Last week the nation was being treated to one of the most eagerly awaited television shows in modern history.

I’m talking, of course, about 24, the further adventures of Jack Bauer, CTU’s shouting whisperer, whose mobile phone never runs out of battery and whose bowels never need emptying.

Meanwhile, on the other side, after intense tabloid scrutiny, and a billion text votes, Davina McCall revealed to the world who had become the best person at living in a house with some other people.

It was a big night for the box, then. But strangely, I’m willing to bet the battle for viewers will have been won by a poky motoring show on BBC2, as half a trillion tuned in to watch a small man have a car crash.

The story of Richard Hammond — or Princess Diana as we now like to call him — has become a national obsession. I am so fed up with people asking how he is that I now smile the smile of a bereavement vicar and say: “I’m afraid he’s died.”

We have seen him photographed in the Daily Mirror, drinking a mug of tea. We have seen him in The Sun, riding a bicycle. And we have seen him in OK! magazine, wearing a heart-warming pair of trousers available from Marks & Spencer for £49.99. I daren’t even look in Gay Times in case it’s bought some pap pictures of the wee chap playing with himself.

This is a huge problem for Top Gear. Before the crash we were a fairly anonymous triumvirate of middle-aged men who went to work every day so we could indulge our fantasy of being nine years old. No one really wrote about us. No one really complained. No one really cared.

We would buy some cars, turn them into boats, go to a reservoir in Derbyshire and sink. And then the next day we’d go on a caravan holiday, where there’d be a fire and everything would be ruined. This was our happy, simple, unassuming life.

But now one of us has become a national treasure, a man who stared death in the face and decided he’d rather go back to his family.

A hero. A god.

I have agonised for months over how the poor bloke should be reintroduced to the show. He thought we could just push him on in a wheelchair, where he’d loll throughout the show, dribbling. James May thought maybe he could come into the studio on a cruise missile to demonstrate his superhuman powers. I reckoned he could enter stage left in a selection of new clothes from Marks & Spencer, to recognise his deal with OK!.

But after much soul searching I think the solution — and it’s a surprise for him as well as you — is elegant and rather nice. I hope you like it. I hope he likes it, too, because I had to spend a fortune on beer before I thought of it.

What I can tell you is that James and I will present him with a number of lucky charms which we insist he keeps with him at all times, to ensure such a terrible crash never happens again. I’ve got him a grandfather clock.

Then, after the opening few moments, we’re faced with the problem of showing the crash itself. Some of the footage is sickening, so obviously that will be screened in slow motion. But what about the rest? The build-up? The foreplay? The previous runs where all went well? Frankly, I think we should skip it all, go straight to the bone-crunching impact and then invite all the rubber-neckers who’ve only tuned in to see the little fella get brain damaged to bugger off and watch something more intellectually suitable. Big Brother — The Final, for example.

Diana and May are in complete agreement with me on this. So are the producers. We want to get the damn crash out of the way and get back to the business of being nine.

But even here there are problems, because you just know that the hippies and the communists won’t turn over or tune out. They’ll be watching with their beards peeled, ready to fire off an angry e-mail should we even look like we’re going to mention gays, speed, Muslims, gypsies, polar bears, global bloody warming, breasts, disabled people, immigrants, or how jolly nice it is to be middle class.

Happily, this has united May, Diana and me even more than usual. We feel circled, threatened, and can see no way round the problem except to screen the crash immediately and then spend the next 57 minutes talking about gays, speed, Muslims, gypsies, polar bears, global bloody warming, breasts, disabled people, immigrants, and how jolly nice it is to be middle class.

We all want to go back to how it was, because making that show is the most fun a man can have. Apart from being allowed to fire a heat-seeking missile into a helicopter over Hong Kong harbour, obviously.

People think it’s all dreamt up by a team of producers and scriptwriters. People think it’s all stage managed and that we’re just hired hands, paid to fall in water and set fire to stuff. It really isn’t. We’re not that good at acting. James especially.

The ideas are mostly dreamt up by the one producer and me, usually in a top London restaurant such as E&O or an Angus Steak House. They are then developed with Diana and May in a crap pub where James can drink brown beer and play darts. And then we set off to film our little drama in the real world, among real people. When a policeman comes, he’s not an actor out of The Bill. He’s a policeman. That’s why we usually run away.

Scripted? Well, yes, I write the studio stuff pretty tightly. But the films? Not a chance.

In this series, for instance, we attempt to grow our own petrol, which involves the three of us crashing a lot of tractors and breaking most of Bedfordshire. We build our own road to show how fast it can be done if the navvies are made to actually work for a living. We get chased out of Alabama by a stone-throwing mob who saw James’s hair and thought we might be homosexuals. We drive the usual array of Porsches and Ferraris much too quickly, while shouting. We play golf, which meant wearing silly jumpers and crashing our golf carts extensively. We build stretched limos from entirely unsuitable base products and then, while using them to ferry celebs to glittering galas in London, hope they don’t — for instance — snap in half.

James and Princess Diana even attempt to get a car into space.

One of the things you won’t be seeing, however, is the new Peugeot 207 GT. Partly, because we can’t be bothered. And partly because it’s not very good. Oh, at £14,345 it’s exceptionally good value for money compared with rivals from Ford, Vauxhall and Volkswagen. And yes, it has the same 1.6 litre turbo engine they put in the new Mini, so that’s good too.

What’s more, it has a brilliant sat nav system, and thanks to an unusual rear window with very curved glass it makes every other car look, in your rear-view mirror, like an elongated gargoyle. This makes you feel like you have the prettiest car on the road.

However, there are some faults. The driving position is only really suitable for those whose legs are exactly the same length as their arms — ie, no one. There are rattles, the brakes are so sharp you end up on the bonnet every time you so much as look at them and, most importantly, it’s not as much fun as it should be.

In the 14th century, when I was growing up, Peugeot was master of all it surveyed in the world of the hot hatchback. Now, though, it’s no longer doing what it does best.

This is a bit like Jack Bauer suddenly saying in a normal voice: “Ooh I need a poo.” Or Richard Hammond coming back on Top Gear to the accompaniment of some kind words, a sensitive shoulder to cry on and a refreshing cup of tea.

By the way, last weekend a man quoted in this section of your Sunday Times claimed that Richard Hammond was to blame for his accident. Not the car. Furthermore, he suggested that a badly positioned onboard camera might have caused Richard’s brain damage. Not the car.

Interestingly, these claims come from . . . the owner of the car. He also claimed that vital footage of the crash was “missing”. You can judge for yourself tonight at 8pm on BBC2.

PEUGEOT 207 VITAL STATISTICS

Model Peugeot 207 1.6 THP 150 GT
Engine 1598cc, four cylinders
Power 150bhp @ 5800rpm
Torque 180 lb ft @ 1400rpm
Transmission Five-speed manual Fuel 40.3mpg (combined cycle) CO2 166g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 8.7sec Top speed 131mph Price £14,345
Rating 3/5
Verdict A lukewarm hatchback

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