"Richard is winning his fight. And now mine begins. To make sure that he has a show to come back to."
-Jeremy Clarkson
Somehow, Jeremy Clarkson's penned a piece for this weekend's Sunday Sun which, like the quote above, alternates between the absolutely touching and the absolutely self-centered. But what do we expect, it's Jeremy Clarkson — and that's how he rolls. But Clarkson does manage to provide a level of insight on not only how the little Hamster's doing, but also how his wife, Mindy, and he and James May are handling the situation. As is to be expected, May appears to have gotten all emotional over his chum's injuries — while Clarkson appears to have acted like a horse's ass. Even in situations of mortal peril it seems they're return to their TopGearian archetypes — and Clarkson's "10 foot gorilla" is in full force in the article — but for once, the gorilla shows a twinge of sadness. His description of what they'd do in the case one of the three presenters was "killed to death"...
...laughs in the face of death but then returns us to the reality of the situation. Usually with Clarkson it's the other way around — reality first and then the laughing in the face of death — but it appears this time's been different:
Two years ago, Richard Hammond, James May and I agreed on a plan of action should one of us be killed while making our show, Top Gear.
We decided that after the announcement of the death was made in the following week's show, the next word should be "anyway".
So if the Hamster had ever careered through the Pearly Gates in a flaming 200mph fireball, I would put on a sombre face, say that Richard Hammond had died and then, after a small pause, say: "Anyway, the new Jag..."
It was a sort of joke. But then this week, it sort of wasn't.
So Clarkson's sadness, as is evident by the quote atop this post has now been replaced with a touchingly self-centered determination to make sure that his beloved Hamster will have a show to come back to. But despite Clarkson's desire for defense today we're still not sure the show's in danger of being "killed to death" — but just to be sure, if the Beeb moves in that direction due to a push from the Health and Safety folks, we somehow think Top Gear lovers have got to get more than just Jezza girded up for battle, but hey, it's a start. [Hat tip to Jon!]
'Richard is winning his fight' [The Sun Online]
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