How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [38]
What’s more, you will never see a Cambodian person wearing sunglasses. Mainly this is because the average wage in Cambodia is less than £400 a year and so Ray-Bans are a bit out of range. But also it’s because Cambodians all have flat noses. So sunglasses simply fall on to the floor every time you hop to the shops, and every time your buffalo explodes.
That’s what did it for me. The sunglasses. Not the education. Not the notion of living in a country where there is no Janet Street-Porter. The landmines made my eyes prickle, but my heart just mushroomed over the idea that they can’t afford to wear shades. And that even if they could, they’d keep falling off.
I have therefore decided that I must do something. Unfortunately, however, we all reach a point like this when we decide we must help, and then it’s so very hard to know what should be done next. Secretly we all know that for every pound we donate to a large charity, only 2p actually reaches the people we have in mind. The rest is spent on adverts for highly paid coordinators in the Guardian and expensive offices in London’s glittering West End.
You always feel you want to go to the root of the problem. But in the bee that’s come to nest in my roost, that’ll be hard. Earlier this summer a team of Australian doctors happened upon a little girl in the town of Siem Reap. Her face had been horribly disfigured, by a bloody landmine I suppose, and they were overwhelmed with a need to help. They went to meet her parents, and her father was keen that his daughter be sent to Australia for plastic surgery. Her mother, however, went ballistic when she discovered the poor child would once again look normal. ‘How will she be able to beg then?’ she asked. And the Aussie medics were sent packing.
I can’t even ring the Cambodian government for help because I fear it would be extremely enthusiastic and then all the money I sent over would be spent on fixtures and fittings in the finance minister’s next luxury hotel. That’s if I could raise any money in the first place. It’s hard when money’s tight here and everyone else has their own pet project.
I suppose I could write to Ray-Ban asking it to design a cheap pair of shades that can be worn by someone who has no nose. But I think it’d be better if I started work on some designs for the most brilliant mine-clearing vehicle the world has ever seen. I’m thinking of strapping some ramblers together, and then …
Sunday 14 September 2008
Hey, let’s live fast and die when ministers tell us to
So, how are you going to die? It’s a tricky question and unless you are currently on your way to an American airbase in Baghdad, while wearing a C-4 explosive vest, the chances are you haven’t got a clue.
Certainly, if you’d asked Mrs Carol Colburn in May how she was going to shuffle off this mortal coil, she wouldn’t have said: ‘Well, tomorrow I imagine that I’ll be scratched by a rat which will have traces of urine on its claws. Yes. That’s how I’ll meet my end.’ But I’m afraid that’s exactly what happened.
Similarly, if you’d asked the Greek playwright Aeschylus how he thought he would go to meet his maker, I bet you any money he wouldn’t have said: ‘Good question. And I think it almost certain that what will happen is this: I shall be out for a walk and an eagle will drop a tortoise on my head.’
We spend the first part of our lives imagining that we will not die at all, and the second part hoping that we will slip into the darkness of eternity, aged about 105, while fast asleep.
Undoubtedly, Kenneth Pinyan would have wanted this – but instead, in 2005, he received a spot of horse sex from his beloved stallion and, presumably a bit embarrassed by what had happened, chose not to seek medical help for the fatal injury that resulted.
Of course, if you choose to make love with a horse, you must have an inkling that no good will come of it. It’s not like becoming so engrossed in a video game that you play nonstop