Two-hour trip to see Richard Hammond showed me how badly Britain’s roads are falling apart
THIS week I needed to go to see Richard Hammond, who lives 50 miles away in a part of the country he doesn’t call Wales. But it is really.
This would mean driving through the Cotswolds on a beautiful sunny day in an expensive and very snazzy Mercedes. Perfect, yes?
No. Because it took just shy of two hours and in that time I got a pretty good idea of how badly Britain is falling apart.
First of all, I had to spend 20 minutes figuring out how to turn off all the beeps and bongs that sound in a modern car if you break the speed limit or don’t sit up straight or if you cut a corner.
And then I had to find some duct tape to cover up the visual warnings as well.
So now I was running late, and then I was made later still, because in the first village I encountered, Thames Water had closed the road, presumably so they could feed the local turds into the nearest river more efficiently.
Eventually, by using roads full of highwaymen and witches, I reached Stow-on-the-Wold, which was gridlocked because someone’s erected temporary traffic lights while the workforce works from home.
This meant another detour through the 14th century until I reached more roadworks at the border with Wales. Or the M5 as you may call it. Again, no work was being done.
To try to calm down, I tuned into Times Radio, where there was a discussion about the naming of that boy who’s been charged with murdering three little girls.
Followed by reports of riots in various British towns and cities.
Followed by news of yet more paedophilia at the BBC.
I’m not kidding. In one news report, on one day, there was the dance class stabbing, Huw bloody Edwards and riots in Hartlepool.
Mercifully, I was distracted from the misery by the sheer awfulness of the road surface.
I’ve driven on many rough roads in my time but that ribbon of what used to be Tarmac from the M50 to Hereford is up there. It’s Madagascar bad. Only three of my teeth survived.
Eventually, after driving past a selection of fields that were empty due to some weird government policies and a very wet spring, I reached Hammond’s workshop, exchanged a few insults and then, after I’d put my watch forwards by 200 years, I headed back to England.
To try to avoid the road closures and potholes full of dinosaurs, I chose a different route, and having passed Tewkesbury, which for the first time in living memory wasn’t under water, I arrived in Cheltenham where, guess what? One of the roads was closed.
They’d put up a diversion sign but having made the left turn, there were no more.
So now I was in the back streets in a car that was far too large, and which had a sat nav system that was far too clever for its own good.
I considered using my phone instead but these days the country is full of Cycling Mikey vigilantes who prowl the streets looking for people using their phones while driving. So I solved the problem instead by swearing a lot.
Soon, while listening to the news that GPs were about to start a work-to-rule and Sir Starmer was going to ensure that all old people who’d voted Tory in the election would be frozen to death this winter, I nearly had a crash.
I was on a main road and the red traffic lights ahead were completely obscured by overhanging branches. That never used to happen. It does now. And we’ve learned to accept it.
We’ve also learned to accept that the train won’t arrive, that the motorway will be closed and that when we get to the airport for our much-needed holiday, we will have to step over some saggy Just Stop Oil herbert in a pride hat.
I wonder, though, how much longer will we put up with the collapse of the country before something is done.
And I don’t mean putting a solar panel on the roof and subjecting school fees to VAT. Because, contrary to what you’ve been told, that’s not enough.
Who is in the right?
WHEN I lived in London’s Notting Hill, working in the media, I was a remainer and so were all my friends.
It literally didn’t occur to us, as we sat down there in our agreeable houses eating agreeable food that someone might vote to leave.
And I think the same thing is happening again.
Today, I’m surrounded by farmers and plasterers and brickies and butchers and all I hear, all day long, is that there’s too much immigration.
But if they say this out loud, or if they go on a march, they are told by the London elite that they are far-right extremists or racist thugs.
For the most part, they’re not. They are just people who know that they have to shut up when the Last Post is played and that a cheese rolling down a hill is funny.
There was a time you’d have called them the salt of the earth.
But Sir Starmer doesn’t seem to have grasped this.
He is surrounded by people who see nothing wrong with immigration and he’s got it into his head – as I did with Brexit – that anyone who disagrees with him must be some kind of Trump-nut.
The fact is though that four million people voted for Reform. More than that voted for Brexit. And he’s p***ing them off by labelling them as modern-day Hitlers.
I therefore suggest that both he and his friends at the BBC calm down the rhetoric or we could be heading for some real trouble.
Loo tip beats a drum
LAST night, it was hot. Damn hot. So I threw open the bedroom windows, which made everything half a degree cooler.
And also allowed me to hear the bass drum from whichever band was performing at the Wilderness Festival about five miles away.
If I was a NIMBY, I’d ask someone to put a stop to this nonsense.
But instead, I had a bottle of wine and shoved some bog roll in my ears. And slept like a top.
For sale: One, er, careful owner
KATIE PRICE is selling her entire car collection, apparently.
Well, I’ve done a quick calculation and having had a look at her pink Range Rover and crashed BMW, I reckon she could trouser £8.75.
Try fine for Huw
THERE seems to be some discussion about how we can get our hands on the £200,000 of our money that was paid to Huw Edwards by the BBC after his arrest last year.
According to Tim Davie, the Director- General of the Beeb, it’s fraught with difficulties.
But is it? Why not have a quiet word with the judge who sentences Edwards and suggest that, in addition to whatever punishment he has in mind, a fine might be in order.
A fine of ooh, let’s think – £200,000?
Good memories? Sounds fishy to me . . .
WE learned this week that, contrary to popular belief, fish have pretty good memories.
Tests have shown they can remember stuff that happened months earlier.
Really? I only ask because why does a salmon get fooled by a completely unconvincing, man-made fly then, five minutes after being thrown back, think: “Yummy, those feathers wrapped up in that cotton thread look delicious.”