Following on from the article I copied that Jeremy Clarkson wrote about education, I thought this series of two articles he wrote on the second and ninth of July 2006 might prove entertaining too. They appertain to a trip he took to America whilst filming an episode of his Top Gear TV show.
I have to warn you, it's best no to read further if you think a lot of America (especially if you happen to be an American) and don't like criticism of it. There's also a couple of rather racy comments about New Orleans that may cause offence, so be warned! Okey-day?
Enjoy, comment, get spitting mad, agree, disagree... whatever.
Just remember that not even Clarkson takes Clarkson totally seriously and when he says something that sounds utterly outrageous he's usually taking the piss or trying to make a point by being deliberately facetious. Not always, but often.
Oh yeah, and remember that I didn't write it an don't necessarily agree with every word he says.
the united states of total paranoia
I know Britain is full of incompetent water-board officials and stabbed Glaswegians but even so I fell on my knees this morning and kissed the ground, because I've just spent three weeks trying to work in America.
It's known as the land of the free and I'm sure it is if you get up in the morning, go to work in a petrol station, eat nothing but double-egg burgers with cheese – and take your children to little league. But if you step outside the loop, if you try to do something a bit zany, you will find you're in a police state.
We begin at Los Angeles airport in front of an immigration official who, like all his colleagues, was selected for having no grace, no manners, no humour, no humanity and the sort of IQ normally found in farmyard animals. He scanned my form and noted there was no street number for the hotel at which I was staying.
'I'm going to need a number' he said. 'Ooh, I'm sorry,' I said, 'I'm afraid I don't have one.'
This didn't seem to have any effect. 'I'm going to need a number,' he said again, and then again, and then again. Each time I shrugged and stammered, terrified that I might be sent to the back of the queue or, worse, into the little room with the men in Marigolds. But I simply didn't have an answer.
'I'm going to need a number,' he said again, giving the distinct impression that he was an autobank, and that this was a conversation he was prepared to endure until one of us died. So with a great deal of bravery I decided to give him one. And the number I chose was 2,649,347.
This, it turned out, was fine. He'd been told by his superiors to get a number.
I'd given him a number. His job was done and so, just an hour or so later, I was on the streets of Los Angeles doing a piece to camera.
Except, of course, I wasn't. Technically, you need a permit to film on every street in pretty well every corner of the world. But the only countries where this is enforced are Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea and the United States of America.
So, seconds after breaking out the tripod, a policeman pulled up and demanded that we show him our permit. We had one that covered the City of Los Angeles... except the bit where we were. So we were moved on.
The next day I was moved on in Las Vegas too, because the permit I had didn't cover the part of the pavement I was standing on. Eight inches away was fine.
You need a permit to do everything in America. You even need a passport to buy a drink. But, interestingly, you don't need one if you wish to rent some guns and some bullets. I needed a 50 cal (very big) machine gun. 'No problem,' said the man at the shop. 'But could you just sign this assuring us that the movie you're making is not anti-Bush or anti-war.'
Also, you need a permit if you want – as I did – to transport a dead cow on the roof of your car through the Florida panhandle. That's because this is banned by a state law.
Think about that. Someone has gone to all the bother and expense of drawing up a law that means at some point lots of people were moving dead cows about on their cars. It must have been popular. Fashionable even.
Anyway, back to the guns. I needed them because I wished to shoot a car in the Mojave desert. But you can't do that without the say-so of the local fire chief, who turned up, with his haircut, to say that for reasons he couldn't explain, he had a red flag in his head.
You find this a lot in America. People way down the food chain are given the power to say yes or no to elaborately prepared plans, just so their bosses can't be sued. One expression that simply doesn't translate from English in these days of power without responsibility is 'Ooh, I'm sure it'll be fine.'
And, unfortunately, these people at the bottom of the food chain have no intellect at all. Reasoning with them is like reasoning with a tree. I think this is because people in the sticks have stopped marrying their cousins and are now mating with vegetables.
They certainly aren't eating them. You see them growing in fields, but all you ever find on a menu is cheese, cheese, or cheese with cheese. Except for a steak and cheese sandwich I brought in Mississippi. This was made, according to the label, from 'imitation cheese'.
Nope, I don't know what that is either but I do know that out of the main population centres, the potato people are getting fatter and dimmer by the minute.
