I blame Jeremy Clarkson

There are certain events and people in a young man’s life that will never be forgotten. Three of the big ones for a teenage boy are: first car, first girlfriend and the day you pass your driving test. For me, these three were all connected with disastrous consequences. 

If I ever get invited on to BBC TV’s Top Gear, I’ll have one hell of a story for Jeremy Clarkson’s ‘car history’ line of questioning.  I see it going something like this.

Clarkson: So Nick...First car?

Me: *claps hands together smugly* 1972 VW Beetle.

Clarkson: Oooh something for the cool wall, very nice....Top speed?

Me: About 69mph...I never got caught speeding.

Clarkson: *laughs out loud and asks me to present the next series with him*

For a 17 year old boy a VW Beetle was uber cool.  I saved all the money I’d earned doing my gardening round and bought it for £150 when I was just 16.  Even all those years ago this was still a good price; needless to say it needed some work.

I spent the next six months bashing out dents, welding on new parts and generally making it roadworthy.  I took my driving lessons in it. I passed my test in it.  I loved it. The other boys were green with envy.  The summer of 1988 was one of the best for me, I used to swivel the windscreen washer points around so that when I drove past cyclists I could squirt them with water.  I was 17 and not only had I passed my driving test but I had a car ready to go.  As is often the way in life, just when you think you’ve got it sorted...you know the rest. 

I wonder what the Guiness world record is for ‘the fastest time between passing your driving test and being involved in a road traffic accident’. I think I might be a contender for the title. I took my test at 9.00am in the morning. By 9.50am I was listening to the words every young man wants to hear “That’s the end of the test; you’ve passed”.  By the time the rest of the school was out on their morning break; my car had crashed into a concrete post.  Not just any concrete post, but the post that held up the school gates and what’s worse...I wasn’t driving it.

We’ll call her Claire, shall we!  She had been on my radar for a while; all I had to do was ask her out; something that would be infinitely easier, if I was driving my super cool car. As soon as I passed the test I drove straight up to school to ceremoniously remove the ‘L’ plates from the car bumper and lap up the praise.  A small crowd gathered and a few of the girls climbed inside.  Claire pleaded with me “Oh let me take it out for a spin; I’m a really good driver”. “I didn’t realise you’d passed your test”. I said.  “I haven’t yet but I’ve had loads of lessons; I’m really good”. I can’t believe I fell for such an unsubstantiated claim.

 So off we went, a small convoy of the chosen few who had cars went out to ‘hit the town’. It wasn’t a good decision. However in my defence, it was made by my ‘other’ brain and they’re not as good at decision making are they.  I was sat in the passenger seat and contrary to her claims of ‘I’m a really good driver’, I found I had to change gear for her as she ‘hadn’t mastered that bit yet’.  This was alarming.

After what seemed like an eternity of driving around the local high street, squirting cyclists and beeping horns we headed back to school. The school was on a busy main road which meant a right turn. 

I can still see it today. We approached the turn too fast, swerved across the other side of the road, up onto the pavement *loud scream from Claire* and straight into the school gate post...which we knocked down.  All this happened while the rest of the school was out enjoying their morning break; far too many spectators for my liking.

Luckily no-one was hurt.  There was of course the trifling matter of: she hadn’t passed her test, she wasn’t insured and we didn’t have ‘L’ plates on the car. I did what any other 17 year old upstanding member of the community would have done...I sped off as quickly as I could. If I remember correctly, there was some cursing on the way home. 

It took all my powers of persuasion to calm the situation down. The worst bit for me however was not having to face the music with the headmaster or the police but having to walk back to school.

Crippling Fashion

I can’t believe it’s happening so soon.  That thing I swore wouldn’t happen to me, well it’s happening already. It must be my age...I’ve started looking at what young people wear and asking myself; “what the hell are you wearing?”

I was in the outdoor cafe in Richmond Park the other day and I could see a wedding reception being held in a sectioned off area. It’s a beautiful location with a great view so unsurprisingly it’s popular for weddings. Although sectioned off, the guests are still very much in view to the general public.

