I
have watched two box sets
on Netflix recently. One
was about a conman and
the other was about a
conwoman, and in both
cases I was left thinking,
“How does anyone have the
brain capacity to live a life
like that?”
In the first, called The
Tinder Swindler, there
was a disgusting weasel from
Israel who kept a string of
European girls on the go, and
then somehow convinced
them to give him all the
money they had, and a lot
of money they didn’t have, so
that he could buy awful clothes
and use private jets to get from
shag to shag. And all the time
I was thinking, “How come
he doesn’t get muddled up
from time to time?”Then there was Inventing
Anna, which was about a girl
who convinced a bunch of
extremely stupid art and
fashion people in New York that
she was a German heiress, and
as a result they lent her their
boats and jets and hotel suites.
And again I was thinking, “How
much spare capacity must this
girl have in her head to keep all
those plates spinning?”
Imagine what life would be
like if you had to remember,
when you ran into someone at
a party, how much you owed
them, what lies you’d told and
what excuse you’d given
for not paying them back.
It’s impossible even to
contemplate. Me? I sat opposite
a very funny chap at lunch the
other day and secretly had to
google clues from ourconversation even to come up
with his name.
I therefore had great respect
for the conman and the
conwoman, in the same way
that I have great respect for the
businessman who sits on lots of
different boards, and bosses
who have to run their companies
while dealing with the mental
health issues of every single
employee. It must be exhausting.
I get worn out if I’m wiring a
plug and someone asks me for
the time. I’m never able to reset
my head so there’s a blank piece
of paper inside it. It’s always
full of doodles from the last
thing I was doing, and phone
numbers and notes for columns
I must write later in the week.
I wonder if politicians have the
same issues when a new crisis
comes along. I suspect they do.FA R M I N G●Jeremy Clarkson
The fertiliser crisis has given me
99 problems — and I can’t fix one