Jeremy Clarkson
Clarkson on: Norfolk
Not that long ago, I pulled in for petrol at a garage in Norfolk. The man behind the counter, who looked a bit like a turnip, only with ears, took my credit card, popped it in the till, shut the drawer and moved on to serve the next customer.
Strange. This was a service station, on a main road, in the 1990s. So how was it possible for one of the employees to be unfamiliar with how a credit card worked? Plainly, he’d never seen one before which made me suggest, out loud, that Norfolk is not the sort of place where they point and say “Ooh look. A Mercedes AMG65SL Black”. Instead they said “Ooh look. A car”.
Of course, this made me the Antichrist in Britain’s vegetable garden, which is a shame because I like Norfolk. I like the way there are sex shops on every roundabout. I love the drainage system. I love the big skies. I go there every year to shoot pheasants in the face, and I like that too.
What I emphatically do not like, however, is the sheer impossibility of getting there. Over the years, I’ve tried every single route, but it always ends the same way. Doing 35mph behind a lorry carrying bits for a grain store or, more usually those Sainsbury’s internet shopping trucks which don’t say on the side – but should – “You Shop. We Get In Your Effing Way”.
In 2005, there were 824,000 people living in Norfolk, and that’s not counting the eight million illegal workers from Estonia and China who can’t be counted properly because no one from the Home Office can get beyond Cambridge before they die of old age.
Whatever. The upshot is I’m not talking here about a small village that’s cut off. I’m talking about a million people who are physically barred by crap roads from entering England. And I’ve decided that to help out, large chunks of Leicester need to be flattened.
Usually, when I go to Norfolk, I go through Northampton, but as this is the worst signposted city in the world I’ve given up. Stroud is bad because you always end up in the station car park. And Basingstoke is terrible because if you try to get out, you end up in a multi-storey, and you have to pay to leave. But Northampton is biblically awful.
Either the signposts were written by someone who was being deliberately stupid, or it was a school project for four-year olds. The signs on half the roundabouts talk only about local roads and industrial estates, not other towns and cities. So you almost always end up, whether you like it or not, in Kettering, which is famous for absolutely nothing at all. Or Wellingborough, which is famous for being nowhere near where you’re going.
So, I decided when I was in King’s Lynn last weekend that I would not be going home on the usual crummy route. And that I’d try to find an alternative.
Before plumping for the A47, I asked a local if it was a dual carriageway. This was a mistake because in a place where people have no understanding of credit cards, there is no way he’d be able to grapple with the concept of a four-lane road. “Yes”, he said.
Naturally, he was wrong, and so I spent the next 400 years in a £250k SL Black doing 35 behind an endless stream of internet delivery trucks, farmyard equipment and sex maniacs cruising the array of adult shops. Until eventually, I entered England.
"I’m talking about a million people who are physically barred by crap roads from entering England"
How can this be possible? The city officials must know that their city sits like a big blob on the map separating a million Norfolkians from friends and relations in the rest of the country. So why, in the name of Jesus, have they not built a by-pass?
Even Northampton has done this. Oh, you can’t find it and if you do you end up in Wellingborough digging tunnels to get out again. But it’s there.
In Leicester, I kid you not, all East-West traffic – and there’s a lot of it – has to go through housing estates, and bits of suburbia where all you can buy is monosodium glutamate from a Chinaman and a Chuck Norris DVD from the local video store.
Not that you’re looking at the scenery, of course, because you know the entire area will be festooned with speed cameras, so you have to dawdle along with both eyes fixed firmly on the speedo. I may have run over half a dozen children as I passed by and if I did, you can blame the speed limits, the cameras and the idiots who thought “Yes. We need a ring road. But we aren’t going to build one”.
I should imagine that if you live on the choked-up streets of Leicester, you will be nodding furiously at my suggestion, especially if your child has been run over by someone who was forced by speed cameras to drive along looking at nothing but his dashboard. Well you can stop nodding, because I have a plan.
