The Hamster is Doing Better
As many of you know, we have an unholy love of Top Gear in this house. Well, to be honest, it's all motorsport in general so far as J is concerned, but for me, it's F1 and Top Gear. F1 is fascinating for the high-tech high-tension sagas of drivers, cars and teams, where one month's Juan Pablo Montoya is the future of Mercedes-McLaren and the next month's JPM is that wanker who's going back to a lower series where he belongs. But I can understand people who see nothing in this; a lot of the actual racing has been processional for the last few years and it's only recently that things have hotted up again (Go Schumi!).
Top Gear, on the other hand, offers something for everyone. And that something is usually explosions. Now I'm as mild-mannered as the next woman, but I must say that a well-controlled explosion offers that certain je ne sais hedgehog that most television can't quite capture. And it works for me.
I'm not a natural TG viewer: I can't drive (and refuse to learn); I can change a tyre, but care not whether it is a Michelin, Bridgestone or Pirelli; I really don't give a sausage about the Ford Mondeo; and I ride a bicycle (well, in theory. In practise my nearest and dearest all threaten to kill me if I take my bike out on the roads again but only because they want to get in before the inevitable taxi. But we hit the parks now and then.) So I am actually the anti-Clarkson, and not just because I am a cute, short woman with straight hair.
Yet give me an hour of Jeremy Clarkson, James May or Richard Hammond fanging about in ridiculous vehicles while gleefully exclaiming that they have soiled themselves, and then blowing up a caravan, and I'm a happy punter.
So you can imagine my concern when Richard Hammond, better known as the Hamster, went completely cactus while screaming down their decommisioned runway in a dragster at 300mph recently. Reports have suggested everything from a blown tyre to asymmetrically deployed brake parachutes as the cause of the accident, but suffice to say it was a screaming pile of mess, with a bright-eyed, Colgate-whitened little TV presenter slumped in what remained of the vehicle.
For anyone who lives in a land untouched by motoring journalism, the Hamster is cute, amusing, slightly over four foot tall, and insanely enthusiastic about everything. So naturally, I quite like him. And as a denizen of the media world, I appreciate him allowing subbies all over the UK an opportunity for headlines such as Hamster's Horror Head-On. Here's a picture of him before the accident. He's sweet and goofy and has a lovely wife and two little girls. He's probably nice to dogs and cats, too. It was a bloody huge crash, with the Vampire dragster apparently rolling several times and leaving Hammond with his helmet half-buried at the end of the shunt.
Here's what's left of the car. Now these things are constructed to very high standards and have everything from roll cages to special devices to protecting your head and neck in the advent of a crash. In fact Hammond is reported as talking lucidly at the crash scene. But the paramedics had a better idea of what was really going on and, in the immortal words of the late Barry Sheehan: That's a major, major sausage. Look at the state of it! So our little fella was whisked off to hospital by air ambulance and some really good doctors did a really good job of stabilising him once he got there.
Jeremy Clarkson writes about it here, and rather sweetly manages to say nice things about the NHS for perhaps the first time in British media history. The good news is that in the intervening weeks, the Hamster has staged a remarkable recovery and has sodded off to rehab now that he's clearly on the road to being normal again. He's walking and talking and genuine experts rather than the media variety have said give him six months and he'll be fine.
I know from my own attempt to dislodge my head (at much lower speeds) that six months is about how long it takes to rewire properly, so I have every hope that this is a real prognosis and not the sort of thing that people say about celebrities in a bid to make people feel better about watching shows that encourage them to do stupid things.
However, the doing stupid things thing has gained a great deal of mileage in the UK. All over the press there have been screams of outrage that the BBC funds a show that exists primarily for people fanging about in cars and blowing things up. The argument is that these actions are inherently dangerous, serve no purpose, and are bad for global warming.
Now, that is true, but then again, it's true of most things. You can say exactly the same things about the SCA. (See! Linkage! I am On Topic, oh yes, I am!). Admittedly our Global Warming Impacts are all to do with enormous amounts of flights and long-distance drives (well, and letting some people talk), but there's really no good reason to get dressed up and hit each other with sticks.
Except it's a lot of fun.
And, in the case of Top Gear, it's all done away from public roads and without risk to anyone except the presenters themselves. I can even live with Clarkson hating cyclists, because you know he'd brake like a bastard to avoid hitting you on a bad corner – he's a marshamallow under the bluster.
