As I was saying- : the world according to Clarkson. Volume six

333 Pages·2015·0.99 MB·English

by  Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson
AS I WAS SAYING …
The World According to Clarkson Volume Six
By the same author Motorworld
Jeremy Clarkson’s Hot 100
Jeremy Clarkson’s Planet Dagenham Born to be Riled
Clarkson on Cars
The World According to Clarkson I Know You Got Soul And Another Thing
Don’t Stop Me Now
For Crying Out Loud!
Driven to Distraction How Hard Can It Be?
Round the Bend
Is It Really Too Much To Ask …
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
The contents of this book first appeared in Jeremy Clarkson’s Sunday Times
column. Read more about the world according to Clarkson every week in The
Sunday Times.
Introduction
After the BBC decided not to renew my contract, I didn’t really know what to do
next. So I went to the pub and that was very enjoyable. But after a week or so, I
realized that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life there, so I decided to get a job.
Most people, as far as I know, get one of those from something called the ‘job
centre’, but I didn’t think they’d have anything to suit me. A friend of mine once
signed on in Kensington, saying he was a shepherd. And then had to look
disappointed every week when they said they had no work for him and he’d have
to make do instead with some free cash.
I fear it would have been even more difficult finding a job for me. ‘Yes, my
earning expectations are very high I’m afraid. And qualifications? Well, I can
drive a bit too quickly round corners while shouting …’
You know that bit in the movie Taken when Liam Neeson says he has
acquired a special set of skills over the years? Well, I’m the same. But the skills
I’ve acquired are almost completely useless. I make this very clear to my
children when they travel. ‘If you’re kidnapped, all I can do is power slide while
gurning and this will in no way help secure your safe return.’
Anyway, to cut a long story short, the Kensington job centre said they had no
vacancies for someone who wanted millions of pounds to drive a Lamborghini
sideways in a cloud of its own tyre smoke, so I decided after a week or so that I
would make a farming programme.
I called up my old friend and former Top Gear producer Andy Wilman and
said, ‘I’ve decided to make a farming programme.’ He came round to my flat to
hear my ideas and after three and a half minutes, he looked exactly the same as
children do when they are forced to listen to a very boring sermon.
But it was OK, because pretty soon after that someone drove a tank – an
effing tank – up to the front door of the BBC’s London headquarters demanding
my return, and the newspapers went berserk. I was on the front page every day
for three weeks. Not just here but all around the world.
And as a result, the phone started ringing. First out of the blocks was a
representative from Russia’s military television station. ‘You come here, make
show. Everyone happy.’
Next came some gentlemen from the Middle East. ‘Come to Paris,’ they said.
‘We want to talk to you about making a show. We have table reserved at the
hotel. 8 p.m.’ So I went to Paris and I made it to the hotel bang on time, and they
explained what they had in mind. It sounded very exciting and I said I’d
explained what they had in mind. It sounded very exciting and I said I’d
definitely think about it …
As I reached for the menu to start making my food choice, they reached for
their mobile phones. And after five minutes of general texting and email stuff,
one looked up and said ‘Thank you for coming’. I made it back to the Gare du
Nord after this three-minute conversation exactly one minute after the last train
had left.
Feeling a little despondent about my future, I came back to London the next
day and my phone rang. It was George Lucas. Imagine my surprise. Mr Star
Wars himself. He reminded me, not that it was necessary, that we’d met once at
the Monaco Grand Prix and then he said he’d like to meet to discuss an idea he’d
had. George Bleeding Lucas wanted to meet me. I was very excited.
So, on the day that Chelsea won the Premiership, I left Stamford Bridge,
telling my son and our friends that I would not be able to join them for
celebratory drinks as I had to meet George Lucas. ‘No biggie,’ I said, as casual
as you like.
At the club where we’d arranged to meet, I was looking around for Mr Lucas
when I was approached by another chap, whom I’d also met at the Monaco
Grand Prix and who had set a table aside for our meeting. I vowed there and then
to get a hearing test as soon as possible.
Not George Lucas was very interesting. He told me that all of the money in
the world was Norwegian, and that I could have most of it if I could secure a
major TV deal. ‘With a Russian military channel?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he replied.
‘You need to talk to the Americans …’
Well, I was terrified. I’ve seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than
talk to the Americans. Because everyone knows that in the world of US
television, there are only two possible outcomes to any deal. Either you’re fired
after seven minutes if the AB1 twenty-five to forty-year-old male ratio isn’t at
62 points. Or, if it is, you’re forced to live in Los Angeles for the next five
thousand years, where you either join a gym and run about and have your teeth
whitened, or you eat so much cheese that you explode.
I was busy pondering all of this when it became clear that Richard Hammond
and James May wanted to stick with me. And Richard was very excited about
the prospect of working in America. So we decided to get ourselves a big
American agent.
We spoke to several on the phone. Some even came over to talk to us. And we
learned quite quickly that they are all exactly the same. Anything that isn’t a big
number is a complete waste of time. Food. Breathing. And other people having
an opinion: they have no space in their heads for any of that. ‘It’s going to be
huge,’ they all said.
huge,’ they all said.
And if you said anything back they said, ‘Yeah, yeah, sure, absolutely, yeah,
yeah, let’s get this done, yeah yeah.’ And they kept on saying this for ten or
fifteen seconds after you’d finished talking.
James May couldn’t really cope with any of it and adopted a strategy of either
not going to meetings at all, or turning up and playing constantly with the teapot.
Richard Hammond, meanwhile, had become so giddy that on one occasion he
turned up after drinking everything in Britain. And me? Well, I was lost. I can
drive too quickly round a corner while shouting but I cannot understand what is
meant by ‘over the top’ or ‘back end’ or almost anything that was being said.
Eventually though, we chose an agent and he was so brilliant that very quickly
the job offers started pouring in. I’ve never known anything like it. I can put in a
shift, but God, I was working so hard I had to stop drinking. Way into the night,
the calls were flooding in from California: new offers, new strategies, new ways
of putting a show in front of the viewers. I was having to learn about the future,
and you can’t do that after a couple of bottles of Leoube.
To try and get our heads around what was being offered, Richard and I went
with Andy to his house in southern Italy. Which was a brilliant plan, expect
there’s no mobile phone service down there and his Wi-Fi was a bit patchy.
So, when we wanted to speak to California, we had to drive to the nearest
town and then spread out so that on the conference call, we couldn’t hear one
another live. Or else you’d hear Hammond speak in real life and then, a second
or so later, hear him again on your phone.
This meant we were doing vital business to the background accompaniment of
light jazz, as the only place Richard could find that a) had service and b) was out
of earshot of Andy and I, was outside a café with a live band.
Amazingly, however, we managed to pull it off. And as you’ll probably know,
we are now at Amazon Prime.
No commercials. No editorial interference. And a budget which is big enough
to let us do all the things we want to do.
Which from my point of view is simple: get back behind the wheel of
something stupid and drive it round a corner far too quickly, while shouting.