And another thing--: the world according to Clarkson by Jeremy Clarkson

Author:Jeremy Clarkson [Clarkson, Jeremy]
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Great Britain, English wit and humor, Humor / General
ISBN: 9780718150075
Publisher: MICHAEL JOSEPH
Published: 2006-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Sunday 19 December 2004

The ghost of wife’s present

Obviously I know you should never buy your wife anything that needs a plug, but this has always presented a problem. Because I’ve always had some understanding of stuff that needed electricity to function, and had no clue about stuff that didn’t.

Scent, for example. Have you actually been into the perfume department of a shop recently? Not only do you have the traditional choice of about 10,000 from the well-known names such as Chanel and er… Charlie, all of which, to a smoker at least, are exactly the same, but now you have celebrity-endorsed products as well.

Does your wife want to smell like Beyoncé or Celine Dion?

Or would she like to spend the year strutting around with a whiff of Cliff Richard behind her ears?

Horrified that you might trip over the great smell of Kilroy – or Cuprinol, as it’s known in hardware stores – you make a beeline for the clothes department; but this is an even bigger mistake, because you’ll Buy the Wrong Thing. And, to make matters worse, you will Buy the Wrong Thing in the Wrong Size.

So, jewellery then. Well, no, because for reasons I’ve never fully understood jewellery shops never advertise their prices. Which means you need a basic grasp of the Stanislavski technique as you try to pretend the reason you don’t want the necklace is because of the clasp, not because it costs £16,000.

Personalised luggage or stationery is fine, but this needs to be ordered in March.

And it’s much the same story with furniture. Plus, it’s hard to carry a tallboy home on the train.

Of course, the shop can deliver, but this involves filling out a form, and then another. And then some more. And then the information has to be typed on to a computer, and by the time that’s been done the daffodils are out. Why can’t they just write your address down on a scrap of paper and give it to the van driver?

At round about this point the modern gentleman will start to think about getting some candles. We all know that girls like to spend hours having baths in the semidarkness, and we cannot imagine what they might be doing in there. Well, we can, actually, which is why I always say no to candles.

I’m afraid I’m similarly selfish when it comes to music. My wife is forever buying CDs by bands I’ve never heard of and I know she wants the new Killers album, but if I were to buy it for her, she’d play it, and then I’d have to listen to it as well.

Books? Oh, come on. It seems a bit mean to spend only £7.99, especially as the sort of books my wife likes don’t even come with a plot.

This is why I didn’t even bother window-shopping for my wife this year. I just headed straight for the electrical department in Selfridges, where I knew I would feel safe and warm and comfortable.

Unfortunately, I must have blinked

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