And I have to say that millions of people enjoy watching Clarkson, May and Hammond destroy caravans (and if they could take out the odd Sydney taxi, I'd be even happier. And if they could have a certain I. Nakle driving it at the time, I'd be happier still!) Luckily the Beeb has renewed the show and started filming on the latest series, but this has all brought home once more what a nanny-state world we live in.
And for anyone thinking that it's only in the UK, HAH! Australia is just as bad and the US is much, much worse. In fact the only liberty that Americans seem hell-bent on preserving is the right to ready armaments to kill each other. This makes life very difficult for motoring programs, and I suspect it will continue to make life difficult for SCAidans, too.
The one bright light on the SCA front is that the SCA Inc has finally decided they need a liaison with the rest of the world. It won't be me, because I would spend all my time screaming crankily and this is not effective. But it may well be Maggie, who is every bit as smart as I am (quite possibly more, but like I'll admit that), and more useful in every direction from multi-linguality to patience and dignity. Or it could well be a Drachenwalder, which would also be good, as they seem to all have their heads screwed on and a reasonable sense of how the world works, not just their backyard.
On a final Hamster note, an appeal to raise funds for the air ambulance service is closing in on the £175,000 mark and hopes to raise some £500,000 for a new chopper. You can check up on the tally or donate here. So some good has come out of the whole thing.
Personally I'm looking forward to the next two F1 Grands Prix, where I have my fingers crossed for TGF (That German Fellow). It won't be the same once he finishes driving; I've grown to believe that the Italian national anthem is the second verse of the German one (that's how it's always played on the podium). I'm just hoping that he wins because then he'll cry in the press conference again, and with a bit of luck, Kimi Raikkonen will be there to take on the role of his fellow Finn in years past with the sympathetic back-patting. It's a beautiful thing.
Back to the usual SCA suspects next post ...
Top Gear, on the other hand, offers something for everyone. And that something is usually explosions. Now I'm as mild-mannered as the next woman, but I must say that a well-controlled explosion offers that certain je ne sais hedgehog that most television can't quite capture. And it works for me.
I'm not a natural TG viewer: I can't drive (and refuse to learn); I can change a tyre, but care not whether it is a Michelin, Bridgestone or Pirelli; I really don't give a sausage about the Ford Mondeo; and I ride a bicycle (well, in theory. In practise my nearest and dearest all threaten to kill me if I take my bike out on the roads again but only because they want to get in before the inevitable taxi. But we hit the parks now and then.) So I am actually the anti-Clarkson, and not just because I am a cute, short woman with straight hair.
Yet give me an hour of Jeremy Clarkson, James May or Richard Hammond fanging about in ridiculous vehicles while gleefully exclaiming that they have soiled themselves, and then blowing up a caravan, and I'm a happy punter.
So you can imagine my concern when Richard Hammond, better known as the Hamster, went completely cactus while screaming down their decommisioned runway in a dragster at 300mph recently. Reports have suggested everything from a blown tyre to asymmetrically deployed brake parachutes as the cause of the accident, but suffice to say it was a screaming pile of mess, with a bright-eyed, Colgate-whitened little TV presenter slumped in what remained of the vehicle.
For anyone who lives in a land untouched by motoring journalism, the Hamster is cute, amusing, slightly over four foot tall, and insanely enthusiastic about everything. So naturally, I quite like him. And as a denizen of the media world, I appreciate him allowing subbies all over the UK an opportunity for headlines such as Hamster's Horror Head-On. Here's a picture of him before the accident. He's sweet and goofy and has a lovely wife and two little girls. He's probably nice to dogs and cats, too. It was a bloody huge crash, with the Vampire dragster apparently rolling several times and leaving Hammond with his helmet half-buried at the end of the shunt.
Here's what's left of the car. Now these things are constructed to very high standards and have everything from roll cages to special devices to protecting your head and neck in the advent of a crash. In fact Hammond is reported as talking lucidly at the crash scene. But the paramedics had a better idea of what was really going on and, in the immortal words of the late Barry Sheehan: That's a major, major sausage. Look at the state of it! So our little fella was whisked off to hospital by air ambulance and some really good doctors did a really good job of stabilising him once he got there.
