The Hairy Bikers: If We Ruled the World
1st Jan 2015 Celebrities
Dave Myers and Si King, known as The Hairy Bikers, are TV stars and the best-selling authors of several cookbooks. They’ve travelled the world on their motorbikes, enjoying life and food to the fullest.
I’d do away with self-service tills at supermarkets
Dave: Mainly because I can’t work them. It irritates me beyond belief—I’ve even just dumped my shopping and walked out before now because I’ve got so frustrated.
Going shopping should be a pleasure, but it’s become so sanitised. When I grew up, the corner shop was a lovely place where the shopkeeper knew everyone and would keep an eye on the older people—and there was always time for a little chat.
I’d invest heavily in our local high streets
Si: I’d like to see them become the heart of the community again, full of independent family-owned businesses where the butcher, baker, hardware store and chemists became thriving enterprises valued by local people.
I’d make it law that there could only be one large out-of-town supermarket within a 50-mile radius of another.
I’d ban cigarettes
Dave: A hundred years from now we’ll look back on smoking as a ridiculous, antiquated habit—like smoking opium.
We’ll say, “Why did people do something so terrible to their health?”
I’d dismantle the establishment
Si: The leaders that silently run our lives need to know that we’re not sheep; we’re human beings who deserve clear, open discussions about what’s happening in our beloved country.
There’d be no mobile phones in restaurants
Dave: Breaking bread around a table with your family or friends is such a lovely thing, but you can’t celebrate the food or the moment when phones distract you. It just seems so rude.
And obviously no phones at mealtimes at home either—though my teenage stepchildren always try to hide them on their laps.
I’d ban chunky chips
Dave: You know the ones that are halfway to a roast potato but usually cold and hard in the middle? They’re just wrong.
I like French fries, made by soaking the potatoes in water to get rid of the starch then twice-cooked to give them a crispy outside and soft, hot inside.
This is more my own personal chip fascism—less for the common good than for my own pleasure.
Everybody would learn to ride a motorbike before a car
Si: Riding a motorbike ensures your road skills are far superior to a regular car driver—you’re more engaged and know what to look out for, mainly white vans, BMW and Audi drivers!
It’s also a really good laugh. So on your bike until you have your first child. Then you can get in a car.
Dave and I don’t follow that rule, but we’re all for do as we say, not as we do. Ours is a benevolent dictatorship.