Product Description

More of the wry, honest and often hilarious chronicles of Richard Hammond - TV presenter, adventurer and general drawer of the Short Straw. Continuing where As You Do left off, Or Is That Just Me? focuses on just a few of the many hair-raising stunts, expeditions and encounters experienced by Richard Hammond over the last eventful year.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #806 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-05
• Released on: 2009-10-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

About the Author
Richard Hammond is internationally famous for co-presenting Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson and James May; he also presents Total Wipeout on BBC1 and past credits include Brainiac: Science Abuse on Sky 1, Should I Worry About...? on BBC 1, Time Commanders on BBC 2, Richard Hammond's 5 O'Clock Show on ITV1 and the BBC2 quiz show Petrolheads. He also writes a weekly column in The Daily Mirror. His crash whilst filming for Top Gear in September 2006 made him a household name.

Customer Reviews

Winning despite everything
Mostly very, very funny with some fascinating behind the scenes descriptions of filming Engineering Connections, a doomed BBC pilot and Top Gear including the live stage version. Hammond writes fluently revealing a surprising emotional sensitivity perhaps heightened since his accident. However, he also has a tedious obsession with becoming 40 and with his clothes and appearance. The chapter 'Falling Apart' is hilarious and should be appreciated by anyone who has ever suffered intimate and humiliating procedures in hospital. With one or two hints that Hammond is far from recovered, there is an interesting sub-text on bullying and social exclusion. Hammond describes a school trip in which he took part in a bullying incident and claims he has never taken part in any bullying since. He also reveals his own dislike of some of the comments shouted out at him by members of the public. He seems happy enough to let his mates on Top Gear Live tease him when they discover he cannot remember the previous year's visit to South Africa but much less happy when strangers question his physical abilities and whether he actually did win the race on his bike across London. With stickers on the front to 'poke fun at the short bloke off Top Gear' you wonder if perhaps being on TV can sometimes feel like being in the stocks. But Hammond is very far from being a victim and shows an amazing ability to bounce back from adversity. He is one plucky Brit who will never finish last.

More tall tales from the short bloke ...
Richard Hammond confronts his scariest challenge, yet - his fortieth birthday! - and a mid-life crisis of apocalyptic proportions is the unavoidable theme in this highly entertaining book. Hammond's minutely observed, and occasionally melancholic style may surprise those accustomed to the chirpy chappie on TV -a character he himself seems to regard with wry detachment- but it makes him far and away the most unexpected writer of the "Top Gear" triumvirate.

Not that this book isn't funny - His horse riding adventures are genuinely hilarious, as is a disastrous drinking session on board HMS Illustrious. Even a harrowing succession of encounters with the medical profession is recounted with the gleeful relish of a man who regrets having no decent scars to show off in the pub.
It is, however counterbalanced with darker moments - sombre reflections on childhood and adult bullying, and succinct, throwaway sentences that remind us that, for all his determination to live his surreally colourful life to the fullest, he continues to live with the lingering aftershock of brain injury.

We are invited, with a rather lovely set of stickers, to `Poke fun at the short bloke off "Top Gear"', but he lands constant pre-emptive strikes on himself, deflating his own impatience, paranoia and vanity at every twist and turn. Whilst a certain self-defensiveness is clearly at work, the result is delightfully self-knowing, revealing a flawed but genuinely likeable human being beneath the hyperactive TV persona.

The book has its faults. Some chapters end abruptly, without proper resolution, leaving you to wonder a) what happened next, or b) was there some dreadful accident at the typesetters? There are also weird inconsistencies in the text. On page 71, for example, he describes wandering across a landing in pyjamas that, on page 57, we are clearly informed that he doesn't possess. Now whilst the fact that the Hamster may or may not own a pair of jammies is not a matter of overriding magnitude in the grand scheme of things, it does cast some doubt on the innate veracity of what we are reading.

In the final analysis, since he cheerfully confesses to sometimes not letting the truth get in the way of a good story, maybe we should simply accept it at that. These are good stories, and we can only hope that Richard Hammond ploughs manfully on through his terrifying middle years to deliver plenty more of them.

What can a bloke do?
I have read reports that people complain that Richard spends a great deal of this book ruminating over the fact that he is "approaching 40" (he contends he would sooner "approach" a cornered tiger)

But logically what else can a bloke do who when faced with the undeniable facts that many of his age group in the midst's of their various mid-life crises will turn to fast cars and wild adventures to recapture their supposedly fading youth, you find yourself doing that - and have been doing that - for the past seven years! Writing a book about it seems like a bloody good option.

I devoured "On the Edge" in 24 hours and, only because work got in the way, "As You Do" in 48... Reading "Or Is It Just Me?" I set a personal speed reading time of a little under 8 hours, devouring the contents to the exclusion of all else.

With a wit and affable grumpiness at his impending 40hood, Richard manages to engage the reader at many levels. From the riot that is the chapter called "Falling Apart" to the culmination of 'adult like behaviour' whilst filming on the HMS Illustrious, Richard manages to poke fun at himself while reminding us why we love this 'short angry bloke' from Birmingham.

Thanks for all the laughs Mr Hammond - we need them!