I DON’T WANT TO THROW MY LIFE AWAY
2016 after Clarkson’s well-publicised bust-up with a crew member ended their 13-year stint on the BBC’s Top Gear.
“I have an amazing job, a beautiful wife and two daughters. I don’t want to miss out on all of that,” he insists. “So I’m not actually gung-ho.”
He’s not extra careful these days? “We already were extra careful, it’s just I b ****** it up,” he says more quietly. “But then mistakes happen.”
There’s at least one moment in the new series that did leave him fearing for his life again. And he’s not looking forward to the moment Mindy sees it.
“There’s a certain bridge in Colombia I find myself on and you can see I’m visibly shaking from head to foot, because the bridge from where I was sitting in this tall truck seems only to be just about as wide as the truck.
“I was unspeakably frightened but I didn’t plummet to my death so that’s kind of a good result for me. I’m going to make sure I’m out when my wife sees that. She will possibly have a word with me.”
The trio will now focus on the big trip escapades in the show because they “know that’s what viewers love”. But this will not mean the three copresenters spend much less time together, he insists, despite Clarkson’s recent insistence they weren’t really pals. Richard, by contrast, insists that they really are. “We’ve spent 17 years working together, you’d have to be,” he says. But he concedes he’d never tell them.
“I’d be a bit sick if Jeremy was nice about me. We are never nice about each other, it’s unpleasant, we would be embarrassed and it would be awkward,” he chuckles.
He admits long periods spent in each other’s company can grate, though. “You know each other’s foibles. James once confessed to me, ‘Hammond, I hate the way you stick your knife into the edge of the toast to clean it after you have been spreading Marmite’.”
He adds by way of explanation: “You pull it out and it’s all clean and nice.”
Again, like the stick, not looking too rock ’n’ roll, Richard. But he doesn’t give a jot. Life is, as he knows very well, too short.
● The Grand Tour, season three, returns to Amazon Prime Video tomorrow BEAUTIFUL WIFE: Richard and Mindy
OBSERVERS note David Cameron was out jogging when he briefly appeared in front of the cameras yesterday, voicing support for Theresa May.
Political retirement seems to have had its physical benefits. During his latter years in 10 Downing Street, 52-year-old Dave’s running regime was regularly curtailed by injuries – not least a “phenomenally bad back”.
ASKED about the prospect of a Brexit defeat for the Prime Minister this week, Environment Secretary Michael Gove warned: “Winter is coming.”
Fans of hit series Game Of Thrones will know the politician was quoting the programme’s most famous saying (referring to ominous times ahead).
Interestingly, Gove has previously admitted to most identifying with the show’s quick-witted character Tyrion Lannister, pictured.
While once considered her enemy, Tyrion has since ended up siding with Queen Daenerys, becoming a key adviser. Despite once frosty relations with Theresa May, silver-tongued Gove these days pledges similar loyalty to the PM.
AWAY from the high drama of Westminster, fans look forward to seeing Dame Helen Mirren appearing on the big screen with Sir Ian McKellen for the first time in upcoming movie thriller The Good Liar.
Professional relations between the celebrated thespians have not always been straightforward, however.
Previously cast alongside Dame Helen, 73, in a 2001 theatre production of August Strindberg’s The Dance Of Death, McKellen, 79, later acknowledged the two old friends’ contrasting approaches to acting proved problematic. “We work a little bit differently,” he admitted. “She’s a wonderfully technical actress and once settled on what she wants to do, that on the whole is what she does. I prefer rooting around, still discovering. I think she found that unhelpful for her.”
Was the collaboration easier this time?