Clarkson's Farm (2021) s01e03 Episode Script
Shopping
Although the freakish
autumn rainfall had played havoc
with my farming plans,
there were days when the sun came out
and Kaleb could get back to tractoring.
And on one of these rare occasions, I decided we needed a treat.
Right.
I'm on my way to the local farm shop to pick up a ploughman's.
Well, what I need for a ploughman's.
And here we are.
You have arrived at your destination.
Right.
Some of those, ham, pork pie.
Wait, cheese.
Have you got any Norwegian Jarlsberg? - We don't.
- Cheddar? We have wonderful cheddar if you'd like a good, strong cheddar.
So this is all really made by Daylesford and sold in the shop? Yes, that's right.
Nothing to see there.
That's what you need, crusty loaf, butter.
Yeah, one ploughman's in my bag.
- Lovely.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you.
- How much is that? - That is £83.
44, please.
I'll pop those on top.
All right, a bit more than that, then.
83? 30 40.
There's 90.
Would you like your receipt? Yeah, because nobody will believe me otherwise.
Thanks.
This, however, turned out to be a wise investment, because on the way home, a 5-million-watt light bulb went on in my head.
Farm shop? Why would I not do that? If I put up a little barn somewhere, fill it with all the produce that comes off the farm That's not a bad idea.
In fact, it was a brilliant idea, and I even had a location in mind.
This isn't used for farming.
It's just waste ground.
There's a road there, gate there, so there's good access.
And best of all, behind these trees, come and have a look.
Through this little gate here, caravan site.
Endlessly-changing customers, and they'll never be able to tell the people the following week how bad my shop is, if it is bad.
No bad word-of-mouth.
With the location sorted, I called Alan, who's been my builder for 25 years, to scope out the site.
There's the edge.
You're going right up by that edge in the arm.
When you're looking down that hill, you want to be in line with it, so you want to be coming off that corner square out there.
I didn't actually have all the planning permission yet, but Alan said that despite this, we could get cracking by removing the first few inches of top soil.
We strip the land just so we can see what we got.
Finish at that.
- So - Everything's ready.
- I haven't jumped the gun here? - No.
- I've not broken any law? - Absolutely.
I therefore leapt immediately into the driving seat of Alan's big digger.
Yeah, look at that.
Here we go.
My van.
My God.
Shit.
Nice and smooth.
Take the grass off.
Too deep.
Not so deep.
It turned out my diggering skills were quite poor.
Fucking hell.
It's like a swimming pool.
So, after Alan suggested I go and do something else, I went to check on the small patch of experimental potatoes I planted on spec a few months earlier.
I've grown a thing! Another one! There's millions of them.
There's, like, five.
Look at that.
And another.
As I was digging away, cheerful Charlie dropped by.
Are they good potatoes? I know that's a baking potato, that's great, and those are new.
- And that's a little salad potato.
- They're all the same.
But they're Melody.
They're good variety.
They'll be they'll be really good.
The thing is, though, it's taken me the best part of half an hour to do that.
I've got one bucket.
So, how many buckets am I going to get from here? We should be on between 14, 16 tons an acre.
- We've got about two acres here.
- Sorry, you just said 14 tons? - Yeah.
- Are going to come out of here? - Just two acres? - Just two acres.
That's a lot of chips.
I could put them in the farm shop, except the farm shop's not built and I haven't got planning permission.
So, how long If we get the farm shop built in, realistically, six weeks, if planning permission comes through this week - Yup.
- Would these keep another six weeks? We can keep these for six weeks.
How can I keep these from becoming useless for six weeks? So, we've got to top it rather than spraying it off.
What, you mean a lawnmower, effectively? So, lawnmower.
Off we go.
-So, you take the leaves off, -Take the leaves off, - and then they'll just lie dormant? - And they'll lie dormant.
And the skin sort of firms up.
- And that's good? - And that's good.
That that will enable it to store for longer.
Kaleb then leant me his topping machine, and after giving me a lesson in how it works All right, that's it.
So now feet are enabled.
Now press it again.
I was on my way.
Yes.
Taking the leaves off my potatoes.
That will deprive the potato of its ability to grow, and it will just lay dormant in the soil.
- God, it's a good tractor.
- Jeremy, can you hear me? - It's Kaleb.
- Yeah, got you.
Might want to drop the topper down.
It might help a little bit.
Rookie error.
Yeah, yeah.
I knew that.
I'm just going to go back to the start now and then actually do it with the topper lowered, because I think that will make a huge difference.
It did, and finally I was in business.
He's doing a good job.
Then, with the potatoes sleeping soundly in the ground, I was free to concentrate on other produce for the farm shop.
I've been doing some research, and it turns out that Chadlington, the local village, is named after St.
Chad, who is the patron saint of wells and springs.
What's more, the entire village got its drinking water from springs on this farm.
But then, one night in 1972, the water board switched everybody over to mains water.
And they were livid.
They were furious.
Questions were asked in the Houses of Parliament.
The local television station sent a reporter to Chadlington to cover the story.
I've got a clip of that here.
An interesting lesson in democracy here at Chadlington.
That is Chris Tarrant.
It's actually Chris Tarrant.
That's where he began.
In the end, it seems the authorities can pipe what they like through to the village's taps, but short of forcibly pouring it down their throats, they can't make them drink it.
Mrs.
Kerr, you've been drinking this spring water a long time.
What's so special about it? Well, because it's pure.
Don't want that other filth.
What is it you don't like about tap water? Well, it's horrible.
Well, we had a tank of tropical fish, but now it's been changed over, and they've all died.
It's mixed with sewage from Temple Guiting and Bourton-on-the-Water.
All the sewage is going to come into it.
All the locals want to drink is this stuff.
They've been doing so for centuries, and it's beautiful.
So he beat me to the Chadlington water story, and then he beat me to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I just live in the man's shadow.
But now I would have the last laugh, because I would bring back Chadlington's spring water.
I just want to see this spring, because I've never really paid attention to the springs before.
Job one for Lisa and I was to gather some samples for testing.
Are you grabbing it from straight where it comes out the ground? Yes.
This is exactly what Perrier do.
You know, that's actually delicious.
Look how quickly you can fill a bottle up from here.
See, what I'm thinking is, this would be like B&Q with an old-people hiring policy.
Get a load of pensioners at the bottom of the waterfall with bottles, filling them up.
It'd be fantastic, gainful employment for the elderly.
This is the kind of thing you get the CBE for.
Having sent the samples off to the lab, I had another brainwave.
What I have here is a wasabi plant known as green gold, because this, in the shops, would cost you £52, and that's the same as half a ton of carrots.
So, to get at the actual edible bit we have to peel the bark.
Most of the green, hot wasabi paste you get in Japanese restaurants is actually mustard and horseradish sort of mixed up with artificial sweeteners and coloring.
This is the real deal.
If I can grow this here, I'm going to be looking at G5 catalogues in no time at all.
That is fantastic.
It's here, now.
It's here.
It's it's here.
Wasabi is not easy to grow, though.
It needs a supply of fast-flowing water that's exactly the right temperature and has exactly the right PH level.
And once I'd found a stream that fitted the bill, I had to build a bed, which meant I needed a machine.
Single-cylinder engine, 0.
16 liters, top speed: three.
I'm going to call it the James May.
I've now planted about 100 wasabi plants.
If they all survive, that's well, £5,000 for the roots and then another £1,000 for the leaves, probably.
And that is more than you'll get from, well, hundreds of acres of wheat.
This is where the money is.
I then broke off from farm shop jobs, because Charlie had been badgering me about my farm equipment being left out in the open.
