Tonight we have one of the best episodes of television anywhere, anytime. The slapstick is howlingly good. It’s the famous caravan holiday episode! But first, we start out with a test drive.

A royal blue Ford Mondeo ST220 flashes across the screen. It’s equpped with a 3L V6 engine and is, Clarkson says, one of Britain’s most underrated cars. It’s very well proportioned and nice looking, “and my God, it drives well.” There’s some car porn shots. Its top speed is 151 mph, it’s got brilliant steering, the ride’s “spot on” and it’s practical, well-equipped, and only 24 000 pounds. “Every time I drive one of these things, I always get out thinking why do we buy anything else?”  At any rate, Clarkson says it may look a little common, but he lets us in on a secret–last year the BMW 3 series outsold the Mondeo, so the Ford is actually more exclusive. This particular model of Mondeo is even more exclusive than the Aston Martin DB9, as far as sales go. But honestly, you know a Ford sedan is never going to be as chic as the higher-end cars, so why try to fit it with this exclusivity thing? They just don’t have the cachet.

However, if you want some sort of exclusivity in your four door sedan, consider the Mazda 6MPS. As the bright red car streaks across the screen, Clarkson says that if the nameplate read Ferrari Snort-Thruster X-1, it would sell by the million, but it doesn’t. Really, one reason for this is because it doesn’t look like a sleek Ferrari, it looks like a nice, average sedan–if you buy a Ferrari nameplate, you want something that looks like a Ferrari. Back to Clarkson–the thing has a 2.3L turbocharged engine, four-wheel drive, screws out 256 bhp, and does 0-60 in 6.5 seconds. It’s not as practical or as good looking as the Mondeo, but it’s even better to drive. Clarkson skids around Hammerhead to make his point. He says he’s driven 100 000 pound coupes that are less fun. Quite a recommendation. Using a chart, Clarkson quantifies the amazingness of the Mazda vs a BMW 318i M Sport. Both cars are four door saloons, about the same size, and both cost in the area of 23 000 pounds. The BMW develops 129 bhp; the Mazda 256. Top speed in the BMW 130 vs 150 in the Mazda. The drive is 2 vs 4, the torque in lbft 148 vs 280. 0-60 in 10 seconds vs. 6.5 Engine size 1995 cc against 2260cc. Why would anyone buy the BMW? My guess is for the nameplate. Cuz nothing says “exclusivity” like an expensive car.

At this point, you’re probably tempted by the value you get from a car with a rubbish badge, and possibly you’re wondering which of the two is better, but there is a third option. The Vauxhall Vecta is one of Clarkson’s most despised cars ever, because he feels it was designed during a coffee break by people who couldn’t care less about cars.  As the lighter blue car zips across the screen, Clarkson points out some of the features: enormous exhaust pipes, massive tires and outrageous, segmented bucket seats. To drive it, he says, is not particularly exciting; it lacks the poise and delicacy of the Ford or the joie de vivre of the Mazda, but it does have a party piece.

We’re treated to a drag of these three cars. At the finish, the Vectra crosses the finish faster than the Mazda by a bit, and leads off the Ford by a long shot. It’s actually quicker than a Mercedes Benz AMG or a BMW M5, and costs only 21 000 pounds. Clarkson’s staggered by this performance out of a much-loathed model; he says that when it hits 161 mph, it’s like watching someone from Weight Watchers do a four minute mile. In fact, this is the fifth fastest saloon car money can buy. However, that quickness comes with a dreadful liability: catastrophic understeer. It’s so bad that Clarkson can take his hands off the wheel and cross his arms; it makes no appreciable difference in the trajectory of the car.  He says it’s one of the worse chassis he’s ever come across, and describes it further with one word: begins with an S, ends with a T, and it isn’t “soot.”

After the damnation of the Vauxhall, we’re back in the studio, and Clarkson is complaining that it’s  summer and the roads are completely clogged with caravanners. Hammond tells us that in Britain there are 850 000 caravanners, which he sums up as ”a lot.” Clarkson is baffled by what anyone sees in the practice, so they decided to go on a caravan holiday. They buy an Elddis Shamal XL for 3 000 pounds–”isn’t she a beauty?”  Well, no. It has fitted shag-pile carpet, a woodette kitchenette, sculpted velour upholstery, a bathroom, four beds, and a spot where the very tall Clarkson can stand up completely–under a pop-up window in the roof.

