 series.

It will have a weird driving position, none of the dials will make sense and it will have odd steering.


A hit... Worse than a BMW but you'll want one

But go on the internet (see below) look at the video of the top-of-the-range, rear-drive, 503-horsepower version and then tell me you don't want one.

You don't? Well you must be dead then.



www.sunmotors.co.uk/news/clarkson-alfa-romeo-will-seduce-you/

---

Fury at a ’gram of cake

LAST Sunday was Father’s Day and, from my point of view, it was a bit tragic.

One child was on a plane to the Far East, where he was planning on spending a few weeks watching ladies play table tennis without a bat, or a net, or a table for that matter.

One was doing a charity bicycle ride from Paris to London and one was . . . I’m not sure, to be honest. On Snapchat, probably.

And me? Well I was doing what used to be called Top Gear Live, in a small oil town in southern Norway.

Which meant that mostly I was waiting to go on stage, in a windowless room with nothing for company except James May’s bottom and Richard Hammond’s incessant chat about motorcycles.

To combat the monotony, I flicked through Instagram and was overcome with a desperate need to fly home as soon as possible and kill all my friends.

Because every single one of them had posted an endless array of photographs of them in their lovely houses, round their lovely kitchen tables, tucking into lovely Father’s Day cakes that their lovely angelic kids had made.

It’s much the same story in February, when most of us are stuck in an office, or a factory, with rain drizzling down the windows, and what’s on Instagram?

Yes, it’s loads of people we know, gurning like imbeciles on the side of a snowy mountain top in Austria.

And woe betide anyone who checks the feed in August. Because you get the impression you’re the only person with your face in a fat man’s armpit on a bus. Everyone else is on a beach, drinking something with an effing umbrella in it.

I think there should be a rule on Instagram. If you post a picture of your dog’s adorable new puppies – you know who you are – or an idyllic beach shot, the next one should be a picture of you on a lavatory, with constipation, or you unblocking a sink that’s clogged up with dog sick.

http://instagr.am/p/4gnSaIK7ut

---

— ANYONE who thinks privatisation is the work of the devil should pay a visit to the O2 in London.

When it was called The Dome, and run by the Government, there was a faith zone and a lot of ethnically sound dancers whizzing about on ribbons of fair trade silk, but no actual visitors at all.

Probably because there were no car parking spaces.

Today it’s in private hands, so there are lots of car parking spaces, the foyer is filled with excellent restaurants and it’s rammed every night with thousands of happy, beaming customers.

---

DEAR Fleetwood Mac. I very much enjoyed your gig in London this week.

For people of your age, your athleticism is wondrous and Mr Buckingham, your guitar playing is electrifying.

But why didn’t you play Songbird?

---

— AT 8pm tomorrow BBC2 is screening an edition of Top Gear cobbled together from two films that were made before I was fired.

One of them is quite good.

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/suncolumnists/jeremyclarkson/6518441/Jeremy-Clarkson-Glastonbury-is-camping-for-middle-aged-people.html

[RedMoon11]

Economic policy is so brilliant it’s Greek frightening

Greece has invented a new and exciting way to run an economy, says Jeremy Clarkson

By JEREMY CLARKSON, Sun Columnist
published 11 July 2015


Brilliant plan ... Greek PM Alexis Tsipras

AS we know, the Greeks invented many things. Democracy. The Olympic Games. And wine made from creosote.

And now it seems they’ve come up with a new and exciting way of running an economy.

It’s very simple and best of all, you can use all their ideas to manage your own family budget at home. Just follow these easy steps . . .

When times are good, you go to a bank in Germany, and borrow an enormous amount of money which you then spend on private health care, a new house, a couple of tasty cars and some expensive education for your kids.

When all the money is gone, you then go to a bank in France and borrow more money which you spend on a boob job for your wife and maybe a swimming pool.

And then you borrow yet more from the Spaniards and the Italians. In fact, banks from every country in Europe until you have more money than God and you are very happy.

It’s a brilliant plan but here’s the really clever bit. When the banks want their money back, you smile, shrug and tell them you’ve spent it.

They will, of course, be very cross so you tell them you’ll sort it all out by Friday. And when Friday comes, you tell them there are one or two problems and it will be Monday. And when Monday comes, you say it will be next month. Probably.

