by Gwen Russell
Jeremy was perfectly happy to lay into the industry that had made him such a success as well. In the run-up to the National Television Awards, in which he was up for best TV expert against Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and the increasingly famous chefs Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay, Clarkson made it quite clear what he thought of the event. ‘Last year I timed it to perfection,’ he said. ‘I was out for dinner, had my starter, ran into the Royal Albert Hall and gurned for the cameras as Top Gear lost, then went back to the restaurant, where my cigarette hadn’t even gone out.’
And Top Gear was, indeed, being nominated again, as Most Popular Factual Programme, with the other contenders being Jamie’s School Dinners, Crimewatch UK, Supernanny and Wife Swap. Did Jeremy care? Not according to him. ‘I hate awards events,’ he said. ‘I’ve been nominated for ten years and lost every single year. I’m always a bridesmaid and never a bride. Men never pick up the phone to vote, they’ve got better things to do. It’s always the grannies and teenagers who vote. The room is full of 20,000 blonde starlets and I have no idea who they are. It’s just a sea of gormless people. I really only watch 24 and Bodies. Awards nights are just a load of blonde girls with their boob jobs out on display.’
It is not hard to see why it was not his kind of scene. The television community is not renowned for being filled with people who choose substance over style: a lot of air kissing combined with the kind of bitchiness and back stabbing so often associated with these gatherings clearly held no appeal. Jeremy was one of the most famous of their number, but he did not actually spend that much time at high-profile showbiz parties and award shows, and so it was no surprise he wanted to avoid them this time.
Indeed, so resolute was he about his contempt for awards ceremonies that he cheerily asserted that his children actually wanted Simon Cowell to win. ‘My kids watch The Simpsons and only pause it to turn on X Factor,’ he said. ‘They love Simon. I guarantee if you asked, “Do you want Daddy or Simon to win?” they’d pick Simon. Gordon’s a great bloke as well. The trouble with all of us is we all like to wear the trousers, as it were. Sharon looks like great fun, though – she could probably keep us all in our place.’
Not that he was actually going to be there. Rather than wasting his time at an awards ceremony he didn’t actually care about, Jeremy was taking part in a contest with Richard Hammond and James May. The challenge? To show that he could drive from Turin in Italy back to London faster than they could fly. The mode of transport was to be a £600,000 Bugatti. ‘We’re going to have a race to see who can get to Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant in Chelsea first,’ Clarkson cheerily announced. ‘Hammond will be heartbroken he won’t be at the awards; he loves preening. He’ll be gutted that he’ll be stuck in Italy.’ It was a typically laddish and Clarksonesque way to behave.
But Clarkson was not going to stop there. Always on the lookout for new challenges, and constantly searching for the next big thing, he was now thinking about what he would do to go that one step further than he already had. After all, he’d already driven, flown and sailed in just about everything available, and so there were no obvious vehicles crying out to be ridden. He’d traced his own family history, popularised one of Britain’s greatest engineers, shown himself to have an intellect as well as a way of getting under people’s skin – what was left?
A great deal, of course. But in his quest to push himself ever further, make brilliant television and even better newspaper copy, Clarkson now decided on his most dangerous adventure yet, in the company of his friend and travelling companion Adrian Gill: they would be going to the Middle East, or more specifically, Iraq.
CHAPTER 13
CLARKSON STRIKES OUT
One of Jeremy Clarkson’s most intense feuds had been going on for several years. It was with Piers Morgan, erstwhile editor of the Mirror, and it began at the turn of the millennium. Although the cause of it varies depending on who you ask, according to Jeremy it began, ‘when I refused to jump ship and write for the Mirror, saying I’d rather write operating manuals for car stereos.’ The Mirror is, of course, the arch rival to The Sun, for which Clarkson writes a column. But professional rivalry had nothing to do with it according to Piers, who insists the feud began when the Mirror published pictures of Jeremy kissing Elaine Bedell, his producer.
