How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [39]
That’s the sort of thing that causes me to sweat. How many times have I done something apparently harmless that could very easily have killed me? How many times have I been unwittingly close to death in a car, or while wiring a plug?
How many times has an eagle dropped a tortoise where I had been standing only seconds earlier? And how do I know that right now, aged forty-eight, on a Saturday afternoon, my carotid artery isn’t just about to rend itself asunder?
I hate the uncertainty. I hate the idea that later I might sit on the suction pump in my swimming pool and have my intestinal tract pulled clean out of my bottom. That happened to someone in America last year. Someone who’d woken up that morning imagining that it was going to be just another normal day.
Death also came unexpectedly to Isadora Duncan, who must have thought: ‘I’ve taken the roof off my car, so because it’ll be a little bit chilly, I’ll wear this long scarf …’ You see flowers at the side of the road these days, a petrol-station reminder that someone was just on their way home from work when the final curtain came slamming down. It makes me shiver with fear.
There’s another problem, too. Because, like you, I harbour a vague notion that I’m not going to die until I’ve had a telegram from Buckingham Palace – or is it an e-mail these days? – I’m going to stay in to watch television tonight. I certainly wouldn’t be doing that if I thought that in the morning I was going to trip while pulling on my trousers and break my neck.
Think. You are reading this now, on a Sunday morning, and you probably have nothing on for the rest of the day. But what if you knew for sure that tonight you were going to explode? You’d get off your arse and try wing-walking. Or see how many baked beans you can eat with a cocktail stick in less than a minute. In short, you’d do something useful.
And that has given me a bonzo idea. We may be capable of living for 100 years, but most of the time we’re not really living at all. We are wasting time, doing nothing in particular. And I’m sure this attitude would stop if we knew precisely when our time was going to be up.
So why doesn’t the government introduce a law that forces everyone to jump off Beachy Head when they are sixty-five? This way, you would cram every single waking moment of every single day with stuff, adventure and excitement. It really would be a Brave New World.
And if you were unfortunate enough to die early, with, say, a stingray’s pointy bit in your heart, you wouldn’t traipse through the Pearly Gates thinking: ‘Damn. If only I’d made love to a few more women.’ Because under my proposals you’d have made love to them all. And, what’s more, as the day of doom drew near, you’d have a chance to make sure that the local donkey sanctuary, and not your miserable family, was going to inherit all your belongings.
You’d also have the opportunity to say goodbye to your loved ones, a scene that was denied to Martin of Aragon, who, over supper one night and in rude health, died from an uncontrollable burst of laughter.
You’d also be able to choose to die with dignity, something that was not afforded to Evelyn Waugh, Elvis Presley or Lenny Bruce, all of whom went west, rather ignominiously, on the lavatory.
I can see the government liking my idea very much. Partly because ministers love bossing us about in life, so it stands to reason they’ll also love telling us when to die. Partly because fewer people means less global warming. And partly because, with a looming pensions crisis, a number of economic problems would be averted if everyone got the gold clock and immediately hurled themselves on to the Central line.
Sunday 21 September 2008
Don’t let banks lose your money – do it yourself
A few months ago I was seated at dinner next to a banker and, as you can imagine, my watch immediately started going backwards. Minutes crawled by, and as he droned on about derivatives and sub-prime markets in America