Jeremy Clarkson writes about it here, and rather sweetly manages to say nice things about the NHS for perhaps the first time in British media history. The good news is that in the intervening weeks, the Hamster has staged a remarkable recovery and has sodded off to rehab now that he's clearly on the road to being normal again. He's walking and talking and genuine experts rather than the media variety have said give him six months and he'll be fine.
I know from my own attempt to dislodge my head (at much lower speeds) that six months is about how long it takes to rewire properly, so I have every hope that this is a real prognosis and not the sort of thing that people say about celebrities in a bid to make people feel better about watching shows that encourage them to do stupid things.
However, the doing stupid things thing has gained a great deal of mileage in the UK. All over the press there have been screams of outrage that the BBC funds a show that exists primarily for people fanging about in cars and blowing things up. The argument is that these actions are inherently dangerous, serve no purpose, and are bad for global warming.
Now, that is true, but then again, it's true of most things. You can say exactly the same things about the SCA. (See! Linkage! I am On Topic, oh yes, I am!). Admittedly our Global Warming Impacts are all to do with enormous amounts of flights and long-distance drives (well, and letting some people talk), but there's really no good reason to get dressed up and hit each other with sticks.
Except it's a lot of fun.
And, in the case of Top Gear, it's all done away from public roads and without risk to anyone except the presenters themselves. I can even live with Clarkson hating cyclists, because you know he'd brake like a bastard to avoid hitting you on a bad corner – he's a marshamallow under the bluster.
And I have to say that millions of people enjoy watching Clarkson, May and Hammond destroy caravans (and if they could take out the odd Sydney taxi, I'd be even happier. And if they could have a certain I. Nakle driving it at the time, I'd be happier still!) Luckily the Beeb has renewed the show and started filming on the latest series, but this has all brought home once more what a nanny-state world we live in.
And for anyone thinking that it's only in the UK, HAH! Australia is just as bad and the US is much, much worse. In fact the only liberty that Americans seem hell-bent on preserving is the right to ready armaments to kill each other. This makes life very difficult for motoring programs, and I suspect it will continue to make life difficult for SCAidans, too.
The one bright light on the SCA front is that the SCA Inc has finally decided they need a liaison with the rest of the world. It won't be me, because I would spend all my time screaming crankily and this is not effective. But it may well be Maggie, who is every bit as smart as I am (quite possibly more, but like I'll admit that), and more useful in every direction from multi-linguality to patience and dignity. Or it could well be a Drachenwalder, which would also be good, as they seem to all have their heads screwed on and a reasonable sense of how the world works, not just their backyard.
On a final Hamster note, an appeal to raise funds for the air ambulance service is closing in on the £175,000 mark and hopes to raise some £500,000 for a new chopper. You can check up on the tally or donate here. So some good has come out of the whole thing.
Personally I'm looking forward to the next two F1 Grands Prix, where I have my fingers crossed for TGF (That German Fellow). It won't be the same once he finishes driving; I've grown to believe that the Italian national anthem is the second verse of the German one (that's how it's always played on the podium). I'm just hoping that he wins because then he'll cry in the press conference again, and with a bit of luck, Kimi Raikkonen will be there to take on the role of his fellow Finn in years past with the sympathetic back-patting. It's a beautiful thing.
Back to the usual SCA suspects next post ...
posted by Miss D at 1:43 am
4 Comments:
Our younglings were very concerned by the Hamster's mishap and are much reassured by later news. TG is pure fun, mixed in with some truly creative car-erotica video. So long as you don't take it too seriously, it belongs on the TIVO.
And yes, the race-to-Switzerland episode was breathtaking, if ever-so-slightly rigged :)
Nice Segue there!
I've been following along with the Hamster's recovery, and YAY!
See what you did by addicting me to top gear?
I can't get enough of the camping episode, truly I cannot.
I must admit, the minute I saw the story on the Metro frontpage, all I could think (apart from 'poor, silly man') was 'Yolande's gonna be mighty unhappy...'
Hey Aphie! I just found your other LJ (at last. I left you some notes there.) Yes, I was unhappy with Hammond's dirt-ploughing methods. Does the man not know he is a hamster, not a mole? Very releived that he is both getting better a providing an impetus to charity. SBS have stopped showing TG despite being about a season behind. So we bought two DVDs. Because we are sad, so very, very sad. And then Schumi's car blew up in the GP, so we were that kind of sad, too.
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