And, he claimed, they were (initially at least) a good deal kinder to Clarkson than they might have been, ringing him for a comment when the first set of pictures appeared (there were to be two) and getting a response Morgan relished repeating in full when his autobiography came out: ‘Look, Piers, I’m going to tell you something now,’ said Jeremy, while practically begging Piers not to run the pictures. ‘I’m not capable of having an affair. You can ask my wife. I’m not physically capable.’
In due course the pictures appeared anyway, although this time around they were played down. Frances appeared merely irritated. ‘Jeremy rang and told me about the pictures,’ she said. ‘I immediately knew it was ridiculous. People always believe there is no smoke without fire but it’s simple – they work together, they’re matey. They were doing exactly what I knew they were doing – it’s what mates do. The paparazzi are a nuisance. I was very angry. They take photos out of context and put a story to them, this time implying he was having an affair.’
Clarkson himself denied anything untoward point-blank, and that was that: the incident merited no further comment. Until a few years later, when Jeremy was pictured kissing Elaine again. This time the Mirror not only ran with the story but made a great deal of fuss about it. Clarkson was incandescent. Again he denied that there was anything to it, but this time it was personal. He was out to get Piers Morgan.
The first time the opportunity really arose for a personal confrontation came some months later. In October 2003, Jeremy and Piers were both on the final Concorde flight from New York to London in the company of esteemed travellers including Joan Collins, Sir David Frost, Lord Colin Marshall (Chairman of British Airways), Jodie Kidd, Christie Brinkley, Mary Nightingale and the ballerina Darcey Bussell. As the champagne flowed, the two of them descended into their usual shenanigans. ‘We are served perfectly chilled canapés, the gastronomic pleasure only slightly marred by Jeremy Clarkson deciding to throw a glass of water over me,’ wrote Piers in an account of the trip, gleefully recording that an American asked Clarkson if he was a reporter.
The spat received massive coverage on account of tying in with Concorde’s last flight. One diarist jubilantly remarked that Jeremy initially asked Piers to step outside, before remembering that they were at 55,000 feet, while another commented that he took one look at Piers on boarding, started rolling up his sleeves and roared, ‘Let’s sort it out now.’ The stewards managed to get him to sit down for take-off, after which some liquid – some had it as water, others as champagne – was thrown. ‘That was for my wife!’ he yelled.
As ever, it stimulated reams of newsprint, but there were some people who speculated that Clarkson had set the whole thing up in advance. ‘I was speaking to Jeremy the night before,’ confided one source, ‘and he told me he planned to do something to get back at Morgan when he could.’
This latter account was given credence by Simon Kelner, editor of The Independent, who was also on the flight. The night before, Kelner and Clarkson had bumped into one another in the foyer of their hotel. ‘I hope I am sitting near Piers Morgan,’ snapped Jeremy. ‘Then you’ll have a story because I’m going to punch that little shit’s lights out.’
Once on board, Piers began to snipe back, thundering, ‘You may be big, Clarkson, but you’ll go down like a sack of shit.’ In the event, fisticuffs were deferred till another occasion. But it was hard not to suspect that both men were relishing every minute of it – they were, after all, consummate showmen who loved the limelight.
The next altercation was altogether more physical. It was in March 2004 at the British Press Awards, which took place that year at the Park Lane Hilton in London. A notoriously rowdy affair at the best of times, h
eavy drinking had been going on for hours before Clarkson finally laid into Morgan, punching him three times and knocking him to the floor.
As ever, everyone involved managed to get maximum mileage out of the event. ‘They were three pitiful blows. I have had bigger drubbings from my three-year-old son,’ said Piers, who admitted he had been goading Jeremy beforehand. ‘There has been a simmering volcanic rage since we published the photos of Clarkson. I upset him at the Press Awards when I suggested his wife would be happier if he did not embrace other women.’
Piers himself, however, had no intention of letting the hostilities be forgotten. As 2005’s British Press Awards approached, he made reference to the last event: ‘If you see Jeremy Clarkson, and he is sweating, has wonky eyes, and keeps abusing everyone who goes up on stage then be very careful,’ he wrote in the form of tips on how to survive the awards ceremony. ‘I made the fatal error last year of seeing him in this state and then jokily inviting him to punch me on the head, which is precisely what he then did a few hours later. Three times, quite hard, right smack on the bonce. I still have a neat two-inch scar from his ring down the right side of my forehead. Never could stand jewellery on a man.’
