by Martin Roach
Back at Castle Hammond, Richard also loves to keep fit. In July 2007, when much of Britain was underwater due to the country’s most severe flooding in living memory, he was on a late-night charge back to his Herefordshire mansion to be home for his daughter’s birthday the next day. However, the weather was so calamitous that he gave up driving his 911 after more than 13 hours stuck in stranded traffic, even though he was still some 16 miles from home. So, at 3am he parked up his Porker and ran all the way back, arriving exhausted but in time for his little girl’s birthday at 5.30am. He has run marathons and even needs occasional osteopathy to ease aching joints as he runs so much. A fit hamster indeed!
He admits he likes to look after himself. One of many running gags on Top Gear (apart from the relentless barrage about his height) centres round Hammond’s alleged use of teeth-whitening kits. For example, after he’d tested a Marcos in Series 7, the footage returned to the studio only for Clarkson to pull such a kit out of the rear seat; likewise, in a 2009 episode the presenters phoned around for car insurance, giving their ages as seventeen, and a teeth whitening kit was seen on Hammond’s desk (later, in a one-off interview with Sir Stirling Moss, he is filmed having false eyelashes applied).
Perhaps the most laughable but endearing jokes at his expense came while testing the Bowler Wildcat in Series 2. This machine was (very) loosely based around the Land Rover, but that’s like saying a superbike is ‘loosely’ related to a pushbike: the £50,000 beast was capable of a 0–60 time of 4.8 seconds (that’s a tenth quicker than an Aston Martin DB7), it boasted a whopping five-litre V8 engine and could drive at high speed across mountain ranges normally populated only by goats and glaciers. Hammond had an absolute blast and later said it was the most fun he’d ever had in a car, but the best part was during the test itself when in an unguarded moment of pure adrenaline he shouted, ‘I am a driving god!’ Of course, May and Clarkson were in hysterics back at the studio and re-played the tape for extra embarrassment. (Interestingly, all that off-road power translated to a very average Stig lap time of only 1.39.4, perhaps slowed down by the rendition of ‘Stand By Your Man’ on the stereo.)
Hammond is often cited as the ‘kids’ favourite’ from Top Gear and this is backed up by his ventures into children’s TV. The first notable foray was as presenter of Sky One’s Brainiac: Science Abuse, which he did for four series. He also presented School’s Out, an adult quiz show for the BBC, where celebrities are tested on questions they should remember from school, a similar premise to the hugely successful Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old? He has since begun to branch out into non-motoring documentary-length features, such as Should I Worry About …?, The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding The Legend and Richard Hammond’s Invisible Worlds. In September 2008, he presented the first episode of Richard Hammond’s Engineering Connections on the National Geographic Channel, examining famous inventions such as the Airbus A38 and Wembley Stadium. His most slapstick venture is clearly BBC1’s Total Wipeout, where contestants are sent around an assault course of obstacles, mud and water hazards – which is actually filmed in Argentina, although Hammond does all his presenting from a studio in London.
His most popular children’s show is Richard Hammond’s Blast Lab for the BBC. Set in a fictitious underground laboratory, apparently beneath Hammond’s stately home, he was joined by such colourful characters as Ninja Nan. Taking a lead from his Top Gear ‘day job’, Hammond has quite frequently blown up caravans in the name of science for kids.
On Blast Lab, there’s an ‘intelligent’ Opel Kadett that comes onto the show and answers kids’ questions by flashing its lights, depending on whether the response is correct or not. This is, in fact, the very same car that Hammond found during the Top Gear ‘Epic Road Trip’ to Botswana – he loved the vehicle so much that he shipped it back to the UK, where it was restored by a team from Practical Classics magazine. On Blast Lab, the car is seen with the number plate OLI V3R.
Hammond has also presented several one-off specials, such as the annual Crufts awards; perhaps most bizarrely, he has twice presented the British Parking Awards at the Dorchester Hotel, which includes a variety of categories including ‘Parking Team of the Year’ and ‘Best New Car Park’ – I am not making this up!
No doubt, this must have provided Clarkson and May with much mirth. Presumably he didn’t win an award at The Dorchester: on the BBC2 quiz show, Petrol-heads, Hammond was tricked into pranging his classic Ferrari while attempting to parallel-park blindfolded.
