Jeremy Clarkson takes the piss out of the Honda Insight

[garbon]

Me too.  Let's make the planet uninhabitable as quickly as possible.

...

oh wait.

[Ancient Demon]

This whole "green" fad can't end soon enough for me. 

Me too.  Let's make the planet uninhabitable as quickly as possible.

That wasn't what I meant.

[Martinus]

The actual advantages or disadvantages of this car notwithstanding, I just want to say that the only thing Jeremy Clarkson is fit to do, is to get torn to pieces by a pack of rabid dogs.

[Slargos]

The actual advantages or disadvantages of this car notwithstanding, I just want to say that the only thing Jeremy Clarkson is fit to do, is to get torn to pieces by a pack of rabid dogs.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you have some sort of evidence to indicate he is against faggotry in some fashion?

Perhaps he didn't like that homo cowboy movie? bareback mountain?

[grumbler]

The author of the review sounds like someone who spent much more energy coming up with unique insults than he did objectively evaluating the car.

That's pretty much his schtick.  He is an entertainer (and very entertaining he is, too).  Rather like Ben Croshaw.

[Brazen]

Actually the first Clarkson piece I've read through to the end without wanting to punch anyone.

[Brazen]

The fruitcake host from Top Gear(May or whatever his name is) loved it.

James May. Started his career working at the same magazine as me.*

*Brought to you by the Brazen name-drop-o-matic

[Monoriu]

The Corolla was, is, and will always be the best car. 

[MadBurgerMaker]

If those little things are the leaves growing on trees, I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed. 

[Ed Anger]

He writes like I froth.

Okay, you've got me bang to rights – I'm a secret green
Jeremy Clarkson

Last week, in this newspaper, I was outed as a recycler, a man who composts his tea bags, eats wasps and spends most of his days tutting in supermarkets at the Day-Glo orangeness of the carrots. Or, to put it another way, a damned hypocrite.

Well, I'm sorry, but if the newspaper is going to publish these accusations, then I am surely allowed to reply. Yes, I do recycle. Yes, I do eat wasps, if they've burrowed into my apples. And yes, I do get so angry in supermarkets that often I leave my half-filled trolley in the spices aisle and come home empty-handed.

There's more. On Wednesday I spent most of the morning demanding to see the manager of a restaurant in which each individual sugar lump was wrapped in its own plastic sleeping bag. "Why," I wailed, "do you buy sugar this way?" Using plastic to wrap sugar just means more litter and ultimately less diesel for my Range Rover.

And there's the problem. Because these days the rules state that you are either completely green or you are not green at all. The whole movement has been hijacked by lunatics who want everyone to live in crofts and Facebook trees.

Excuse me, but I have yet to be convinced that man's paltry 3% contribution to the planet's bank of carbon dioxide affects the climate. And furthermore, I do not share the view that a rise in global temperatures is necessarily a bad thing. For instance, I believe a parrot would be a more interesting Cotswold garden bird than a sparrow.

As a result, I'm still the same man who dreams of running amok on the set of Mamma Mia! with a large-calibre machinegun. I'm still the man who wondered what my dead tortoise would taste like. And I'm still the man who lights his patio heater in April and leaves it burning non-stop till Bonfire Night.

However, I am also the man who likes to poke restaurant managers in the forehead when they bring me individually wrapped sugar lumps. And I will continue to fill supermarket trolleys and then leave them for some halfwit to unload again after I've stormed out in disgust at the sheer quantity of entirely unnecessary packaging.

Wal-Mart reckons that a third of all consumer waste in America comes from packaging and says it is committed to reducing its use by 5%. That sounds noble, but why only 5%? Why not completely? Why do we have to buy apples in a polythene bag? Why do all toys have to come in their own moulded plastic display box? And why, if they do, does the plastic have to be of such thickness that many car firms would not even use it to make a bumper?

I recently bought something called a Black Widow slingshot. It's a catapult that fires ball bearings with devastating force. I was very much looking forward to blatting a few pigeons with it. But I cannot get through the plastic case in which it was sold. Scissors just break. My Strimmer became jammed. And dynamite is ineffective. I would very much like to meet the man who chose to seal his product this way, and kill him.

The list of my issues is endless. Why is milk served in a plastic thimble and not a jug? What's the matter with greaseproof paper for sandwiches? Why do hotels serve jam in one-cubic-inch jars? And why do DVDs come in an impregnable Cellophane wrapper? It's not like they're going to rot.

