How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [8]
Natural England, the government agency that brought the prosecution against Cannon, would do well to remember that the only reason it exists is to preserve the beauty of the countryside. And the only reason it’s so beautiful is that it’s been looked after for thousands of years by wealthy landowners. If it wants to keep the land green and pleasant it would be better off tearing up its Fairtrade mission statement that talks of social inclusion and the evils of bullying, and going after those people who fill every rural lay-by with thousands of old mattresses.
Sunday 3 February 2008
Give it up, Hamza – you’re too ugly
Soweto was my generation’s Baghdad. Every night, we saw pictures of it on the news, scenes of burly policemen cruising the streets in Chevrolets, shooting children for fun. Of mobs setting fire to buses and blocking the roads with burning tyres.
Now, though, just twenty years later, it’s a bit like Surrey. There are well-kept lawns and lots of four-wheel-drive cars. There’s a shopping centre and a forest of cranes building a stadium for the upcoming World Cup. Sure, there’s Winnie Mandela’s mansion, which sits like a bulletproofed blister in the middle of it all, and the ‘Education is good for you’ graffiti doesn’t quite ring true. But I spent a day there last week and at no point did anyone put a tyre round my neck and set fire to it. I even had a jolly nice lunch under a jolly nice bougainvillea bush.
So what was it that brought about this transformation? Was it the legion of pop stars who sang about the iniquities of apartheid? Or was it the sanctions? Or could it be that pressure groups back then concentrated on real problems rather than the environment?
You do wonder, don’t you? If the firebrands and the beardies would stop worrying about polar bears, could a similar transformation be achieved in Darfur and Zimbabwe and the mayoral office of London?
I’m afraid not. The main reason the war against apartheid was won is that Nelson Mandela looks good on a T-shirt.
I mean it. Look at all the successful freedom fighters and you’ll note they all had one thing in common: a chiselled, romantic figurehead. Che Guevara, for instance, worked well as a screen print, and as a result the rebels still hold power in Cuba. And because Yasser Arafat looked like he’d just stepped out of that bar in Star Wars, Palestine is still a prison rather than a country. Why do you suppose Northern Ireland is still part of the United Kingdom? Simple. The IRA was never going to win, because with Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams they were represented on the world stage by a ginger and a minger. The Basques have a similar problem. I met Eta’s political leader a couple of years ago and he was about as charismatic as a root vegetable. Potty Pol had a great name but because his face didn’t work on a badge his efforts in Cambodia were always going to come to naught. And it’s the same story with Shining Path, the Tamil Tigers and Nazi Germany, for that matter. If Hitler had looked like Jim Morrison who knows what shape the world might be in today?
This of course brings me neatly to the question of Muslim extremists. They are waging a preposterous campaign, trying to make all women in the world wear their headscarves back to front. And there’s no doubt that if their international leader was Abu Hamza they wouldn’t get anywhere.
One eye is good. Admiral Nelson pulled that off well and so does Gordon Brown. It makes you look sinister and interesting. Then there’s the hook for a hand. That’s inspirational. The stuff of Bond baddie legend. But I’m sorry, the rest is hopeless; especially that patchy and spartan face fungus, as threadbare as an aristocrat’s carpet.
Unfortunately, however, Hamza is not the global figurehead. That role belongs to Osama Bin Laden, and let’s cut to the chase on this, shall we? The man’s a looker. Teaming those gentle and kind eyes with an ever-present AK-47 keeps us guessing. He even manages to look good in a