Richard Hammond

Image courtesy of www.jalopnik.com

I was mildly concerned when I read about Richard Hammond's car crash. I didn't want him to die. I don't want most people to die, but I didn't want it a little more (what a deliciously atrocious sentence!) for Richard Hammond. I don't know him personally. I watch Top Gear (the show he co-presents) occasionally and Brainiac (another one) even less. I don't have one of those futile celebrity crushes on him. He is amusing and unoffensive and in practical terms kind of useless but I would care more if he died than if John Howard did.

How sad that the disciplined, the hard working, the useful, the practical, the ones who say the unpleasant things that must be said or make the difficult choices, will always be the least popular.

Actually, that's not necessarily true. Apparently John Cleese never gave a shit about being liked or not, which gave him the freedom to be one of the funniest comedians ever (according to his fellow Pythons). Ah, but being admired, respected and at the top of one's field isn't the same as being liked.

Fuck it, if John Cleese doesn't care about popularity, there's no reason for me to get maudlin over it either... But I'm still glad that Richard Hammond wasn't hurt in that car crash.