Scenes with Jeremy Clarkson 596
[Reading the main challenge]
You'll now attempt to achieve in eight days what the Americans failed to achieve in ten years: get from the south of Vietnam to the north. You will ride from [laughs] here in Saigon to Ha Long City, near the Chinese border, which is one thousand miles away.
[Jeremy looks daunted]
That is the best challenge we've ever had!
That's fa-- I'm going. I'm getting--Get his bike started. [runs back to his bike]
Honestly, that is fantastic. [leaves too]
JeremyI just-- I can't do that. I can't do-- Guys, I can't do that! I can't ride a bike. I'm sorry, this is stupid. [points to crew behind the camera] And I'm not joking, it is-- I don't know who came up with this, but it's daft.
I think it's brilliant! I'm more excited than anything we've ever done.
I can't believe you're being a misery-guts.
Jeremy
Because it's a thousand miles in the rainy season...!
I know, that's the best thing about it!
Jeremy
...a thousand miles, in the rainy season, in a country with not very good roads, and I can't ride a bike!
Jeremy
[voiceover] I honestly believed that at some point on our long and torturous route, one of us would be killed. Probably wouldn't be Hammond though. Because unlike us two, he at least could get a helmet which fitted.
Jeremy
The reason I don't ride a motorcycle is because I have a large brain.
Jeremy
The reason why crash helmets are small is because people who wear them haven't got a brain. Otherwise they'd have a car.
[Richard and then James arrive at the meeting point, a restaurant]
Well, I went to check ahead if it'd gotten any steeper. It did.
Where is he, do you reckon?
Do you think he's enjoying his first biking experience?
[Cut to Jeremy, who is riding through town in the dark]
Jeremy
[Very, very angry] I am the most miserable human being alive! Where's this restaurant?! Where is it?!
[Just before the rain starts to fall]
Jeremy
[voiceover] Still, at least I'd been assured it wouldn't rain.
[And with that, the heavens open. Jeremy and James ride along, soaked by the torrential rain]
Jeremy
Name an upside to this, May! Name ONE upside!
Well, you're not hot anymore, are you?
Jeremy
My light's dying. It's dying, my light's dying!
Jeremy
[voiceover] There was an upside though. Richard's Taliban bike had decided it liked the rain even less than me.
Come on now! [hops up and down whilst still on his bike] That's not so effective as I'd hoped it would be.
Jeremy
[shouting whilst driving through a big puddle] Oh my god! What the hell is going on in my life?! Why has my life gone so wrong?!
Jeremy
[still shouting] It's not!
[Getting annoyed] It is! Stop whining!
[Jeremy and James passing a small truck]
Jeremy
Hit that. Cheer me up--kill yourself.
[James overtakes Jeremy and begins to sing The Beach Boys' "Little Honda"]
#I'll take you anywhere you want to go, I'll ride my Honda tonight-#
Jeremy
I hate you!
[Ignoring him] #First gear, it's all right. Second gear, I lean right. Third gear, hold on tight#
[After bring told that they couldn't get any more spare parts for their bikes and found out that the "backup transport", if they couldn't keep their bikes going with tools is a Honda Chaly mini-bike with a "Stars and Stripes" paint job]
Jeremy
Oh god!
Oh, God, I don't think so!
It's slightly conspicuous
[some music starts playing loudly, it's "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen, it's the "Star Spangled Banner" in the DVD edition]
Jeremy
That's "Born in the USA", evidently.
[some thunder rumbles and some Vietnamese start running towards them in the distance]
That's thunder...and the village...have you noticed there was a rumble of thunder, and the village arrived..? I-...
[He struggles to find the right words]
Jeremy
Children, if you're watching this at home and you don't know why this is inappropriate, ask your parents, but this is as inappropriate a bike as it is humanly possible to conceive.
[After being asked a question in Vietnamese]
[In English, completely guessing what she asked] Always give way to the car from the right!
[Whole class bursts out laughing]
Jeremy
You had a one in a hundred chance of being right, but it was in the wrong language.
Jeremy
[voiceover] With just 50 miles to go, Hammond went berserk!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHH! The speeeeeeed!!
Jeremy
He's just a... prat!
[Having just been told they will have to make their bikes amphibious to get to the actual finishing point.]
Jeremy
How hard can it be?
[The steam engine has had a water injector malfunction, then resume operation]
Jeremy
You know they say steam engines have moods…
EEngineer
It was its time of the month for about ten minutes.
[after James overtakes Richard in the 1949 race, Richard calls Jeremy, who is several miles ahead]
Jeremy
Hammond, where are you?
Um, I'm about thirty miles south of Doncaster.
Jeremy
Oh, dear! We're in York.
Jeremy
Where's James?
He's just overtaken me, but his Jag is drinking fuel, so with a bit of luck, he'll stop for fuel before I do, and I can overtake him again.
Jeremy
Or he'll catch fire?
[Richard hears a tannoy announcement telling him to turn his mobile phone off]
Jeremy
What's that noise?
It's me being told off not to use a mobile phone by the man.
Jeremy
Go and tell him it's 1949.
Yes, so we can't have mobile phones.
[as the train starts to pull out of the station, it does a wheelspin]
Jeremy
Yes! That was wheelspin! On a 96-tonne train!
You're-- That is a steam train, isn't it? It's not got some nuclear device on board as well?
[the train is now on the move again]
Jeremy
[voiceover] No. What it had on board was a fresh crew. And that meant a fresh set of muscles.
[Jeremy has just left Berwick aboard Tornado, but has found out that James is in the lead.]
Jeremy
How far north of Berwick are you?
Jeremy
How far?
Jeremy
Seventeen?
Jeremy
Thirty?
[losing patience] LESS THAN TEN! [laughs] What a cock-end! Honestly!
[Jeremy, Richard and James are beginning on the news.]
Jeremy
Now as we know, to try and shore up the car industry, the Government recently announced that if you scrap your old Singer Gazelle, you get £2000 off the price of a new car.
Jeremy
What are you suggesting; "Dear The Government, I've just found some rancid bacon in the back of my fridge; can I have a big pile of money to buy a shiny new lobster?"
[During the news, discussing the Skoda Fabia Scout]
...so presuming that it comes with a 10p piece, bit of string in the glove box, and it pitches up on your doorstep every year to ask for a pound to clean itself.
So I supposed that every summer it goes off and sort of stays in the countryside somewhere, and is... touched inappropriately.
[crowd laughs]
Jeremy
No, no James. [crowd continues laughing] No, no James. That's the Skoda Catholic Church.
[Jeremy is about to discuss a car smaller than the Peel P50.]
Jeremy
Now, we have some bad news.
Jeremy
[firmly] No, not the Dacia Sandero.
Jeremy
Get off topic, just for a moment; you see, I was driving down here this morning and I couldn't help noticing that my Mercedes just said on the dashboard [puts on bad German accent] "your service is due in tventy-six days". [resumes normal voice] I just thought "How Germanic and boring is that?"
[whispering] ...and precise.
Jeremy
And then I was thinking "What's going to happen on the twenty-seventh day when inevitably I still haven't had it serviced?"
[in bad German accent] Cooler, sree veeks... Mezzr. Clarkson...
Top Gear · 1,774 quotes
