And another thing--: the world according to Clarkson by Jeremy Clarkson Read Free Book Online

work result in broken bones. (Is that so?) And that somebody falls over in this country every three minutes, which, they argue, incurs an incalculable human cost.
    No it doesn’t. The human cost of the Holocaust was incalculable, whereas I fell down the stairs only yesterday and it cost nothing. There’s more, too. Just last week the lift doors at the BBC’s White City building closed on my knee and wouldn’t open again. And the bruise I received was completely free.
    Still, the HSE says that simple cost-effective steps can be taken to ensure that nobody trips. Spillages, they say, must be managed, suitable footwear should be fitted, effective matting systems must be used, offices must be redesigned and workers must be retrained. Cost-effective? How can it be when the staff do nothing all day except work to stay upright?
    Health and safety is now so out of control that I find it nearly impossible to do my job. Certainly the series I made a few years ago called
Extreme Machines
simply couldn’t be produced today.
    Back then, we gave the sound recordist a heart attack when we asked him to abseil off an oil tanker at 3 a.m. in the middle of a Cape of Good Hope storm. We put the cameraman in such a position that he fell off a 1,000-bhp swamp buggy in Florida and then, after we got the mud out of his lungs, we wedged him in a two-seat Spitfire that ran out of fuel at 5,000 feet.
    I climbed into drag-racing snowmobiles and fighter jets without a moment’s thought. Yes, it was dangerous, but it was fun. We knew the risks and we took them because a) it was a laugh, and b) hopefully it made great telly.
    Nowadays, though, producers must fill in a hazard assessment form before they go on a shoot. They have to show that they’ve thought about all the safety implicationsand if there’s a breach, they – not the BBC – are liable. Result: they won’t take any risks at all.
    On
Top Gear
, we refer to the Health and Safety people as the PPD. The Programme Prevention Department.
    Sunday 11 April 2004

Getting totally wrecked at sea isn’t a crime
    Oh no. The government has begun a four-month consultation period to see if weekend sailors pottering about on the Solent or the Norfolk Broads should be stopped and breathalysed.
    Now, I can see that it might be difficult to drive a tank while under the influence of heroin. And I understand that Huw Edwards would find it tricky to read the Autocue if he were off his face on acid. But sailing a boat, on the sea, after a few wines? I’m sorry, but that doesn’t sound hard at all.
    Sure, there was the case of the drunken Icelandic trawlerman who crashed into a British couple’s yacht, causing damage that cost £25,000 to put right. A year later he sailed over to apologise and, having drunk some wine on the voyage, crashed into their boat again.
    I think that’s quite funny, but of course those of a busybodying disposition won’t.
    And then they will point to the recent case of a captain who smashed his dredger into the pier at Hythe, having downed six pints of lager. The Methodist Mariners will also mention ‘drunken yobs’ on jet skis terrorising swimmers.
    All very worthy, I’m sure, but unfortunately the consultation paper also implies that ordinary sailors will be entangled in the legislation. And that would be a shame.
    Only the other day I went for a small sail. We set off at the obligatory 45 degrees, an angle at which it’s impossible to drink, as your glass keeps falling off the table. And anyway, every time you fancy a swig, the captain decides to ‘go about’ or ‘gybe’ and you have to rush around pulling the wrong rope.
    Still, at lunchtime, we parked, broke out the rum punches (it was Barbados) and spent the afternoon getting plastered in the sunshine. Is this not what sailing’s all about?
    Certainly, Olivier de Kersauson, the eminent French yachtsman, thinks that’s what the British do. He took me out on his huge trimaran a couple of years ago and explained