Jeremy Clarkson - Born to Be Riled

Born To Be Riled

Appendix

Foreword

Foreword

As a motoring journalist, you spend much of your life on exotic car launches, feeding from the bottomless pit of automotive corporate hospitality. And then you come home to tailor a story that perfectly meets the needs of the public relations department that funded it. For sure, you dislike the new xyz but what the hell. Say its fabulous and youre sure to be invited on the next exotic press launch. And so what if some poor sucker reads what you say and buys this hateful car? Youre never going to meet him because by then, youll be on another press launch, in Africa maybe, trying out the zxy.

I used to live like this, and it was great. But sadly, when I climbed into Top Gear, I had to climb off the gravy train. This is because, all of a sudden, people in petrol station forecourts and in supermarket checkout queues started to recognise me. These people had bought a car because Id said theyd like it. And they didnt like it because it kept breaking down. So now, they were going to fill my trousers with four star. And set me alight.

I learned, therefore, pretty quickly that the single most important feature of motoring journalism - or any kind of journalism for that matter - is speaking your mind. You mustnt become Orville with a PR mans hand up your bottom. I know that over the years, these columns from the Sunday Times and Top Gear magazine have caused PR men to choke on their canteen coffee, and that makes me happy. I have been banned from driving Toyotas, Ive had death threats, and my postman once had to deliver letters from what seemed like the entire population of Luton. But at least I can sit back now and know that every single opinion on these pages was mine. I just borrowed a car, and told you what I thought. No sauce. No PR garnish.

I never said you had to agree with my opinions but I can say that in the last 10 years, Ive only been on maybe five press launches and Ive sat through all of them with my fingers in my ears, singing old Who songs at the top of my voice.

Sure there are some things I wish Id never written. I wish, for instance, that Id learn to stop predicting the outcome of a Grand Prix championship and I wish Id never been so rude about horses. But most of all, I wish I wasnt growing up quite so quickly. Just seven years ago, I had an Escort Cosworth and wanted a minimum speed limit of 130mph on motorways. Babies, I thought, were only any good if served with a baked potato and some horseradish sauce. And here I am now with an automatic Jaguar, three children and a fondness for the new 20mph inner city speed limit.

So, as you read through the book, you might find what you think are contradictions, some evidence perhaps that I told the truth one day and some bull the next.

Not so, Ive just got a bit older.

I expect soon that I shall start to favour cars that have wipe down seats, denture holders in the dash and a bi-focal windscreen - but dont worry. Even when my nose has exploded and all my fingers are bent, I still wont like diesel, or people carriers or Nissans, and I shall still be happy to point out the weirdness of America. 250 million wankers living in a country with no word for wanker.

And be assured that when Im dead, theyll find a note at my solicitors saying that I want to be driven to my grave at 100mph in a something with a V8.

Jeremy Clarkson, 1999

In a previous life I spent a couple of years selling Paddington Bears to toy and gift shops all over Britain. Commercial travelling was a career that didnt really suit because I had to wear one but I have ended up with an intimate knowledge of Britains highways and byways. I know how to get from Cropredy to Burghwallis and from London Apprentice to Marchington Woodlands. I know where you can park in Basingstoke and that you cant in Oxford. However, I have absolutely no recollection of Norfolk. I must have been there because I can picture, absolutely, the shops I used to call on in, er, one town in this flat and featureless county.

And theres another thing, I cant remember the name of one town. The other day I had to go to a wedding in one little town in Norfolk. Its not near anywhere youve heard of, there are no motorways that go anywhere near it, and God help you if you run out of petrol.

For 30 miles, the Cosworth ran on fumes until I encountered what would have passed for a garage 40 years ago. The man referred to unleaded petrol as that newfangled stuff and then, when I presented him with a credit card, looked like Id given him a piece of myrrh. Nevertheless, he tottered off into his shed and put it in the till, thus proving that no part of the twentieth century has caught up with Norfolk yet.

This is not surprising because its nearly impossible to get there. From London, you have to go through places such as Hornsey and Tottenham before you find the M11, which sets off in the right direction, but then, perhaps sensibly, veers off to Cambridge. And from everywhere else you need a Camel Trophy Land Rover.

Then, when you get there and youre sitting around in the hotel lobby waiting for the local man to stop being a window cleaner, gynaecologist and town crier and be a receptionist for a while, you pick up a copy of Norfolk Life. It is the worlds smallest magazine.

In the bar that night, when we said we had been to a wedding in Thorndon, everyone stopped talking. A dart hit the ceiling and the man behind the counter dropped a glass. No one, he said, has been to Thorndon since it burned down 40 years back. Then he went off, muttering about the widow woman.

Moving about Norfolk, however, can be fun. I am used to having people point as I go by. Most shout, Hey, look, its a Cosworth! but in Norfolk they shout, Hey, look, its a car! Everywhere else people want to know how fast it goes, but in Norfolk they asked how good it was at ploughing. The spoiler fascinated them because they reckoned it might be some sort of crop sprayer.

Im sure witchcraft has something to do with it. The government should stop promoting the Broads as a tourist attraction and they should advise visitors that here be witches. They spend millions telling us that it is foolish to smoke, but not a penny telling us not to go to Norfolk unless you like orgies and the ritual slaying of farmyard animals.

The next time some friends get married in Norfolk, Ill send a telegram. Except it wont get there because they havent heard of the telephone yet. Or paper. Or ink.

GT90 in a flat spin

Earls Court becomes the fashion capital of the western world this week as the London Anorak Show opens its doors to members of the public.

Better known as the Motor Show, families will be donning their finest acrylic fibres and braving the Piccadilly Line so that they may gawp at all thats new and shiny.

However, if you want to see all thats really new and shiny, you need to stay on the Piccadilly Line until you arrive at Terminal Four. And then you should catch a plane to Japan.

The trouble is that the London Motor Show clashes with the Tokyo Motor Show, and theres no surprises for guessing which one is rated most highly by the exhibitors.

So, if a car manufacturer has spent all year developing a new concept to wow the crowds at an exhibition, it goes to Japan, leaving London with the mainstream stuff, the kind of cars that are parked in your street anyway.

That said, it will be your first chance to see the Ferrari F50 (which makes the show worthwhile all on its own) and the TVR Cerbera, but as its astonishing engine will be off, onlookers will be deprived of its USP.

Other notable debutantes include the MGF, the Renault Megane, the really rather nice Fiat Bravo and, of course, the fascinating and interesting Vauxhall Vectra which, in case you cant find it, is the one that looks pretty much the same as a Cavalier.