How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [49]
I wish it were different because then the bright and the informed, the people who couldn’t really give a stuff about warblers or sand dunes and have no desire to trample around in other people’s gardens just to keep alive the spirit of Lenin, might conceivably have been able to convince the Scotch government that Trump should be kept in America, where his chintz and his patterned carpets go down well.
Certainly I believe there should be a third way when it comes to all planning matters of this type. I believe we should be incentivized enough to get off our bottoms and fight the good fight – not because of a butterfly or a polar bear or because we stand to make billions, but because golf courses are awful and anything Donald Trump does sits like a golden bogey on the unsullied face of a newborn child.
I want this to be a movement. A movement for normal people. And I even have a leader in mind. Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs on Channel 4. He should be forced by law to appear in all planning committees where large projects are being considered, so that he can argue the case from the point of view of you and me.
For now, I suppose there is some good news to be gleaned from the sorry saga of Trump’s plans to turn Scotland into Benidorm-by-the-Noo. One day he’ll come over on his hideous private jet and open his terrible new golf course. And I cannot wait to see what the notorious winds in Aberdeenshire do to his barnet.
Sunday 9 November 2008
The daddy of all idiots at your child’s school sports day
If I felt inclined, and I don’t because I don’t want to be robbed every night and stabbed over the breakfast table every morning, I think I’d make a rather good foster parent. Unfortunately, despite my fondness for reading Winnie-the-Pooh stories and having big coal fires to keep everyone warm at night, I would not be deemed suitable, because various well-meaning councils have determined that it’s bad to place a child in the care of someone who is fat and who smokes. Sorry then, Lee. No Pooh and tickets to Top Gear for you, my lad.
This spotlights an interesting new development: that the government we elect to build street lamps and erect park benches now has a view on what makes a good parent and what makes a bad one. Fat’s bad. Smoke’s bad. Predatory vegetablism, though, is fine. And so is keeping the house at −42°C for environmental reasons.
Certainly, any parent who turns up to watch their kid play in a school sports match would be deemed ‘extremely good’, even though I’ve just returned from watching my son play rugby and it seems that absolutely no dad in Britain can do this properly. I do not know what it is that causes normal, bright and funny people to lose their grip on reality as soon as they find themselves standing alongside a school sports pitch. But since everyone does, what I’ve done for you is to prepare a handy cut-out-’n’-keep guide to what’s acceptable and what’s not.
First, parents must remember that they are an embarrassment to their children.
Mick Jagger is an embarrassment to his kids. I am an embarrassment to mine. You are an embarrassment to yours. Everything you do. Everything you say. Everything you wear. It’s all completely wrong. So here’s a tip when on the touchline. Be normal.
If your child’s team scores a try, you may applaud but do not – and this is something I witnessed just two hours ago – run on to the pitch, bellowing like a wounded animal, with a red face, a jugular vein standing 6 in proud of your neck and your arms held aloft like a triumphant boxer. Because after you have reached the middle of the pitch and sunk to your knees in a puddle of gratitude and happiness, you will realize you are the financial director of a leading advertising agency and you have just made yourself look like an idiot. Massive demonstrations of pride are acceptable if you are a Chelsea supporter and Didier Drogba has just slotted his eighth of the afternoon past Liverpool. But when you are watching a bunch of muddy twelve-year-olds running about like starlings, they are not.
Also, no matter how