“You’ve been in a car accident,” I said. “Was I driving like a tw*t?” he asked, before getting out of bed and walking, shakily, to the lavatory.
His wife, Mindy, couldn’t believe her eyes. None of us could. It really did seem that he’d had a look through death’s door and decided he didn’t like what he saw on the other side.
Later, he looked across at James May and said: “Hello C**k face.”
Despite all the odds, it seemed we’d got our Hamster back . . .
Two years ago, Richard Hammond, James May and I agreed on a plan of action should one of us be killed while making our show, Top Gear.
We decided that after the announcement of the death was made in the following week’s show, the next word should be “anyway”.
So if the Hamster had ever careered through the Pearly Gates in a flaming 200mph fireball, I would put on a sombre face, say that Richard Hammond had died and then, after a small pause, say: “Anyway, the new Jag . . .”
It was a sort of joke. But then this week, it sort of wasn’t.