Cut to May, standing in a field beside a lovely white sports car. Their towing car is really quite special, he tells us, and walks over to a Kia Cerato, which is a 1.5 diesel, 11 000 pound hatchback selected because it’s economical and it’s the 2006 Caravan Club Tow Car of the Year.  Oh, surely you jest.

Hammond tells us that they’re staying at a five-star site in the rolling hills of Dorset. Clarkson pontificates that they’re doing things by the book as May backs up the Kia to the caravan. Hammond is directing the action, ostentatiously patient, gesturing May “back, back, back…” The car  hits the hitch, and Hammond screeches “Back, back!” May obediently continues back instead of going forward as Hammond intended. Clarkson (disgustedly): oh, for God’s sake…

This problem gets sorted out off camera. The next stage is to check the brake lights and hazards–it’s all good, so they hit the next step, which is to affix extended rearview mirrors to the existing ones. They attach with two strips of plastic and velcro. Hammond looks dismayed and peers at the mirror and at the box, making a face. “Surely no problem for the hosts of the world’s biggest car show,” Clarkson speculates. Clarkson and May squabble over the drivers’ side mirror, and Clarkson finally attaches it; May: I’ll give you 10 quid if that stays on.

And they’re off. It’s a hundred mile trip to Dorset, so, what–about an hour and a half, two hours? Probably not. Captain Slow is at the wheel of a Kia, towing a caravan. May smiles. Hammond: Secretly, he is delighted. Clarkson reads a list of essential accessories from a booklet for caravanners, and Hammond says whether they’ve got it with them or not. Step. No. Water container. No. Mains hookup lead. No. Leisure battery. No. Gas cylinders. No. Towing mirrors. (all three in chorus) Yes! Clarkson: we could be gypsies. Dead silence. May shoots a look at Clarkson.

Being that this is Top Gear, they begin road testing. May wants to see what the Kia will do. 30 mph….30…35…Clarkson (briskly):Foot down, James. May: It is down. Hammond: 30’s nice. An enormous tail of cars has formed behind them. May: There’s hundreds of them. (chuckles) Hammond: I can’t bear the shame! Clarkson: The Caravan Club says that their members always pull over. I’ve been driving for almost 30 years and have never, ever seen that happen. Eventually May pulls over to let them all pass. Clarkson and Hammond avert their eyes; nay, their entire faces, mumbling “Sorry” to each passing car. May looks out the window to watch the traffic jam clear. His mindset is decidedly different from the other two’s.

They suspect that the Kia isn’t the world’s best towing car when they are passed by another caravan. Their caravan weighs about 1000 kg, so they decide they should have a lot of torque in their tow car. They come up with a sensible short list of acceptable tow cars that includes the Dodge Viper, the Humvee, and the Land Rover Discovery V8. Having finished with this vital task, a new challenge presents itself. The car and caravan begin to snake. Clarkson draws May’s attention to this, just in case he missed it somehow. They consult the caravan handbook, which says that you should keep the outfit in a straight line while slowing gradually. The lads agree that this is quite wrong; what’s obviously called for is powering out of the snake. My question is how do you do this if you can only go 35 mph?

The snaking now under control, Top Gear Dog in the back adds to the fun by getting carsick. They pull into a Texaco station, and Hammond cleans up after the poor dog. While the mopup is occurring, Clarkson buys one of those LED signs that let you scroll your message across it for the back of the caravan. Toys always perk up the lads.
And they’re off. But no; there’s an impact. May has driven the caravan into a concrete post. Clarkson: Oh! What the hell? Hammond: That’s bad. They pop out to take a look. Clarkson is almost speechless: You! Hammond comes up with the criticism: It’s pretty poor, mate, it’s pretty poor. May is silent and gets back in the car. Hammond directs the backing up again. Back! Slowly! Slowly! A crowd forms to observe. May is finally voluble in disgust with the quality of the directions the others are giving, getting out and kicking the damaged part of the caravan. The tow bar has been damaged a bit as well, and Hammond observes: *He’s* cross with *us*. Clarkson throws fuel on the fire: Look! James! Someone’s pulled in in a caravan and they haven’t hit anything! In exasperation, May: Get in the car. Hammond carefully closes the hatch on Top Gear Dog and asks if they’ve hurt May’s feelings. Grumpily, May: No, I’m just getting a bit irritable. They drive off without further mishap. There is a whopping great hole in the front right side of the caravan and the trip is beginning to strain the friendships. The atmosphere is not lightened by Clarkson posting May’s cell phone number on the LED sign for the irate motorists stuck behind them.