In the event, Jeremy actually had the last laugh, winning the award for Motoring Writer of the Year. According to the judges, ‘He’s streets ahead’ and ‘He always seems to have another gear.’ Clarkson replied in suitably measured tones, with only the odd barb thrown at Morgan.
Years later, however, Piers – who by then had left his post as editor of the Mirror under difficult circumstances – would actually offer sympathy to Jeremy when he was forced to leave Top Gear. They would never be bosom buddies but the feud had simmered down by then.
* * *
Clarkson’s next outing with Adrian was not for the fainthearted: a 2005 trip to Iraq to write about it for The Sunday Times. ‘Yes, I know I could get killed,’ said Jeremy solemnly. ‘I’m not even taking out a film crew, as I could never ask them to do something as dangerous as this. I’m going to find a crew out there and we’re going to try to film some scenes around Iraq for the show.’
As for the contents of his kitbag, Jeremy was his usual forthright self – although he couldn’t resist playing it up for all it was worth: ‘Bog roll, malaria tablets, diarrhoea tablets and, oh yes, a bit of body armour.’ His natural showmanship made itself felt even here.
He conceded, however, that the mission was slightly beyond what he usually put his family through: Emily was now eleven, Finlo nine and Katya seven. ‘My wife is being very brave,’ said Jeremy, ‘my youngest ones are too little to realise what’s going on but my oldest daughter has been pretty upset and there have been some tears.’
The journey had taken some planning: departure from Britain and landing in Baghdad both had to take place in the dark, to evade Islamic militants attempting to bring down the plane in either country. British militants could alert their Iraqi counterparts as to when the plane had taken off and where it was likely to land
The number of planes available for the journey was extremely limited – three in fact, according to Clarkson, and all were in a state of disrepair, forcing the trip to be postponed several times. At last, however, the duo got to Kuwait on British Airways, before making the last part of the journey by Hercules helicopter.
The trip, which was criticised in some quarters for taking great risks at a time when the situation in Iraq was highly unstable, was not without incident. Flying from Basra to Baghdad in a Hercules transporter, he came under attack three times from rocket-propelled grenades, leaving him shaken but not stirred.
‘It was mostly while I was in the air, which was truly heart-stopping,’ he commented. After that, insurgents launched a mortar attack on the compound where he was staying. This, of course, made the news in Britain: Clarkson had been fired at four times and escaped unscathed.
But the object of the visit was successful. A long Sunday Times piece sympathetically detailed the hellhole that American and British troops found themselves in. There was also a good deal of laddish larking about, with Jeremy and Adrian staging a tank race, and Jeremy managing to film a segment for Top Gear from the back of an armoured Land Rover. ‘I wasn’t at the wheel, but I directed the piece,’ Clarkson said. ‘It might be a bit shaky – that will be the nerves. Hopefully we will use it on the show.’
One salient point that people who objected to the trip missed was that it provided a great deal of light relief for troops stationed in Iraq. None of Jeremy’s exploits, especially racing the tanks, would have been possible without a great deal of help from the British Army, who apparently held him in very high regard.
It wasn’t just the Iraqis who were out to get Clarkson though: he was also on the receiving end of some aggro closer to home. His new £1.25 million holiday home on the Isle of Man, Lighthouse Cottages, provided access to a coastal path at Langness, an area with spectacular views of the Irish Sea. Jeremy promptly upset local ramblers by calling them ‘unpleasant and deeply militant dog walkers’ and barring them from using the paths near his house. ‘You have these clots who think they have a God-given right to trample on somebody else’s garden and kill the sheep,’ he added, as he put up barbed wire to keep ramblers off his land and put up signs reading, ‘Langness Wildlife Trail’, which guided them to a different route.
