Jeremy Clarkson refuses to go on holiday to EU after horror break

Motormouth Jeremy Clarkson has revealed why he is refusing to go on holiday abroad this year. The Clarkson’s Farm star said that the result of Brexit and security checks meant that it was too much of an annoying experience.

Writing in his Sun column the 64-year-old suggested readers should think twice before booking a break in the sun - as travel companies report a huge surge in demand for foreign holidays this summer.

Last weekend, with rain preventing farming in the Cotswolds Jeremy said he’d decided to nip over to Madrid with girlfriend Lisa Hogan. Recent reports have highlighted that plans in the UK which should have been completed this summer to install new scanners so the old rules on laptops and liquids over 100ml could be removed.

However, most UK airports have failed to install them in time meaning people still have to get their baggage checked manually. Jeremy said: “There was a time when this sort of thing was easy. But now, thanks to government bureaucracy, Border Force paranoia and a general sense at airports that passengers are a damn nuisance, it isn’t any more.

“So you check in and stand in a queue full of old ladies and toddlers who don’t realise that they can’t travel with liquids, that they need to take laptops out of their hand luggage and that they can’t go through the X-ray machine with six frying pans and an ingot in their backpack.

“Then you walk through a shopping centre that sells perfume, and suitcases, for those who’ve arrived at the airport with all their holiday clothes in a carrier bag. And then you’re in a lift. And then you’re in a train and then you’re in another lift, and then they say your flight is boarding.

“So you form another queue which doesn’t move because your flight actually isn’t boarding.” Jeremy said at Madrid the plane stopped as far as possible from the baggage reclaim area: “You walk. And then you walk some more. And then you walk until every old injury starts to flare up.”

Jeremy went on at some length about how far he had to go - and said eventually got toe the electronic passport reader “No one can ever work these. So they stand there in a locked glass box like they’re in a magic show, endlessly putting their passport in the slot and taking it out again. And eventually you are forced to shout from the back of the queue 20 miles away: “Take your effing sunglasses off!”

When he got to the front of the queue Jeremy found they were only for people who live in the EU so he had to find the correct place for non EU citizens: “After three hours, your back is really starting to hurt and you are scanning the queue for people who look like they might have voted for Brexit, because you want to peel them.”

He ended up on a high note though suggesting the bad weather in 2024 so far means there can’t possibly be any more - so it’s almost guaranteed to be a nice summer.