Back in the studio, Clarkson introduces the night’s Star in the Reasonably Priced Car. The actor’s been in XMen, the Bourne Supremacy, Braveheart, Troy, and has even been Hannibal Lecter. It’s Brian Cox! Clarkson has been trying to get him on the show since it started. He wants to know why Hollywood always casts the Brit as the baddy. Cox replies that he thinks its because they mistrust intelligence. I’ll tell you why, it’s because Americans are the good guys, so the ones with the accents are by default the bad guys. We like to think we’re egalitarian, so an upper-crusty accent is even worse. Manhunter is predictably one of Clarkson’s favorite films, and asks Cox whether it was fun to be Lecter. Cox: Yes…he was a truly scary character. Clarkson: Then it came back. With the Welshman. Were you cross when Silence of the Lambs became a success? Cox replies that only because his agent, who’s Hopkin’s agent as well, hadn’t told him that Hopkins had been offered the role. Clarkson: he got a lot more money. Cox: the only thing that pisses me off is that I didn’t get the dough. Then Clarkson asks if he has to live in America; couldn’t he come back and live in a free country. Cox refuses to rise to the bait, noting that with the CCTVs and civil liberty infractions, Britain isn’t as free as people think it is. Clarkson admits it’s not *as* free, but brings up the incident on the US special where they were in trouble for the slogans on their cars. Yeah, yeah, give it a rest. Cox is back in the UK in order to do a play about the Czech Republic, from the Soviet invasion to the Velvet Revolution. What car does he drive? He says that Clarkson will be disappointed, and Clarkson knows: a Prius. That gets a laugh. Cox was really looking forward to the lap, and said that it was really fun and apparently rather terrifying—he saw parts of his life running before him, but it was almost a mystical, spiritual experience. Clarkson: Spiritual? With the Stig? Footage from the practice lap shows him on the second to last corner, in an unusual, new look, cuts across the grass, completely bypassing Gambon. Cox and Gambon are friends; apparently they share cornering difficulties. On his timed lap, Cox has some good, tight lines, but no speed, and is one of the drivers shown who has trouble shifting into third. Cox worries that he came in pretty low. Clarkson. Yeah. You did it in 2.01. It’s the second lowest time on the board, and Cox is disgraced, saying that Gambon will never let him live it down.

We find ourselves in the Main Hall of the ExCel Centre in London. It’s a cavernous space 385 meters long that the next week will host the British Motor Show. Hammond says that they’re going to do a motor show of their own first, featuring just one car, a Toyota F1 car, the 2005 model, V10, 19000 rpm, 900bhp, weighs half a ton, gets 220 mph….With performance like that, there’s no point in putting it up on a plinth, and the hall is pretty long…Then they found out that there’s no indoor speed record. So for the first time in the history of anything, they were going to test how fast you can run an F1 car indoors. For this feat, they’d need a driver who knows no fear, who has no sponsers to upset if he hits the brakes too late and punches an F1 sized hole in the wall. Yes–the Stig. First he did a run in the show’s Lacetti to get a baseline by showing the kind of speed an ordinary road car could get, which was 70 mph. The Toyota has eight times the horsepower and just over a third of the weight of the Lacetti. The Stig lays down rubber and the F1 car shoots off.

Back in the studio, Clarkson asks the audience how fast they think the Toyota went. Guesses range from 120-180, which is kind of where the hosts were as well. After some hemming and hawing and outright prodding by Clarkson, Hammond admits that the Toyota hit just 81 mph, and is quick to point out that it’s because the car couldn’t use its power. So they’ve set the indoor speed record at 81 mph, but Clarkson chortles that they very nearly set it in a Lacetti.

Preparatory to going back to the caravan, May introduces a recap. Clarkson: It wasn’t going well. May: No, we’d held up several million people. Hammond: Top Gear Dog had been sick. Clarkson: He’d actually crashed the caravan. May: Yes, and to be honest, we were all starting to fall out rather badly. So let’s rejoin the action!

