How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [77]
And there’s the problem. Because these days the rules state that you are either completely green or you are not green at all. The whole movement has been hijacked by lunatics who want everyone to live in crofts and Facebook trees.
Excuse me, but I have yet to be convinced that man’s paltry 3 per cent contribution to the planet’s bank of carbon dioxide affects the climate. And furthermore, I do not share the view that a rise in global temperatures is necessarily a bad thing. For instance, I believe a parrot would be a more interesting Cotswold garden bird than a sparrow.
As a result, I’m still the same man who dreams of running amok on the set of Mamma Mia! with a large-calibre machinegun. I’m still the man who wondered what my dead tortoise would taste like. And I’m still the man who lights his patio heater in April and leaves it burning non-stop till Bonfire Night.
However, I am also the man who likes to poke restaurant managers in the forehead when they bring me individually wrapped sugar lumps. And I will continue to fill supermarket trolleys and then leave them for some halfwit to unload again after I’ve stormed out in disgust at the sheer quantity of entirely unnecessary packaging.
Wal-Mart reckons that a third of all consumer waste in America comes from packaging and says it is committed to reducing its use by 5 per cent. That sounds noble, but why only 5 per cent? Why not completely? Why do we have to buy apples in a polythene bag? Why do all toys have to come in their own moulded plastic display box? And why, if they do, does the plastic have to be of such thickness that many car firms would not even use it to make a bumper? I recently bought something called a Black Widow slingshot. It’s a catapult that fires ball bearings with devastating force. I was very much looking forward to blatting a few pigeons with it. But I cannot get through the plastic case in which it was sold. Scissors just break. My Strimmer became jammed. And dynamite is ineffective. I would very much like to meet the man who chose to seal his product this way, and kill him.
The list of my issues is endless. Why is milk served in a plastic thimble and not a jug? What’s the matter with greaseproof paper for sandwiches? Why do hotels serve jam in one-cubic-inch jars? And why do DVDs come in an impregnable Cellophane wrapper? It’s not like they’re going to rot.
It’s not just packaging either. I am particularly partial to a radish, and as a result I grow my own, in my own vegetable garden. Well, obviously, I don’t grow them. A man does. But it’s my bit of land and I’m the one who nourishes it by composting coffee grounds and old copies of the Guardian. Anyway, the radishes I grow may be full of worm holes and covered in mud but pop one into your mouth and it feels like your tongue is stuck in a gin trap. Peppery is too sprightly a word to describe the savagery of their kick. This is how a radish should be. And watercress.
And now we get to the miserable offerings sold by supermarkets, in plastic bags. They taste of absolutely nothing. You would be better off eating the plate on which they are served. They are nothing more than cross-trainers for your mouth, something to do when you’re not smoking.
I would like to meet the people responsible for this. I would like them to try one of my radishes and one of my chicken’s eggs, and I would like them to eat watercress straight from the beck in Appletreewick. And then I would like to stand, with my hands on my hips, and demand an explanation.
Make no mistake. I hate anything labelled organic. I deliberately won’t buy Fairtrade crisps. Or anything with a pithy nuclear-free, multicultural slogan. I loathe the movement, but I love, with all my heart, the destination. And this from a man who blasted his taste buds to kingdom come with nicotine by the time he was twenty-six. This from a man who cannot tell the difference between chicken and fish.
So yes, I recycle and I grow