The World According to Clarkson

Clarkson is opposed to the opening up of the countryside to ramblers, under the right to roam, and became involved in a protracted legal dispute about access to a "permissive path" across the grounds of his second home on the Isle of Man since 2005. The dispute has since been resolved amicably, with Clarkson accepting honorary life-membership of The Ramblers' Association.

Willkommen and Achtung, This is Austrian Hospitality

A small tip. The border between Switzerland and Austria may be marked with nothing more than a small speed hump, and the customs hut may appear to be deserted, but whatever you do, stop. If you don’t, your rear-view mirror will fill with armed men in uniform and the stillness of the night will be shattered with searchlights and klaxons.

I’m able to pass on this handy hint because last week, while driving in convoy with my camera crew from St Moritz to Innsbruck, a man suddenly leapt out of his darkened hut and shouted: ‘Achtung.’

I have no idea what ‘achtung’ means, except that it usually precedes a bout of gunfire followed by many years of digging tunnels. I therefore pulled over and stopped, unlike the crew, who didn’t.

The man, white with rage and venom and fury, demanded my passport and refused to give it back until I had furnished him with details of the people in the other car which had dared to sail past his guard tower.

I’d often wondered how I’d get on in this sort of situation. Would I allow myself to be tortured to save my colleagues? How strong is my will, my playground-learnt bond? How long would I hold out?

About three seconds, I’m ashamed to say. Even though I have two spare passports, I blabbed like a baby, handing over the crew’s names, addresses and mobile phone numbers.

So they came back, and the driver was manhandled from the car and frogmarched up to the stop sign he’d ignored. His passport was confiscated and then it was noticed that all his camera equipment had not been checked out of Switzerland. We were in trouble.

So we raised our hands, and do you know what? The guard didn’t even bat an eyelid. The sight of four English people standing at a border post in the middle of Europe, in the year 2001, with their arms in the air didn’t strike him as even remotely odd.

We have become used to a gradual erosion of interference with international travel. You only know when you’ve gone from France into Belgium, for instance, because the road suddenly goes all bumpy. French customs are normally on strike and their opposite numbers in Belgium are usually hidden behind a mountain of chips with a mayonnaise topping.

But in Austria things are very different. Here you will not find a fatty working out his pension. Our man on the road from St Moritz to Innsbruck was a lean, front line storm trooper in full camouflage fatigues and he seemed to draw no distinction between the Englander and the Turk or Slav. Nobody, it seems, is welcome in the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The camera crew, who were very disappointed at the way I’d grassed them up and kept referring to me as ‘Von Strimmer’ or simply ‘The Invertebrate’, were ordered back to Switzerland. And me? For selling them out, I was allowed to proceed to Innsbruck.

Which does invite a question. How did the guard know where I was going? We had never mentioned our destination and yet he knew. It gets stranger, because minutes later I was pulled over for speeding and even though I had a Zurich-registered car, the policman addressed me straight away in English.

This puzzled me as I drove on and into the longest tunnel in the world. This was puzzling, too, as it wasn’t marked on the map. What’s happening on the surface that they don’t want us to see?

Finally I arrived at the hotel into which I’d been booked, but a mysterious woman in a full-length evening gown explained menacingly that she had let my room to someone else. And that all the other hotels in Innsbruck were fully booked.

Paranoia set in and took on a chilling air when I learn that one of the army bobsleigh people I was due to meet the following day had been kicked to death outside a nightclub.

I ended up miles away at a hotel run by a man we shall call ‘The Downloader’. ‘So, you are an Englisher,’ he said, when I checked in. ‘There are many good people in England,’ he added, with the sort of smile that made me think he might be talking about Harold Shipman.

Something is going on in Austria. They’ve told the world that the Freedom Party leader has stepped down, but how do we know that he’s gone and won’t be back? Let’s not forget these people are past masters at subterfuge. I mean, they managed to convince the entire planet that Adolf Hitler was a German. Most people here do think Haider will be back. As chancellor. And that’s a worry.

I’m writing this now in my room, hoping to sent it via email to the Sunday Times but each time I try to log on, messages come back to say it’s impossible. Maybe that’s because The Downloader is up in his attic, looking at unsavoury images of bondage and knives, or maybe it’s because I’m being watched. Journalists are.

Either way, I’m nervous about smuggling text like this past customs tomorrow when I’m due to fly home. I shall try to rig up some kind of device using my mobile phone, hoping these words reach you. If they do, yet I mysteriously disappear, for God’s sake send help. I’m at the…