So, I took some anti-theft measures with my newly-appointed head of security, Gerald, the dry-stone waller.
I told you I could carry it.
You wait.
You ain't got a lot there yet.
There's ten tons to come.
Jesus Christ.
Come on, you bastard.
No, no.
Yeah, five o'clock normally, on a Friday.
Right.
- That will do.
- It's gonna come up to The thing is but I did them by the loader, that was all.
Well, supposedly.
If we go into that one, spreader next then Yeah.
Right.
- Listen, 20 to 6:00.
- All right.
Before they send a search party out from The Chequers, you should get down there.
Um, lovely to see you again, thanks for your help.
All right, mate.
I should be Hopefully, in about a week's time, because I've got to do some Well, it probably won't get on the program? - Yeah.
- Yeah.
That's right.
All right.
So, my equipment was now secure.
I would soon have stuff to sell in the shop, and planning permission was due any day.
All was going well, until, that is What? I got some bad news from the council.
The village has objected to my, farm shop plan.
"For the following reasons" The complaints are simply about the risk of changing the village, the risk of damaging the village shops.
It's a little, old-fashioned village.
People generally are not that keen.
People are a bit bemused with the situation, and we never know what Jeremy's going to do next.
I mean, he blew up his house.
Dogs barked, and people thought the end of the world had come.
Charlie quickly emailed to explain how I should deal with the objections.
Whilst it does not read well on first inspection, I've addressed the concerns already through the submission of a business plan.
"What is a business plan?" Business plan examples, right.
"Customers' priorities and needs.
Routes to market.
Product services and propositions.
Sales, values, and margins.
A strategic action plan" Well, I'm gonna be a week.
Having typed in every phrase I'd ever heard on The Apprentice, I submitted a business plan, and amazingly, it worked, because shortly afterwards, planning permission was granted.
Just tip that out there, Brad.
Get that lot.
Everything down the bottom.
This meant Alan could finally start building.
Just tip that up there, just tip it.
And I'll get the digger to move it.
Get the barrels out the way, now.
But he was now a week behind schedule, which was a week the potatoes didn't have.
And then to make matters worse, an old enemy returned.
Holy cow.
How can you build anything in these conditions? - Have you ever known it wetter here? - No, never.
We're all going to end up with trench foot before the end of the week.
No, the problem I've got is I've got tons of potatoes, but they're not going to last forever.
So, how long? "How long?" If the weather breaks, maybe eight weeks.
No, no.
It can't be.
The rain fell nonstop for days.
And when it finally eased up, this is what the shop's foundations looked like.
It's three weeks ago I dug the footings out for the shop.
And that that's what's happened.
I'm surprised the Environment Agency isn't here saying I've got an illegal trout lake.
Planning permission's through, and we get the heaviest rainfall recorded since the last heaviest rainfall.
Does anything go right in farming? With the build schedule now in tatters, the priority was to preserve the life of the potatoes.
They'd have to be dug up and stored, which meant I'd need a machine.
And in this part of the world, where no one grows spuds, finding one proved to be tricky.
But much to Kaleb's delight, I managed it.
It's like a rust bucket.
I mean, bloody hell.
Tire's old and flat.
These need unseizing.
I'm going to have to heat these up.
That needs re-greasing.
Look, that's old grease, that.
All green and manky.
This thing is a piece of crap.
Eventually, though, he stopped moaning and got it working.
And with some local kids helping out, the slow, backbreaking work began.
Well, we've done from the top of the field down to here, in what, probably four hours? And we've got all that to do.
And we needed to get a move on.
One there, look.
This one's gone black.
Yeah, that one's gone black and a bit squidgy.
In the end, though, the workers saved 16 tons of potatoes, and apart from a few, which my head of security needed, we got them all into a cool, dark storage barn.
This bought me some time to start work on my next farm shop enterprise How many chickens are you going to get? Sixty.
Eggs.
So, we're going to call them not free range chickens.
We're going to call them good exercise chickens.
That's what they call them in Vietnam.
And it's better, I think, than free range.
Yeah, I like that.
My plan is to build a range of little chicken huts along this side of the wood.
So, actually starting about here, yeah? Yeah.
So, you can get the eggs from this side, but the chickens can exit on that side to run around in the wood.
But we've got to refence this.
We've got to put chicken wire around the outside.
How could a fox get in there? Like a fox.
Guarantee a fox will get in there in the best part of 20 minutes.
And how high is the fence going to have to be? Six foot, like this.
And so, the next day, we reconvened to build the fence.
Hold it on the bottom of the post.
Square it up.
Using a machine Kaleb called his man killer.
And away we go.
Your go.
Higher.
I don't know if that's actually that's not actually moving.
Give me a break.
It's that last little lip.
There it is there.
The burn.
Well done.
All right, next one.
Do you want to bring that? I'll bring this.
We need another post.
We've got to get some more posts.
I'll meet you down there.
Grab two if you can.
And so, the day continued under the lash of the rural Ant Middleton.
Higher, higher.
That's it, now.
Three, four, five.
Two more.
Come on, two more.
What's this shouting at me this morning? Hold that.
Right, you get the ladder and the bar, I'll get this and meet you at the next one.
- Ready? - We're not even halfway there, are we? No.
Eventually, though, Jurassic Park was finished.
And then, it was time to install the henhouses that Lisa had ordered.
- It's good, right? - Well, they'd blend if we were in Camber Sands, or Tobermory.
- Well, it was this or pebbledash.
- And I've got the birds.
- Hey.
- 60 purebred Burford Browns.
Okay, so let's work this out.
So, we can put 20 in there, 12.
That's 20.
Thirty, 40, 50, three, eight.
Seven at the end.
- I literally wasn't listening.
- Okay, I got it.
Clearly, though, the hens weren't thrilled at the prospect of living in LEGOLAND.
These are frisky.
Sorry.
Jeremy, seriously, you're not going to do this without food.
Yes, we are.
- How? - Because watch this.
I am a bird whisperer.
You're pecky, bitey.
No, this is how you do it, okay? This is an important lesson.
Pretend you're not interested.
Casually coming along, looking the other way.
And then, at the last minute, you dive Fucking thing.
Eventually, though, all the hens were safely installed in their new houses.
And Lisa had a little surprise for me.
Close your eyes and hold out your hand.
- An egg? - The first egg, yeah.
They laid it in the crate.
- A egg.
Egg.
- Yeah.
Does a chicken lay eggs out of its arse or its vagina? Did you go to boarding school by any chance? If I google that, Jeff Bezos is going to worry about me.
He is.
So, full scale egg production was imminent.
And, hopefully, so was the bottled spring water.
Because back at the office, an important letter had arrived.
Okay, these are the, um results from all the springs on the farm.
Had the water tested to see what's what, how much of them are drinkable.
Right.
It's something, E.
coli basically.
"Type of bacteria found in the gut of animals and humans.
Some strains can cause diarrhea, food poisoning.
" Blah-blah.
"Pneumonia.
" So, I've got, in spring one, no E.
coli.
And no E.
coli in spring two.
Right, the essence of what I've got here is the springs, the springs one and two, which I want to bottle, are good.
However, there was also some rather disturbing news.
Wait a minute.
"A positive coliform sample should be considered an indication of feces in your source.
" The pond that feeds the house where I live is riddled with literally everything in such vast quantities that Well, it explains why I am so full of shit.
'Cause that's what I've been living on these last few years.
It's just a torrent of turds.
Worried now that I wouldn't live long enough to actually open the farm shop, I went to the water filtration room at my house.
Hang on.
It's quite muddy.
My God, that's I'll show you what it's supposed to look like.