There is no point expecting any help from the Government, because the Minister of Transport is Geoff Hoon, who said recently: “We know there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
In the last great depression, the American government mobilised the working man and built massive projects like the Hoover Dam and the interstate network. But can you imagine our Government doing that today? With Swampy on the loose? And an ugly bird with a custard pie lurking on every street corner? Not a chance.
Frankly, the only way Leicester is going to get a ring road is if the locals put down their Chinese take-aways and their Chuck Norris films and build one themselves. There is a precedent for this...
Kalgoorlie is a mining town about six week’s fast drive from Perth in Western Australia. And back in the Eighties, the locals were convinced it was about to be blown off the map.
Here’s why. The trucks bringing explosives for the gold and uranium mines would pass through the town and everyone was convinced that the law of averages would soon step into the mix and cause one of these dynamite lorries to have a crash in the town centre.
They pleaded and pleaded with officialdom, but nothing was done. So one day, the local government people were invited, quite forcefully, to spend a long weekend in Perth. And when they were gone, Bruce and Sheila set to work.
Using bulldozing and heavy-lifting equipment from the mines and with the women folk bringing a non-stop supply of lemonade and cakes, the men toiled through the heat in a scene that must have looked like a scene from the Amish film, Witness. But in just one weekend, they had their ring road.
This is not civil disobedience. This is civil ingenuity. And it won’t just be the people of Leicester who get involved either. They are bound to be joined by 850,000 Norfiskers who will see the project as a much needed life line to bring them from feudalism into the modern age. With that many on the job, they are bound to have it finished before Swampy turns up to say they have squashed a snail.
Sadly, however, the route I have in mind for the ring road would mean the suburbs of Oadby and Wigston would have to be removed. That would end their ambitious plans for the Crow Mills Picnic Area. But, as Mr Spock once said – and he was a logical man – the needs of the many outweigh the picnicking needs of the few.
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Here in Holland (The Hague anyway) they pointed at some roads that were already there, too small and all jammed up. 'That route is now the major road to pass through town,' they said, after installing a few pedestrian crossings but forgetting about traffic lights. Since then, they've started closing down a lot of the inner city roads for traffic. Police are, quite literally, having a field day with their cameras. Now city government is baffled about why people leave town. Now they want to go 'international', peace court and Loveboat stuff. But nobody is interested once they've been here.
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read this article in top gear mag last week. so jezza's driving the £200k sl black? not the clk black he owns? please please give me the road test of the xfr in series 13!
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I live in Northampton, and I have never really noticed the sign problem, although it's mainly because I know where I'm going. However, to go east, you have to go to Kettering or Wellingborough, which is effort. By the bypass, do you mean the A45?
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thats a bit unfair to be honest.
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Norfolk nice place, apart from the people. Went to a supermarket there once early in the moring and I have never felt so threatened in my life. I walked into the store and instantly word spread that I wasnt from Norfolk. Everyone stopped and gave me evil looks. The bearded woman behind the meat counter picked up a knife. I decided it wasnt best to shop there again. Well thats Long Straton for you. And that road from Bury st Edmunds to Norwich has the most stupid speed limits ever, a road you could easily do 50mph on you have to do 30mph. Madness.
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If you have bought the magazine, look at that Nissan Quanza. Look at the interior even more closely. It is wonderful. But, will that bit make it into production? NO! will the awful exterior styling make it into production? YES! Why is it that companies make these concepts, take all of the interesting bits out, then leave us with either run of the mill stuff, or worse, the awful stuff. I think that car companies should be forced to release concepts that they ACTUALLY WILL MAKE! Sorry, going off the point a bit, I didn't know where to put this rant. I'm twelve, so I guess that you won't listen, but I had to put something out. Please be nice.
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Hmmmm, I would leave Estonia out of the game. A nation with 1,4 mil and moastly all of them still living here cant contribute to your immigrants count that badly...
