Is It Really Too Much To Ask?: The World According to Clarkson Volume 5 by Clarkson Jeremy

Author:Clarkson, Jeremy [Clarkson, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: azw
ISBN: 9781405914147
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-09-25T23:00:00+00:00

Down periscope! I’ve found an airtight way to quit smoking

Over the years, I’ve done pretty well all the 100 things you’re supposed to do before you die.

I’ve vomited in a fast jet, met Nelson Mandela.

Broken a bone, been arrested and driven a pick-up truck across the English Channel.

However, there is one piece of the jigsaw missing: I’ve never been on a nuclear-powered hunter-killer attack submarine.

Most people say that subs are their idea of hell.

Living in a narrow tube, hundreds of feet below the churning sea, pooing in plain view, sharing a bunk that’s a bit too small with another man and knowing that your wife is at home porking the postman and that you won’t have anything remotely interesting to do until your family and everyone you know has been turned into a whiff of irradiated dust.

Pah! If the balloon were to go up tomorrow, I’d break out my white polo neck and join the submarine service in a heartbeat. I know the Royal Navy once dismissed subs as ‘underhand and ungentlemanly’ but that’s precisely why I like them. You sneak up on an enemy, in big, atomic, softly-softly slippers, flick his ear and then run off and hide. He simply won’t know you are there until he has exploded.

And have you ever seen a bad submarine film? Crimson Tide. Morning Departure. Das Boot. It is impossible to make an underwater movie dreary. Unless you are the Beatles, of course.

As a result of all this, I was very excited when I was invited recently to spend some time aboard the brand-new HMS Astute. I knew that early in its life it had crashed into Scotland and then been hit by the tug that came to rescue it. Really it should have been called HMS Vulnerable. But I didn’t care. I wanted to spend time on a vessel that is as long as a football pitch but which can barrel along, in reverential silence, at more than thirty knots.

Sadly, the trip was cancelled because of what the navy called a ‘technical problem’. This turned out, I think, to be a crew member who had run into the control room and opened fire with an SA80 assault rifle. Maybe a better name would have been HMS Unlucky.

No matter. I did not hesitate when another opportunity presented itself. This time, I would join Astute as it sailed past Key West in Florida to conduct a test-firing of its missiles. Can you honestly imagine anything you’d like to do more than that? Well, Anne Diamond probably could. And those people on Loose Women. But I couldn’t and so I packed my little bag and last weekend headed over to Miami.

Unfortunately, by the time I arrived, HMS Unreliable had had another ‘technical problem’. It had flooded, apparently, and was limping north for repairs. So I spent the night in an airport hotel, watched The Hunt for Red October and, with a little tear in my eye, came home again.

It wasn’t just the disappointment that made me sad, or the wasted trip to Florida.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.