The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
How I See It
How similar is my life to Jeremy Clarkson’s? Let me count the ways…
Like Jeremy Clarkson, my TV career has involved a lot of bollocks. In my case, I am thinking specifically of an episode of Balderdash and Piffle (a BBC
Two series about etymology that I presented a few years ago) in which I investigated the origins of the word “codswallop”. There were various theories, taking in the Wallops who are earls of Portsmouth and “walloped” the French at Agincourt; W G Grace and a cricket bat he made in Middle Wallop, Hampshire; a 19th-century drinks maker called Hiram Codd and “wallop” as a slang term for beer; and an alternative theory in which “wallop” is still beer but the “cods” part derives from an old slang word for testicles.
The series was executiveproduced by a brilliant man called Archie Baron, who makes wonderful documentaries to this day (including nearly all of those presented by Ian Hislop). In order to help a TV audience understand the testicle theory, Archie felt, it was important for me to be standing in a butcher’s shop clutching a selection of severed rams’ nuts.
This was 15 years ago and I still don’t know if he actually thought that, or was just amused to ask me to do it. Balderdash and Piffle was quite a starry series, given its bookish subject matter, with glamorous guest presenters hunting for etymologies all over the world. Jerry Hall went to New Orleans investigating “cocktail”, Benjamin Zephaniah looked into “ska” in Jamaica, Courtney Pine sought “cool” in New York City. Meanwhile, I did all the words that derived from Bognor or Hull. If the job called for wellies and thermal underwear, I was in. And sure enough, when it came to grasping a handful of old sheep’s knackers, Jerry Hall was apparently busy again. (Although, to be fair on her, she has since married Rupert Murdoch.)
I was thinking about this as I tuned into Clarkson’s Farm, the smash hit Amazon series about Jeremy Clarkson’s new farming adventure, to see its eponymous hero trying to get his flock of sheep mated. Luckily for Jeremy’s potential revenue, the testicles on his rams were still attached to their owners.
Last week I wrote about my attempts, in the early days of my career as a quiz show host, to model myself on Anne Robinson. But there are far greater parallels between my work and Jeremy Clarkson’s. He was a journalist once, I was a journalist once. He’s written columns, I’ve written columns. He’s presented several TV series about cars, I’ve presented several radio series about cars. He’s a quiz show host, I’m a quiz show host. The main difference is that Jeremy Clarkson’s career, generating adoration and millions across the globe, has led to a place where he can introduce us to his “thousand acres of fields, brooks and wild flower meadows” just for the hell of it. Whereas I’m still looking for the second cheapest bottle of wine on the menu and congratulating myself that at least I can eat in a restaurant.
Clarkson’s Farm is delightful. The timing is golden, coming out as it does into a world where we are all being reminded how urgently we must tune back into nature’s circadian rhythms and take a healthier, simultaneously more modern and more ancient approach to farming and food. Clarkson is living the dream: all homespun and outdoors, farmfresh and self-starting, with a cushion of millions of pounds for when it turns into a massive complicated expensive headache like everything in farming always bloody does.
There’s lots of artifice, of course, lots of moments when “representative” things are only happening because it’s him (would a gorgeous Farmers Union rep come round at the drop of a hat, beautifully made up and smiling, to help get a tractor started for someone who wasn’t Jeremy Clarkson?) but this is offset by a hugely disarming honesty on the other hand.
“Amazon asked us to include as much diversity as possible,” says Jeremy candidly, “and if you look around this livestock sale you’ll see every different kind of white sixtysomething man.”
And then he drops a quick £82,000 on equipment. Barely touches the sides. Dammit, why did I take my car show to Radio Four?
I also love his utter lack of vanity. Compare him to those other giants of outdoor broadcasting, Ray Mears and Bear Grylls. I’ll admit I’ve never quite grasped the difference between them. I know that is a great insult to their fans – just as the people of Oxfordshire are shocked if one confuses Wallingford with Watlington – but the similarity of the names is overwhelming to me. Both are monosyllabic, short and macho, as if whittled by a hunting knife. The names, not the men. Although the men might also be. Both sound like something you might eat after a period of survivalist foraging: a handful of “bear grylls” from a nearby tree stump, a stir fry of “raym ears”, like ears of corn but stringier and triggering awful gut rot in the morning.
One of them, and I can’t remember which, was in trouble for staying in hotels while appearing to sleep in the wild. Jeremy Clarkson wouldn’t do that. Jeremy Clarkson would revel in sleeping in a hotel. He’d tell you what he spent on it. He’d admit, swearily, that he hated sleeping in a wood. He actually is quite macho, what with all that driving about and grinding gears and knowing engines, but he wears his feyness and his comforts lightly. He’s kind of great.
But my quiz show is better than his.
He can introduce us to his ‘1,000 acres of fields and meadows’ just for the hell of it