How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [46]
I’m afraid, however, that I went off this idea because I actually know quite a few people who’ve done some time, and I don’t like the idea of them sitting around all day trying to stop someone from eating their thighs.
Don’t worry, however, because now I’ve come up with another plan – and it’s brilliant. At present, the government is doing a great deal to ensure that people who are struggling to pay their mortgages are not evicted from their houses by the recently nationalized banks. This is very noble. But the idea that you can borrow money to buy a house and then not pay it all back undermines the very essence of capitalism. People must be made to understand that, if they have dug themselves into a financial hole, they have to earn their way out again. And so, I believe the government should pay these people a small rent each month, which can go towards covering their mortgage, if they agree to have a prisoner staying in the spare room.
I admit this is a bit of a lottery. You could get a cannibal from Leeds who creeps into your bedroom every night with a knife and fork and some mango chutney. Or you could get Otis Ferry, who’s on remand only because he wants to chase foxes. I’m not sure, though, that this is any different from the chance you take when you hire an au pair. You could get a moose who wants to practise her drop-kicks on your children or you could get a raving nymphomaniac who has an allergy to underwear. And anyway, let’s be honest, it’s a lottery for the prisoner as well because he could end up at my house, chained to a radiator for twenty-six hours a day in the Terry Waite suite. Or he could end up staying with a woman who bakes him cakes, lets him out for walkies and on Sundays allows him to chew on her bingo wings.
Plainly, an idea this radical needs to be tested before it’s rolled out on a national scale, and I’m happy to be a guinea pig. Simply send me the chap from AIG who took my money and gave it to Wayne Rooney and now won’t give it back, and I’ll be happy to see how he likes being a prisoner in my spare room for a year or two. I should imagine, after the savage beatings and the dog sick, he’ll be fully rehabilitated and able to go back into the world of international finance without feeling compelled to give any money to Wayne Rooney ever again.
Sunday 26 October 2008
Wake up and smell the coffee – tea is for morons
I quite understand why people choose to be communists or Australians or tattooed. I may not share your opinions, but I know why you have them and I would fight for you to be able to express them in public. Obviously not to the death, though. There’s no way I am going to die so that a green person can climb up a chimney and write ‘Gordon’ on it, for instance. However, while I understand why people want to drive an electric car or cut the Queen’s head off, and even why some people decide to emigrate to Spain, I do not understand why people continue to drink tea.
Recent figures show tea consumption is shrinking, especially among young people, yet Britain is still by far the largest consumer in the world per capita, with each person in the land drinking, on average, four cups a day. This is baffling. I quite like a cup at around 5 p.m. because this is ‘tea time’, but the figures suggest that many people are drinking it at ‘coffee time’ as well. Some, since there is such a thing as ‘breakfast tea’, must also be drinking it first thing in the morning. This is as mad as starting the day with a prawn cocktail – and it all has to stop.
First of all, asking for tea in someone’s house is extremely antisocial because, if you take it with milk and sugar, this is a complicated,