How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [53]
Let me therefore give you some other ideas. Your dust could be mixed with paint and used to create a piece of art. This means you could spend the rest of time as Angelina Jolie’s left breast. Or the front bogie wheel of a steam locomotive. Or whatever subject you choose. I know I’m preaching to the converted here, as a recent study found that only 5 per cent of British people want to be laid to rest in a churchyard. You could become part of a football pitch or a bit of the M1. Or you could be turned into a diamond. This is surprisingly easy. You simply heat your ex-husband to 1500°C and keep him at this temperature for several weeks until everything that isn’t carbon has oxidized. Then you mix him with a bit of metal and a diamond seed crystal and then apply a pressure of 800,000 lb per square inch. After a period of several years, your husband can be cut and placed in a ring of your choosing. You may even opt to wear him as a stud in your navel or, dare I say it, lower down. He’d like that, I’m sure. But remember to remove him if you get remarried.
Me? Well, I’ve decided exactly what I want my family to do with my body when it’s become meat. I want them to take it round to Peter Mandelson’s house and leave it in his front room. This is my wish, and, as my servant, Lord Mandelson is forced to oblige.
Sunday 7 December 2008
The BBC’s letting loonies gag me with mink knickers
Last week Nigella Lawson went on the television and said she’d like to shoot a bear and turn it into a coat. Nothing wrong with that. We hear all the time from people who would never wear a fur coat, so why should we not occasionally hear from someone who would? Unfortunately, however, in the current climate it is no longer possible to express an opinion on TV because you are bound to upset a pressure group that then runs around waving its arms in the air and calling for you to be sacked or shot or turned into a hat. Nigella, for instance, has enraged an organization called Viva!, which stands for Vegetarians International Voice for Animals. And another called Peta, which stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Neither is very big or very important. I’d guess they have even fewer members than the Church of England. But they have websites, and they have spokeswomen, and they are always prepared to come up with a quote when contacted by reporters.
I tripped over a similar bunch of loonies recently when I made a throwaway line on TV about lorry drivers murdering prostitutes. This was branded a sick joke by something called the English Collective of Prostitutes, whose job is to be angry when contacted by a member of Her Majesty’s press looking for a story.
You could give me any subject matter: paving stones, cabbages, your next-door neighbour, dogs – anything that took your fancy – and I bet that after half an hour on the phone I could come up with someone who was prepared to be cross about it. If it got their name in the papers.
It’s not just weirdos in attics either. Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse were hauled over Ofcom’s coals in October for showing a scene in which a man tried to mate his pet northerner with someone’s Filipina maid. Somehow this managed to infuriate the government of the Philippines, which made all sorts of agreeing noises when asked if it wanted Harry and Paul to be killed and eaten.
The problem is simple. If you say, in public, that you would not shoot a bear or you would not support an attack on Iraq or you would not buy a Range Rover because of climate change, you are offending nobody. Because you are saying, ‘I will not do something.’ But if you say you would do something, like shoot a bear, then someone in an attic with a website and a silly acronym for their micro-organization (membership: three) will jump on your