Hang on.
Right, that's what it looked like three months ago.
And that's what it looks like now.
I've been drinking this.
I've been drinking rotting animals and feces.
Luckily, Lisa is in London today.
I won't tell her that I won't tell her that this has happened.
That seems to be the best thing.
I'll just say no, everything's fine.
There was more bad news, because even though they were in storage time was starting to run out for my potatoes.
If we dig around, there's quite a lot of rotten ones in here that, we need to sort.
Yeah, we've got these ones which sorry for those that are squeamish, sort of have gone all pussy and horrible.
I needed to start selling them immediately.
But the farm shop was nowhere near ready.
So, in these desperate times, I came up with a desperate measure.
Morning.
It's 15p, then, for one of those, or 15p for that.
That's the only drawback to my plan.
So, potatoes are there, bags are there.
Good.
As it turned out, the honesty box attracted people who were honest.
Mostly.
Somebody has left me this bottle top.
Because they are.
But some people have left actual money.
So, I have earned two, three, four, £5.
35.
What are they? Jacket ones? Look, look, look, look.
So, you've got big ones, or smaller ones.
- I'll take the big ones.
I'll jacket them.
- How many do you want? - Seven.
- Seven? Brilliant.
Look at this.
I'm just so rich.
However, I wasn't going to shift 16 tons of potatoes from a filing cabinet.
What I really needed was a finished shop.
And on that front there was good news because, finally, it was starting to take shape.
Look, that's this morning.
Is that this morning? Yeah, I looked round the other side yesterday in the rain.
Come and have a look what we done yesterday.
- Fair weather Alan here.
- Yeah.
That's all right, innit? Those jumpers and that.
- Good.
I like the jumpers.
- Yeah, they're good.
Nice big jumper.
We got a nice few of those.
It just makes it look more like that barn down there.
- That's exactly right.
- Yeah.
Now, I've got to go do the sheep.
I really have.
And I do think I'm slowing you down, which I don't want to do.
- Bring a few taters back.
- I will.
I'll bring you some potatoes.
- I'll put a few in for you.
- I'll bring you some potatoes.
Please do.
As I was leaving, Alan suddenly remembered something else he needed.
One thing before you go, we've gotta get water and electric from the caravan site.
So we need to talk to them.
It's owned by the Camping and Caravan Club, though.
- Is it? Right.
- I get on really well with them, 'cause I've always been incredibly nice about caravans.
- Yeah, brilliant.
- I have always said really kind things.
I've seen them with the sticks of dynamite in them and things.
Hey, yeah, we need to get hold of them, really, don't we? I'll get on with that.
As it turned out, the Camping and Caravan Club were happy to supply me with their power and water, so long as I gave them something in return.
So Hi, I'm Jeremy Clarkson and, as I've always said, you can't beat a caravan holiday.
A site like this offers Camping and Caravan Club members access to the great outdoors for as little as £41 a year.
I think it's brightening up.
And it's a great place to enjoy some al fresco dining, or maybe a bit of sport, with people from all walks of life.
So, come on, beat those Brexit blues and take your holiday this year in a good old British field.
You won't regret it.
Cheers.
With the power and water now being connected, everything was looking good.
But then Well, it's not great.
Um, the site for the farm shop that we're looking at, I've just been checking the title, and there's a restrictive covenant in there, which puts a restriction on your use.
And what? Right.
I've got a map.
So, the farm shop is coming up here.
Yeah.
Is that the boundary of my land? Yeah.
And there is a little corner of that field That's not my gate.
We have a right of access, and we have a right of use of that whole corner of the field.
But it's restricted to agricultural use only.
- So, we can build the farm shop - But no customers can get to it.
But no customers could get to it.
- It's tiny.
- Yeah, it is.
Ten feet.
It's just the gate.
It's literally the gate and a corner of the field.
Um, probably, as you say, about 100 square feet.
For God's sake.
I therefore had to go and find the people in the village who owned the gate, hoping they weren't those who'd objected to the shop being built in the first place.
And guess what they weren't! They gave me permission for customers to come to the shop, so work could resume.
All right, so just tip that out there, Brad.
Get the barrels out the way now.
Until eventually, four weeks later than planned, the building was complete.
It's like Fortnum & Mason's, in my mind.
- It's what? - Don't say you don't know what that is.
- Not a clue.
- It's a big shop in Piccadilly in London.
- You've done that fucking deliberate.
- Harrods.
It's like Harrods.
- All right, we know what Harrods is.
- It's like Harrods.
We'll get this shit moved.
We'll get this leveled back down, and it will all be ready to go.
What about a toilet then? Well, we've got to get something.
You know, old people come.
All right, I'm gonna go and find something to sell.
It's just never gonna stop raining, is it? Stop raining? It hasn't stopped for eight weeks.
Let me tell you something, this is global warming.
You racing about all your life in vehicles.
I'm sorry.
What car is that over there? No, mine is electric, that van.
Thirty years of you bouting about in them, and other people, ruined our fucking world for the next generation.
Just unbelievable horseshit.
God! Right, let's get on with this.
Get all them pipes out.
Shut that door up, Jason, it'll get damaged.
In truth, there was a lot to do before the bare barn was an actual shop.
Luke, I want all this rubbish out of here.
But as each hour passed, the potatoes were rotting.
The pheasants were eating my wasabi.
The fox was circling the henhouses.
And the hunt I brought in to deal with it were bound by law to be on the phone when it strolled by.
As time was therefore critical, I decided that night that the Diddly Squat farm shop would open, come what may, that weekend.
Well, we've got to get all the boxes up for the vegetables in the farm shop.
- Yeah.
- Got to get the advertising signs hung.
- Okay.
- We've got to get the farm shop decorated.
So, what do you want me to do? And when is the farm shop opening, actually? - Tomorrow, two o'clock.
I know, I know.
- What's the time now? - Twenty to 10:00, Friday.
Opens tomorrow.
- And we've got to do all this? Otherwise the potatoes will have rotted.
If we don't open it now, we have no potatoes.
All those potatoes will be rotten and be gone.
Yeah.
Kaleb rushed off to get signs made, while I took Lisa to the shop so she could start decorating, and I could try out the carpark.
- That's really deep.
- That's really bad.
- Ready? - Yes, hang on.
- Yay.
- That is great.
Eventually.
- Ready? - Yeah, go on.
Wow.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Where's the sink? What? So, you have a sink, and you're rinsing stuff.
No, we haven't got a sink.
We've got a tap.
But let's not get bogged down, shall we, with the lack of any form of drainage to save money.
Um That looks fantastic.
It's a lot bigger with the roof on.
Yes.
Leaving Lisa to paint the walls, I went off to help Kaleb erect our advertising signs.
How many people are coming on Saturday? Well, now, that's a good question.
Have you put it in the Chipping Norton News? - No, because it suddenly occurred to me - Social media.
Social media.
Twitter, I've got 7.
1 million - Fucking hell.
- Followers.
What do you do on Twitter? I don't use Twitter.
Nothing.
Twitter now is just an opportunity for very left-wing people to express increasingly left-wing views to other left-wing people.
So, I'm not sure it's a farm shop - Hey, but it's all vegetarian, isn't it? - Yeah.
No, it is.
Yes, you see, that's a Twitter handle.
- Everything is going vegan.
- That's a Twitter handle.
Christ, we'll have them with their smelly armpits queuing up for a mile if we say that.
After I'd finished tweeting, Kaleb came up with a Kaleb-type suggestion about what we could do with any unsold potatoes.
There's a thing You actually can go and have a potato fight with people.
