I
was coming home from the
pub the other night when
I saw a car parked at the side
of the road, in the middle of
nowhere, next to what I call
“the Big Wood”. And as
there have been reports in
recent weeks of poachers in
the area, I thought it might
be prudent to stop to see
what was what.
So I pulled up alongside the
car and inside was a young man
who was using one hand to
smoke a large joint and the
other to, how can I put this,
frantically pleasure himself.
Lisa and I had time to exchange
a smile before the young man
realised we were there, stopped
what he was doing and lowered
his window. “Oh my God,” he
said. “You’re Jeremy Clarkson.”Now at this point a normal
person would have made all
sorts of mumbled excuses about
how they’d pulled over because
they’d had an, um, itch and had
decided, while scratching it
furiously to, er, light a perfectly
legal roll-up. But instead the
young man said coolly, “I wish
we could have met in different
circumstances.”
I still chuckle when I think of
this exchange. Which is good
because, in other news, my
rape’s gone wrong. Which will
come as no surprise to those
who say it was idiotic to try
to grow it in the first place.
A few years ago oilseed rape
became such a useful rotational
crop for farmers that when
you flew over the countryside
it was like England had becomea yellow and pleasant land. And
not only was it good for the soil
but it could also be used to feed
cows and make biodiesel and
extremely healthy vegetable oil.
And then along came the
EU, which said that the
neonicotinoid seed coating
used to protect the crop from
insects was seriously buggering
up the bee population, and
banned it. Rightly so, in my view.
Without neonics, of course,
the crop was at serious risk of
being eaten before it had even
had much of a chance to get
out of the ground, and as a
result many farmers started
growing something else instead.
But I persevered and two years
ago lost an entire field to the
flea beetle. Hours of work.
Thousands of pounds. Wasted.FA R M I N G●Jeremy Clarkson
When it comes to growing crops,
the grass is always greener next door