Read Online The World According to Clarkson by Jeremy Clarkson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jeremy Clarkson
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He just fell asleep.
So what’s to be done? Well, you can employ the Health and Safety Executive to dream up the most foolproof system in the world, the sort of money-no-object set-up that I’m sure is employed at Heathrow. But the fact remains that all systems rely on human integrity to some extent and, if someone takes their eye off the ball for a moment, two jets with 500 people on board can get within 100 feet of one another.
Or you could argue that people who hold the lives of others in their hands should be paid accordingly. But I don’t think the size of a person’s bank balance affects their ability to concentrate. I mean, His Tonyness is on £163,000 a year and he makes mistakes all the time.
No. I’m afraid that fairly soon we are going to have to accept that a blame culture does not work. We are going to have to accept that doctors, no matter how much training you give them, will continue to stickneedles into people’s eyes, rather than their bottoms. We are going to have to accept that, once in a while, Land Rovers will crash onto railway lines causing trains to crash into one another. We are going to have to stop penalising people for making that most human of gestures – a mistake.
And the best way of doing this is to ban those ‘Injured at work?’ advertisements for solicitors on the backs of buses.
So long as there’s an opportunity to profit from the simple, unintentional mistakes of others, then there will always be a desire to do so. To lash out. To blame. To turn some poor unfortunate soul who just happened to be in the wrong job on the wrong day into a human punchbag.
Sunday 17 June 2001
America, Twinned with the Fatherland
Europe offers the discerning traveller a rich and varied tapestry of alternatives. You may go salmon fishing in lceland or sailing off Greece. You may get down and dirty on the French Riviera or high as a kite in Amsterdam. You can bop till you drop in Ibiza or cop a shop in London. And we haven’t even got to Italy yet.
So why then do a significant number of Americans, having decided to take that vacation of a lifetime over here, always start the tour in Germany? Because Germany is to holidays what Delia Smith is to spot welding. Perhaps it’s because they’ve heard of it. Maybe they have a brother stationed at Wiesbaden or perhaps their father did some night flying over Hamburg back in 1941. Yes, I know that’s before America joined the war, but judging by the movie
Pearl Harbor
, they don’t.
Or maybe in the brochures Germany somehow looks appealing to an American. I mean, both peoples tend to eat a little more than they should and both have a fondness for driving very large automobiles, extremely badly. Both countries also have absolutely hopeless television programmes where the hosts dress up in vivid jackets and shout meaningless instructions at the contestants. An American flicking through the 215 one-size-fits-all alternatives in his Stuttgart hotel room would feel rightat home. Until he got to Channel 216, after midnight, and found a whole new use for a dog.
Both countries enjoy the same British exports, too: Benny Hill, Mr Bean, Burberry mackintoshes. Then there’s the question of taste. Only two countries in the world would dream of teaming a tangerine bathroom suite with purple and brown carpets. And only two countries go around pretending to be democracies while burdening the people who live there with enough regulations and red tape to strangle everyone in China. Twice. In Germany, you must not brake for small dogs and you must have a licence before you can play golf. An American would nod sagely at that.
So, it would appear that Germany and America are identical twins and now you may be nodding sagely, remembering that some 25 per cent of Americans are derived from German stock. Indeed, shortly after Independence, there was a vote in the Senate on whether the official language of the fledgling USA should be English or German.
Whatever, a great
So what’s to be done? Well, you can employ the Health and Safety Executive to dream up the most foolproof system in the world, the sort of money-no-object set-up that I’m sure is employed at Heathrow. But the fact remains that all systems rely on human integrity to some extent and, if someone takes their eye off the ball for a moment, two jets with 500 people on board can get within 100 feet of one another.
Or you could argue that people who hold the lives of others in their hands should be paid accordingly. But I don’t think the size of a person’s bank balance affects their ability to concentrate. I mean, His Tonyness is on £163,000 a year and he makes mistakes all the time.
No. I’m afraid that fairly soon we are going to have to accept that a blame culture does not work. We are going to have to accept that doctors, no matter how much training you give them, will continue to stickneedles into people’s eyes, rather than their bottoms. We are going to have to accept that, once in a while, Land Rovers will crash onto railway lines causing trains to crash into one another. We are going to have to stop penalising people for making that most human of gestures – a mistake.
And the best way of doing this is to ban those ‘Injured at work?’ advertisements for solicitors on the backs of buses.
So long as there’s an opportunity to profit from the simple, unintentional mistakes of others, then there will always be a desire to do so. To lash out. To blame. To turn some poor unfortunate soul who just happened to be in the wrong job on the wrong day into a human punchbag.
Sunday 17 June 2001
America, Twinned with the Fatherland
Europe offers the discerning traveller a rich and varied tapestry of alternatives. You may go salmon fishing in lceland or sailing off Greece. You may get down and dirty on the French Riviera or high as a kite in Amsterdam. You can bop till you drop in Ibiza or cop a shop in London. And we haven’t even got to Italy yet.
So why then do a significant number of Americans, having decided to take that vacation of a lifetime over here, always start the tour in Germany? Because Germany is to holidays what Delia Smith is to spot welding. Perhaps it’s because they’ve heard of it. Maybe they have a brother stationed at Wiesbaden or perhaps their father did some night flying over Hamburg back in 1941. Yes, I know that’s before America joined the war, but judging by the movie
Pearl Harbor
, they don’t.
Or maybe in the brochures Germany somehow looks appealing to an American. I mean, both peoples tend to eat a little more than they should and both have a fondness for driving very large automobiles, extremely badly. Both countries also have absolutely hopeless television programmes where the hosts dress up in vivid jackets and shout meaningless instructions at the contestants. An American flicking through the 215 one-size-fits-all alternatives in his Stuttgart hotel room would feel rightat home. Until he got to Channel 216, after midnight, and found a whole new use for a dog.
Both countries enjoy the same British exports, too: Benny Hill, Mr Bean, Burberry mackintoshes. Then there’s the question of taste. Only two countries in the world would dream of teaming a tangerine bathroom suite with purple and brown carpets. And only two countries go around pretending to be democracies while burdening the people who live there with enough regulations and red tape to strangle everyone in China. Twice. In Germany, you must not brake for small dogs and you must have a licence before you can play golf. An American would nod sagely at that.
So, it would appear that Germany and America are identical twins and now you may be nodding sagely, remembering that some 25 per cent of Americans are derived from German stock. Indeed, shortly after Independence, there was a vote in the Senate on whether the official language of the fledgling USA should be English or German.
Whatever, a great
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