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Since that bit of ingenuity in Kalgoolie, Perth (WA) have put bypass roads in for country towns. This has been a great success and has kept traffic flowing. Not everyone that travels from point A to point Z wants to go thru B,C,D,E and so forth. Now I live in Brisbane (Queensland) and it seems, as the name suggests, that many of the mother country's decendants have moved here because they dont like bypass roads here either. Too many tree hugging, Koala loving hillbillies with hairy armpits waving signs protesting the destruction of fauna/flora with bypass roads. Use them for landfill I'd say. Their rotting carcasses will fertalise those trees they love so dearly on the side of the bypass road!
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The same thing happened in another colony as well. http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/09/hawaii.volunteers.repair/ Local residents rebuilt a washed out bridge through a Hawaiian state park after the government promised one, in two years.
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Northampton and Wellingborough aren't all bad; at least you have Cosworth Racing in Northampton and Cosworth Technology at Wellingborough for the petrol heads. If is wasn't for Cosworth Technology, your Aston Martins wouldn't have the V12s that sound so beautiful...and you are sooo right about the A47...
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THIS IS RUBBISH Leicester has 2! ring roads
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I'm going to read this article in the Student's Union. With the screen set up to display text so large Gordon Brown could read it out of his bad eye. There is a reason for this - last term I had a lecturer who happened to be from China whose English was so poor, I could barely make sense of his classes. We'd leave in a state of bafflement and head for the SU, where after a particularly bewildering lecture (that may have been about Internet technologies or may have been his grandmother's favourite soup recipe) I made a comment about him being an incomprehensible Chinaman. As a result, I had to sit through an equally bewildering lecture from a scary young 'womun', whose favourite recipe was probably for shagpile, on 'inclusiveness' and 'equality'. Grrr...
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Ill admit that Norfolk doesn't have the best roads however its all about the back roads on a quiet evening there are plenty of those about you just have to stop rushing home and take a breather. Our road improvements are coming we just have to wait for the bloody government again! once the A11 dueling is finished it'll be Norwich to London in under 2 Hours, hows that bad?
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I agree about Norfolk completely drove down there for the weekend. Leicester does have a ring road but stupidly it is in the city centre making it useless
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I have a better idea. Move to Northumberland, its much nicer than Norfolk. ;)
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I live in Wigston and would be quite happy to see it demolished as long as I had prior warning, but I think you should consider the risks of doing so. If you make the traffic flow more smoothly towards the east of the county you may actually encourage people to go to Norfolk, and think of the horror that would cause for the natives. All of a sudden the landscape would be full of people who didn't look like walnuts, demanding cappucinos and wondering aloud why the village shop seems only to stock Ovaltine and copies of GQ are stored on the top shelf.
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The Norfolk coast is a favourite haunt of Leicester folk, especially Great Yarmouth, so there's clearly some reasonable way of getting there but I'm buggered if I know what that is. The problem is that Leicester's outer ring road has a huge chunk missing on the east side, and some of the sections leading around to the A47 are a bit half-arsed. You can't really hack through Northampton because the signs will direct you alternately to Mars, Venice and Mrs Figgins tea shop in Lancashire. You could stay south and nip through Bedford, but then you face the insane cycle infested horror that is Cambridge.
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No, I've been thinking about this. What we need to do is take a saw to the centre slice of Norfolk running north-south, drop it into the sea and then pull the coast in to fill the gap. We can save the good bits inland by relocating them to Peterborough, including that bizarre little white windmill on the way into Yarmouth, Leicester people get to enjoy an extra hour or two of biting winds on the coast, everyone else gets to their meeting faster, and nothing of any importance whatsoever will need to be demolished.
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Funny, I go on long car journeys all the time, usually between Hereford and Lincoln (so south wales border to East Midlands), and not once have I had to go through Leicester, thanks to the joys of the A1, M1 and M42. Well, when I say joy, i'm ignoring the 10 billion speed cameras on the latter motorway, obviously. And the M1 traffic. And the fact that there's only ever one lane of traffic open on the A1 because some idiot lorry driver has fallen asleep at the wheel again...
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I never knew that there are Estonians abroad. Maby thats beacause they are all in Norfolk.
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Im from Wellingborough in Northamptonshire. I dont agree with the signpost thing, but it isnt famous for anything at all except a couple of snooker players. exciting isnt it?
