IT’S difficult to keep up with the pontifications of nature enthusiast Chris Packham these days.
He seems to find everything annoying.
In a recent rant, he had a go at Taylor Swift, saying that instead of using private jets on her tour, she should fly commercially.
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What this proves is that Mr Packham simply doesn’t understand the real world.
Ms Swift’s tour is enormous. One day she was in Zurich, then she’d be off to Stockholm and London and Dublin and Paris and I’m sorry, but as anyone who’s used an aeroplane in the last few years knows, this sort of schedule would have been impossible if she’d used BA or Ryanair or whatever.
She would either have been late for every gig, or not there at all, or in Copenhagen when she was supposed to be in Vancouver.
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But there’s more to it than that. And this is something else Mr Packham can’t grasp.
Taylor Swift is so famous that going through an ordinary airport to catch an ordinary plane would be impossible.
If she stopped for every selfie-hunter, she’d miss the plane. And if she didn’t she’d be torn to shreds on social media for being rude and lah-di-dah.
So what Mr Packham is doing by kind of ordering her to fly with the masses is tantamount to bullying. Because she can’t.
Packham is reasonably well known among the nation’s ramblers and bingo enthusiasts, but he has no knowledge of what it’s like to be properly famous. So famous that you are physically mobbed by a braying hoard wherever you are in the world.
Remote villages in Africa. In the malls of the Middle East. On the streets of Rome. There is no escape, ever.
Fame has its advantages of course. Money and great restaurant tables.
Tire of the abuse
But when you’re properly famous, it’s a prison. A luxury prison for sure, but a prison nonetheless.
Look at Lewis Hamilton. When I first met him, shortly after the Battle of Trafalgar I think, he was a great kid.
Wide-eyed, polite and not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve. I thought he was fab.
But then he got famous. Really famous. Not Packham famous. Clooney famous.
So now, he arrives at the race track every other weekend on a scooter so no one can stop him, and he’s wearing ear buds so he can pretend he can’t hear the fans’ demands for a selfie.
He’s even imprisoned when he’s in front of camera, having to make sure that he always seems reasonable and woke and grateful as he lives in the sustainable moment while supporting trans rights for hard-working families in the community.
Further down the fame ladder, you’ve got Max Verstappen who’s not in the same prison yet.
So he effs and blinds and refuses to apologise afterwards.
I met him for the first time recently and couldn’t believe what a straightforward, normal guy he is.
But it won’t last.
Soon, he’ll tire of the abuse he gets from the fans for effing and blinding and refusing to say sorry, and shortly after that he’ll realise it’s easier when you are in fame prison to ride a scooter and wear ear buds.
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He’ll realise that, like Lewis and Taylor have, the only way to keep the fans happy is to avoid them.
I can’t imagine that Chris Packham will ever become a Formula One world champion but I know he likes music so I hope one day he releases an album that propels him to global superstardom.
I hope he gets all the riches of Araby and fawning adulation wherever he goes.
Because then we’d see how long it’d take him to ask his agent to book a G5.
Line Of Fire versus Trumped-up reality
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I WAS disappointed to find out from the boss of the American secret service this week that the movie, In The Line Of Fire, isn’t entirely accurate.
In the real world, Clint Eastwood would have dived to the floor and taken the president’s shoes off.
And Rene Russo would have been a librarian lookalike who couldn’t get a gun in her holster.
And meanwhile, their boss would have insisted that they got John Malkovich’s pronouns right before shooting back.
Sting in the tale
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IT seems that some ramblers are saying I’ve deliberately placed bee hives near a public footpath on my farm to stop people using it.
Horse s**t. I have bee hives all over the farm – placed not to deter Liberal Democrats but because the plants growing nearby are suitable.
Could people be stung? Yup, probably, if they mess about.
Do I care? Not especially.
What they haven’t realised is that next to another footpath about a mile away, I have a sodding great bull called Endgame.
And if you annoy him, he won’t sting you. He will turn you into pate.
In short, the countryside is full of dangers.
If you don’t like that, go to a waterpark instead.
Swede FA on telly
SIR PETER Bazalgette, a giant in the world of television, announced this week that if the BBC is to compete with the US streaming giants, it must merge, not just with ITV, C4 and C5 but also with major European broadcasters as well.
I wonder what such a service might look like though.
You’d have The Repair Shop followed by a naked Italian lady hosting an incomprehensible game show. Then, after another episode of The Repair Shop, there’d be a black and white French film called Is The Ham Happy?
Then, after an episode of The Repair Shop, we’d have a Swede in a jumper staring at a lake for three hours. Followed by The Repair Shop.
I’m not sure this would be terribly popular, but then again, my name isn’t Bazalgette.
That’s a family that is usually pretty spot-on with its predictions
It was a Bazalgette who created the Thames Embankment and all the sewers in London, and it was another member of the same family who was lead guitarist on a song called Turning Japanese.
Which is apparently about w*nking.
Catchy though.
We all need to chill . . .
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THINGS are out of control in America, where no one seems to have a clue about either of the potential presidents’ policies.
Nato? We have a vague idea that Trump’s not in favour of supporting Europe and that Kamala Harris doesn’t really know where Europe is.
But beyond this? The economy? Health care? Immigration? China?
I hear a lot of hysterical opinion from people on social media but no actual facts from the two people involved, right. Because what’s happening here is a war between woke and not-woke.
And to be woke you have to be very woke.
And to be not-woke you have to be very not-woke.
Which is why we heard Trump’s new deputy saying that the Democrats are now run by “childless cat ladies”.
And Harris saying something so jumbled up and stupid, I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
It’s all madness. And it’s making the world mad too.
I know people in California who are losing their jobs because they support Trump.
And I met a girl last week in London who hasn’t spoken to her parents for five years because she thinks they might be Tory.
We really do all need to settle down.
