How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [89]
Naturally, there was much bowing, and a lot of accepting and presenting business cards with two hands. Obviously, I didn’t give him my business card because I don’t actually have a business. Or a card. But I found one in my pocket – from David Linley, the furniture maker, strangely – and gave him that. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t speak English. None of them could. Which is why they weren’t offended by my shirt.
But then, equally inevitably, out came the cameras. Many hand signals suggested they wanted me to pose with their head honcho and, of course, I obliged. It would have been rude to say no. But not, as it turns out, half as rude as appearing in the firm’s promotional material in a T-shirt bearing the worst word in the world. Which is what’s happened.
I would like, therefore, to take this opportunity to apologize to the man, the company he runs, all of the children in the world who’ve been offended and the people of Japan. I am so very, very solly.
Sunday 12 July 2009
Stop, you’re digging an early grave with that garden trowel
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is plainly a bit stuck for something to do now there’s plenty to eat, the environment’s knackered and the Labour party thinks a rural affair is something that happens in Jilly Cooper’s head. So it’s filled its time compiling a report that indicates by next year almost 2.2m homes in Britain will not have a private garden. This is because developers are building lots of flats and – I never would have guessed – ‘the likelihood of having a garden is greater for larger detached dwellings than flats’.
There are, however, some interesting nuggets in the forest of truisms. Apparently, two-thirds of all London’s front gardens are now largely covered with concrete, paving or gravel rather than vegetation. Many back gardens have been sold to developers, who find it much easier to get planning permission for these infill sites than they do out in the sticks.
Naturally, all sorts of busybodies will now be running around demanding that brownfield developments must stop and that everyone must replace their gravel drives with lavender or carrots.
I believe there is another way of looking at this. If people are paving over their front lawns and selling their back gardens to Messrs Bryant and Barratt, it must mean they value a car-parking space and an extra bit of dosh more than they value spending half their weekend huffing and puffing behind a lawnmower.
Did you know that 27 per cent of adult male heart-attack victims are struck down while cutting the grass? You didn’t? That’s because it’s not true. But I bet the real figure is huge.
Whatever, the fact is that huge numbers of people plainly don’t like having a garden, and I can understand why. It’s because once you start gardening, there is no end, no point at which you can say, ‘It’s finished.’ Because it never is.
First of all, there’s the bothersome business of choosing from a vast array of plants, all of which have Latin names so people in garden centres can laugh in your face when you get it wrong. Flustered, you will make a panic purchase of something that is pink and won’t grow in your particular garden because it’s not north-facing, or the soil is too acidic, or the wind’s too strong. And even if it does grow, it will turn out to be either a twig or something so rapacious that within five months it will have eaten your lawn, your shed, your house and most of your children.
First, though, it will eat your satellite dish. All plants do this. No matter how hard you encourage them to grow in one direction, they will make a beeline for the dish, so that in the middle of your favourite show you suddenly get a notice saying no signal is being received. Which means you have to go outside, in the wind and the rain, with a pair of secateurs and some dynamite to try to get your clematis out of Bruce Forsyth’s ear. I