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Dear Mr. Clarkson, I am an Estonian living on the Norfolk-Suffolk border and would like to know why you think the Home Office would possiby come looking for an E.U. national... The last time I checked, Estonia is part of the European Union. I'll bet you had to wiki "Countries I've never heard of before" to complete this blog entry.
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"Don't complain about hunger with a white bread under your arm" can be roughly translated to "Don't complain about being stuck in traffic in a Mercedes AMG65SL Black." I just don't feel sorry for you. Yours truly, Green-eyed monster.
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Perhaps it had been suggested in the past.. if not... Perfect T-shirt for Jezza... "Power" https://shop.bmwgroup.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/Store-BMWShop-Site/en_GB/-/EUR/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductUUID=wYqgMthKlbgAAAEfmoZqO48r&noReload=true&SecondCurrency= ... at least it is not from audi...
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Well, here's an idea for cheap (and fun!) road construction! Take a Ssang Yong Rodius, send it to Japan to be modified with all the things you don't want on your car, remove its front wheels, strap a rocket to its back (like the Reliant Shuttle), and launch it with the rocket facing the way of the to-be-constructed road. The scraping chassis would level everything in front, with the added entertainment of watching your worst nightmare being scraped to dust! C'mon TG, get down to some community service!
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Well, here's an idea for cheap (and fun!) road construction! Take a Ssang Yong Rodius, send it to Japan to be modified with all the things you don't want on your car, remove its front wheels, strap a rocket to its back (like the Reliant Shuttle), and launch it with the rocket facing the way of the to-be-constructed road. The scraping chassis would level everything in front, with the added entertainment of watching your worst nightmare being scraped to dust! C'mon TG, get down to some community service!
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Way to recycle....an article that is. 1993 article, just down the page, is basically the same one!!
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Clarkson you can't have a go at Northamptonshire until you see Milton Keynes. You could easily get lost there and end up in the black hole. Northampton is a town and Wellingborough is famous for Snooker Players like Peter Ebdon. Kettering is famous for Shoes
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I think you'd better watch the Big Lebowski...particularly the part concerning terminology relating to persons of asian origin. It's got some useful tips, hopefully in language you'll understand. Would have thought your trip to Hong Kong might have changed your perspective a tad...
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In India, barring the major expressways, most of us commute on roads where we can see the license plates of the oncoming traffic with amazing clarity. Not only because we've got good vision, but because there are no dividers, and since we're a billion of us here, we dont believe in wasting space in between cars and other such f**ked up concepts.
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"In 2005, there were 824,000 people living in Norfolk, and that?s not counting the eight million illegal workers from Estonia and China who can?t be counted properly because no one from the Home Office can get beyond Cambridge before they die of old age. " Clarrkson yet again showing off hes american side and the old age? A man with consistent mocking of absolutely everything should atleast try and not compare Tata and Lotus to eachother in terms of size and quality. That major miss aside, the article still doesn't feel Clarcksonius enough, but meybe he has just been working hard on the next season(hopefully, atleast). (for anyones information, the number of estonians and norfolkians in the world is about equal, not to mention the fact that people from the EU are free to work in any state they choose)
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I'll tell you one thing. you are blind. the A47 is a dual carriage way. i know because i live half an hour from Kings Lynn and there are no locals on or anywhere near roads so you must have asked one of the infamous traffic wombles. BIG MISTAKE
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Clarkson ur an idiot, our signs are the same as the rest of the country. You clearly are a poser at knowing about cars. I highly suggest you study signs for the rest of your life and stop making your programme look like everything is real when we all know it's staged.
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Biblicallyawful commented on this article 18 June 2009 Clarkson ur an idiot, our signs are the same as the rest of the country. NO NO NO NO NO they are not. I spent an hour and a quarter going round and round Northampton as the signs were so terrible, Clarkson is just telling the truth about your rubbish sign posting system
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jeremy you crease me up im from norfolk, norwich and i completley agree with what you are sayin even about the sex shops :) we are shut away from everything because of the stupid roads around here and the sainsburys lorrys corrrr i actually contemplated ramming one off the road it was doing 30mph in a 60 zone with nothing infront of it but a million cars behind it and with no breaks in the traffic coming the other way there was no way of overtaking it so i waited for my oportunity and took him on the grass on the edge of the road p.s jeremy youre amazing.