Richard regularly contributes numerous newspaper columns to the Mirror and is a regular (and always extremely popular) guest on high-profile chat shows; he has also written several best-selling books. A sure sign of The Hamster’s exploding personal celebrity came with ITV’s February 2006 launch of Richard-Hammond’s 5 O’Clock Show with his co-star, Mel Giedroyc. The topical show aired for an hour across nearly five weeks, but was not re-commissioned. Recently, he has returned to radio with various one-off shows for stations such as BBC2.
Personally, Hammond’s most riveting TV ventures have been two enthralling specials recorded with Evel Knievel and Stirling Moss. The former was a lengthy interview pieced together from numerous meetings with the all-time most famous daredevil stunt rider. Knievel was a childhood hero of mine and, being the same age as Hammond, it was as if he was asking all the questions that I would have wanted to put forward, had I been lucky enough to meet him. At the time of these meetings, Knievel had already been diagnosed with the diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis that eventually killed him. Hammond was respectful and yet confident enough to ask difficult questions of a man not renowned for suffering fools gladly.
Initially he was visibly nervous on meeting his childhood hero and the entire programme was fascinating to watch. It later transpired this was Knievel’s last interview before his death in November 2007. When Hammond interviewed racing legend Moss, recovering from a horrific fall at home that broke both his ankles, some bones in his feet and several vertebrae, his respectful reverence was also apparent.
Having started his career in regional radio (and with an academic background behind that), speaking as a fan this is an area that I personally would love to see Hammond investigate further. His Top Gear caricature is highly entertaining, but is there a limit to the amiable cheeky chappie persona? Although his own topical magazine show didn’t get renewed, Hammond is at his best when serious, investigative and passionate about his subject. If you asked his co-stars what The Hamster’s best non-Top Gear TV work has been to date, no doubt they’d say his adverts for fresh fish at Morrisons! Interestingly, he himself admits that he is not always so amiable, telling www.timesonline.co.uk that, ‘There is a bit of Italian in my family and I do have a short fuse. I tend to explode and have a huge temper tantrum, but then it is all gone and I’m happy and smiling two minutes later.’
One fact about Richard Hammond that his co-presenters make no secret of finding absurd is that gradually he has become more of a sex symbol, perhaps not something the shy primary school Hamster might have expected. After he grew his hair much longer, his slightly expensively dishevelled appearance seemed to be a hit with female viewers (when May was named ‘Worst Celebrity Haircut’ in a 2007 Brylcreem poll, Hammond’s longer locks triumphed in the ‘Best’ category). As far back as 2005, he topped Heat magazine’s list of ‘Weird Celebrity Crushes’. Having said that, his main ‘rivals’ in that unlikely chart included Bob Geldof, Derren Brown and believe it or not, Boris Johnson. In his acceptance speech, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, Richard said: ‘So, I’m the best of a really bad bunch – hoorah! I’m still a little sceptical about all this. After all, I’m the short bloke who was always ignored at school discos. I used to pitch up in a badly matching flowery shirt and tie, stand on the side of the dancefloor and wait for a girl to come and talk to me – and they never did. Now I’m top of a Z-list nookie league.’
Perhaps more graciously, he went on to say that he thought if women fancied Clarkson, it
must be a perversion. In fact, his lanky Top Gear colleague has enjoyed some of the apparent reflected Top Gear attractiveness: a 2008 poll of ‘Men I Secretly Adore’ placed Jezza third, behind only Jonathan Ross and Philip Schofield! On hearing the news, he complained about not coming first.
A diminutive 5’7”, Hammond has the unfortunate job of working alongside a towering Clarkson, which undoubtedly makes him look far shorter than he actually is. However, he genuinely doesn’t seem to mind: ‘As a pecking order it works quite well,’ he told Times Online. ‘If I wasn’t shorter than him, it would just look like two blokes having an argument.’ Of course, Clarkson relentlessly mocks his fellow presenter’s height, most famously by putting pictures on the ‘Cool Wall’ out of Hammond’s reach when they disagree. With stunning Top Gear directness, Richard likes to point out that he’s still taller than George Clooney, Tom Cruise and Hitler: ‘In my mind, I look like Clint Eastwood – tall, scary, strong and silent – but women just think I’m fluffy and inoffensive. I’m not cute: I’m miserable, I have a mean, dark heart and I’m sinister!’ He went on to suggest his wife would not call him a romantic, although he once bought her a Harley-Davidson for her birthday. ‘I fancy girls on motorcycles’ was his selfless reasoning for the two-wheel purchase!
