A year or so ago, I made the mistake of signing some online petition or other that I felt was quite reasonable.
It was a huge mistake. Since then, not a day goes past when I don’t get a bundle of them: ‘Support Tanya getting justice for her poodle’ or ‘Express your outrage at something or other.’ However, I can never quite delete myself from the mailing list, as it’s all part of the dance macabre of being who we are, where we are and when we are, and it fascinates me. Theatrical outrage is fun. Confected breast-beating is something that we all seem to need more of in our lives.
And now, to add insult to injury, I’m proud to add my voice to their ranks today by asking you to help Roger rid the skies of private helicopters.
That sounds a bit drastic, so let me explain.
I’m not against helicopters as a form of emergency and military transport. Between 1978 and 1986, I spent hundreds of hours in them: In Hong Kong, checking for illegal immigrants (ok, express your outrage), in Northern Ireland, checking for naughty bits of wire, and being ‘inserted’ for a night’s wandering, in Belize, looking for jungle clearings in which we could have a picnic/conduct operations, in South Georgia, looking for an easy way across a glacier and, best of all, in Kenya, looking for the green lawns that denoted wealthy farmers who would be only too happy to give lunch to the pilot and me, on the basis that our plane was ‘running a bit rough, so we landed as soon as we could just to be on the safe side.’ I’ve also attended accidents where they have been used to get badly injured people to hospital quickly, something they are stunningly good at, and watched them pick fallen climbers from below cliffs, and exhausted canoeists from being smashed against the rocks. Don’t get me wrong, in the right circumstances, the chopper is a brilliant invention.
In the wrong circumstances, it’s a menace. Here’s why:
- We’re supposed to be trying to save this planet a little bit. The helicopter does for sustainable travel what the Titanic did for winter cruises.
- We’re supposed to be searching for a bit of peace and quiet. The helicopter is offensively noisy.
- It’s vulgar, in the way that, say, an Aston Martin fails to be. An Aston says: ‘Sorry to show off guys, but I made it. And, admit it, you’d quite like one, too.’ A helicopter says: ‘Eat my fumes, sucker!’
- Traffic jams are for everyone, not just for ‘little people’, as Leona Helmsley famously termed us. After all, we all created those jams.
- A chopper commoditises time in a way that says that the richer you are, the more valuable your time is. Not a concept that would go down well with someone working 50 hours a week and still on the breadline.
- And then there’s the question of what is done with all that saved time. A cabinet minister sitting for three hours in a traffic jam on the M6 on his way to launch his new policy on airbeds at a mattress factory in Preston, will be stuck doing harmless things like Wordle and Sudoku, and will consequently get up to less mischief back at the office.
- There are only 1232 of them (helicopters, not cabinet ministers) registered in the UK at the moment, of which only a portion would have to be grounded under Roger’s Law, which says to me that any job losses would be pretty minimal.
- My two most spectacularly right-wing friends will conclude that I have finally gone off to Karlmarxstadt, which is probably good for all three of us.
None of the above has anything to do with the fact that, if you drew a line between Battersea Heliport and the Goodwood Revival Meeting, it just so happens to pass directly over my cottage.
Shame on you for even thinking it.
Old enough to know better 