This caused uproar, with many of locals saying that they could no longer appreciate the view or watch dolphins and seals in the water. They formed an action group, pledging to fight Jeremy ‘all the way’. Dick Hodge, a member of the protest committee, was incandescent: ‘The Manx people have always enjoyed the right to enjoy their beautiful island,’ he fumed. ‘We cannot allow anyone, including Mr Clarkson, to change that.’
Jeremy’s stunts continued to cause upset too. Driving around Scotland in a Land Rover Discovery, his route took him over rare plant life at the top of Ben Tongue mountain. There was concern about damage to a peat bog, with the usual furious condemnation following on hard. The first angry reaction came from John Mackenzie, Earl of Cromartie, who was the president of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland. He had offered the BBC team part of his land for Clarkson to drive on, but the programme makers didn’t think it wild enough and pressed on with the alternative route instead.
The Earl was not impressed. ‘The most worrying aspect of this is that it could set a precedent,’ he said. ‘People may well view Scotland as being a fantastic country for four by fours. The new access bill is quite distinctively for pedestrian and non-motorised access but it could be construed otherwise by less-disciplined individuals. I advised them to use an ecologically friendly site but that seems to have been ignored.’
But the BBC was adamant that there was no problem. ‘We took proper precautions, it was filmed under a controlled environment and permission was sought,’ said a spokesperson. ‘It is in no way telling people to go off and tear up the countryside.’
Land Rover also confirmed that the BBC had obtained permission for the drive beforehand. ‘I think as a utilitarian brand we are keener on use where necessary rather than just leisure use,’ said a spokesman. ‘But people have the right to do what they wish in this country.’
Clarkson himself remained unmoved, but still his detractors lined up. The latest to have a go were Liberal Democrat MPs Norman Baker and Tom Brake, who felt moved to table a motion calling for Clarkson to be summoned to the House of Commons to explain ‘a curious and misguided attitude to the real and major threat posed by climate change’.
Jeremy’s response was more in sorrow than in anger. ‘Environmentalists, it seems, can’t argue like normal people,’ he wrote rather wearily. ‘You may remember, for instance, back in the summer that a vegetarian girl, who I’d never met before, leapt from some bushes and plunged a huge banoffee pie right into the middle of my face. Then a Liberal Democrat MP called Tom Brake, who has the silliest teeth in politics, said he was going to table an early-day motion and drag me to London to watch him doing it. Now look. I don�
��t want to see anyone’s early-day motion, least of all a Liberal Democrat’s, which would be full of leaf mulch. And I especially don’t want to see it on a table. Why can’t these people write me a letter saying, “I don’t agree with you”? Why do they have to pie me and make me stand around watching a Liberal with mad teeth doing his number twos? It’s beyond comprehension.’
Then, in December 2005, Clarkson almost – almost – went too far. He was testing an Oxford-built Mini and, noting that it was now owned by BMW, he allowed his fancy to have free reign. After hearing that the Mini was designed with built-in teaspoons and teabags to give it a British touch, he referred to it as a ‘quintessentially German car’: it would have, he said, indicators that worked like a Hitler salute, ‘a satellite navigation system that only goes to Poland’, and, adding in a mock German accent, ‘a fan belt that lasted for 1,000 years’, as Hitler had claimed his Third Reich would. He finished this off with the Nazi salute.
An awful lot of people were immensely amused, but many others were not. Even the German government was upset, although it refrained from making a public complaint; instead, it contacted the BBC privately, pointing out that Clarkson could get up to six months in jail if he made the Nazi salute on German television. Meanwhile, the German industrialist Lanbert Courth, head of the Bayer Corporation in the UK, called the segment ‘unpleasant and disturbing’.
The BBC responded by saying ‘we will investigate any complaints in the normal way.’ Clarkson responded by saying, ‘My admiration for Germany as an engineering powerhouse knows no bounds but I bet Prince Charles gets more laughs talking to his plants. The other day I spoke to a German car designer for four hours and he failed to make even half an attempt at a joke in all that time. A Brit can’t go four minutes without trying to make someone laugh.’