P.J. O’Rourke interview: ‘Telling jokes and lying about politicians – what’s the difference?’

P.J. O’Rourke’s chickens are giving him trouble. ‘Two of them aren’t laying eggs right now,’ he explains. But he doesn’t know which ones. ‘I’m not sure who’s the guilty party.’

We’re driving to the field where his trees are harvested for timber and where he and his father-in-law have built a one-hole golf course. ‘How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink’ this isn’t. In his famous 1979 essay of that title the Daily Beast columnist and former editor of the National Lampoon made the case for being sozzled on the freeway: ‘It’s important to be drunk because being drunk keeps your body all loose, and that way, if you have an accident or anything, you’ll sort of roll with the punches and not get banged up so bad.’ Today there are no beverages in the car, and though we are making our way up his private drive, we remain well within local speed limits.