Hammond admits that since he’s appeared on television, he is frequently approached by ‘a certain type of girl’, something he finds hilarious and obviously unappealing: ‘I’m very lucky [my wife] trusts me. But if I wasn’t happily married I’d be on a non-stop rampage, exploiting my victory ruthlessly. I’d be on one long, shallow, celebrity-driven shagfest.’
One can only imagine how May and Clarkson would have laughed on hearing the news of the ‘Weird Celebrity Crush’ survey. Others were less surprised. Writing in the Mirror, women’s editor Caroline Jones said, ‘With his cheeky grin, his reassuring voice, but most of all that naughty twinkle in his eye, the appeal is obvious. What’s not to love? You don’t have to be interested in motoring to recognise a racy little model when you see one. And he’s certainly got our engines revving.’ Indeed, the fact that Hammond was happily married with two kids and doted on his family made him all the more adorable in many women’s eyes.
Of course there’s a wider issue here: Hammond in particular has made Top Gear a programme that women watch. With the greatest respect to Clarkson and May, they are far more improbable sex symbols, something they themselves might readily admit. Suffice to say, Top Gear was for many years the motoring equivalent of ‘the football’: ‘It used to be the programme your fella watched while you had a bath,’ wrote Jones, ‘all boring men in cardies banging on about Beetles and BMWs. Now it’s funny and sexy. Richard’s enthusiasm makes you want to understand the difference between oversteer and understeer – even though you don’t care.’
CHAPTER 15
James May, Part II
For much of the 2000s, James May lived in Hampton, a very genteel town on the outskirts of London, where house prices are exorbitant and there’s a tangible whiff of sedate Englishness in the air: so, perfect for him then. He has been with his partner – the dance critic Sarah Frater, who writes revered pieces for such publications as the Evening Standard – since 2000. Speaking to the Mirror, May described her thus: ‘I like a bit of rusticity in my women. Sarah’s an eccentric. She won’t mind [that description].’
May appears to represent the quintessential English bachelor, albeit one with a long-term partner: ‘Some people just don’t get married and I am a late developer. Sarah and I have never really talked about living together, we just never have. And it’s practical. My house isn’t terribly big … [in fact] my house is f***ing horrible. Sarah likes to go back to her Notting Hill flat – she’s happy how it is. As for children, I don’t yearn for them, but I don’t rule it out,’ he continued.
Speaking to the Independent, he admitted to being hopeless about keeping a nice house: ‘I can’t make a house homely – my house just looks like a garage or a shed. I’m not untidy, but it just looks so uninviting.’ He has since moved to Hammersmith in west London, where his house boasts a garage (unusual for that busy area of the capital). It’s not clear where he keeps his fleet of cars, motorbikes and aeroplanes, however.
However, he’s not averse to romantic gestures. ‘When we went to Istanbul recently,’ he told The Times, ‘we were walking near the Blue Mosque one night when a figure in traditional clothes sidled up and whispered, “Make her happy. Buy her carpet.” And then disappeared. He wasn’t trying to sell me one, just offering advice. So I asked the owner of the B&B and he suggested a place that had antique rugs at decent prices. I bought a runner with a threadbare patch for twenty quid, and yes, it did make her happy. So thanks, mate.’
The couple share a dog, a rather wild-sounding creature called Fusker, named after a form of internet theft. May describes the mutt as ‘stand-offish and grumpy, just like me.’ Fusker was a gift from Hammond’s wife Mindy (and Sarah has told him, ‘You get the pet you deserve!’). Like Clarkson, May is not unknown to make fashion faux pas, having been filmed in a selection of numerous questionable sweaters and lurid shirts. He states simply: ‘normal bloke is my style.’ This is slightly misleading because he has been known to spend quite a lot of money on clothes, but proudly hails his ability to ‘make them all look rubbish’ – this from a man who likes velour and bemoans the extinction of the 1970s’ beaded door curtains in cars.
