Top gear? If only we could! (From Bournemouth Echo)

Top gear? If only we could!

9:09am Monday 23rd November 2009 in

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IT would be a good Top Gear challenge. Jeremy Clarkson in a rush-hour race down the Spur Road... versus a slow worm.

With the current roadworks going on the hot money must be on the reptile.

And no, I don't mean Jeremy. He’s human though belonging to that evolutionary sub-group Automobilus Nuttus that spends so much time on four wheels it risks one day losing the use of its baggy-jeaned legs.

Unlike his top gear, Clarkson’s newspaper columns have style. Combative and cutting, they remind me of a 1925 Bullnose Morris.

This year, alone, he has made knocking noises over a caravan holiday in Dorset and clanked on about Bournemouth’s slow traffic.

And he has blown many a gasket over unnecessary jams caused by roadworks. This weekend he gave a welcome push to Bournemouth traders’ appeal for roadworks involving the removal of protected reptiles from the Spur Road verges to take place after Christmas. Clarkson and Sense may not always travel the same road but this time they are in convoy. After all, the reptiles hibernate up to March. Why not wait? They should sleep on... but Dorset County Council should wake up. Instead of the obvious postponement it has, today, switched the roadworks from the southbound to the northbound carriageway.

Great news for drivers coming into town.

But what’s it going to be like going home?

Earlier this year, Clarkson said Bournemouth was full of old people who “went there when they were young but couldn’t get out again.”

Tonight those words may seem prophetic.