Today the average petrol-pump attendant is capable, just, of turning on a pump when you prepay. But if you pay for two pumps to be turned on to fill two cars, you can, if you stare carefully, see wisps of smoke coming form her fat, useless, war-losing, acne-scarred, gormless turnip face.
And the awful thing is that you don't want the petrol anyway, because it'll simply get you to somewhere else, which will be worse. A point I shall prove next week, when we have a look at what happened in Alabama. And why the poor of New Orleans will sue if the donation you make isn't as big as they'd hoped for.
Arrested just for looking weird
Last week I wrote about my recent trip to America, and to be honest it didn't go down well. I don't think I've ever been on the receiving end of such a blizzard of bile. One man called me an 'imbosile'. Hundreds more suggested that it'd be better for everyone if I just stayed at home in future.
And do you know the awful thing? I haven't finished yet. Last week's column was just an introduction, an “amuse-bouche”, a scene-setter. It's this week that things really start to get going...
So far we've looked at the problem in America of power without responsibility.
Step out of the loop, do something unusual and you'll encounter a wall of low-paid, low-intellect workers whose sole job is to prevent their bosses from being sued. As a result, you never hear anyone say: 'Oh I'm sure it'll be all right.'
You know the Stig. The all-white racing driver we use on Top Gear. Well, we were filming him walking through the Mojave desert when, lo and behold, a lorry full of soldiers rocked up and arrested him. He was unusual. He wasn't fat. He must therefore be a Muslim.
It gets worse. I needed money to play a little blackjack in Vegas but because I was unable to provide the cashier with an American postcode he was unable to help.
It's the same story at the petrol pumps. Americans can punch their address into the key pad and replenish their tank. Europeans have to prove they're not terrorists before being allowed to start pumping.
I seem to recall a television advertisement in which George W. Bush himself urged us all to go over there for our holidays. But what's the point when you can't buy anything? Or do anything. Or walk across the desert in a white suit without being arrested.
The main problem, I suspect, is a complete lack of knowledge about the world. I asked people in the streets of Vegas to name two European countries. The very first woman I spoke to said: 'Oh yes. What's that one with kangaroos?'
Then you've got New Orleans, which, nearly a year after Katrina, is still utterly smashed and ruined. Now, I'm sorry, but insects can build a shelter on their own.
Birds can build nests without a state handout. So why are the people of Louisiana sitting around waiting for someone else to do the repairs?
I tried to help out. I tried to give a car I'd been using to a Christian mission.
But I was threatened with legal action because the car in question was a 91 and not the 98 that had allegedly been promised. A very angry woman accused me of 'misrepresentation'.
Not everyone in America is deranged, of course. Sammy certainly isn't. Sammy was helping us out washing cars and one night, over dinner, he explained how he'd become so badly burnt. And why, as a result, the best he could hope for out of life was washing cars for cash.
His car had exploded after it was rammed from behind by an off-duty cop. He was taken to a hospital that had no air-conditioning, in California, in the summer.
Not nice when you have third-degree burns to half your body.
And to make matters worse, there was nobody to help him go to the loo, so he either had to do his business where he lay – or went through untold agony by rolling over to pee on the floor.
The bill for his botched plastic surgery was half a million dollars, $15,000 of which came from the cop's insurance. This means Sammy can never get a proper job, or buy a house or find credit.
The government, he says, is waiting for him to pop up on the radar and then they'll come round to get their greenbacks back.
Of course, many Americans would say our health service is far from perfect and I'd agree. I'd agree there are lots of things wrong with Britain.
I'd also agree, having been to every single state in the US – apart from Rhode Island – that there are good things about America. The hash browns, for instance,served up by Denny's are delicious, you can turn right on a red light and er... well, I'm sure there are a lot more but I can't think of anything at the moment.
Among the many things I don't like is the way everyone over 15 stone now moves about in a wheelchair. As a result, it takes half an hour to get through even the widest door. And I really don't like the way every small town looks exactly the same as every other small town. Palmdale in California and Biloxi in Mississippi are nigh-on identical. They have the same horrible restaurants. The same mall. The same interstate drone. Live in either for more than a week and you'd be stabbing your own eyes with knitting needles.
But it's the idiocracy that really gets me down. The constant coaxing you have to do to get anything done. 'No' is the default setting whether you want to change lanes on the motorway or get a drink on a Sunday. It's like trying to negotiate with a donkey. Once, I urged a cop in Pensacola, Florida, to use his common sense and let me load a van in the no-loading zone, since the airport was shit and it would make no difference. 'Sir,' he said, 'you don't need common sense when you've got laws.'
