How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [68]
Of course, it is hard for a civvie to say whether the special relationship exists in military circles. But certainly the troops I speak to tend to suggest not. When they’re asked what US forces are like in theatre, the answer is mostly unprintable, apart from a liberal use of the word ‘useless’.
To be fair, I can’t imagine that the Americans find us much cop as allies either. I mean, I can hardly see them queuing up to borrow our snatch Land Rovers or our Nimrods or our lumbering Sea Kings or indeed any of our hardware at all. They probably think they are going into battle with a bunch of keen and well-trained soldiers … from the Stone Age.
As further evidence, consider this. How many British bases are to be found on American soil? It’s, er, um, hang on … none. And how many US ones are to be found over here? To get an idea, try driving through Suffolk one day, past Mildenhall and Lakenheath. There are so many American cars on the road, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Iowa.
Maybe we don’t help ourselves. Maybe we come across as a bit arrogant. According to Rowland White’s amazing new book Phoenix Squadron, when the first four Brits were sent to the new Top Gun academy in California, they didn’t much care for the ‘Maverick’ and ‘Iceman’ style of call sign adopted by their American counterparts. But their hosts insisted, so they came up with ‘Cholmondley’, ‘Dogbreath’, ‘Alien’ and ‘Spastic’.
Interestingly, however, when I went to a US air force base in North Carolina a few years ago, I was shown the spec sheets for the F-15 fighter. Alongside each component was a box explaining which countries could know its secrets. And there was only one country that was entitled to see the details of all of them. Not Israel. Not Saudi Arabia. It was us. Even though – or perhaps because – the RAF doesn’t actually have any F-15s.
The best way, I think, of understanding how the special relationship works is to answer this question. When a visiting American actor comes here and makes nice noises about Britain, do you feel all warm, gooey and proud? I bet you do. Now think how it works the other way round. When a British actor goes over there and makes nice noises about America, do you think they even notice? Honestly? I believe it’s time we stopped deluding ourselves about our relationship with America, which since the late 1940s has produced virtually nothing. And tried to make friends with the French. Because the last time we did that, the world got Concorde.
Sunday 15 March 2009
You’re a bunch of overpaid nancies – and I love you
Over the years I have argued that football is a stupid game in which twenty-two overpaid nancy boys with idiotic hair run around a field attempting to kick an inflated sheep’s pancreas into some netting while an audience of several thousand van drivers beat one another over the head with bottles and chairs.
Nor could I understand how someone from Tooting could possibly support, say, Manchester United, a team sponsored by those hateful bastards at AIG and made up of players from Portugal, France, Holland and, in the case of Wayne Rooney, Walt Disney. Where’s the connection? What’s the point? I have also suggested that it’s preposterous to have football stadiums in the middle of cities. Why should anyone be delayed by match traffic just so a handful of thugs can watch a Brazilian man falling over? And as for those people who can’t cope if their team loses. Give me strength. If you get all teary-eyed just because someone from Latvia, playing in a town you’ve never been to, for an Arab you’ve never met, against some Italians you hate for no reason, has missed a penalty, how are you going to manage when you are diagnosed with cancer? I have always hated football, but then one day, out of the blue, my son announced that he had become interested in Chelsea.
This was a living nightmare. If he’d said that he’d become interested in smoking, I could have made all sorts of threats. If he’d said he’d become interested in homosexuality, we could have talked.