The Sunday Times Magazine - UK (2022-02-13)

50 • The Sunday Times Magazine

Stop faffing with the

tech — just drive it

Driving

Jeremy Clarkson

T

hey’ve fitted my new house

with a central heating system

that’s controlled by an iPad. So,

without leaving the kitchen table,

I can choose precisely what

temperature I want in every single

room and at what time I want

each of the rooms to be colder,

or warmer, and by how much.

I think I’m right in saying that

it’s by far the most annoying

thing I’ve encountered in my

entire life. It’s so frustrating and

complicated that I’m tempted

to turn the whole system off and

control the temperature using

jumpers and coal instead.

When you’re in a house there

The Clarkson Review: Audi RS 3

are only three possible options.

You are too warm or you are too

cold or you are just right. So all

you ever need is a Bakelite knob

on the wall in the hall that turns

everything up or down and

radiators in each room that can

be turned on and off using a well-

proven tap type arrangement.

My new house doesn’t have

radiators, though. It has underfloor

heating, which hurts my feet. It

also takes two hours to warm up,

which means I start to think it isn’t

working. So I get out the iPad and

ask for more heat until eventually

it’s like being Joan of Arc, and the

only way I can cool down is by

opening all the windows and

heating half of north Oxfordshire.

Naturally, this endless shift in

temperature means the floor and

the doors are all buckling, and all

because someone aged 12 looked

at a simple, old-fashioned

thermostat knob and thought,

“You know what? The customer

needs more choice.”

No. The customer does not

need more choice. He needs a

qualified engineer to figure out

a system that works and then sell

it. For this reason I also don’t

want the dimmer switches that

I’ve ended up with. Partly because

they’re too complicated and

partly because I either want to see

what I’m doing or I don’t. And

partly because dimmer switches

are disgusting.

Choice doesn’t even work with

government any more. In this

country we are offered the option

of a man who doesn’t know he’s

at a party and a man whose hair is

made of Lego. In America they

had a man who wouldn’t lose and

a man who is never really awake.

Whereas in China, the most

successful country of them all,

there is no choice at all.

In cars this obsession with

giving us choice is now completely

out of control. Even when it

comes to something simple such

as heating. Because carmakers are

Price

Power

0-62mph

Top speed

Head to

head

Audi RS 3 Sportback v

Mercedes-AMG A 45 S

4MATIC+

£54,405

394bhp

£57,885

421bhp

3.8sec 3.9sec

155mph 168mph