Then, when the bankers are jumping up and down and shouting at you, you say that you are no longer the head of the family and that in future, all correspondence must be sent to your 14-year-old son who’s very good looking, but a bit Communist.

He then turns up at the next meeting and tells the banks that all the money will definitely be paid back. But very slowly. And not until the next millennium.

Naturally, they will say that this is unacceptable so then you simply have a vote in your family and decide — wait for it — not to pay them back at all.

And if anyone complains, you announce that you’ll simply leave the banking system and start using your own currency. Then they won’t get any money back at all.

It’s genius because ultimately, what can the banks actually do? They can’t launch an air strike. They can’t kill you. They can’t make you go and live in another country.

They simply have to make their other customers pay for your spending habits.

This will annoy the other customers who will say, “Right, to punish you, we are no longer going to buy anything that you make.”

And that’s the cleverest bit of the plan. Because you simply reply, “We don’t make anything you’d want to buy anyway.”

---

They’ll be back...

WHEN the grunting is over and someone has won the game, Wimbledon really gets into its stride with the post-match interview.

This year, the poor chap who will interview the winning player after they’ve left the court believes that he or she is an emotional creature that’s capable of joy and pleasure. Wrong.

People like Maria Sharapova are machines.

They were programmed at birth to stand in the baking heat all day, never losing their temper and always hitting the ball back.

They are Terminators.

There’s no point asking them how they felt when they won because it’s a concept they don’t understand. They “felt” nothing.

So they say their opponent played well and that they were lucky — and then they go off to murder John Connor.

---

Budget Osbo for BBC

AFTER the Budget this week, most commentators seemed to agree that George Osborne had done a pretty good job.

So I was a bit surprised to find that the BBC were leading with an item which said he hadn’t.

An organisation I’d never heard of had provided a spokesman — actually he was more of a spokes-foetus — to explain that Mr Osborne had done it all wrong.

And then we were shown a woman in tears saying that she would be worse off and it wasn’t fair. Then she cried a bit. And then there was a graph and now I’m totally confused.

Because who’s right? BBC News. Or absolutely everyone else?

All I care about is that people who buy hybrid cars such as a Toyota Prius, will now pay the same tax as everyone else.

That made me cry too, but they were tears of joy.

---

Pain in the asp ... snake at the back door

I DON’T know much about snakes but I know enough to realise that this most definitely should not have been sitting outside my back door in Holland Park last night.

Not unless this global warming business is a lot worse than we’d thought.

Naturally, it’s hard to know what to do when there’s a cobra between you and your back door.

Call the police? Call the RSPCA? Hit it on the head with a stick?

Eventually, I came up with a plan. I went into my flat through the front door and went to bed, hoping the snake would have gone to terrorise someone else by the morning.

---

Bald but not Balding ... new host Nick Robinson 

I WAS absolutely staggered to read this week that Nick Robinson is to be the new host of Radio 4’s Today programme. Because I just sort of assumed the job would go to Clare Balding.

---

Strike on tracks — so shut roads

AS you may have heard, London’s tubular railway drivers are unhappy about being made to sit in a warm dry cab while their fully automated train goes about its business. So they went on strike.

And on the very same day, the people who staff Great Western Trains decided that they too were unhappy about something that hasn’t happened yet. So they went on strike as well.

There’s nothing anyone can do about this. People who drive trains are programmed to go on strike. It’s in their DNA.

Governments should realise this and do everything in their power to be ready. Sadly, however, it’s in a Government’s DNA not to be ready.

Which is why, some bright spark decided that during rush hour on Tube strike day, when they KNEW the traffic would be horrendous, they closed various roads in the City of London for a 5km fun run.

Now I know that this was a very worthy event that raises money for kiddies but could it not have been postponed to a day when the tube system wasn’t on strike?

At the very least, the competitors wouldn’t have had to walk to the start line.

---

— MEANWHILE, police decided to close the busier than usual M25 in both directions because some illegal immigrants had leaped from the lorry in which they were travelling.

And after the chaos, were the illegals sent back to France? No? So what was the point of closing the motorway then?

---

— SO, some people have chosen to stay in Tunisia even though they’ve been warned another terrorist attack is imminent.

It makes you wonder: How crap must your life be in Britain for you to think that staying in a deserted hotel, waiting to be shot, is better?

