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May: “We could form a band but it would be bloody awful. I still play the piano a bit and the flute and the harpiscord – but not enough. Hammond can play the bass quite well. I have actually played with Richard. We got drunk one night and we could manage Night Train. Jeremy claims to play the drums but I think he simply owns a drumkit. It’s not quite the same thing.” Jeremy: “We went to Colombia and the sub challenge for us was to become the first television programme in history to go there and not use the word “cocaine”. Colombia has got a lot more to it than Pablo Escobar and we just wanted to get that across. During our trip we had to try and get from one end of the country to the other without being eaten by any animals.
But then a bear came out and attacked our car.
But I loved it. And, as the other two will testify, I like birdwatching. So I thought it would be fantastic to go there to see some.”
THE Grand Tour kicks off again this week. And petrolheads Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond took a detour to the Daily Star to give us the lowdown on the new series.
May gushes: “It’s been the most fun we’ve had.”
There were a few hiccups along the way though. For starters, they were stuck on the road in Mongolia for six days without any booze.
They were given guns in Colombia. May jokes: “The great moral dilemma was being given a loaded automatic weapon knowing that these two were within 20 yards.”
And they got through a whole series without anyone having an accident. “Actually, that’s not right,” interrupts Jezza. “I nearly cut my finger off.”
Here TV editor asks the three hosts about the new series.
The Grand Tour is back on Amazon Prime Video on Friday. Jeremy: “A lot of people are going to China these days and we went to one of the bits that people don’t normally go to. We went to Chongqing. It is actually the biggest city in the world. But no-one has even heard of it. We hadn’t heard of it either. It’s got
30million people.”
May: “It’s like saying you haven’t heard of America.
It’s huge.” Jeremy: “We drove for six days using nothing but the compass and didn’t see a person, a wall, a village, a town or any evidence had ever that man existed.
“The producers packed everything need we would and didn’t pack a single tiny bit of alcohol. Hammond got in a right towards old state it: ‘I want a f***ing gin’.”
Hammond: “I was bored, cold, frustrated, cross, uncomfortable and unhappy. fascinating. But it was It’s all common land. If you are here and you think: ‘I want to go by over there those mountains and by that lake’ go there!” you just Jeremy: “It’s a bit like Britain when into Corbyn gets power.”