Jeremy was in a head-on collision according to The Mirror:

He suffered minor injuries to his legs, hand and back in the head-on collision during filming for the BBC show.

Clarkson, 48, said: “My right index finger looked like a burst sausage, my left shin was fatter than my thigh and my back felt like someone had driven over it with a pile-driver.”

The Mirror also has a quote though from Jeremy’s wife: “My husband is fine”. Whew.

Thanks to diti for the tip.

The British Prime Minister’s office has responded to the petition to “make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister”:

We thought long and hard about the request to make Jeremy Clarkson the Prime Minister and in the end we put our thoughts down in a short film on YouTube. You can take a look here

Thanks to everyone that sent in tips!

How fast will Stig get the Nissan GT-R around the Top Gear Test Track? Time to see for yourself.

Andy talked about it earlier today as well, but now Jeremy has weighed in on the whole staged-or-real questions that always pop-up about the big races that they do.

During our race to Oslo, the poor cameraman in the back of the tracking car had to pee in a bottle. We do not stop.

In the Ferrari versus plane race to Verbier, I actually overtook the tracking car, leaving me with nothing but the on board mini cams. I was that desperate to get there first.

And we get back to be accused of fakery by some internet dweeb. It makes my effing teeth itch with rage.

Of course, once the race is run and the result in the bag, the camera crews stay behind to pick up the shots needed to make the whole thing work on television. The details. The icing. But that doesn’t affect the outcome.

And apparently Sunday’s race is “the best film we’ve ever made.” Sunday cannot get here quick enough.

In his latest Times column, Jeremy mentions that Top Gear will return in three weeks which works out to be June 22nd as we previously suspected. Yay!

After a 3 week break, Clarkson’s column is back. This latest one is about his trip to America and El Toro (presumably since he’s a consultant for “Gear”) and the Callaway Corvette C6 he drove while he was here.

Top Gear is screened all over the world, from remote Himalayan villages to the bullet-ridden boulevards of Lebanon. It is a genuine, bona fide export success. But in the US it is watched only by half a handful of expats who diligently follow BBC America, and a few torrentists on the interweb.

A great read as usual.

In Clarkson’s latest article for Top Gear Magazine, he discusses how racing is growing on him and his experiences at last year’s Britcar 24 endurance race that he participated in.

The last sentence of the article though is what’s really important:

Oh and just in case you think these are the ramblings of a senile old man who thinks he could have been Michael Schumacher if he’d been given the chance, consider this: James May aka, Captain Slow, agrees with every word. Next year, I suspect we may be back.

I hope so because last year’s episode was epic.

Yeah, this is 2-3 days old now, but I always forget to cross post stuff from the forums onto the front page. My apologies and here it is for those who missed it.

Back in November, two computer discs containing the personal details of 25 million UK residents went missing. Clarkson though was unconvinced that all of the hype over the ordeal was justified, so to prove a point, he published his personal banking account numbers in one of his recent newspaper columns.

Unsurprisingly, someone took those numbers and stole some money from his account by setting up a reoccurring donation of £500 a month to the British Diabetic Association, a legitimate charity.

Back in November, the Government lost two computer discs containing half the population’s bank details.

Everyone worked themselves into a right old lather about the mistake but I argued we should all calm down because the details in question are to be found on every cheque we hand out every day to every Tom, Dick and cash and carry.

To hammer the point home I even printed my own bank account number and sort code.

And guess what? I opened my bank statement this morning to find out that someone has set up a direct debit which automatically takes £500 from my account.

The bank cannot find out who did this because of the Data Protection Act and they cannot stop it from happening again.

I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake.

Oh Jeremy. Tsk tsk.

[Sources: The Daily Mail, BBC News, Telegraph]

Last last month, Jeremy was at the Xscape SnoZone (an indoor snow park) for his daughter’s birthday party. While he was outside smoking, a group of teenagers came up to him, started harassing him, and asking if he had any security with him.

I wasn’t even remotely bothered when the swarm of children first approached. I figured they were fans of Top Gear and wanted to know about Richard Hammond’s head. But no. What they wanted to know most of all was if I had any security.

I asked them politely to leave me alone. I walked away. I even walked away a bit more. But they kept coming. And so, figuring that attack was probably the best form of defence, I grabbed the ringleader by his hoodie, lifted him off the ground and explained, firmly, that it’d be best if he went back to his tenement.

You can read the full account in Clarkson’s latest Times column.

Ben Parkinson lost his legs in Afghanistan and watched tons of Top Gear during his recovery. Jeremy heard of him and setup a day for him to spend a day with the Top Gear team.

Ben saw his hero, test driver The Stig, pull some jaw-dropping stunts in a £350,000 Ascari A10 supercar and £160,000 Aston Martin DBS at BBC2’s Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey.

[Source: The Sun]