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Wellingborough also had the Radiohead singer Thom Yorke come out of it, and Kettering is the biggest manufacturer of sex toys in the country, i'll let you decide whether that is a good or a bad thing.
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Northamptons road signs are rubbish.It suits the town ,which is rubbish as well, I live 15 miles from it ,I would rather drive to Leicester, even if its ring road goes through the centre!!Kettering is beige it does nothing well or badly, but at least its sign posted so you can go round it[probably advisable]wellingborough is known for having a long name starting with W and not being washington lol
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Great one ^^
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northampton is one big hole, we definately need signs to get us outta here !! the only place we can find is bloody Billing Aquadrome. WHY ??
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If the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway hadn't been closed fifty years ago, there would be no problem getting from Leicester to Norfolk. My favourite part of the A47 is the first bit of the Wisbech bypass, heading east. Nicely built on a slight curve to make overtaking impossible. And wait until the level crossing on it (oh yes!) becomes operational again when Wisbech station re-opens. That should slow things down a bit.
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hello there is the a47 from the north and the a11 from the south clarkson to get home neads the a47 to norwich witch he can then take the a11 dow to that way most of the a47 is duled thats why that bloke sad yes but i do know our roads are bad
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Jeremy Clarkson quoting Mr Spock? Now I've seen everything.
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Dig a tunnel, or series of tunnels, like the Big Dig in Boston, but less confusing.
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Well Jeremy you certainly caned the Norvicensions about their roads a bit like you only credited the Australians with inventing the Hills Hoist on your recent program when you previewed the Holden Monaro. If you check some facts on Google you will see that among other important things we invented the Black Box for Flight data and the Cochlear ear. Personally as an ex pat Norwich person I thought the roads over there were pretty good compared to those when I left for Australia in 1960.I also agree with Sam-R Brisbane does need a serious By-pass, not just that joke of the Gateway Motorway.
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Now, Jeremy. You are a bit harsh aren't you. Not being bias or anything, but I was born in Great Yarmouth. And although what you are saying is sorta correct and true, it completely defeats the point. Norfolk roads are supposed to be admired. It's not about when or which way you're supposed to get there, it's about how you get there. You should know this because you come from Yorkshire or there abouts. If it took me 5 hours to get somewhere behind the back of a lorry I would destroy all humans with a cow. But since it's Norfolk, the beauty of the scenery you can admire is stunning and considering the many differents roads you can take to get rid of the 123 year old man in front of you driving at 1.23 mph, it makes up for it. Or have you become too civilised Jeremy?
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Its about time Norfolk got some decent roads other than the bloody A11, its not the only A road in Norfolk! There are small patches of dual carriage on the A47 in Norfolk but not many, its impossible to get anywhere near the speed limit because their appears to be an unwritten law to travel at least 10 miles below it. I live in Kings Lynn where most of the locals haven't even mastered roundabouts, they seem to think you give way to the left! I travel out of Norfolk quite often and it takes forever to get to a motorway, there isn't one single inch of motorway in Norfolk.
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You think the A47's bad - wait till you get on the A17 Kings Lynn-Newark. A road so good that the Highways Agency has taken out the three 200yd dualled bits to ensure your average speed remains under 40mph.
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UGACherokee commented on this article
29 April 2009
LOL. Did Jeremy just say, "Chinaman?" In the US, ring roads are one more way for construction firms to bilk state governments into massive budget deficits. They are obsolete when completed, which means that they are perpetually under construction, and thus, are full of traffic, full of accidents, and full of frustrated motorists wanting to do better than 35 mph on a 6-lane interstate. Save your money on the ring roads. Governments will always find a way to spend millions to add several lanes to your 35 mph progress.
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