They are now in Dorset, a few miles from the site, and back on single lane carriageways, creating the usual backups. Going around a roundabout, Hammond sees the length of the queue behind them and once again can’t live with the shame. May notes that the car feels really odd. Clarkson points out: James, it’s a Kia, it’s not a good car. A bit later, May tells Clarkson that they’re holding up a horse box. Clarkson is delighted, and sends “serves you right” across the LED message board. Dorset is awash with campsites with names like Warmwell, Affpuddle, Tolpuddle, and Briantspuddle. Hammond has forgotten the name of the campsite he’s made the reservation at, and May is left to choose a direction at a stop while Clarkson and Hammond squabble about it. Predictably, he goes the wrong way. Clarkson: James, turn round. I implore you. May: Ok. Hammond: I’m going to side with him, I’m afraid. Richard, he’s already agreed to turn! May is man enough to admit his mistake and looks for a wider spot in the road so he can “reverse it and flip it round.” If you think this sounds pretty optomistic, you’d be right. May selects a spot right in front of a sign warning that this is a military training area–keep out. May drives the outfit back and forth across the road maybe 97 or so times; while Clarkson and Hammond harrass him, traffic which includes a bus, compiles behind them. May gets out of the car to argue tactics, hits Clarkson with his hat, and gets back behind the wheel. Just when it looks as if things can’t possibly get worse, a tire goes flat. The car gets off to the side of the road, allowing the traffic to pass, and Clarkson calls imperiously for tools. Holding the jack as if he’s never seen one before, he says sternly that this is not his idea of a holiday. May admits it’s gone slightly downhill, and Clarkson retorts that it never climbed up the hill. Hammond: After 20 minutes, the wheel was changed but the outfit was still pointed in the wrong direction. Observing May’s efforts from the hedge, Clarkson and Hammond call out in harmony: James, there’s a lamppost. May: I know! (thump)

Then the fuzz arrive. Clarkson and Hammond run away into the shrubbery. Eventually, they have to emerge and try to explain to the cop what was going on. Hammond: The policeman said that we’d better get a move on or we’d be sent to prison for 20 years. They sacked May, unhitched the caravan, and turned the thing by hand. Hammond complains: that was hard. As they get back into the car, Clarkson (forbiddingly): Do not make another wrong turn, James. Go. So May drives off. There’s a clanging sound. Clarkson and Hammond have neglected to rehitch the caravan.

The camera shows the outfit underway again, at last, hole flapping, cars piled up behind, mirror extensions still firmly on (May owes Clarkson 10 quid) and the caravan properly attached. In voiceover, Clarkson says that if there are any joys to caravanning, they’re not to be found in the journey. What they’ve managed to do–so far–is to crash, bicker, be cautioned by police, cause traffic jams, get a puncture, clean up dog sick, and get stuck. They also had a roadside tea in among all the other adventures. But after SIX hours, they arrive at “Caravan-catraz.” Clarkson reads out some of the rules of the site: maximum speed 5 mph (no problem for James) and all dogs must be on leads. May expells Clarkson and Hammond in order to do the parking thing in peace and quiet. With Top Gear Dog on a leash, they explore the campsite.

May is overthinking the whole reversing thing. He promptly reverses into a 90 degree angle with the caravan. Clarkson and Hammond see a high-end caravan with a satellite dish and a denver boot. Hammond (straight-faced):That is rockin’. They’re trying to find out what, exactly, caravanners like about the whole thing, and in their wanderings, find some wooden structures with roofs. Hammond points out a sign and makes a face: That’s not a sign you ever want to have to read on your holiday. Clarkson also makes a face when he reads the sign: “Toilet Chemical Disposal Only.” Hammond (cajolingly): Come on, chin up, we’re camping. There’s no noticable cheering-up in evidence. Clarkson is peering into a brick building when he hears a train whistle. Both point into the hedge, behind which the train clatters along. Predictably, Clarkson begins to blame Hammond. Back at the car, May is still overthinking and hasn’t managed to park the caravan. May (wishfully): I’ll do this swiftly. This is the one they’ll use on the telly. He quickly and smoothly forms another right angle.

Clarkson and Hammond encounter some of Richard’s fans. Clarkson asks them what they do for fun: the man says they go around the countryside; the woman says fill up the loo. I cringe, but remarkably Clarkson makes no comment. The fanlady drags Hammond and Top Gear Dog into her caravan for tea. He calls for his mummy. Clarkson callously abandons him to his fate and prevents the cameraman from going in as well.