Get there, you get drunk, and you chuck potatoes at each other.
Like, what? You go to a party, and then how does it work? Start off all, "How are you doing? You all right?" And then, about, I don't know, ten o'clock comes.
That's it.
You're just chucking potatoes at each other.
Who are these other potato flingers around here? I can't name them all 'cause they'll be like, "Yeah, he's just named me.
" And everyone will be chucking potatoes at them, like they like it.
Your life and my life are incredibly different.
With the signs up, we went back to the farm shop to help erect the portaloo.
All right, it's a thing of great beauty, isn't it? So, we just plonk that up.
How does it not blow over in the wind? It's probably best to put some sandbags or something to weigh it down.
Cheers, mate.
With the portaloo in place, I went to check on Michael O'Angelo.
- So, Jeremy? - Yeah? I spoke to Mum, and I sent her a video of what I'm doing.
And she sent me a Whatsapp back.
"My goodness.
Stop right now.
You need to prepare the breeze blocks before you paint them.
Google it.
" So, I googled it and you have to do a mixture of cement and water, and then paint that on.
Yeah, but if we just say we wanted this effect.
We haven't got time to do that.
The shop is opening in - I know.
It's too late anyway.
- 24 hours and ten minutes.
Leaving Lisa to it, I went to collect the eggs we'd be selling.
One, two.
No, absolutely none.
One.
Last chance.
59 chickens One.
What are you doing? That is 11 eggs.
That is enough for a picnic, not a shop.
Having harangued the hens, I drove back to the farm shop and arrived just in time for a visit from cheerful Charlie.
I was just thinking as I walked across, could you have built it in a windier spot? Yes, I know.
But we're next to ready-made customers.
Absolutely.
Charlie then informed me that I wouldn't be selling any mutton from the sheep I'd slaughtered earlier.
I can't sell the meat? No, not until you've got the sign-off from Food Hygiene.
So, that frozen That frozen stuff will have to stay unsold until we've got She is coming round next week, I think.
Is that the one that can't come on Thursdays and Fridays? The local council cannot send somebody out, yes.
Why not? What, because she only works Monday to Wednesday.
Is it 1974? Have I been asleep and woken up in the '70s? Come on.
Inside, Charlie's bureaucratic bombs kept on falling.
In Lisa's mind, there is a lovely coffee area out here.
- People can sit and have a cup of coffee.
- Variation of planning.
Building a fire pit.
Do I need a council planning permission for that? No, but we might need a risk assessment.
Can I put a note up outside? "Don't walk in the fire.
" - Just for public liability.
- "Don't lie down in the fire.
" That's good.
"Don't touch the fire.
" So, what I'm saying is, "Hello customer, I think you're a halfwit.
" Mercifully, I eventually escaped from the red tape and got on with the business of finishing the shop.
See, that's going to work.
We've got so much to do.
Fucking hell.
The next day, the weather was not like this.
It was cold and bleak, and there were still issues to be dealt with.
- They're really good eggs.
- But you have got a salmonella test? - What? Have we? - Have you? That looks really good, doesn't it? - Yeah, that looks fantastic.
- I'll open this one.
Here we go.
And then, we have that's Well, when it's closed, look - No, no, no.
It's a yoga shop.
- Squat shop.
Well, squat shop, it sounds like people come here to do yoga.
- Diddly Squat.
- Yes, but when we're closed, it's very clear what we do.
When we're open, women will come in leotards and say, "Can I do a downward dog?" Bit of a problem with the spring water.
I ordered four sample bottles, and they have arrived in time for the shop opening, but I went for the yellow one.
And, as you can see, I mean the label is good.
I'm pleased.
It's clear, but Um It kind of looks like a sample.
However, as zero hour approached, everything was finally in order.
And we were ready to receive customers.
The question was, had my social media shout-out been enough to draw any in? Right, here we go.
This is it.
Can I interest you in anything? Potatoes maybe? Yeah, it's a wide selection of potatoes.
Yes.
Well, they're Melody potatoes.
They're delicious for chipping, for roasting, they're really good.
- Okay.
- Baking are fantastic.
- Chips, knock yourself out.
- Do you take American Express? Visa.
Then, just as I was starting to panic Holy cow.
My giddy aunt.
No, seriously, look down there.
Look down there.
It is, quite literally, as far as the eye can see.
My God, what have I done? - You all right? - Yeah, I am.
It's just more people have come than I was expecting.
My husband had an operation, but he came to see you.
- I'm so grateful to you.
- Had a spine operation.
Well, I've got disabled parking.
- So, have you got your blue badge? - Yes, we do.
Well, park in the blue badge.
I've put a special space.
- Thank you.
- Thanks.
Also, hordes of people were now arriving on foot.
Soon, the shop was heaving, and Lisa was run off her feet.
Hi.
Hi, how are you? Hi, how are you? Hi, how are you? I, meanwhile, had decided I was more useful as a front-of-house type of person.
- You mind if I take a picture? - No, that's fine.
- What do I write? - To Curtis.
There we go.
And your potatoes.
That'll be £6.
21, please, sir.
There we go, £6.
02.
And that's £6.
72.
Anyone knows what happened Chelsea-Spurs? - Six How much? £2.
20? Hi, how are you? - Fine thanks.
There we go, and your potatoes.
You want the cake as well? Which newspaper are you from? The Cotswolds Gentleman.
- The Cotswolds Gentleman? - Yeah.
I like the idea of being in the Cotswolds Gentleman.
As the customers piled in, a problem developed.
The carpark was becoming a quagmire.
There's a problem.
I saw this as a public relations disaster, while Kaleb saw it as a business opportunity.
You're not charging people to tow them out of the carpark.
No, you're not.
You can't.
It's not fair.
It's a shop.
You're here to provide a service with my very powerful tractor.
Yeah, now that I think of it.
Does that mean I can have my £10 back? You're not paying him.
Kaleb, give him - I gave him £10.
- See? There's a business idea.
It isn't a business idea, it's theft.
As the afternoon wore on, the punters kept on coming.
Right, so that is just over three kilos, let's say three kilos.
A card would be much easier if you have it.
I'll carry it to your car, madam.
Thank you.
I mean, I can't sell meat, but I have got a bit of mutton.
Thank you very much.
And it's £10 to get out.
If you want my meat, it's round the back.
After a frantic day, it was time to shut the doors - Thanks for coming.
- Thank you ever so much for coming.
Enjoy your potatoes.
And count the takings.
40, 60, 80, 120.
Do we need one of those, like, Pablo Escobar counting machines? No, you know, like drug dealers where they go One fifty I'd say we have about 160, 170, 175 in there.
- One hundred and seventy-five? - Yeah, and - £75.
- Cash.
- I know - And then, but I was quite busy - How much did we do on credit card? - How much do you think? Um Don't know.
I can't even begin to guess.
£100, £200? £897.
76.
So, we almost made it.
Eighty-seven? - £897.
76.
- Plus 100 - Plus 100 Well, we'll own up to this.
- So, 170 odd.
A hundred and Seventy odd, so over a grand.
- I know! - I'm a human tripod.
- That's a lot of sales.
We have - There is still a lot sold so many potatoes.
And we have so many left, Jeremy.
But no matter, the shop was now on the map, and there was always tomorrow.
Except, as it turned out, there wasn't.
I've been closed down.
I have in my hand a piece of paper from the council.
They are unhappy with the tin roof.
They say they want it to be made of slate.
Obviously, if they're not happy, I don't have planning permission.
If I don't have planning permission, I can't be open.
Which means this is the shortest farm shop business in history.
Something will go right one day, it has to.
It has to.
