WHEN we consider of Jeremy Clarkson, your mind goes true to quick cars, blokeish chaff and pints of lager.
But as we lay in a guts of MediaCity in Salford, surprisingly it is politics, rosé splash and weight detriment on the agenda.
Jeremy, who is about to front his third array of mythological ask uncover Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, is in excellent fettle carrying forsaken 2st.
Rewind a time a integrate of years and a 59-year-old would roughly positively have discriminating off a integrate of pints and a beef cooking during a interview.
But today, as he slaps down a hulk parcel of nicotine resin and sips a crater of tea — milk, no sugarine — Jeremy appears to be a altered man.
He says: “I had salad for lunch and H2O — well, we had H2O given we lot were coming.
“But we had a salad nicoise and a potion of water. we mislaid 2st final year.”
When we ask if he has been in a gym pumping iron to change a weight, Jeremy says he is holding a some-more royal proceed to dieting.
He fast adds: “No. No, that would be unseemly. The Queen doesn’t go to a gym and she doesn’t run and she’s 93 and she’s all right.
“Apparently she customarily has a forkful, she customarily has a tiny bit, that’s what I’ve heard. She’ll lay down and only have one tiny bit of mousse and bit of a lettuce leaf.”
It’s a balmy day in Manchester when we chat, and Jeremy looks longingly out of a floor-to-ceiling windows to locate a glance of a splash garden to conduct to afterwards.
He admits that gentle days are “beer days” though says his splash of choice is a potion of frail rosé.
Jeremy reckons lager is no longer seen as a apparent drink for group in pubs.
He explains: “I don’t consider it is macho. It always comes in a tiny bottle and with a half-pint potion we do tend to have your pinky out. we don’t see most machismo in that.
“And we haven’t seen anyone splash a pint of Carling given 1973.
“There will be somewhere nearby here we can go and have a look during what they’re drinking.” Despite carrying been in a studio rehearsing all day, Jeremy is as pointy as ever.
From where we are seated we can see Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium, and Chelsea fan Jeremy fast jokes: “Oh yeah, oh how awful.
“I’ve never been in here before and that’s substantially why. Not bad for a Championship club, is it?”
I have been invited to MediaCity, where Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is filmed, to discuss about a ITV diversion show’s lapse tomorrow during 9.10pm for a 33rd series.
On a problem of a questions, Jeremy tells me: “People always contend they know a answers. The writer of this uncover sits in a gallery and comes down after each uncover and says, ‘I knew all of those’. Yeah, right. No, we didn’t.
“One day we put him in a operation chair. A million quid . . .”
In a new series, Jeremy gets to ask a sacred £1million bruise doubt for real.
The final chairman to win a tip esteem was Ingram Wilcox in 2006, with Judith Keppel a initial in 2000.
Jeremy says: “I asked a million- bruise doubt and it is really exciting. Even during half a million we still think, ‘That’s half a million quid for half an hour’s work’.
“Christ, that totally changes that guy’s life. If we consider about it, that’s only given he knows a collateral of Ecuador or whatever.”
So how does Jeremy consider he’d transport if he swapped places? He says: “Like we pronounced before a show, we wouldn’t even be certain of my name with that most roving on it.”
But certainly a male who has enjoyed a career like his, with hulk compensate cheques and a really gentle lifestyle, wouldn’t be that worried by a sums adult for grabs?
Jeremy adds: “No, I’m from Yorkshire, and Yorkshire people never ever remove a value of a Pound. Ask anyone who knows me — I’m still, ‘How much?!’
“My great-grandfather once stood in front of Harrods, and he was a rich man, really Northern, and he went, ‘I could means to buy everything in that window, though I’m not going to’ — and we work on that element as well. I’ve got a 12-year-old Range Rover and we live in a two-bedroom cottage.”
If Jeremy was in a show’s prohibited seat, he knows who would be his Phone A Friend salvation — and it is not his aged Top Gear muckers Richard Hammond or James May.
He says: “My brother-in-law — my sister’s father — would be my Phone A Friend.
“He’s attempted to get on this uncover ever given it initial began with Chris Tarrant and he rang each week and spent hundreds in phone calls and never was invited to come on.
“He can’t come on now given we consider we lot competence notice if my brother-in-law won £1million.”
‘BORIS IS A LIKEABLE CLOWN – LET’S GIVE HIM A FEW MONTHS’
Jeremy left Top Gear in 2015 after he was indicted of punching a producer. He now hosts Netflix’s Grand Tour with Richard and James. When we chat, a new array of Top Gear has aired to vicious commend with Freddie Flintoff and Paddy McGuinness as a new presenters. But when we ask if he has watched a reboot, Jeremy says: “No, no. Never saw Evans do it, never saw LeBlanc.”
Despite a new hosts’ success, Jeremy was voted by Radio Times readers as their favourite on a motoring show, with James and Richard ranked second and third.
But how would he have felt if his Grand Tour co-stars had triumphed?
Jeremy says with a smirk: “Well, it’s unfit — it’s like observant suppose if there was no oxygen in a atmosphere. You can’t given afterwards we wouldn’t be means to.
“Imagine what it would be like if there were mermaids or unicorns. No, we would have only said, ‘It’s that my essay for we dual is so good I’ve done we some-more renouned than we am. Oh, magnify them.”
With Boris Johnson now in No10, Sun columnist Jeremy, who is a neighbour and crony of former PM David Cameron, reckons we should give a new personality a chance.
He says: “We can all lay here and go, ‘Oh my God’ and speak ourselves into a retrogression and depression. Or we can say, ‘Let’s give him a few months and see what happens’.
“Anything that keeps Corbyn out. Boris is a likeable clown.”
When we supplement that we could say a same about James May, Jeremy adds but blank a beat: “I wouldn’t call James May likeable! Earnest is what we would call James.”
l Who Wants To Be A Millionaire earnings to ITV tomorrow during 9.10pm and on Sunday during 8pm.
THE final time we went toe-to-toe with Jeremy on a show, we warranted myself a nickname “Dumbo gumbo” after removing a doubt about a Louisiana meal wrong.
So this time we was dynamic to perform improved in a use run, and willingly we had all 4 lifelines adult my sleeve.
I am customarily good value in a pub quiz, with my believe of competition and telly decent adequate to equivocate being indicted of unresolved on to my mates’ coat-tails.
I fly by a fastest finger initial spin – putting RAF ranks into sequence of seniority in only over dual seconds.
But a second we step adult to a categorical chair, all of my ubiquitous believe appears to trickle out of me.
The initial doubt is a candid one, that we suspicion we knew: Who destined a 1975 film Jaws?
But penetrating to equivocate a initial doubt flop, we spin a tables on Jeremy and Ask The Host.
He says: “It depends on what kind of a examination this programme gets. we mean, I’m struggling to make a spectator consider we don’t know this. But it’s Steven Spielberg.”
Correct. And I’m away.
But we need dual some-more lifelines to strech my Millionaire career best of £8,000.
I had to Phone A Friend to moment a instrument that Ray Charles was best famous for – a piano – and Ask The Audience to establish that stream a German city of perfume stands on – a Rhine.
As a buzzer sounds to tell me my mark in a chair is adult before we can confuse myself further, Jeremy says: “You didn’t answer a singular doubt on your own. As always it’s been a pleasure.”
For him, maybe.
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