I was up at a scary hour this morning when I stumbled across Jeremy Clarkson braising a few thousand Twitter birds in gin, dusting the bare legs with salt, and skewering their soy-fed bodies before putting them over a high heat for what looked awfully like an Aussie BBQ.

Must be the weather.

The only difference being that Clarkson had a glass of iced-rose to wash the feathers down.

‘It’s very hot in the south of France but so far as I know, there’s no DefCon 8 level 3 killer death heatwave warning in place.’

It’s very hot in the south of France but so far as I know, there’s no DefCon 8 level 3 killer death heatwave warning in place.

— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) July 17, 2022

Clarkson’s July 17 tweet was immediately ‘fact checked’ by a swarm of overheated Poms and Frogs posting apocalypse-themed weather maps that came with a lot of ‘strong warnings’ that Clarkson ‘shouldn’t tweet when he’s wrong’.

The weather maps provided were helpfully colour-coded, with extreme heat depicted as dark purple and mauve. They probably went to the same school of weather that coloured Australia’s intense flooding rains as ‘red, orange, and yellow’.

Regardless, it’s always a joy when Jeremy Clarkson manages to annoy social media’s Wokerati. If only online rage could be harnessed as energy, Clarkson would be an Outrage Baron. A renewable source of fury or at the very least, petty grievance.

‘We probably haven’t seen weather-related incidents on this scale before!’ screeched Jonathan Smith, Assistant Commissioner of the London Fire Bridge, who must have hibernated through the Winter of 2020-21 that recorded tens-of-thousands of excess cold-related deaths.

‘Every day we wake up to increasingly alarming headlines about coronavirus, but where is the panic about the tens of thousands who are already dying unnecessarily? Britain’s rate of excess winter deaths is twice that of Finland,’ insisted the Guardian, a couple of years ago when things got catastrophically chilly. ‘An average of 9,700 deaths each year are believed to be caused by living in a cold house.’

The Guardian seems to be suffering a little apocalypse-dysphoria. One minute they’re on their knees begging for money to build warmer houses for the poor, and the next they’re running headlines like, UK is no longer a cold country and must adapt to heat, say climate scientists.

So far, five Brits have died in the 2022 UK heat wave – from drowning. Which suggests that if the government wants to save lives it should do what Australia did, and make basic swimming skills mandatory for all children and that means passing a Life Saving exam. Unfortunately, ‘teaching children to swim’ doesn’t sound as profitable as ‘billions for catastrophic sky burning’.

As for claims that this is the ‘hottest weather ever’, the Romans weren’t exactly hanging thermometers off the Senate during the Roman Warming. Humans couldn’t measure temperature accurately until the 1650s and it took a while to become a mainstream habit. By the time the Medieval Warm Period came around, ancient Brits were much more interested in the science of beer-making.

Mind you, only the Brits could find a way to complain about perfect beach weather.

Yesterday, I casually suggested that those who don’t appreciate the heat might think about buying an air conditioner (like the rest of the world), putting their beers in the fridge, and heading out for a swim only for grill-marked Twits – I mean Brits – to turn me into a meme. How dare you suggest we buy air conditioners! We don’t need them!

Well, stop moaning then.

‘I’ve spent my life working in extreme heat and we survived by having a beer under a tree. Climate change is real. Drink more beer.’

Clarkson might have become a bit of a climate luvvie of late (be honest, mate – was it in the fine print of the Amazon contract?) but panic, like manual labour, isn’t his thing.

‘Drinking a diuretic is just about the most stupid way to avoid dehydration,’ scorned a self-described a ‘Forever European. Aggrocentrist. Green. Muso. Post-theistic Anglican’.

‘Yeah let’s laugh about climate change,’ added a retired public sector worker.

Clarkson replied, ‘We should laugh about anything we want. Now go and sit under a tree and have a cold beer.’ And, ‘Really hot in France this evening. But I’ve had a beer and all is well.’

‘So you’re saying that human activity has not created a significant impact on global warming?’ asked Andrew Penfold, evidently ignoring the beer offering.

‘Nope. It has. But as there’s jack shit I can do about it in a world where China and India and Africa exists, I’ll sit under a tree and drink some beer.’

Ouch. Now there’s something you won’t see the Tories utter in their race to No. 10.

Answering calls for Clarkson to smash into James May’s Fiat Panda outside Downing Street as the next British PM, Clarkson replied, ‘First job. Shut down the government. We don’t need it.’

Fair point. The average street cat would do a better job of governing.

‘People go on holiday every year and love spending two weeks in 40 degree heat.’

That’s an even better point from Jezza. Before Australia became a medical fascist prison complex, it played host to many of these tourists that spent a fortune to spend weeks in 40 degree heat with an all-you-can-drink cocktail bar. 40 degrees is deadly in the UK, and paradise in the Pacific. Location. Location. Location.

That said, Clarkson probably committed at least one hate crime when he told the ‘ageing (disgracefully) Dandy Punk with Rock, & Hippy roots #ANTIFA #BLM #RejoinEU #DeepWoke #StillMasked #4Jabs #Pronouns oi/c**t #Veteran’ to, ‘Shave your beard off. Then you’d be less hot and angry.’

Burn.

‘Thankfully, the global warming thing is now over but tragically, its brief visit took the life of my big pig. RIP pig.’

And that was it. The end of a very short heat wave. Clarkson has some bacon to go with his birds, and for the next few weeks, the UK is set to cool down and start raining – which people are already complaining will ruin their summer plans.

Then again, they wouldn’t be British if they weren’t moaning about the weather.

Get 10 issues for just $10

Subscribe to The Spectator Australia today for the next 10 magazine issues, plus full online access, for just $10.

SUBSCRIBE 10 issues for $10 REGISTER 3 articles a month

Already a subscriber? Log in