Yeah, look at that.
Ecoists get their cocks out for this kind of thing, don't they? What the fuck are you doing up here?
And on one of these rare occasions, I decided we needed a treat.
Right.
I'm on my way to the local farm shop to pick up a ploughman's.
Well, what I need for a ploughman's.
And here we are.
You have arrived at your destination.
Right.
Some of those, ham, pork pie.
Wait, cheese.
Have you got any Norwegian Jarlsberg? - We don't.
- Cheddar? We have wonderful cheddar if you'd like a good, strong cheddar.
So this is all really made by Daylesford and sold in the shop? Yes, that's right.
Nothing to see there.
That's what you need, crusty loaf, butter.
Yeah, one ploughman's in my bag.
- Lovely.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you.
- How much is that? - That is £83.
44, please.
I'll pop those on top.
All right, a bit more than that, then.
83? 30 40.
There's 90.
Would you like your receipt? Yeah, because nobody will believe me otherwise.
Thanks.
This, however, turned out to be a wise investment, because on the way home, a 5-million-watt light bulb went on in my head.
Farm shop? Why would I not do that? If I put up a little barn somewhere, fill it with all the produce that comes off the farm That's not a bad idea.
In fact, it was a brilliant idea, and I even had a location in mind.
This isn't used for farming.
It's just waste ground.
There's a road there, gate there, so there's good access.
And best of all, behind these trees, come and have a look.
Through this little gate here, caravan site.
Endlessly-changing customers, and they'll never be able to tell the people the following week how bad my shop is, if it is bad.
No bad word-of-mouth.
With the location sorted, I called Alan, who's been my builder for 25 years, to scope out the site.
There's the edge.
You're going right up by that edge in the arm.
When you're looking down that hill, you want to be in line with it, so you want to be coming off that corner square out there.
I didn't actually have all the planning permission yet, but Alan said that despite this, we could get cracking by removing the first few inches of top soil.
We strip the land just so we can see what we got.
Finish at that.
- So - Everything's ready.
- I haven't jumped the gun here? - No.
- I've not broken any law? - Absolutely.
I therefore leapt immediately into the driving seat of Alan's big digger.
Yeah, look at that.
Here we go.
My van.
My God.
Shit.
Nice and smooth.
Take the grass off.
Too deep.
Not so deep.
It turned out my diggering skills were quite poor.
Fucking hell.
It's like a swimming pool.
So, after Alan suggested I go and do something else, I went to check on the small patch of experimental potatoes I planted on spec a few months earlier.
I've grown a thing! Another one! There's millions of them.
There's, like, five.
Look at that.
And another.
As I was digging away, cheerful Charlie dropped by.
Are they good potatoes? I know that's a baking potato, that's great, and those are new.
- And that's a little salad potato.
- They're all the same.
But they're Melody.
They're good variety.
They'll be they'll be really good.
The thing is, though, it's taken me the best part of half an hour to do that.
I've got one bucket.
So, how many buckets am I going to get from here? We should be on between 14, 16 tons an acre.
- We've got about two acres here.
- Sorry, you just said 14 tons? - Yeah.
- Are going to come out of here? - Just two acres? - Just two acres.
That's a lot of chips.
I could put them in the farm shop, except the farm shop's not built and I haven't got planning permission.
So, how long If we get the farm shop built in, realistically, six weeks, if planning permission comes through this week - Yup.
- Would these keep another six weeks? We can keep these for six weeks.
How can I keep these from becoming useless for six weeks? So, we've got to top it rather than spraying it off.
What, you mean a lawnmower, effectively? So, lawnmower.
Off we go.
-So, you take the leaves off, -Take the leaves off, - and then they'll just lie dormant? - And they'll lie dormant.
And the skin sort of firms up.
- And that's good? - And that's good.
That that will enable it to store for longer.
Kaleb then leant me his topping machine, and after giving me a lesson in how it works All right, that's it.
So now feet are enabled.
Now press it again.
I was on my way.
Yes.
Taking the leaves off my potatoes.
That will deprive the potato of its ability to grow, and it will just lay dormant in the soil.
- God, it's a good tractor.
- Jeremy, can you hear me? - It's Kaleb.
- Yeah, got you.
Might want to drop the topper down.
It might help a little bit.
Rookie error.
Yeah, yeah.
I knew that.
I'm just going to go back to the start now and then actually do it with the topper lowered, because I think that will make a huge difference.
It did, and finally I was in business.
He's doing a good job.
Then, with the potatoes sleeping soundly in the ground, I was free to concentrate on other produce for the farm shop.
I've been doing some research, and it turns out that Chadlington, the local village, is named after St.
Chad, who is the patron saint of wells and springs.
What's more, the entire village got its drinking water from springs on this farm.
But then, one night in 1972, the water board switched everybody over to mains water.
And they were livid.
They were furious.
Questions were asked in the Houses of Parliament.
The local television station sent a reporter to Chadlington to cover the story.
I've got a clip of that here.
An interesting lesson in democracy here at Chadlington.
That is Chris Tarrant.
It's actually Chris Tarrant.
That's where he began.
In the end, it seems the authorities can pipe what they like through to the village's taps, but short of forcibly pouring it down their throats, they can't make them drink it.
Mrs.
Kerr, you've been drinking this spring water a long time.
What's so special about it? Well, because it's pure.
Don't want that other filth.
What is it you don't like about tap water? Well, it's horrible.
Well, we had a tank of tropical fish, but now it's been changed over, and they've all died.
It's mixed with sewage from Temple Guiting and Bourton-on-the-Water.
All the sewage is going to come into it.
All the locals want to drink is this stuff.
They've been doing so for centuries, and it's beautiful.
So he beat me to the Chadlington water story, and then he beat me to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I just live in the man's shadow.
But now I would have the last laugh, because I would bring back Chadlington's spring water.
I just want to see this spring, because I've never really paid attention to the springs before.
Job one for Lisa and I was to gather some samples for testing.
Are you grabbing it from straight where it comes out the ground? Yes.
This is exactly what Perrier do.
You know, that's actually delicious.
Look how quickly you can fill a bottle up from here.
See, what I'm thinking is, this would be like B&Q with an old-people hiring policy.
Get a load of pensioners at the bottom of the waterfall with bottles, filling them up.
It'd be fantastic, gainful employment for the elderly.
This is the kind of thing you get the CBE for.
Having sent the samples off to the lab, I had another brainwave.
What I have here is a wasabi plant known as green gold, because this, in the shops, would cost you £52, and that's the same as half a ton of carrots.
So, to get at the actual edible bit we have to peel the bark.
Most of the green, hot wasabi paste you get in Japanese restaurants is actually mustard and horseradish sort of mixed up with artificial sweeteners and coloring.
This is the real deal.
If I can grow this here, I'm going to be looking at G5 catalogues in no time at all.
That is fantastic.
It's here, now.
It's here.
It's it's here.
Wasabi is not easy to grow, though.
It needs a supply of fast-flowing water that's exactly the right temperature and has exactly the right PH level.
And once I'd found a stream that fitted the bill, I had to build a bed, which meant I needed a machine.
Single-cylinder engine, 0.
16 liters, top speed: three.
I'm going to call it the James May.
I've now planted about 100 wasabi plants.
If they all survive, that's well, £5,000 for the roots and then another £1,000 for the leaves, probably.
And that is more than you'll get from, well, hundreds of acres of wheat.
This is where the money is.
I then broke off from farm shop jobs, because Charlie had been badgering me about my farm equipment being left out in the open.
So, I took some anti-theft measures with my newly-appointed head of security, Gerald, the dry-stone waller.