That, I think, probably says it all.
* ducks *
I have to warn you, it's best no to read further if you think a lot of America (especially if you happen to be an American) and don't like criticism of it. There's also a couple of rather racy comments about New Orleans that may cause offence, so be warned! Okey-day?
Enjoy, comment, get spitting mad, agree, disagree... whatever.
Just remember that not even Clarkson takes Clarkson totally seriously and when he says something that sounds utterly outrageous he's usually taking the piss or trying to make a point by being deliberately facetious. Not always, but often.Oh yeah, and remember that I didn't write it an don't necessarily agree with every word he says.
the united states of total paranoia
I know Britain is full of incompetent water-board officials and stabbed Glaswegians but even so I fell on my knees this morning and kissed the ground, because I've just spent three weeks trying to work in America.
It's known as the land of the free and I'm sure it is if you get up in the morning, go to work in a petrol station, eat nothing but double-egg burgers with cheese – and take your children to little league. But if you step outside the loop, if you try to do something a bit zany, you will find you're in a police state.
We begin at Los Angeles airport in front of an immigration official who, like all his colleagues, was selected for having no grace, no manners, no humour, no humanity and the sort of IQ normally found in farmyard animals. He scanned my form and noted there was no street number for the hotel at which I was staying.
'I'm going to need a number' he said. 'Ooh, I'm sorry,' I said, 'I'm afraid I don't have one.'
This didn't seem to have any effect. 'I'm going to need a number,' he said again, and then again, and then again. Each time I shrugged and stammered, terrified that I might be sent to the back of the queue or, worse, into the little room with the men in Marigolds. But I simply didn't have an answer.
'I'm going to need a number,' he said again, giving the distinct impression that he was an autobank, and that this was a conversation he was prepared to endure until one of us died. So with a great deal of bravery I decided to give him one. And the number I chose was 2,649,347.
This, it turned out, was fine. He'd been told by his superiors to get a number.
I'd given him a number. His job was done and so, just an hour or so later, I was on the streets of Los Angeles doing a piece to camera.
Except, of course, I wasn't. Technically, you need a permit to film on every street in pretty well every corner of the world. But the only countries where this is enforced are Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea and the United States of America.
So, seconds after breaking out the tripod, a policeman pulled up and demanded that we show him our permit. We had one that covered the City of Los Angeles... except the bit where we were. So we were moved on.
The next day I was moved on in Las Vegas too, because the permit I had didn't cover the part of the pavement I was standing on. Eight inches away was fine.
You need a permit to do everything in America. You even need a passport to buy a drink. But, interestingly, you don't need one if you wish to rent some guns and some bullets. I needed a 50 cal (very big) machine gun. 'No problem,' said the man at the shop. 'But could you just sign this assuring us that the movie you're making is not anti-Bush or anti-war.'
Also, you need a permit if you want – as I did – to transport a dead cow on the roof of your car through the Florida panhandle. That's because this is banned by a state law.
Think about that. Someone has gone to all the bother and expense of drawing up a law that means at some point lots of people were moving dead cows about on their cars. It must have been popular. Fashionable even.
Anyway, back to the guns. I needed them because I wished to shoot a car in the Mojave desert. But you can't do that without the say-so of the local fire chief, who turned up, with his haircut, to say that for reasons he couldn't explain, he had a red flag in his head.
You find this a lot in America. People way down the food chain are given the power to say yes or no to elaborately prepared plans, just so their bosses can't be sued. One expression that simply doesn't translate from English in these days of power without responsibility is 'Ooh, I'm sure it'll be fine.'
And, unfortunately, these people at the bottom of the food chain have no intellect at all. Reasoning with them is like reasoning with a tree. I think this is because people in the sticks have stopped marrying their cousins and are now mating with vegetables.
They certainly aren't eating them. You see them growing in fields, but all you ever find on a menu is cheese, cheese, or cheese with cheese. Except for a steak and cheese sandwich I brought in Mississippi. This was made, according to the label, from 'imitation cheese'.
Nope, I don't know what that is either but I do know that out of the main population centres, the potato people are getting fatter and dimmer by the minute.
Today the average petrol-pump attendant is capable, just, of turning on a pump when you prepay. But if you pay for two pumps to be turned on to fill two cars, you can, if you stare carefully, see wisps of smoke coming form her fat, useless, war-losing, acne-scarred, gormless turnip face.