There’s something intriguing about seeing guests arriving at a wedding and clearly the rest of the cafe were enjoying the relaxing art of ‘people watching’. The guests at this particular reception clearly had money.  Money yes, grace and style...err, no.

It was a warm day so fake tan and skimpy dresses were everywhere. They all seemed excited about the big event. Then a car pulled up and out got a very beautiful girl.  She was helped out of the car by what I assume was her gallant husband and she started walking across the car park towards the venue.

I immediately took pity on the poor girl; I could only see her head and shoulders but from the way she was walking she looked as though she was recovering from a bad accident that had rendered her without the use of her legs for a while. I naturally assumed the poor thing was still undergoing intense physiotherapy as she gradually learnt how to walk again.

“Good for you girl” I heard myself say, I admired her pluck amongst all the glamour pusses. However when she cleared the car park and came into the open the full horror of her ailment became clear.  She wasn’t in fact wearing callipers or correction shoes or anything of that nature.  Her hobbling gait was completely self- inflicted by the most ridiculous high heels I’ve ever seen.  She presented such an obscene spectacle that everyone in the cafe stared at her as she painfully walked by. She had all the grace of someone walking barefoot on a pebble beach.

Initially I was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt; there’s always one who doesn’t quite get the whole fashion thing and takes it too far but then even more girls showed up wearing exactly the same heels.  They were all hobbling along with their expensive dresses and their fake tans, it was quite a sight.

For the record I’m not one of those men that likes women to look like they belong to the Amish sect; I love to see a woman in high heels; they’re as sexy as hell.  But surely the point of high heels is for the wearer to look and feel sexy, beautiful, graceful or elegant; take your pick from any of those.  These things make women look anything but.

What I don’t understand is before they left their homes’, they must have looked in the mirror and thought they looked great. How could they have missed such a massive flaw in their appearance? These girls were obviously under immense peer pressure.  

As a society, how have we arrived at such a ridiculous state of affairs, where young attractive women will wear something that forces them to walk like cripples just to fit in? Why did none of them question the fact they could barely walk, never mind how fashionable these shoes are.

The designers of these shoes appear to be missing something.  When they first trial them on the catwalks around the world even the models fall over and they are people who walk up and down for a living; they’re paid to do it, they’re professionals.  You’d imagine they would be experts at walking and yet even they can’t work out how to walk normally in them.  And yet still these shoes go into production, do the shoe designers not care about the people who are going to buy their products?

I know a lot of women have a ‘thing’ for shoes but isn’t this entering into ‘emperor’s new clothes’ territory?

Prince Edward....is that you?

My brother works for a very rich family.  Part of his work involves attending high profile social events, especially horse racing events.  A few years ago he was asked to drive his boss to the races.

He dropped him off at the royal enclosure in a convertible Bentley and was told to meet him back in a few hours time.  However while he was waiting around chatting he noticed a couple stop and stare at him and start discreetly gesturing over to him. He thought this was odd but didn’t pay it any more attention.  I should point out at this juncture that my brother bears more than a passing resemblance to Prince Edward.  This was during the time Prince Edward was dating Sophie Rhys-Jones so media interest was higher than usual as they were speculating on the couple's possible engagement. 

My brother knew he would have a few hours to spare before he needed to collect his boss from the royal enclosure so had pre-arranged to meet his girlfriend in a posh nearby restaurant for lunch.  When they arrived they were shown to their table and while having a quick drink he noticed the couple he’d seen at the race course come into the restaurant and sit at a nearby table.  “What a co-incidence” he thought, “there’s the couple from the race course who were staring at me earlier,” he said to his beautiful Italian girlfriend.

A few moments later the mysterious couple discreetly took out a camera and started taking photos of him and his girlfriend having lunch.  Finally the penny dropped; convertible Bentley, royal enclosure at Ascot, Prince Edward resemblance; this couple had followed him to the restaurant thinking he was Prince Edward and were now alarmed to find him not meeting Sophie Rhys-Jones but an Italian beauty instead. 

