The end of elephant's leather

TRYING to get a straight answer out of Top Gear is like dealing with a little boy who hasn't done his homework and is prepared to tell fib after fib until the teacher gives up out of pure embarrassment. The latest denial over Jeremy Clarkson's ill-fated Argentine escapade comes from James May who insists, apparently in all seriousness, that the programme would never make a mockery of war. Back in 2009, lest we forget, Top Gear produced a spoof advert for a new Volkswagen showing Poles panicking to leave their city. "Berlin to Warsaw in one tank" was the hilarious slogan. So no making a mockery of war, then?

AT the Christening I mentioned in yesterday's column, I found myself sharing the bar with an elder of our extended family from Coventry who is a lifelong Sky Blues supporter. He was in deep, dark contemplation about events at Coventry City FC which I do not even pretend to understand.

"You follow football?" he inquired glumly.

"To be honest, I'm not a fan of any organised sport," I explained. "I must be a disappointment to you."

"No," said the old chap, "you're lucky. You don't have any of the stress."

WHICH made me wonder how much stress the male of the species inflicts on himself simply by following a football team. Some years ago a poll among fans of Wolverhampton Wanderers found that a quarter of them believed Wolves was the most important thing in their lives.

AND still on sport, if Russia is a pariah state and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions to punish Moscow over its misdeeds in Crimea and Ukraine, how come there was a Russian Grand Prix at the weekend? Maybe different rules apply to Formula One, just as they did with the row over tobacco advertising and that embarrassing £1 million cheque to Tony Blair's Labour Party all those years ago. No, Tone, we haven't forgotten it yet.

I WROTE a few days ago about the need for punishment to fit the crime. What should we do, for example, with the vandal or would-be thief who toppled the much-loved statue of Eric Morecambe in the Lancashire resort of Morecambe a few days ago by sawing through one leg? Is it time for a law covering outrages against national treasures such as red telephone boxes, the late Queen Mother and Morecambe & Wise? An old colleague and friend of mine, David Hotchkiss, was in Morecambe celebrating his 60th birthday shortly before the statue was felled. His claim to fame is that he was one of the last trippers to pose next to the statue before the deed was done. Apparently they can't touch you for it.

THERE really is no mystery behind this week's news that families are abandoning tradition by serving Yorkshire pudding not only with roast beef but with roast chicken, too. Making Yorkshire pudding was once a skilled, patient craft, passed from mother to daughter, and it was easy to get it wrong. In the old music-hall monologue, Stanley Holloway told the waitress how it should be:

"It melts in the mouth, like the snow in the sunshine / As light as a maiden's first kiss;/ As soft as the fluff on the breast of a dove,/ Not elephant's leather, like this!"

But today you simply turn pre-cooked Yorkshires out of the packet and on to the baking tray. This is cookery for the 21st century: no skill, no learning, no patience. And no elephant's leather either.