It's not just packaging either. I am particularly partial to a radish, and as a result I grow my own, in my own vegetable garden. Well, obviously, I don't grow them. A man does. But it's my bit of land and I'm the one who nourishes it by composting coffee grounds and old copies of The Guardian.

Anyway, the radishes I grow may be full of worm holes and covered in mud but pop one into your mouth and it feels like your tongue is stuck in a gin trap. Peppery is too sprightly a word to describe the savagery of their kick. This is how a radish should be. And watercress.

And now we get to the miserable offerings sold by supermarkets, in plastic bags. They taste of absolutely nothing. You would be better off eating the plate on which they are served. They are nothing more than cross-trainers for your mouth, something to do when you're not smoking.

I would like to meet the people responsible for this. I would like them to try one of my radishes and one of my chicken's eggs, and I would like them to eat watercress straight from the beck in Appletreewick. And then I would like to stand, with my hands on my hips, and demand an explanation.

Make no mistake. I hate anything labelled organic. I deliberately won't buy Fairtrade crisps. Or anything with a pithy nuclear-free, multicultural slogan. I loathe the movement, but I love, with all my heart, the destination. And this from a man who blasted his taste buds to kingdom come with nicotine by the time he was 26. This from a man who cannot tell the difference between chicken and fish.

So yes, I recycle and I grow my own eggs, and I harvest my barley field from the inside out, so that any of the birds in there have a chance to flee. But all of these things are my choice. I would not dream of banning supermarket radishes or the bags in which they come. I would not set up a website for like-minded individuals. I would not go on a march.

I get on with these little things quietly, because if I made a noise and a fuss I would be labelled an environmentalist. Which is a terrible, hideous, beardy label for unwashed communists.

Nobody wants that, and this highlights something rather interesting. If the eco-ists would only shut up, I wonder if the sound of their droning would be replaced by the sound of normal people fitting solar panels and making soup from nettles and twigs.

[KRonn]

Good article Ed. 

Highlights some of the frustrations.Such as about packaging, which absolutely drives me nuts. Some of it is supposed to be "child proof" I guess, but kids would likely figure out how to get through it because I know I can't! Or the plastic cocoon surrounding it is just obscene, requiring so much hacking and cutting to get through to the product which probably cost less than the package did. 

Then the environ movement, which seems so annoying. Everything is a "green" product, regardless if it really is better at all. Green sells, even if you pay more for it and it isn't greener to make, or use. Perhaps such as US ethyl gas, made from corn, and costs about as much energy to make as to use. And the inefficient industry is subsidized by tax money, further compounding the expense of it. But hey, it's "green"!!  And we put tariffs on imports of sugar ethanol from other countries, to protect our home grown business?

Now, who knows anything about those CFL(sp?) lightbulbs that Congress is mandating we use by 2012 or so? The cork screw shaped ones, made with mercury, and if you break one the damn thing is dangerous to handle and clean up, dispose of? Is this in the name of "green"?

[Valmy]

This whole "green" fad can't end soon enough for me. 

I agree.  Most green products are scams.  I want to see real substantial changes to make our lifestyle more sustainable and less reliant on politically and economically destructive oil.  The whole green marketing and feel good bullshit though just pisses me off.  It is like drinking a diet soft drink while eating piles of fried chicken claiming you are eating healthy.

I get on with these little things quietly, because if I made a noise and a fuss I would be labelled an environmentalist. Which is a terrible, hideous, beardy label for unwashed communists.

Nobody wants that, and this highlights something rather interesting. If the eco-ists would only shut up, I wonder if the sound of their droning would be replaced by the sound of normal people fitting solar panels and making soup from nettles and twigs.

Amen brother.

[Valmy]

The actual advantages or disadvantages of this car notwithstanding, I just want to say that the only thing Jeremy Clarkson is fit to do, is to get torn to pieces by a pack of rabid dogs.

Why?

Let me guess he once said something that got your panties in a wad about gays amiright?

[DGuller]

Now, who knows anything about those CFL(sp?) lightbulbs that Congress is mandating we use by 2012 or so? The cork screw shaped ones, made with mercury, and if you break one the damn thing is dangerous to handle and clean up, dispose of? Is this in the name of "green"?

You may be barking up the wrong tree here.  Incadescent light bulbs are the pinnacle of inefficiency.  They are only 2% efficient compared to 10% efficiency of the CFL lamps.  Considering the amount of energy used just for lighting, those are enormous energy savings.  The mercury threat is overblown, and burning coal to power the vastly inefficient incadescent bulbs releases mercury as well.

[Berkut]

The pinnacle if inefficiency?

I thought that was Tim?