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'NO TIME TO BE ILL'
Jeremy Clarkson jokes ‘if I get too fat they’ll have to use an MRI scanner built for HORSES’
HE once claimed to be the world’s heaviest smoker, and drinks rosé wine by the case.
Yet he has not had a day off since he was 20 — not even when he was wiped out by pneumonia and Covid — and now Jeremy Clarkson has been given a clean bill of health.
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The 61-year-old Sun columnist and TV regular said: “I passed my health check a couple of weeks ago. They put their head up my bum, had a look around, couldn’t see anything.
“I spent two hours in an MRI. They play videos to you now — I watched the whole of Iron Man.
“They give you headphones and project it on to these goggles. And while I did, they looked at every single bone and everything inside me. So that was good.”
But he added: “What I am really worried about is that if you get really fat, you have to use a horse MRI at the vets.”
However, despite some of his past lifestyle choices, plus some of his current ones, there’s little chance of Jeremy reaching that size any time soon.
He is currently juggling several jobs — including writing for The Sun — and double filming commitments for his farming series and The Grand Tour.
In fact, when we chatted he was so busy that he didn’t even have time to help partner Lisa move their belongings into their new house or stop to have lunch.
He said: “I haven’t had a day off in forever. I can’t remember when I did. It’s just forever — since I was 20.
“I didn’t even take time off when I had Covid. The French love taking time off. There’s always something to protest about or strike about and they seem to enjoy that. I wouldn’t want to work like that.”
‘France is last country on earth you can tease’
I asked if he fears he would be one of those people who takes time off, or retires, and is then struck down with illness.
He said: “I do. I haven’t got time to be ill. Today for my lunch I had a quarter of a pork pie and I didn’t even sit down to eat it, I walked from one place to another.
“I haven’t even got time to sit down and eat.”
The reason Jeremy is comparing his hectic lifestyle with the more relaxed approach of our neighbours across the Channel is because the French are the focus of the latest episode of The Grand Tour.
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While the motoring antics of Jeremy and his screen partners Richard Hammond and James May usually take them to far-flung places, this time they don’t even make it out of the UK due to Covid restrictions.
In The Grand Tour Presents: Carnage A Trois, Jeremy poses a straightforward question: “What is wrong with the French?”
The episode — a celebration of that nation’s “weird cars” — sees the trio go on a road trip, starting in the Welsh hills and finally reaching the English Channel.
And Jeremy said the timing of it could not be better, as the two nations’ politicians continue to bicker over everything from scallops to electricity.
He said: “I’m a Francophile, I love France, I like going there. I actually admire the French’s belligerence.
“But the question we ask is, ‘What’s the matter with the French?’. We couldn’t have chosen a better time to put the show out.
“You know, we’ve got the submarine row, we’ve got the scallop row, we’ve got them refusing to give us electricity. So it’s a perfect time really. They’re about the last country on earth you can actually tease.”
During the feature-length episode, the trio tackle bomb disposal, attempt to parallel-park in a French manner and, in true Grand Tour style, destroy some cars in the process.
Jeremy said: “There’s a girl in our office who is French and her parents have never sold their car.
I passed my health check a couple of weeks ago. They put their head up my bum, had a look round, couldn’t see anything. So that was good
“In France, you buy a car, and you run it until it’s absolutely knackered and it simply won’t move another inch. Then you scrap it and buy a new one. It’s very refreshing.
“If you don’t care about the second-hand value of your car, it means you don’t care about the odd knock, scrape, bang, spilt ice cream. You don’t care about the standard.
“All we ever think is, ‘It’s been scratched! I won’t get as much second-hand!’. We think that, the Germans and everyone else thinks that. The French don’t care.
“I love [French footballer] N’Golo Kante. Have you seen his car? A banged-up Mini. It’s so French, he doesn’t care. It still works!
“It is a homogenised world we live in now. You can get McDonald’s everywhere. Everybody uses an iPhone. And then you get France and it’s just not like that. They don’t do what we do.
“I love that alcohol until very recently was allowed in the school classroom there but ketchup is banned in school dining rooms.
“And you can’t close if you’re a baker in a French village. You can’t just take the holiday when it suits.
“There has to be, by law, a supply of croissants and baguettes every morning. You aren’t allowed to eat at your desk and have to go out to a restaurant properly.
“When you step back, you go, ‘You know, I quite admire their way of doing things’.”
‘I thought: What the f*** am I watching?’
Away from The Grand Tour, each of the TV trio has been working on his own solo project for Amazon, which screens the shows.
Richard Hammond fronted The Great Escapists, in which he had to escape from a desert island, while James May has turned chef, hosting a cookery series called Oh Cook! But it is Jeremy’s farming escapades on show Clarkson’s Farm that have won him a legion of new fans — just not his two old pals.
Asked if there’s any gentle competition between the three, he sarcastically said: “Noooo! I’m not at all competitive.
“Hammond said the other day, he nearly gritted his teeth off when he said he was so pleased for me, and that makes me so happy. I mean, everyone’s competitive, so you feel a certain sense of satisfaction, but then it is nice to get back together again with those two, as we do get on ever so well when making shows together.”
One man he has not been getting along with quite so well is Paddy McGuinness, who is now hosting Jeremy’s old show Top Gear. The pair came to verbal blows after Jeremy criticised, quite fairly, Paddy’s other hosting gig as Sue Barker’s replacement on the rebooted Question Of Sport.
When Jeremy asked “what on earth” had happened to the once popular sporting quiz, Paddy fired back: “The same thing that’s happened to Top Gear JC. New personnel, bigger ratings. Love you.”
Jeremy said: “I didn’t know who the man hosting Question Of Sport was. I thought, ‘What the f*** am I watching? What is this programme?’.
“A large number of people who I didn’t know were all shouting, ‘What has happened to Question Of Sport?’. And then it turned out the man in the middle of it all does Top Gear.
“It was only later that I realised that Martin McGuinness . . . oh no, he’s the IRA. PADDY McGuinness.
“I read a piece about him the other day, and he seems a nice enough chap, but Christ, Question Of Sport — it’s a long way from [former team captain] Bill Beaumont, isn’t it?
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“I don’t understand. Why would you want to change the format? It was so good.”
- The Grand Tour Presents: Carnage A Trois is available on Amazon Prime today.
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The Grand Tour's Richard Hammond breaks silence on being banned from Jeremy Clarkson's farm
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