---

— A REPORT out this week said that there is a link between smoking cigarettes and schizophrenia. No, there isn’t. Yes, there is.

---

No interest ... the Ashezzz 

— CAN we be absolutely clear on one thing about the Ashes? Nobody’s interested.

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/suncolumnists/jeremyclarkson/6538531/Economic-policy-is-Greek-frightening.html

[RedMoon11]

Save the rhino... chop its horn off and flog to poor
Sun columnist Jeremy Clarkson’s radical plan to save endangered species

By JEREMY CLARKSON, Sun Columnist
published 18 July 2015


Rhino horn is big business for poachers                                                   Getty Images

SO, Prince Harry is currently whizzing around Africa in a helicopter, shooting rhinos with tranquilliser darts.

Sounds like fun. But then it gets a bit grisly because when the animal is down and in a deep coma, he is leaping from the chopper and cutting off its horn with a chainsaw.

You may be a little surprised to hear that a senior member of the Royal Family is spending his time disfiguring rhinos, but it’s all for a good reason.

Because a rhino with no horn is less likely to be shot by poachers.

However, I see a problem.

Because surely the poachers will simply shoot a rhino that has a horn. That’s what they are doing, in fact.

While the gallant Prince is tearing about in one tiny corner of Africa, the poachers run amok everywhere else. Killing rhinos by the thousand.

It’s big business as, pound for pound, rhino horn costs more than gold.

This is because in Asia, it’s ground down and snorted by people who believe it gives them a high.

It doesn’t, by the way. It has exactly the same effect as snorting a bucket of powdered toenail clippings.

So what’s to be done?

We will never convince the people of Vietnam and China that they are wasting their time and money. They won’t listen. And so long as they’re prepared to pay top dollar, the merciless trade in Africa will go on.

Which gives me an idea. I have no idea what Harry is doing with the horns he removes but why not give them as a gift to the black marketeers in Asia?

Seriously, send them powdered rhino horn by the ton.

Flood the market. Drive the price so far down, there’s simply no point shooting one of the giant beasts any more. Because the horn will be worth less than the bullet you’d use.

And to bulk it up, use tricks from other drug trades and mix the supply with something else: Ground-up horse hooves, bits of skin that fall off when we exfoliate, clippings from when our dogs have their nails cut . . .

Soon, powdered rhino horn would cost less than rice. And then it would lose its allure.

Rich people only get a kick from doing stuff they think poor people can’t afford.

And when they see the cleaning lady shoving a gram of horn up her hooter, they’ll switch to something she can’t afford. Like cocaine.

Which isn’t brilliant either. But at least no animals are harmed in its production.

---

— I SIMPLY cannot understand why fox hunting is back on the political agenda.

The ban seems to be like one of those stupid laws that allow pregnant women to herd sheep over Battersea Bridge on a Tuesday.

Or the one that lets licensed London taxi drivers urinate on the front left wheel of their cab.

You can use dogs to find foxes, but only two and then you must use an owl to do the actual killing but only if . . . I’M NOT INTERESTED. The fact is, though, that the situation right now works very well.

The people who hate fox hunting are happy because it’s been made illegal.

And the people who love it are happy too because the law is not enforced.

---

Down a Greecey pole...


Is Greece paying the price for its anti-austerity stance?                                    Alamy

HAVING voted decisively to end the austerity measures, the Greeks are now faced with more austerity than they had in the first place.

But the rest of Europe can at least breathe a sigh of relief. For now.

Because I can absolutely guarantee – and I’ll eat my hair if I’m wrong – that sooner rather than later, they’ll be back with the begging bowl saying the amount they’ve borrowed isn’t enough.

One day, someone is going to have to stand up and say: “This euro currency thing. It’s not working, is it?”

---

Will electric cars soon be running on empty?

— BRITAIN is facing a major shortage of electricity and if we get a cold winter, experts warn power cuts will be inevitable.

The problem is that these days, we have to charge our phones, our computers, our cameras . . . just about everything runs off the mains. And the power companies can’t keep up with demand.

Ha. Just wait till everyone starts using electric cars.

---

— I’M emailing this column to The Sun’s offices in London from onboard a plane over the Indian ocean.

And people say that dolphins are intelligent. Pah.

I’d like to see them develop a wifi system that works at this speed and this altitude, this far from land. But before I press the “send” button, I thought I’d share a few nuggets from the Australian immigration card.

