Free Clarkson on Cars by Jeremy Clarkson Page A

new pub but there isn’t one.
    So I bought the Wayfarer.
    There is a veritable and unplumbed ocean of reasons why no one should ever use one of these antiquated deathtraps for getting around, but the fact remains that, when you’re blind drunk, they make a deal of sense. For a kick off, you can’t lose your driving licence; but, more importantly, you can’t do much damage when you accidentally run into something.
    In fact, for drunkards, the bicycle is bettered by only two other forms of transport: the pram and the sedan chair.
    Sure, I considered both these, but was forced to discount the pram idea when I couldn’t find one seven feet long, and the sedan chair when my staff inexplicably declined to carry me around in it.
    So I went into a second-hand shop with £30 and emerged a few minutes later with the Wayfarer in tow.
    Now before you dismiss me as a damned traitor to the cause of performance motoring, I must stress that I will continue to drive as I always have done: in other words, with no regard whatsoever for those who use the roads without paying tax.
    I am fully aware every time I mount the mighty Raleigh that I am a guest in the motor vehicle’s territory and must learn to get out of its way.
    So do not expect a barrage of whinges and moans about how the Mamito Honi lot in their rusty Jap boxes couldn’t judge the width of their cars if you gave them a theodolite, a computer, a tape measure and six weeks.
    Nor should you think that this is to be a stream of abuse directed in the general direction of lightly warmed hatchback scramblers, who seem to think that they’re going backwards unless movement is accompanied by large quantities of wailing rubber.
    And I am not about to criticise the Archies and the Sids in their Maggie-wagon taxis who are too busy haranguing their fares about how ‘there are too many A-rabs in the country’ and how ‘Mrs Thatcher – Gawd bless ’er – has set the country on its feet again’ to notice cyclists – even when they’re 200 feet tall and 60 feet wide like me.
    I was going to lambast London Regional Transport for their inability to make a bus work without it leaving the sort of smoke screen the navy use in the heat of battle, but what the hell, they’ve got a job to do. And, like I said, the road is for motor vehicles, not for cyclists on an Alpen trip.
    I’m not all that bothered, either, about the drivers of artics who need an area the size of Wales to turn left. No, the breed I hate most while astride the Wayfarer are the breed I hate most when I’m driving my car. People in vans.
    There are always three of them in the front, and while I am an active campaigner for the abolition of all speed limits, I really do have to concede that they travel far too quickly.
    It seems sensible to make them forfeit one limb for every wing mirror they smash. The fifth offence should lead them straight to the guillotine. I mean, if they can’t steer their van through a gap without removing the mirrors from whatever it is they’re going between then they should either slow down or get spectacles.
    Do they not realise that little old me on the Wayfarer is a good deal less stable than a nuclear power station with Ray Charles at the controls? Can they not see that my centre of gravity is higher up than the tip of the CB aerial on their Transit and that, as a result, a sudden breeze or a momentary lapse in concentration could have me veering wildly from side to side like an SDP MP or, as has happened on six occasions to date, falling off?
    What I’ve learned to do when I hear the unmistakable sounds that herald the imminent arrival of a Garymobile – megabel stereo, graunching gears and 94-zillion-rpm engine – is to dismount and walk along the pavement for a while.
    Trouble is, if I encounter six vans in my mile-long journey, then I may as well not bother taking the Wayfarer out in the first place because I’ll spend most of the time pushing it.
    Anyway, all this is of no