Knowing he was being watched, he realised he could have some fun so furtively looked around and then gave his girlfriend a kiss.  He could hear the camera clicking frantically as he did it.  He then summoned over the waiter and asked him to pass a note he’d written to the excited but very indiscreet camera clicking couple.

The note said – ‘the waiter who delivered this note is one of my bodyguards and the couple to your right are members of MI6.  I saw you take those photos and I’ll ask you to relinquish the film before you leave, if you refuse, they will be forced to take action.’

He folded the note and the waiter took it over to the table.  As soon as they read it, their faces plummeted and they anxiously looked over their shoulders for the MI6 agents. It only took a few moments for the fear to start working and they humbly came over to the table where he was sitting and immediately apologised in broad American accents.  The lady even attempted a curtsy.

“Oh your highness, we’re so sorry.  We were just so thrilled to see y’all and the lovely Sophie, we hope you two get together you’re such a lovely couple.  We just wanted a souvenir photo to show the folks back home”

When he realised they thought his girlfriend was Sophie Rhys-Jones, four words popped into his head... Lambs.To.The.Slaughter. He immediately adopted his best Prince Edward accent and said “Oh yes of course, I completely understand – it’s just one has to be so careful, there’s so much media interest in one at the moment”  he then gestured to his pretend MI6 and royal protection officers ‘everything is fine, no need to take action’ and said “Just called off the dogs, so to speak, don’t worry you and your husband are quite safe”

“Oh thank you your highness” and with that the Americans bowed and curtsied their way out of the restaurant, looking anxiously over their shoulders the whole time.

Never give up hope

With the doom mongers still enjoying the upper hand at the moment, I thought I’d share a cheery story with you about never giving up hope.  I learnt it from a goldfish.  A few months ago I was chatting with a friend in his kitchen, when right in front of our eyes a huge heron swooped down into the garden. For a moment we stood admiring this magnificent creature, until we noticed that in fact it was eyeing up the handsome goldfish in the pond.  Before either of us could get out there to shoo it away, quick as a flash, its head shot forwards into the water and emerged wrestling one of his prized specimens.

We both instinctively ran out of the kitchen into the garden. I don’t know why; what did we think we could do? The minute we got outside, with a cursory look towards us, it flapped away.

However, all was not lost because we could still see the fish sticking sideways out its beak.  It hadn’t quite managed to get a proper grip on the fish and was still trying to manoeuvre it into the right position to swallow it.  As it jerked its head backwards and forwards, it lost its grip and dropped the fish.

Under normal circumstances this might have been our chance to put in a daring rescue attempt but you see, when it flew off, it had landed on the roof of a neighbours’ house.  We both looked on in horror as the fish rolled down the roof, hopped over the guttering and plummeted down into the neighbour’s front garden.

Again, I don’t know why, but we both ran across the road into the front garden where it had fallen.  Dispensing with the usual drills one learns in first aid, of first talking to the victim to see if there’s a response, I picked up the fish and ran back over the road towards the pond.

Gently I lowered the fish back into the water, fanning water over the gills as you’re apparently supposed to do and I’ll be dammed the little thing swam off to tell its friends of its adventure.  Then three seconds later, it told them again.

When I was on Steve Wright in the Afternoon

A few years ago the BBC Radio legend Steve Wright started one of his shows a bit like this... “I was standing outside the studio the other day when this bloke came up to me in the street and said, bold as brass “I’d like to come on your show and talk about gardening with you.” He seemed like a nice bloke so I chatted to him for a while and he talked me into it.  So here he is...”

The bloke he was talking about was me.

I was running a gardening business at the time and a few weeks earlier, completely out of the blue, I was contacted by BBC Radio 4 to talk about a gardening issue on their lunchtime programme. 

Ever since I was a boy I’d been listening to Steve Wright in the afternoon.  His shows were brilliant.  Every show made me laugh.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’d get to meet him, let alone be on his show.  He was one of my heroes; and normal people don’t get to meet their heroes do they?