I told you I could carry it.
You wait.
You ain't got a lot there yet.
There's ten tons to come.
Jesus Christ.
Come on, you bastard.
No, no.
Yeah, five o'clock normally, on a Friday.
Right.
- That will do.
- It's gonna come up to The thing is but I did them by the loader, that was all.
Well, supposedly.
If we go into that one, spreader next then Yeah.
Right.
- Listen, 20 to 6:00.
- All right.
Before they send a search party out from The Chequers, you should get down there.
Um, lovely to see you again, thanks for your help.
All right, mate.
I should be Hopefully, in about a week's time, because I've got to do some Well, it probably won't get on the program? - Yeah.
- Yeah.
That's right.
All right.
So, my equipment was now secure.
I would soon have stuff to sell in the shop, and planning permission was due any day.
All was going well, until, that is What? I got some bad news from the council.
The village has objected to my, farm shop plan.
"For the following reasons" The complaints are simply about the risk of changing the village, the risk of damaging the village shops.
It's a little, old-fashioned village.
People generally are not that keen.
People are a bit bemused with the situation, and we never know what Jeremy's going to do next.
I mean, he blew up his house.
Dogs barked, and people thought the end of the world had come.
Charlie quickly emailed to explain how I should deal with the objections.
Whilst it does not read well on first inspection, I've addressed the concerns already through the submission of a business plan.
"What is a business plan?" Business plan examples, right.
"Customers' priorities and needs.
Routes to market.
Product services and propositions.
Sales, values, and margins.
A strategic action plan" Well, I'm gonna be a week.
Having typed in every phrase I'd ever heard on The Apprentice, I submitted a business plan, and amazingly, it worked, because shortly afterwards, planning permission was granted.
Just tip that out there, Brad.
Get that lot.
Everything down the bottom.
This meant Alan could finally start building.
Just tip that up there, just tip it.
And I'll get the digger to move it.
Get the barrels out the way, now.
But he was now a week behind schedule, which was a week the potatoes didn't have.
And then to make matters worse, an old enemy returned.
Holy cow.
How can you build anything in these conditions? - Have you ever known it wetter here? - No, never.
We're all going to end up with trench foot before the end of the week.
No, the problem I've got is I've got tons of potatoes, but they're not going to last forever.
So, how long? "How long?" If the weather breaks, maybe eight weeks.
No, no.
It can't be.
The rain fell nonstop for days.
And when it finally eased up, this is what the shop's foundations looked like.
It's three weeks ago I dug the footings out for the shop.
And that that's what's happened.
I'm surprised the Environment Agency isn't here saying I've got an illegal trout lake.
Planning permission's through, and we get the heaviest rainfall recorded since the last heaviest rainfall.
Does anything go right in farming? With the build schedule now in tatters, the priority was to preserve the life of the potatoes.
They'd have to be dug up and stored, which meant I'd need a machine.
And in this part of the world, where no one grows spuds, finding one proved to be tricky.
But much to Kaleb's delight, I managed it.
It's like a rust bucket.
I mean, bloody hell.
Tire's old and flat.
These need unseizing.
I'm going to have to heat these up.
That needs re-greasing.
Look, that's old grease, that.
All green and manky.
This thing is a piece of crap.
Eventually, though, he stopped moaning and got it working.
And with some local kids helping out, the slow, backbreaking work began.
Well, we've done from the top of the field down to here, in what, probably four hours? And we've got all that to do.
And we needed to get a move on.
One there, look.
This one's gone black.
Yeah, that one's gone black and a bit squidgy.
In the end, though, the workers saved 16 tons of potatoes, and apart from a few, which my head of security needed, we got them all into a cool, dark storage barn.
This bought me some time to start work on my next farm shop enterprise How many chickens are you going to get? Sixty.
Eggs.
So, we're going to call them not free range chickens.
We're going to call them good exercise chickens.
That's what they call them in Vietnam.
And it's better, I think, than free range.
Yeah, I like that.
My plan is to build a range of little chicken huts along this side of the wood.
So, actually starting about here, yeah? Yeah.
So, you can get the eggs from this side, but the chickens can exit on that side to run around in the wood.
But we've got to refence this.
We've got to put chicken wire around the outside.
How could a fox get in there? Like a fox.
Guarantee a fox will get in there in the best part of 20 minutes.
And how high is the fence going to have to be? Six foot, like this.
And so, the next day, we reconvened to build the fence.
Hold it on the bottom of the post.
Square it up.
Using a machine Kaleb called his man killer.
And away we go.
Your go.
Higher.
I don't know if that's actually that's not actually moving.
Give me a break.
It's that last little lip.
There it is there.
The burn.
Well done.
All right, next one.
Do you want to bring that? I'll bring this.
We need another post.
We've got to get some more posts.
I'll meet you down there.
Grab two if you can.
And so, the day continued under the lash of the rural Ant Middleton.
Higher, higher.
That's it, now.
Three, four, five.
Two more.
Come on, two more.
What's this shouting at me this morning? Hold that.
Right, you get the ladder and the bar, I'll get this and meet you at the next one.
- Ready? - We're not even halfway there, are we? No.
Eventually, though, Jurassic Park was finished.
And then, it was time to install the henhouses that Lisa had ordered.
- It's good, right? - Well, they'd blend if we were in Camber Sands, or Tobermory.
- Well, it was this or pebbledash.
- And I've got the birds.
- Hey.
- 60 purebred Burford Browns.
Okay, so let's work this out.
So, we can put 20 in there, 12.
That's 20.
Thirty, 40, 50, three, eight.
Seven at the end.
- I literally wasn't listening.
- Okay, I got it.
Clearly, though, the hens weren't thrilled at the prospect of living in LEGOLAND.
These are frisky.
Sorry.
Jeremy, seriously, you're not going to do this without food.
Yes, we are.
- How? - Because watch this.
I am a bird whisperer.
You're pecky, bitey.
No, this is how you do it, okay? This is an important lesson.
Pretend you're not interested.
Casually coming along, looking the other way.
And then, at the last minute, you dive Fucking thing.
Eventually, though, all the hens were safely installed in their new houses.
And Lisa had a little surprise for me.
Close your eyes and hold out your hand.
- An egg? - The first egg, yeah.
They laid it in the crate.
- A egg.
Egg.
- Yeah.
Does a chicken lay eggs out of its arse or its vagina? Did you go to boarding school by any chance? If I google that, Jeff Bezos is going to worry about me.
He is.
So, full scale egg production was imminent.
And, hopefully, so was the bottled spring water.
Because back at the office, an important letter had arrived.
Okay, these are the, um results from all the springs on the farm.
Had the water tested to see what's what, how much of them are drinkable.
Right.
It's something, E.
coli basically.
"Type of bacteria found in the gut of animals and humans.
Some strains can cause diarrhea, food poisoning.
" Blah-blah.
"Pneumonia.
" So, I've got, in spring one, no E.
coli.
And no E.
coli in spring two.
Right, the essence of what I've got here is the springs, the springs one and two, which I want to bottle, are good.
However, there was also some rather disturbing news.
Wait a minute.
"A positive coliform sample should be considered an indication of feces in your source.
" The pond that feeds the house where I live is riddled with literally everything in such vast quantities that Well, it explains why I am so full of shit.
'Cause that's what I've been living on these last few years.
It's just a torrent of turds.
Worried now that I wouldn't live long enough to actually open the farm shop, I went to the water filtration room at my house.
Hang on.
It's quite muddy.
My God, that's I'll show you what it's supposed to look like.
Hang on.
Right, that's what it looked like three months ago.
And that's what it looks like now.
