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
Visit Jeremy Clarkson's official site
