Temat: Clarkson w Polsce

From The Sunday Times April 18, 2010

Hounded by the ash cloud on my escape from Colditz to Blighty Jeremy Clarkson


On Thursday morning I woke up in Colditz castle, drove to Poland and found that I couldn’t fly back to England as planned because all of northern Europe was shrouded in a cloud of ash that was thick enough to bring down a jetliner. But, mysteriously, not so thick that it was actually visible.

Brussels, then. That would be the answer. We’d drive at 180mph on the limit-free autobahns to Berlin, fly to Belgium and catch the Eurostar to London.

This, however, turned out to be ambitious, because the only vehicle we could lay our hands on was a knackered Volkswagen van that had a top speed of four. So Prague, then. That was nearer. Yes. We’d start from there instead.

Unfortunately, the index of our map was broken down into countries. And we didn't actually know which country we were in. We’d see a sign for Lückendorf, so I’d look it up in the index. But would it be filed under Germany, Poland or the Czech Republic? And how would it be spelt? The Germans may call it Lückendorf but the Poles might call it something entirely different. In much the same way that people in India call Bombay “Bombay”. But the BBC insists on calling it “Mumbai”.

By the time I’d decided Lückendorf doesn’t really exist, we’d found a sign for Bogatynia and that doesn’t seem to exist, either. The confusion meant that pretty soon we were on a farm track, our path blocked by a tractor that seemed to be scooping mud from a field and putting it onto the road. This encouraged us, since it seemed like a very un-German thing to do and all the Poles are in my bathroom at the moment. We had, therefore, to be near Praha, as the BBC doesn’t call it. But should.

We were and our worries seemed to be over. But they weren’t. By this stage the invisible cloud of ash had settled on Belgium and Brussels airport was closed. No matter, we decided. We shall go to Paris and catch the train from there.

Oh, no, we wouldn’t. We learnt that all the Eurostar trains were choc-full but we figured that would be okay. We’d fly to Paris, rent a car and we’d drive home in that. Job done.

To celebrate we went for a beer. I had a lot, if I’m honest, because I wanted to be too drunk to drive this last leg. I had so many that after a while Barclaycard decided it’d be fun to cancel my credit card. And I couldn’t phone to explain that if it didn’t turn the credit back on again, I’d come round to its offices with an axe. Because by this stage my phone was out of bullets. And then we found that our plane was due to land at Charles de Gaulle just five minutes before that shut down, too. Any delay would be catastrophic.

Normally, people getting onto a plane are fairly polite. We’re happy to stand in the aisle for hours while people try to fit the dishwasher they’ve bought into the overhead locker. I chose not to be so patient on this occasion, though, and as a result there were many injuries. But because of the violence, the plane took off on time and landed just before the Paris shutdown was due to begin.

By now I was Cardiff-on-a-Saturday-night drunk. And fairly desperate for a pee. But not so desperate that I failed to realise the gravity of the situation at Charles de Gaulle. You know those final moments in Titanic when the ship is finally going down? Well, it was nothing like that. It was worse.

In the baggage claim was a pretty girl asking if anyone could give her a lift to North Jutland. In the main concourse were businessmen begging rides to Amsterdam. And everyone was being approached by dodgy-looking north Africans with gold teeth and promises of taxis to anywhere. For you, my friend, special price.

Of particular note were the queues of people pointing and shouting at airline staff as though they were responsible somehow for the eruption. This seemed like an odd thing to do. I very much encourage assault, verbal or otherwise, on useless members of staff who won’t help. But yelling will not bring order to the planet’s mantle.

It’s funny, isn’t it? The airports had only been closed for six hours and society was cracking up. Not that I cared much about this because we had secured the last rental car in the whole airport and were in a rush to catch the midnight train from Calais. This meant there was no time for a pee.

By Senlis, my bladder was very full. By Lille, the pressure had become so great the contents had turned to amber. Ever peed from the window of a moving car? I have. It came out as pebbles. But it was worth it because at three in the morning I climbed into my own bed at home. Five countries. Planes. Trains and automobiles. And all because Mother Nature burped.

There is a warning here, because on the volcanic explosivity index (VEI) — which goes from one to eight — the eruption at Eyjafjallajokull will probably be classified as a two. And yet it shut down every airport in northern Europe. There are much bigger volcanoes in Iceland. They could, in theory, shut the whole world down for years.

Let’s not forget that back in 1980 Mount St Helens in Washington state blew with a VEI rating of five. It was a huge blast but only local air traffic was affected.

What’s changed, of course, is our attitude to safety, brought about in the main by our fear of being sued. Could volcanic ash bring down a jetliner? Fifteen-hundred miles from the scene of the volcano itself, it is extremely unlikely, but so long as there are lawyers, licking their lips at the prospect of proving the crash could have been avoided, air traffic controllers are bound to push the big button labelled “Stop”.

It won’t be a volcano that ends man’s existence on this planet. It’ll be the no-win no-fee lawyers. They are the ones who brought Europe to a halt last week. They are the ones who made a simple trip from Berlin to London into a five-country, all-day hammer blow on your licence fee. They are the ones who must be stopped.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/je...Jarosław Dykty edytował(a) ten post dnia 23.04.10 o godzinie 12:25