May is still parking, having attracted quite a crowd. This time he backs straight into a neighbor’s awning, which is more like a tent attached to the caravan. Why bother? May (to himself while reversing): That’s good. Oh, no it’s not! *expletive deleted* Clarkson sees the carnage and runs over, telling May to stop. May cooly replies that the owners will be birdwatching and they’ll have it back together before they get back. “It’s not broken, it’s just knocked over. Where is Hammond?” Clarkson (sotto voice): Don’t want to know. They get inside the tent and start putting poles back together. They hear some pinging sounds and laugh. Clarkson: You’re such a clown. They’re never going to know and even if they do think it’s got bent (shot of a very bent pole) they won’t know what did it. Yeah, maybe–if they ignore the next door caravan and never see the episode. Clarkson explains that Hammond is trapped inside a caravan with Top Gear Dog and a large woman. May twitches, but is silent.

“After a worringly long time, Hammond and Top Gear Dog return.” There’s a shot of Clarkson and Hammond (who is pushing Top Gear Dog out of the way gently) dragging the caravan to and fro, across the grass by hand to the dulcet tones of Volare, played on guitar. Hammond protests that they’re right back where they started. They leave it, and Clarkson opens the door and goes on in. Shattered crockery litters the floor; Clarkson steps on it. The other two crowd in. The caravan tips back. “oh my god.” Presenters stagger back past the open door. There’s more shattering sounds and laughter. May: Hold on, we’ve got to put the legs down. Muffled laughter. Hammond (in understatement): We’re not brilliant at this, are we. It is not a question.

In voiceover, Hammond lets us know that it’s been a bit of an ordeal getting there, but once you’re all parked, you can create your own little home from home. Sounds idyllic, yes? Cut to Clarkson dumping a long blue bag of poles onto the ground; Hammond looking at the pile. The three put up the awning and connect the electricity. Hammond discovers the rifle that Clarkson has brought along for the weekend. Jeremy (defensively): A weekend in a box with James May and I thought, what am I going to need?

He connects the gas bottle with a notable degree of incompetence while complaining that this isn’t his idea of a holiday. Eventually they get the gas connected, celebrate by turning on the stove burner, and while Top Gear Dog has dinner they sit outside the awning at a table and ask what now? They try the local pub but seem to leave rather quickly.

Back from their adventure, Clarkson claims a single bed site on top of the stove under the cabinets. Hammond: No, you can’t, it’s gonna go, you’ll break your back in the night and that will wake up everybody. Clarkson fires back that the other two have the double bed and that he’s ringing the Daily Mail immediately.

After everyone is in his sleeping bag, Clarkson, crammed under the cabinets, remarks crankily that he’s got a king-sized bed at home. The other two, on more spacious pallets, rather like it. May says that it’s homely, and Hammond rah-rahs that he’s all right with caravanning. A train whistle sounds. Clarkson and Hammond are peevish, but May thinks it’s romantic. This rather upsets Hammond, seeing as how their beds are somewhat close together, and then it’s lights out.

Next morning, Clarkson asks Hammond how to release the excrement. He must have drawn the short straw. Hammond declines to assist and leaves to shower. Clarkson removes the plastic container and leaves to shift the contents, striding across the campground in robe and flapping slippers. He seems to avoid breathing through his nose. “Why do 17% of the British people want to do this for their holiday? I know, for a holiday, let’s empty our turds out ourselves.” Hammond runs out of water mid-way through his shower and has to shuffle off to refill the water container. May has designs on breakfast: going off to find a farmer and his rosy-cheeked wife to buy free-range eggs and grass-fed bacon. He returns from a small store with a can of Spam. His romantic ideas of country living are not  measuring up to reality. The other two watch silently but intently as he carves the Spam for service on bits of plates. Clarkson has a lot of brochures for sightseeing local attractions, but May has seen them all. Clarkson has a fit, quietly: No fire, no ball games or music, you must be in bed by 11, you must park within 3 feet of a post, you have to keep quiet, you can’t have anything. It’s not a holiday, it’s a concentration camp! May says that the rules are for the benefit of everybody. Clarkson (rather angrily): Look at everybody outside their caravans, sitting on 4.99 pound garden furniture, waiting for Sunday night so they can clog up the roads again!