It says I’m not allowed to import strong pornography, weapons or drugs, which is fair enough.

But I’m also not allowed in if I have soil on my shoes or a fish in my luggage.

It also says I’m not allowed to enter the country if I am bringing any “wooden articles” with me.

Which is going to be a bit of a problem.

Because I am. It’s called James May.

---

Top bods ruining the Beeb

THIS week, Daniel Craig, Dame Judi Dench, Michael Palin and a host of other big-name stars wrote to the Prime Minister pledging their support to the BBC.

They believe it’s a great organisation. And I do too.

But it would be even better if it were being run properly.

And right now, thanks to one or two people at the top, it isn’t.

---

Lewis got it in the neck


Lew found himself knot wanted at Wimbledon                                                     Xposure

LAST Sunday, Lewis Hamilton turned up to take his seat in the Royal Box at Wimbledon wearing an extremely nasty floral shirt.

I’d have turned him away on the spot. Threads that vibrant could have put the players off. Or made them feel nauseous.

But no. According to the rules of Wimbledon, the shirt was fine.

However, Lewis wasn’t wearing a tie. And as a result, he was made to get back into his car and head home through the traffic, listening to the men’s final on BBC Radio 5.

Don’t you think that’s a bit odd? Lewis was invited to the Royal Box. But he was then turned away because he didn’t have a thin strip of silk around his neck.

I suppose at this point I should explain that I dislike all forms of dress code. If someone writes on a party invite what I’m expected to wear, I don’t go. Though if it says “fancy dress”, I always get round the problem by turning up as Jeremy Clarkson.

I spent most of my formative years outside Rotters nightclub in Doncaster trying to convince the doorman that my jacket was velvet, which was allowed, and not corduroy, which wasn’t.

And I thought then, what possible difference does it make?

I realise footballers need a dress code. They can’t turn up for a game in whatever takes their fancy.

And deep sea divers. They need to be kitted out properly too. But everyone else? No.

And Wimbledon. Come on. Tennis is supposed to be fun.

Sitting there being strangled by your clothing on a hot day just isn’t.

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/suncolumnists/jeremyclarkson/6548845/Save-the-rhino-by-chopping-its-horn-off.html

[RedMoon11]

Lots of things are bad for you... stop picking on ciggies

Sun columnist Jeremy Clarkson says what about all the other unhealthy products being sold?

By JEREMY CLARKSON, Sun Columnist
published 25 July 2015


Jezza suggests glamorous ciggie packets

NEXT May, a new law means all cigarettes will have to be sold in unbranded packets bearing gruesome images of diseased lungs, deformed tongues and people who’ve died.

This has already happened in Australia.

You don’t know what brand you’re smoking because the entire pack is wrapped in pictures of a diseased heart or a cancerous eyeball. It’s very revolting and it’ll probably cause many people to quit.

Good. But why has the Government chosen to pick on cigarettes? Lots of things are bad for our health but nothing else has to be wrapped in a picture of what will happen if we buy it.

Should a takeaway curry, for instance, have to be delivered in a bag showing a picture of a heavily pebbledashed lavatory bowl?

Should garden shears be sold in boxes, festooned with the picture of a man who’s been decapitated? Or scissors in packaging that shows a man with torrents of blood gouting from the space where his fingers used to be?

Why doesn’t beer come with a picture of a fatty liver on the bottle? Or worse, my stomach. Because, Jesus, no one wants a gut like that.

Oh, and if you buy a Big Mac, why aren’t you forced to watch a looped video while you wait of some fat bloke having a heart attack?

Which brings us on to motorcycles. Have you ever seen a photograph of someone who’s fallen off a bike while wearing an open-face helmet?

No, you haven’t, because the Government does not force the makers of these things to decorate their products with hideous pictures of Tarmac-burnished meat.

And then there’s jet skis. They are completely covered these days in messages saying that unless you do exactly as you’re told, or better still, go home and read a book, you will fall off in such a way that water will be rammed into your “rectum and girl thingy”.

I kid you not. It actually says that.

But does the Government force the makers to show pictures of someone with a back or a front bottom full of seawater? No, it does not.

So, if I were running a cigarette company, I’d tell the Government that it is being unfair. Because there’s no balance. Yes, fags make you die in screaming agony but they also make you look cool.