When he’s not filming, he loves to relax with Sarah at home, sometimes venturing into the kitchen to cook nice meals, or if he’s feeling sociable he prefers to go for a few quiet pints with his mates and play darts down the pub. He is a devoted bitter drinker and enjoys sampling real ales. If it’s raining, he might sit in and watch an old movie, preferring classics such as The Battle of Britain or Where Eagles Dare.
May’s personal garage is maybe not so understated as you might expect. Admittedly, over the years his fleet has perhaps predictably included a Bentley T2, Triumph 2000, Rover P6, Alfa Romeo 164, 1971 Rolls-Royce Corniche, Jaguar XJS, Range Rover, Fiat Panda, Datsun 120Y, Vauxhall Cavalier, a Mini Cooper, Citroen Ami, Mazda MX-5 and numerous classic motorbikes. But don’t be fooled by the Captain Slow tag: he has also owned his fair share of supercars such as a Ferrari F430, an Aston Martin V8 Vantage and even the monstrous Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4. Coincidentally, like Hammond, he often uses a Brompton folding bicycle for city commuting.
James freely admits to being what some would call a ‘tinker’, a person who loves to mess about with engines and machines: he says he can’t walk past a hardware store because it’s full of nuts and bolts, tools, penknives and other cool stuff. He once revealed that one night he was happily messing with a piece of an old Honda engine for hours when Sarah popped her head around the garage door to ask: ‘Is there any chance you can come inside and behave like a normal person for a while?’
‘Normal people’ also go on holidays, something May has said he’s not very good at. However, his globe-trotting escapades with Top Gear have clearly made him travel-hardened: ‘I’m not very good at planning them,’ he told The Times. ‘For years, I used a bucket shop in Kilburn. Whenever I had a week free, I’d go in and say, “What have you got for a hundred quid?” And he’d say, “Cairo, tomorrow”, so I’d say, “Fine”. That’s the way I like to travel. You soon learn that unless you’re heading for the Arctic or the Amazon, when you arrive there will be toothpaste, toothbrushes and hotel rooms. And if there aren’t, well, you can always sleep on the central reservation. I’ve done that enough times to know it isn’t the end of the world.’
As mentioned earlier, May is also a qualified pilot: ‘Aeroplanes were something I was interested in as a small boy,’ he told the Independent. ‘I get bad vertigo and I never thought I would be able to afford to do it. I was a bit lucky. I only went down to the airport for a trial – I just kept going and ended up with a pilot’s licence.’ So he admits that he spends nearly all of his cash on cars, classic motorbikes, planes and fuel. Sounds lik
e the perfect life!
Like his two co-presenters, Top Gear has long since stopped being May’s only television role. However, his shows are invariably more cerebral than the rather more explosive programmes often made by his counterparts. So, we have him presenting shows such as Lifestyle’s Road Rage School, co-hosting coverage of the 2006 London Boat Show and bizarrely beating Gordon Ramsay at eating animal penises on an edition of the verbally caustic Scottish chef’s The F Word! Unsurprisingly perhaps, both men ended up being sick. It began as a bit of fun, with Ramsay daring May to eat one and he was so confident that the mild-mannered Top Gear presenter wouldn’t be able to eat any of these ‘delicacies’ that he then offered to match every one himself. Having already stirred up controversy by serving horsemeat on his show, Ramsay didn’t shy away from the inevitable headlines.
Although the unlikely duo had great fun together, Ramsay was rather less forthcoming about May’s actual cooking skills: ‘The worst [celebrity chef] ever would have to be James May, with his fish pie. Even though he won, which was extraordinary. He was drinking a bottle of red wine throughout the challenge, so I thought it was in the bag. And Geri Halliwell as well – disaster zone! You won’t be seeing either of them opening a restaurant.’
However, May’s best TV show other than Top Gear is easily the intriguing James May’s Toy Stories for the BBC, which features classic toys from yesteryear, including some of his personal favourites. But he didn’t just look at the toys from his childhood, he super-sized them: he reconstructed the banked track at Brooklands raceway using Scalextric, tried to build a life-size Airfix model of a Spitfire and even submitted a garden to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show made entirely from plasticine. (Note: controversy is never far away from the Top Gear presenters: a group gathered outside the BBC to protest at the cost – allegedly £500,000 – of letting a well-paid presenter live out his childhood Spitfire fantasy).