Hammond decides it’s time for some cheering up, so he forces Clarkson out on a walk. They’re all in shorts and long-sleeved, heavy shirts. In additional sartorial splendor, Clarkson has knee socks on as well. He demands to know why Hammond is making him do this. Hammond: It’s bracing, it’s good exercise, see stuff–look! He continues to complain. No amount of placating works, so to shut him up, they do some Top Gear tweaking: looking at the highway through binoculars at cars. Hammond stands on Top Gear Dog’s leash so the dog won’t wander off and have more fun than her owner.

Back at the caravan, Clarkson says he’ll cook lunch, and, leafing through an Asian cookbook, asks May whether the store he shopped at earlier has raw prawns. No. Coconut milk? No. Green curry paste? No. Coriander leaves? No. Snake beans? No. May diverts him by saying that they had potatoes, and Clarkson is satisfied with the concept of chips.

He’s rather inefficently peeling the spuds when the stove flares up, fire licking the cabinets above. Clarkson: Oh, god. Uh, Richard? Hammond: What? Clarkson: Do you have a fire extinguisher? Hammond (incuriously): No, why? Clarkson exits the caravan and asks Hammond and May, who are sitting at the table, how to put out a pan fire. May suggests a tea towel in water. Clarkson: Richard, is there any water? Hammond: No, I used it all on my hair. Clarkson (sounding a bit stressed out now): Guys, it’s no longer a pan fire, it’s a van fire. May runs toward the caravan. Hammond (getting up): You are joking. Whoomp! The fire has reached the windows and into the awning. Hammond: How in the name of God?! May (in variation of the theme): God in heaven, man! All: Put it out! Put it out! Hammond whacks at the fire with a sofa cushion; Clarkson instructs someone to use the oven glove. Hammond: The cushion’s on fire, now I’ve made it worse! He flings the cushion outside, where it lands close to the neighbor’s awning. They decide it’s now time to get stuff out and come running with an amazing assortment of goods: a jar and a peeled potato, a suitcase. Clarkson notes that it’s really blazing now, and as Hammond dithers about what to save next, May is the man of action, jumping into the car to move it to safety, but takes out the table and chairs on the way. Somebody tosses out an inflatable alligator. The caravan is quite merrily ablaze now, as is the neighbor’s caravan. Clarkson asks how they managed to get that one on fire, and Hammond has to admit to the fiery cushion throwing portion of our arson adventure. Fire trucks arrive, sirens blaring, and the firemen go to work. Clarkson: I can think of one good thing, James. May (looking unhappy): What? Clarkson: You won’t have to apologize to the people whose caravan that is for breaking the awning. May (looking like he’d kind of like to break Jeremy): Brilliant.

The three observe the shell of the caravan; Clarkson is clutching the inflatable alligator, and in the foreground is Hammond’s dressing gown, smoldering, and the tea kettle.

In voiceover, Clarkson: All things considered, how do you think the holiday went? The Kia pulls into the frame, towing the blackened husk of the caravan. Amazingly, the tires haven’t melted, and on the bright side, at least the fire has negated the hole. Hammond (in some odd flight of fancy): I think well.

Back in the studio, they’re clustered around the much-maligned Kia. Clarkson: Ok, you two gave it your best shot, you tried to like it, did you? Hammond (positively): No. Absolutely not. May (smiling tightly): I would like it if I were on my own. Hammond: Do you seriously think that you’re going to be welcome in *any* campsite after that? It is a fair point.

Clarkson thinks they’ve proved that there is no upside to caravanning and that they just clog up the roads for no good reason. In order to fill up the loo! He can’t get past that. Clarkson (magisterially): I’m sorry, but when we come to power, caravanning is going to be banned and that’s it. And on that bombshell, it’s time to end. Thank you very much for watching, and normal service will be resumed next week. Good night!

The caravan fire was actually staged, for safety reasons, away from the actual campsite. I suspect that the “neighbors’” caravan was just a prop to extend the action. It doesn’t matter, it’s side-splittingly funny, staged or in real time.

And as a further sidenote, apparently there’s some support in the UK for Clarkson as Prime Minister. I’d say not possible, but with politics you never know. He’d have to give up the day job, though, and I’m afraid he probably wouldn’t be able to enforce his decrees with a wave of his hand–so caravanning would still be safe.