And the awful thing is that you don't want the petrol anyway, because it'll simply get you to somewhere else, which will be worse. A point I shall prove next week, when we have a look at what happened in Alabama. And why the poor of New Orleans will sue if the donation you make isn't as big as they'd hoped for.
Arrested just for looking weird
Last week I wrote about my recent trip to America, and to be honest it didn't go down well. I don't think I've ever been on the receiving end of such a blizzard of bile. One man called me an 'imbosile'. Hundreds more suggested that it'd be better for everyone if I just stayed at home in future.
And do you know the awful thing? I haven't finished yet. Last week's column was just an introduction, an “amuse-bouche”, a scene-setter. It's this week that things really start to get going...
So far we've looked at the problem in America of power without responsibility.
Step out of the loop, do something unusual and you'll encounter a wall of low-paid, low-intellect workers whose sole job is to prevent their bosses from being sued. As a result, you never hear anyone say: 'Oh I'm sure it'll be all right.'
You know the Stig. The all-white racing driver we use on Top Gear. Well, we were filming him walking through the Mojave desert when, lo and behold, a lorry full of soldiers rocked up and arrested him. He was unusual. He wasn't fat. He must therefore be a Muslim.
It gets worse. I needed money to play a little blackjack in Vegas but because I was unable to provide the cashier with an American postcode he was unable to help.
It's the same story at the petrol pumps. Americans can punch their address into the key pad and replenish their tank. Europeans have to prove they're not terrorists before being allowed to start pumping.
I seem to recall a television advertisement in which George W. Bush himself urged us all to go over there for our holidays. But what's the point when you can't buy anything? Or do anything. Or walk across the desert in a white suit without being arrested.
The main problem, I suspect, is a complete lack of knowledge about the world. I asked people in the streets of Vegas to name two European countries. The very first woman I spoke to said: 'Oh yes. What's that one with kangaroos?'
Then you've got New Orleans, which, nearly a year after Katrina, is still utterly smashed and ruined. Now, I'm sorry, but insects can build a shelter on their own.
Birds can build nests without a state handout. So why are the people of Louisiana sitting around waiting for someone else to do the repairs?
I tried to help out. I tried to give a car I'd been using to a Christian mission.
But I was threatened with legal action because the car in question was a 91 and not the 98 that had allegedly been promised. A very angry woman accused me of 'misrepresentation'.
Not everyone in America is deranged, of course. Sammy certainly isn't. Sammy was helping us out washing cars and one night, over dinner, he explained how he'd become so badly burnt. And why, as a result, the best he could hope for out of life was washing cars for cash.
His car had exploded after it was rammed from behind by an off-duty cop. He was taken to a hospital that had no air-conditioning, in California, in the summer.
Not nice when you have third-degree burns to half your body.
And to make matters worse, there was nobody to help him go to the loo, so he either had to do his business where he lay – or went through untold agony by rolling over to pee on the floor.
The bill for his botched plastic surgery was half a million dollars, $15,000 of which came from the cop's insurance. This means Sammy can never get a proper job, or buy a house or find credit.
The government, he says, is waiting for him to pop up on the radar and then they'll come round to get their greenbacks back.
Of course, many Americans would say our health service is far from perfect and I'd agree. I'd agree there are lots of things wrong with Britain.
I'd also agree, having been to every single state in the US – apart from Rhode Island – that there are good things about America. The hash browns, for instance,served up by Denny's are delicious, you can turn right on a red light and er... well, I'm sure there are a lot more but I can't think of anything at the moment.
Among the many things I don't like is the way everyone over 15 stone now moves about in a wheelchair. As a result, it takes half an hour to get through even the widest door. And I really don't like the way every small town looks exactly the same as every other small town. Palmdale in California and Biloxi in Mississippi are nigh-on identical. They have the same horrible restaurants. The same mall. The same interstate drone. Live in either for more than a week and you'd be stabbing your own eyes with knitting needles.
But it's the idiocracy that really gets me down. The constant coaxing you have to do to get anything done. 'No' is the default setting whether you want to change lanes on the motorway or get a drink on a Sunday. It's like trying to negotiate with a donkey. Once, I urged a cop in Pensacola, Florida, to use his common sense and let me load a van in the no-loading zone, since the airport was shit and it would make no difference. 'Sir,' he said, 'you don't need common sense when you've got laws.'
That, I think, probably says it all.
* ducks *