Maybe then on, say, one in ten packs there could be a picture of a pretty girl with a message saying: “She gets the blokes. Because she smokes.”

Or: “Have you noticed that all the interesting people are OUTSIDE the restaurant?”


No safe way to race F1


Tragic Jules Bianchi                                                                                    Getty Images

I DIDN’T think the accident that eventually killed F1 driver Jules, Bianchi had been caught on camera.

But oh my God, it was and I do not recommend you watch. I did and I simply could not understand how he didn’t die on the spot.

Now, of course, questions are being asked about whether the cars should have been racing in rain that heavy and whether someone should have had the balls to stand up to the TV schedulers and say: “I don’t care about your sponsors. We are stopping this.”

The answer is no.

If Formula One is to be saved, there should be more accidents, fights and tantrums and no stewards’ inquiries at all.

It’s supposed to be a blizzard of danger and passion and noise. And the drivers should be gladiators.

But that said, it’s probably best you don’t park a ten-ton digger in the run-off area of a corner. Because that’s what someone did in the race where Jules died.

---

— POLITICAL commentators seem to be very interested in the idea that the Labour Party might choose Jeremy Corbyn to be its next leader.

Which means, of course, that he could be our next Prime Minister.

Some say he’s too left wing. Some argue that he will tear the party apart. Others say he’d be a return to the old days.

But it’s all irrelevant because he’s got a beard. And we haven’t elected a bearded Prime Minister in Britain since Mrs Thatcher. Before that it was Robert Cecil, in the late 19th century.

Oh, and another thing. He’s called Jeremy. And we know what happened the last time a political party chose one of those: Many bitten pillows and a shot dog.

I leg it before cricket

Bat's not entertainment
 
AS I’m sure you know, there’s been a huge golf tournament at one end of the country while, at the other, the Ashes are in full swing.

And I’ve been trying to work out which is worse.

To watch, I think golf wins because, as a spectator at the actual event, you have to choose whether you want to see the sportsman hit the ball. Or see where it lands. You can’t do both.

And that’s a bit like choosing whether you want to watch a footballer kick a penalty or the goalkeeper try to save it.

However, I think that if I had to choose which of the two sports I’d least like to play, I’d go for cricket.

At least with golf you can laugh at your opponent’s trousers, whereas in cricket there’s absolutely nothing to laugh at.

You stand in front of the stumps while a madman throws a rock at you and then, after about 16 years of doing that, you are made to stand for another 16 years in some long grass waiting to catch a ball, which is roasting hot from the re-entry procedure, and which will hit the end of your finger, driving it into the middle of your own hand.

So there we are. Golf is the worst to watch. Cricket is the worst to play.

But these days, neither is quite as bad as Formula One motor racing.

---

— LAST night I went to one of those godawful new age restaurants where the menu listed things that weren’t contained in each of the dishes.

This drink contains no caffeine.

This potato contains no nuts.

And this pork chop contains no gluten.

I’m sure it doesn’t.

But if you’re going to list things that don’t come with a pork chop, why not mention Tarmac, fur, carrier bags, nicotine and plutonium as well?

---

— AS I’m in Australia at the moment, I have seen quite a few kangaroos and I must say that they look rather sweet.

But don’t be fooled. It turns out that a roo’s back legs are so powerful that with one kick they can cut a dog clean in half. This happens a lot, apparently.


Roo you looking at?                                                                                                      Getty Images

And worse, male kangaroos become extremely aroused when they encounter a human lady during her time of the month. They become so aroused in fact, that they will actually pin her down and attempt to make the two-headed beast.

This is not the sort of thing David Attenborough ever tells us.

But then he doesn’t ever say polar bears are ugly b******* that eat children either.

That’s a TV show I’d like to watch. The Real Truth About Animals. Next week: ducks are all rapists.

---

— AS I look out of the window here in the far left corner of Australia, I’m dazzled by all the birds I can see.

There are lime green pheasanty things and finches with metal flake-blue tails that go on for a mile. Even the crows are two-tone. And it makes me wonder...

The RSPB is always banging on about the need to save our birds, but why?

Britain is home to the dullest collection of airborne meat in the whole world.

Why don’t they simply import some of the stuff from out here?


www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/suncolumnists/jeremyclarkson/6559673/Jeremy-Clarkson-defends-cigarettes.html