On the morning of the Radio 4 programme, I went up to broadcasting house near Oxford Circus and went into the studio.  The programme went well and afterwards one of the production assistants showed me out.  However, the building is a veritable labyrinth and the door I came out of, was not the one I came in through.  The excitement of having just been live on national radio had given me a sudden rush of blood to the head and I was momentarily lost.

Across the road I could see the entrance to the other broadcasting house building so I went over to ask for directions.  Outside the entrance were two men leaning against the building, smoking cigars.  I didn’t recognise either of them.  I asked one of them for the directions and as soon as he started speaking, I knew who it was.  It was Steve Wright, large as life giving me directions to the tube station.

Although I had listened to him many times on air I had never actually seen what he looked like and after a while I decided I didn’t want to know. That was part of the magic. I had already built up my own image of what I thought he looked like. So the man in front of me was just another member of the public as far as I was concerned, until he started to speak.   

Anyway, I don’t know what came over me but in a moment of bravery and opportunism, after he’d given me the directions I said to him “I’ve just been talking to your producer about coming on your show to talk about gardening”. 

To say this was a fabrication of the truth is an understatement.  I had been thinking about contacting his producer and had got as far as finding out her name. This however was just enough crucial information for me to sound confident.

“Yeah, Julia and the team are all really keen for me to come on but she says it’s up to you” I smiled enthusiastically. He looked at me, paused and said “Ok but I have to let you know, I hate gardening!” “Well if you hate gardening you must be doing it wrong” I chirped.  Luckily he laughed. We chatted some more and fortunately we clicked.

“Ok I’ll have a chat with Julia, see what you want to talk about and I’ll get in touch. Have you done any radio before?”  “Yeah loads". Again not quite accurate but I was on a roll and I'd got an ace up my sleeve. "I’ve just been on ‘You and Yours’ programme across the road” I said pointing to the Radio 4 studio.  “Oh right, so I can have a little listen." He said. "Ok friend let’s see how we get on.”  We shook hands and he went back inside the building to chat to Julia.

Two words; excitement and fear. I quickly phoned his producer Julia and told her ‘I’d just been chatting to Steve and he’s keen for me to come on the show, I hope you’ve received my emailed ideas about the feature and the gardening factoids?’  Unsurprisingly she hadn’t.  “Ok don’t worry I’ll send them over to you again. Steve is keen and he’s on his way now to talk about it.”

Amazingly my ruse worked and two weeks later I was sitting in the studio recording a programme with Steve Wright, Tim Smith and The Old Lady. Sometimes dreams do come true. They must have liked me because they asked me to come back on two separate occasions.

Penis envy...

I was listening to the radio the other day in the car, when Gardener’s Question Time came on.  This made me chuckle to myself.  It reminded me of the time when I went along to one of their recordings and asked ‘the panel’ a question with a difference.

Have you ever been to a BBC radio broadcast?  It’s quite exciting but completely without glamour. The outside broadcasts are usually held in some obscure village hall, where the local gardening society or Women’s Institute fills the room with plastic chairs, silver hair and diseased plants.  At one end of the hall there’s a table with a green ‘snooker style’ cloth over it.  This is where the panel of experts sit. 

When the crew arrives with all the recording gear there’s a noticeable difference amongst the audience, nerves start to tingle and the sight of the equipment causes a buzz of excitement in the hall.    

This set up process also does something extraordinary; it makes the people in the audience regress to 1950’s England. If you’ve ever heard Gardener’s Question Time you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Everyone in the audience is obsequiously polite.  They all suddenly speak with clipped ‘BBC’ accents and they roar with laughter at the weakest of jokes from the panel. 

The members of the audience that get to ask a question go even further, just as the microphone approaches, you can see them nervously twitching and then on cue they revert to a language not heard since the days of black and white TV...“I recently purchased a flowering cherry tree...!” Purchased....there’s a word I haven’t used since, well the 1950’s frankly.   