I've been drinking this.
I've been drinking rotting animals and feces.
Luckily, Lisa is in London today.
I won't tell her that I won't tell her that this has happened.
That seems to be the best thing.
I'll just say no, everything's fine.
There was more bad news, because even though they were in storage time was starting to run out for my potatoes.
If we dig around, there's quite a lot of rotten ones in here that, we need to sort.
Yeah, we've got these ones which sorry for those that are squeamish, sort of have gone all pussy and horrible.
I needed to start selling them immediately.
But the farm shop was nowhere near ready.
So, in these desperate times, I came up with a desperate measure.
Morning.
It's 15p, then, for one of those, or 15p for that.
That's the only drawback to my plan.
So, potatoes are there, bags are there.
Good.
As it turned out, the honesty box attracted people who were honest.
Mostly.
Somebody has left me this bottle top.
Because they are.
But some people have left actual money.
So, I have earned two, three, four, £5.
35.
What are they? Jacket ones? Look, look, look, look.
So, you've got big ones, or smaller ones.
- I'll take the big ones.
I'll jacket them.
- How many do you want? - Seven.
- Seven? Brilliant.
Look at this.
I'm just so rich.
However, I wasn't going to shift 16 tons of potatoes from a filing cabinet.
What I really needed was a finished shop.
And on that front there was good news because, finally, it was starting to take shape.
Look, that's this morning.
Is that this morning? Yeah, I looked round the other side yesterday in the rain.
Come and have a look what we done yesterday.
- Fair weather Alan here.
- Yeah.
That's all right, innit? Those jumpers and that.
- Good.
I like the jumpers.
- Yeah, they're good.
Nice big jumper.
We got a nice few of those.
It just makes it look more like that barn down there.
- That's exactly right.
- Yeah.
Now, I've got to go do the sheep.
I really have.
And I do think I'm slowing you down, which I don't want to do.
- Bring a few taters back.
- I will.
I'll bring you some potatoes.
- I'll put a few in for you.
- I'll bring you some potatoes.
Please do.
As I was leaving, Alan suddenly remembered something else he needed.
One thing before you go, we've gotta get water and electric from the caravan site.
So we need to talk to them.
It's owned by the Camping and Caravan Club, though.
- Is it? Right.
- I get on really well with them, 'cause I've always been incredibly nice about caravans.
- Yeah, brilliant.
- I have always said really kind things.
I've seen them with the sticks of dynamite in them and things.
Hey, yeah, we need to get hold of them, really, don't we? I'll get on with that.
As it turned out, the Camping and Caravan Club were happy to supply me with their power and water, so long as I gave them something in return.
So Hi, I'm Jeremy Clarkson and, as I've always said, you can't beat a caravan holiday.
A site like this offers Camping and Caravan Club members access to the great outdoors for as little as £41 a year.
I think it's brightening up.
And it's a great place to enjoy some al fresco dining, or maybe a bit of sport, with people from all walks of life.
So, come on, beat those Brexit blues and take your holiday this year in a good old British field.
You won't regret it.
Cheers.
With the power and water now being connected, everything was looking good.
But then Well, it's not great.
Um, the site for the farm shop that we're looking at, I've just been checking the title, and there's a restrictive covenant in there, which puts a restriction on your use.
And what? Right.
I've got a map.
So, the farm shop is coming up here.
Yeah.
Is that the boundary of my land? Yeah.
And there is a little corner of that field That's not my gate.
We have a right of access, and we have a right of use of that whole corner of the field.
But it's restricted to agricultural use only.
- So, we can build the farm shop - But no customers can get to it.
But no customers could get to it.
- It's tiny.
- Yeah, it is.
Ten feet.
It's just the gate.
It's literally the gate and a corner of the field.
Um, probably, as you say, about 100 square feet.
For God's sake.
I therefore had to go and find the people in the village who owned the gate, hoping they weren't those who'd objected to the shop being built in the first place.
And guess what they weren't! They gave me permission for customers to come to the shop, so work could resume.
All right, so just tip that out there, Brad.
Get the barrels out the way now.
Until eventually, four weeks later than planned, the building was complete.
It's like Fortnum & Mason's, in my mind.
- It's what? - Don't say you don't know what that is.
- Not a clue.
- It's a big shop in Piccadilly in London.
- You've done that fucking deliberate.
- Harrods.
It's like Harrods.
- All right, we know what Harrods is.
- It's like Harrods.
We'll get this shit moved.
We'll get this leveled back down, and it will all be ready to go.
What about a toilet then? Well, we've got to get something.
You know, old people come.
All right, I'm gonna go and find something to sell.
It's just never gonna stop raining, is it? Stop raining? It hasn't stopped for eight weeks.
Let me tell you something, this is global warming.
You racing about all your life in vehicles.
I'm sorry.
What car is that over there? No, mine is electric, that van.
Thirty years of you bouting about in them, and other people, ruined our fucking world for the next generation.
Just unbelievable horseshit.
God! Right, let's get on with this.
Get all them pipes out.
Shut that door up, Jason, it'll get damaged.
In truth, there was a lot to do before the bare barn was an actual shop.
Luke, I want all this rubbish out of here.
But as each hour passed, the potatoes were rotting.
The pheasants were eating my wasabi.
The fox was circling the henhouses.
And the hunt I brought in to deal with it were bound by law to be on the phone when it strolled by.
As time was therefore critical, I decided that night that the Diddly Squat farm shop would open, come what may, that weekend.
Well, we've got to get all the boxes up for the vegetables in the farm shop.
- Yeah.
- Got to get the advertising signs hung.
- Okay.
- We've got to get the farm shop decorated.
So, what do you want me to do? And when is the farm shop opening, actually? - Tomorrow, two o'clock.
I know, I know.
- What's the time now? - Twenty to 10:00, Friday.
Opens tomorrow.
- And we've got to do all this? Otherwise the potatoes will have rotted.
If we don't open it now, we have no potatoes.
All those potatoes will be rotten and be gone.
Yeah.
Kaleb rushed off to get signs made, while I took Lisa to the shop so she could start decorating, and I could try out the carpark.
- That's really deep.
- That's really bad.
- Ready? - Yes, hang on.
- Yay.
- That is great.
Eventually.
- Ready? - Yeah, go on.
Wow.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Where's the sink? What? So, you have a sink, and you're rinsing stuff.
No, we haven't got a sink.
We've got a tap.
But let's not get bogged down, shall we, with the lack of any form of drainage to save money.
Um That looks fantastic.
It's a lot bigger with the roof on.
Yes.
Leaving Lisa to paint the walls, I went off to help Kaleb erect our advertising signs.
How many people are coming on Saturday? Well, now, that's a good question.
Have you put it in the Chipping Norton News? - No, because it suddenly occurred to me - Social media.
Social media.
Twitter, I've got 7.
1 million - Fucking hell.
- Followers.
What do you do on Twitter? I don't use Twitter.
Nothing.
Twitter now is just an opportunity for very left-wing people to express increasingly left-wing views to other left-wing people.
So, I'm not sure it's a farm shop - Hey, but it's all vegetarian, isn't it? - Yeah.
No, it is.
Yes, you see, that's a Twitter handle.
- Everything is going vegan.
- That's a Twitter handle.
Christ, we'll have them with their smelly armpits queuing up for a mile if we say that.
After I'd finished tweeting, Kaleb came up with a Kaleb-type suggestion about what we could do with any unsold potatoes.
There's a thing You actually can go and have a potato fight with people.
Get there, you get drunk, and you chuck potatoes at each other.
