Scenes with Richard Hammond 464
[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]
RichardWow!
That is the best challenge we've ever had!
Richard
That's fa-- I'm going. I'm getting--Get his bike started. [runs back to his bike]
Honestly, that is fantastic. [leaves too]
I 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.
Richard
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.
Because it's a thousand miles in the rainy season...!
Richard
I know, that's the best thing about it!
...a thousand miles, in the rainy season, in a country with not very good roads, and I can't ride a bike!
[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.
The reason I don't ride a motorcycle is because I have a large brain.
Richard
No, you have a big head.
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 James are having lunch somewhere else]
[looking at the menu] Uhm, well I think this thing here is a sort of squid thing with some... weird paste.
Richard
[looking unhappy] Don't like squid.
Ok, well you can have crab with...
Richard
Don't like crab.
Richard
Don't like clams.
[Richard and then James arrive at the meeting point, a restaurant]
Richard
Well, I went to check ahead if it'd gotten any steeper. It did.
Richard
Where is he, do you reckon?
Richard
Do you think he's enjoying his first biking experience?
[Cut to Jeremy, who is riding through town in the dark]
[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]
[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]
Name an upside to this, May! Name ONE upside!
Well, you're not hot anymore, are you?
My light's dying. It's dying, my light's dying!
[voiceover] There was an upside though. Richard's Taliban bike had decided it liked the rain even less than me.
Richard
Come on now! [hops up and down whilst still on his bike] That's not so effective as I'd hoped it would be.
[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?!
[still shouting] It's not!
[Getting annoyed] It is! Stop whining!
[Jeremy and James passing a small truck]
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-#
[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]
Richard
Oh yes, that is a bit...
Oh, God, I don't think so!
Richard
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]
That's "Born in the USA", evidently.
[some thunder rumbles and some Vietnamese start running towards them in the distance]
Richard
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]
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]
Richard
[In English, completely guessing what she asked] Always give way to the car from the right!
[Whole class bursts out laughing]
You had a one in a hundred chance of being right, but it was in the wrong language.
[voiceover] With just 50 miles to go, Hammond went berserk!
Richard
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHH! The speeeeeeed!!
[Having just been told they will have to make their bikes amphibious to get to the actual finishing point.]
Richard
DON'T SAY THAT!
[About the London to Edinburgh race]
Richard
When we left the action, Jeremy was in the lead just approaching Doncaster, I was in second place and, as you would expect, Captain Slow was bringing up the rear...
Richard
...Hoping to take me from behind.
Richard
And then press home his advantage and take Jeremy in the tunnel...
Stop saying things like that!
[after James overtakes Richard in the 1949 race, Richard calls Jeremy, who is several miles ahead]
Richard
Um, I'm about thirty miles south of Doncaster.
Richard
What?!
Richard
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.
[Richard hears a tannoy announcement telling him to turn his mobile phone off]
Richard
It's me being told off not to use a mobile phone by the man.
Go and tell him it's 1949.
Richard
Yes, so we can't have mobile phones.
[as the train starts to pull out of the station, it does a wheelspin]
Yes! That was wheelspin! On a 96-tonne train!
Richard
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]
[voiceover] No. What it had on board was a fresh crew. And that meant a fresh set of muscles.
[During the news, discussing the Skoda Fabia Scout]
Richard
...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]
No, no James. [crowd continues laughing] No, no James. That's the Skoda Catholic Church.
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?"
Richard
[whispering] ...and precise.
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...
Well there's a Top Gear top tip right there. If you're a 17 year old boy and need car insurance, slice your penis off.
Richard
I would've done.
I did. [Richard and Jeremy laugh out loudly]
[After Richard and James arrive at the school with their used cars]
Richard
[Narrating] And then, a geography teacher arrived.
[The "geography teacher" is, in fact, Jeremy, who is driving a beige Volvo 940 estate]
God above, I thought that was one of the teachers!
Richard
[Laughing as Jeremy gets out of his car] I'm sorry, I'm 17, "Happy birthday, son!" [Richard fakes crying for a moment]
[Completely serious] Perfect car for any 17-year-old.
Richard
Why?
Richard
Yes!
Richard
It is a low-pressure turbo.
[To James] What have you got?
Richard
[Talking about his own car] They did do a turbo--
Richard
That's a Hyundai S-coupé, and they did do a turbo.
Richard
No, not on this particular one.
So you turn up, at the school, here's my turbo. There's another very important issue that we must address: The most precious thing in your life, your child, speaking as a parent, is sitting in that seat, yes?
[Indicating the hood] Look at the amount of metal between him and the tree he will inevitably hit!
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