Most of the audience are posh women, keen to show off their gardening knowledge by using as many Latin plant names as possible.  However because they are posh they like to pronounce those names in a slightly different way to the commonly accepted pronunciation.  At the recording I went to, there was a very proper lady with pearls and a squinty eye, who asked a question about her Scots Pine tree.  Being posh, she of course used its Latin name of Pinus sylvestris. However she pronounced it as Penis sylvestris.  It went something like this... “I have a magnificent Penis sylvestris but it's leaning to one side” She didn’t even flinch.  Nor did the rest of the audience; I damn near wet myself.

This pronunciation tolerance got me thinking and immediately a plan hatched in my mind.  I had brought with me, two plants with diseased leaves and I was hoping the panel could tell me what was wrong with them.  I knew what they were called but they didn’t know that. 

When the next question opportunity came along I shot my hand up and managed to get the attention of the man with the microphone; sure enough he came straight over.  “I’ve been given these two plants as presents but I’m not sure of their correct Latin names” I said loud and clear through the microphone.  “The friend that gave them to me says they’re called Biggus dickus and Sillius soddus but I wanted to know, is this correct?”

This was met with polite titters from the audience...well it was Gardener's Question Time; anything else just wouldn’t be cricket what, what!

Twitter biogs...what the fuck?

If you’re signed up to twitter, you might remember what it was like when you first joined.    Once you’ve registered your name, which of course isn’t your actual name but a bastardised version because someone else has already registered your name.  It’s then straight down to business...write something....hhhmmm.  What the fuck shall I say? 

‘Twitter’ kindly offers the advice of... start following people.  Terrific; who? Unless you already know someone on twitter the first port of call is your favourite celebrities. This gives you confidence; you actually get to read what people, whom you admire, are talking about.  You feel part of their inner circle.  So you dip your toe and write a few tweets; really whacky, crazy stuff like... ‘I need coffee’...or ‘is it wine o’clock yet’. Hilarious.  Then it dawns on you, they don’t actually read your tweets because they’re not following you back – why would they? 

If you want people to follow you, you have to trawl through ‘the no-bodies’. You obviously don’t want to follow a psychopathic killer, which you suspect some of them are, so you need to ‘find out’ about them first. That means reading their biogs.

When you write your biog, twitter gives you only 140 characters to sum up your entire existence.  Who you are; what you do and somewhere in there you have to get in a pitch for people to follow you as well. This is tight. Your biog is your big chance to hook as many new followers as possible.  It’s fair to say that these 140 characters are pretty important so why the fuck do people write such banal, crap for their biogs?  You must have read them yourselves; you know what I’m talking about right?

From those I’ve read; there seems to be several recurring themes; one of them is the ‘I’m totally mad’ theme.  “Yeah I’m mad me, huh huh, I’m so crazy and interesting you must follow me, it’ll be great fun!  What that actually says is ‘I’m so dull I have to pretend to be ‘mad and crazy’. Surely those people that are genuinely ‘out there’ never say so. ‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know, was not something Lord Byron said of himself

Another common theme is to mention how much wine you drink.  Remember when you were about 16, the big thing was to tell your friends how much alcohol you could drink.  It was boring then and it’s a story that doesn’t improve with age.  Again how many interesting eccentric drunks tell people how much they drink...they don’t need to, they’re too busy being eccentric and interesting.  ‘I’m mad me and I drink too much wine’ are the two things that say exactly the opposite of ‘what it says on the tin’. 

The one that really puzzles me though and seems to pop up all over the place is this; ‘cat lover’. Am I missing something with the whole cat lover thing?  Is it some secret underground club more powerful than the Freemasons?  You’ve only got 140 characters to do the job of selling yourself, if your choice of pet is that high on your priority list...you need to get out more.

And don’t write some philosophical quote from someone who was interesting but is now dead – that doesn’t get you off the hook and it doesn’t make you as interesting as they were, it says I have no original thoughts of my own.

I beg you twitter users, make your twitter biog; funny, interesting, or original.  The human eye reads fast and 140 characters is not long enough; the reader will have imbibed some of the banal, crap before they wince and move on.  By this time it will have soiled their minds and a constant drip feed of crap biogs can’t be good for anyone. Do you follow?