Aunty Big Brother’s Car Crash Telly
IT’S car crash telly.
“ you have ever seen,” promises the Mirror. This is the “TV CRASH” you will never forget.
In terms of career-ending moments caught on camera this surpasses the corporate video of Gerald Ratner telling the world the merchandise on sale at his eponymous stores is “crap”.
This exceeds Jade Goody telling Indian babe Shilpa Shetty to “go back to the slums”.
And that video of Saddam Hussein’s final moments… Well, let’s just says it’s a close second.
So massive is this car crash that the Sun features it on its front page. Above the news of a race war triggered by the aforesaid Goody, readers tremble at: “My hell at 280mph.”
These are the first pictures of Richard ‘Hamster’ Hammond’s car crash.
Hammond is the presenter of BBC TV’s Top Gear TV show. In trying to set a new British landspeed record for a celebrity in a fast car, Hammond crashed.
This is shocking. How can it be that Hammond, who writes for the Mirror, can feature so prominently in the rival Sun? The answer arrives quicker than, well, Hammond. “How did he survive?” asks Sun writer Jeremy Clarkson, Hammond’s co-presenter on Top Gear.
Over three pictures, readers get to see a man nearly dying in a car. With captions:
1. “Big bang… dragster tyre explodes as Hammond leaves vapour trail from jet”
2. “Heading for disaster…smoke pours from the tyres as car veers off airfield runway”
3. “Dirty business… barrel-rolling hamster sends up clouds of soil as car disintegrates”.
These pictures of a man nearly dying and suffering head injuries do not come from a camera phone, covert shots taken by one of the Hamster’s rivals in the hectic world of media car driving. These are images supplied by that bastion of decency and good taste that is the BBC.
For those of you unable to decipher the pictures, the Sun solicits the help of an expert, chiefly the aforesaid Clarkson. He tells us the tyres “started to come apart”. The car “hit something which made it go upside down”. The car “flipped over”.
For what we imagine to be contractual reasons, Mirror readers have to make do with Hammond’s version of the event. He has seen the tape of his headline-making crash.
“Watching the moment that could have left my wife Mindy a widow, brining up our kids alone, took my breath away,” writes Hammond.
Happily this is no permanent condition, and the man who risked life and limb in the noble pursuit of good telly breathes again.
As do we…
Posted: 18th, January 2007 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
