THE Top Gear tyranny continues unabated. Regrettably, "spin-off" does not mean one of the presenters coming a cropper on an especially vicious skid-pan. We're talking about all the ancillary stuff and nonsense they host at other times.
Last night
saw the launch of Richard Hammond's Blast Lab, which I contrived to miss, but judging by the trailers it was some rocket-themed tomfoolery with the small, stoat-like one standing too close to the blue touch paper. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel we're being asked to gasp in awe at Hammond's death-cheating experience just a little too often, ie. almost every time he gels his hair in a ker-ay-zee way and presses his jeans for a screen appearance?
I've nothing against macho TV but Top Gear-related programmes can do strange things to a man. Because a lot of them are saved up for the light nights, I almost get nostalgic for Summertime Special and the kind of camp variety spectacular featuring the Peter Gordeno Dancers where all the chaps were attired in fetching violet jump-suits. So what of Hammond's cohorts? James May's Moon Landing sounded fantastic in principle, mainly because I liked the idea of there being one less Top Gear presenter on Earth (more of that later). But the week's big disappointment was turning on Famous, Rich And Homeless and not seeing Jeremy Clarkson scouring underpasses for a cardboard box big enough to sleep in.
Why didn't the BBC round up its highest-paid presenters – Clarkson, Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton, etc – for this (grim) reality show about life on London's streets? Surely an opportunity missed. In the end, though, it didn't matter: this was pretty amazing.
The participants included an ex-tennis player (Annabel Croft), an ex-Coronation Street star (Bruce Jones) and an ex-newspaper editor (Rosie Boycott). There was my colleague Hardeep Singh Kohli, who had better not be "rich" through what he earns from this paper otherwise I'll be going on strike for a hardship allowance for having to watch all those Top Gear-related programmes. And, oh yes, there was Jamie Blandford. Rich? Most assuredly, he's the Marquess of, lives in Blenheim Palace, very underpass-free. Not famous, though, more… what's the word I'm looking for?… yes, chancer. And not homeless either, as things turned out.
Presumably he knew what he was letting himself in for. There were plenty of reminders at the briefing session ("13 times more likely to be attacked on the street… people are going to spit on you, try to urinate on you"). But, first night, he almost certainly stayed in a five-star hotel, having told the camera crew to clear orf. Second night he definitely did, this being demanded of the producers otherwise he was orf, back to Blenheim.
Third night? There was no third night for the black sheep of the Churchill family who, on this evidence, possesses nothing of Winston's spirit. While Croft was having her jolly-tennis-racquets demeanour punctured by a real street-dweller brandishing a knife, he was reverse-charging a tearful call home. At that moment he was like Fotherington-Thomas in the Molesworth books, standing on his boarding-school tuck-box to reach the phone to sob to mater about horrid bullies and lispingly plead: "Thend more fudge!" But then he threatened to punch a charity worker "in the f***ing mush" and that was it, the Marquess was orf for good.
The others were disappointed (Singh Kohli: "It's disrespectful to all the people out there. If he doesn't have the bollocks to do it he can f*** off.") but they carried on with the challenge, felt guilty, made £40 from one passer-by or nothing all day, were scared, befriended their assigned "street-buddies" and fell out with them, got angry, showed guts and by the end generally understood homelessness better. So did I.
When I think of the Space Race – as I do often, because I'm a child of it, reared on Zoom ice-lollies and the TV21 comic – I wonder if kids today might get confused, like Ronnie Reagan, and mix up movies with reality. (Reagan once dubbed John Glenn "just a celluloid hero" before being reminded that his political rival had been a bona fide astronaut; he had only ever vanquished the entire Apache tribe in films, and bad ones at that.)
If so, then the first part of Nasa: Triumph And Tragedy must have been a valuable history lesson, not just about the Moon landings, but all the missions that went before and made it possible, including the tragic sacrifices of Apollo 1 and the impossible bravery of Apollo 8.
All the veteran spacemen looked like they're enjoying their retirements, the neck-ties suggesting some line-dancing may be involved. Maybe Neil Armstrong's reminisces sounded scripted and a bit flat, but given the number of times he must have told his story of the age, that was hardly surprising. It was Apollo 8 crew who orbited the moon first and, coming earlier in Nasa's understanding of space, their mission was the most dangerous. Bill Anders found words to match: "Like the rat in the jaws of a big terrier, the thrashing was so violent… like sitting in the middle of a blowtorch… like being hurled through the instrument panel by a giant catapult." Imagine if he'd been the one taking that small step for mankind.
After this programme, and all the digitally enhanced archive space footage plus some equally thrilling shots from the ground where the Nasa operation extended to 400,000, most in shirt-sleeves and buzz-cuts (or were they called Buzz Aldrins?), I was in a very good mood. James May's Moon Landing, though, wasn't bad at all, being another Space Race kid's opportunity to fulfil his dream and venture to the final frontier, or at least to 70,000ft where there must surely be a branch of Clinton Cards.
"I'm slightly lost for words," he said. Well, we can't all be Neil Armstrong, never mind Bill Anders.
The full article contains 1053 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