Like, what? You go to a party, and then how does it work? Start off all, "How are you doing? You all right?" And then, about, I don't know, ten o'clock comes.
That's it.
You're just chucking potatoes at each other.
Who are these other potato flingers around here? I can't name them all 'cause they'll be like, "Yeah, he's just named me.
" And everyone will be chucking potatoes at them, like they like it.
Your life and my life are incredibly different.
With the signs up, we went back to the farm shop to help erect the portaloo.
All right, it's a thing of great beauty, isn't it? So, we just plonk that up.
How does it not blow over in the wind? It's probably best to put some sandbags or something to weigh it down.
Cheers, mate.
With the portaloo in place, I went to check on Michael O'Angelo.
- So, Jeremy? - Yeah? I spoke to Mum, and I sent her a video of what I'm doing.
And she sent me a Whatsapp back.
"My goodness.
Stop right now.
You need to prepare the breeze blocks before you paint them.
Google it.
" So, I googled it and you have to do a mixture of cement and water, and then paint that on.
Yeah, but if we just say we wanted this effect.
We haven't got time to do that.
The shop is opening in - I know.
It's too late anyway.
- 24 hours and ten minutes.
Leaving Lisa to it, I went to collect the eggs we'd be selling.
One, two.
No, absolutely none.
One.
Last chance.
59 chickens One.
What are you doing? That is 11 eggs.
That is enough for a picnic, not a shop.
Having harangued the hens, I drove back to the farm shop and arrived just in time for a visit from cheerful Charlie.
I was just thinking as I walked across, could you have built it in a windier spot? Yes, I know.
But we're next to ready-made customers.
Absolutely.
Charlie then informed me that I wouldn't be selling any mutton from the sheep I'd slaughtered earlier.
I can't sell the meat? No, not until you've got the sign-off from Food Hygiene.
So, that frozen That frozen stuff will have to stay unsold until we've got She is coming round next week, I think.
Is that the one that can't come on Thursdays and Fridays? The local council cannot send somebody out, yes.
Why not? What, because she only works Monday to Wednesday.
Is it 1974? Have I been asleep and woken up in the '70s? Come on.
Inside, Charlie's bureaucratic bombs kept on falling.
In Lisa's mind, there is a lovely coffee area out here.
- People can sit and have a cup of coffee.
- Variation of planning.
Building a fire pit.
Do I need a council planning permission for that? No, but we might need a risk assessment.
Can I put a note up outside? "Don't walk in the fire.
" - Just for public liability.
- "Don't lie down in the fire.
" That's good.
"Don't touch the fire.
" So, what I'm saying is, "Hello customer, I think you're a halfwit.
" Mercifully, I eventually escaped from the red tape and got on with the business of finishing the shop.
See, that's going to work.
We've got so much to do.
Fucking hell.
The next day, the weather was not like this.
It was cold and bleak, and there were still issues to be dealt with.
- They're really good eggs.
- But you have got a salmonella test? - What? Have we? - Have you? That looks really good, doesn't it? - Yeah, that looks fantastic.
- I'll open this one.
Here we go.
And then, we have that's Well, when it's closed, look - No, no, no.
It's a yoga shop.
- Squat shop.
Well, squat shop, it sounds like people come here to do yoga.
- Diddly Squat.
- Yes, but when we're closed, it's very clear what we do.
When we're open, women will come in leotards and say, "Can I do a downward dog?" Bit of a problem with the spring water.
I ordered four sample bottles, and they have arrived in time for the shop opening, but I went for the yellow one.
And, as you can see, I mean the label is good.
I'm pleased.
It's clear, but Um It kind of looks like a sample.
However, as zero hour approached, everything was finally in order.
And we were ready to receive customers.
The question was, had my social media shout-out been enough to draw any in? Right, here we go.
This is it.
Can I interest you in anything? Potatoes maybe? Yeah, it's a wide selection of potatoes.
Yes.
Well, they're Melody potatoes.
They're delicious for chipping, for roasting, they're really good.
- Okay.
- Baking are fantastic.
- Chips, knock yourself out.
- Do you take American Express? Visa.
Then, just as I was starting to panic Holy cow.
My giddy aunt.
No, seriously, look down there.
Look down there.
It is, quite literally, as far as the eye can see.
My God, what have I done? - You all right? - Yeah, I am.
It's just more people have come than I was expecting.
My husband had an operation, but he came to see you.
- I'm so grateful to you.
- Had a spine operation.
Well, I've got disabled parking.
- So, have you got your blue badge? - Yes, we do.
Well, park in the blue badge.
I've put a special space.
- Thank you.
- Thanks.
Also, hordes of people were now arriving on foot.
Soon, the shop was heaving, and Lisa was run off her feet.
Hi.
Hi, how are you? Hi, how are you? Hi, how are you? I, meanwhile, had decided I was more useful as a front-of-house type of person.
- You mind if I take a picture? - No, that's fine.
- What do I write? - To Curtis.
There we go.
And your potatoes.
That'll be £6.
21, please, sir.
There we go, £6.
02.
And that's £6.
72.
Anyone knows what happened Chelsea-Spurs? - Six How much? £2.
20? Hi, how are you? - Fine thanks.
There we go, and your potatoes.
You want the cake as well? Which newspaper are you from? The Cotswolds Gentleman.
- The Cotswolds Gentleman? - Yeah.
I like the idea of being in the Cotswolds Gentleman.
As the customers piled in, a problem developed.
The carpark was becoming a quagmire.
There's a problem.
I saw this as a public relations disaster, while Kaleb saw it as a business opportunity.
You're not charging people to tow them out of the carpark.
No, you're not.
You can't.
It's not fair.
It's a shop.
You're here to provide a service with my very powerful tractor.
Yeah, now that I think of it.
Does that mean I can have my £10 back? You're not paying him.
Kaleb, give him - I gave him £10.
- See? There's a business idea.
It isn't a business idea, it's theft.
As the afternoon wore on, the punters kept on coming.
Right, so that is just over three kilos, let's say three kilos.
A card would be much easier if you have it.
I'll carry it to your car, madam.
Thank you.
I mean, I can't sell meat, but I have got a bit of mutton.
Thank you very much.
And it's £10 to get out.
If you want my meat, it's round the back.
After a frantic day, it was time to shut the doors - Thanks for coming.
- Thank you ever so much for coming.
Enjoy your potatoes.
And count the takings.
40, 60, 80, 120.
Do we need one of those, like, Pablo Escobar counting machines? No, you know, like drug dealers where they go One fifty I'd say we have about 160, 170, 175 in there.
- One hundred and seventy-five? - Yeah, and - £75.
- Cash.
- I know - And then, but I was quite busy - How much did we do on credit card? - How much do you think? Um Don't know.
I can't even begin to guess.
£100, £200? £897.
76.
So, we almost made it.
Eighty-seven? - £897.
76.
- Plus 100 - Plus 100 Well, we'll own up to this.
- So, 170 odd.
A hundred and Seventy odd, so over a grand.
- I know! - I'm a human tripod.
- That's a lot of sales.
We have - There is still a lot sold so many potatoes.
And we have so many left, Jeremy.
But no matter, the shop was now on the map, and there was always tomorrow.
Except, as it turned out, there wasn't.
I've been closed down.
I have in my hand a piece of paper from the council.
They are unhappy with the tin roof.
They say they want it to be made of slate.
Obviously, if they're not happy, I don't have planning permission.
If I don't have planning permission, I can't be open.
Which means this is the shortest farm shop business in history.
Something will go right one day, it has to.
It has to.
Yeah, look at that.
Ecoists get their cocks out for this kind of thing, don't they? What the fuck are you doing up here?