WHY REALITY TELEVISION SUCKS
I was on my way to my friend Brendan Healey’s wedding when the phone rang: “Hi, Brian, ya gotta minute for Alvin?” It was Vicky in New York, the AC/DC management. So there I was, just passing Hexham on my way to Haydon Bridge, when: “Brian, Alvin here. I got an invite for you to be on some kind of Engerlish TV show.”
“Not interested,” I said.
“Okay, wait. It’s a racing show, and you get to race at Silverstone.”
“Yes, yes, and thrice yes, my ministerial management maestro.”
What a gig. And I’m gonna get paid? I would’ve done it for nothing!
The wedding was great. It was farming country, so the person at the reception who could throw a Land Rover the farthest received a year’s supply of raw tripe. (Second place was two years’ supply.)
Fast-forward to November 2006, Silverstone. I met all the other participants.
“Hi, Brian, come in here. This is Nigel Benn, the boxer. He’s a pussycat. Just don’t say ‘devil,’ ‘drink,’ ‘gambling,’ ‘fuck,’ ‘Satan,’ or ‘Jesus’ in a bad way, or he’ll rearrange your nose.” (As you can tell by my photos, that takes some doing.)
Then there was “Sir” Les Ferdinand, the ridiculously handsome ex-footballer.
And Gary “Cars” Numan—a fellow gas-head, I may add, who readily admits that his laser-like stare does scare the odd rabbit.
Then Nick Moran, star of Four Weddings and a Shotgun. He’d just done the Pan America race—impressive! He looked the business. Nigel Benn was the only one who didn’t race regularly; the rest all had a bit of race experience. Les was the odds-on favorite, with the other lads very close. Old-fart Johnson wasn’t ranked!
Then there were the girls. Ingrid Tarrant, an absolute sweetheart, who was brokenhearted because she’d just found out her hubby had been shaggin’ a lassie down the street, and anywhere else he could get his hands on her. Tamara Ecclestone, a poor waif of a girl with great beauty and a dad with a great fortune. But I do believe she and her sister were his greatest prize. Jenny Frost, a blonde of drop-dead cuteness that could only be matched by her straightness. And a good little driver, Ms. Dynamite, a London girl, I think, who I got much closer to, in the headlines after the race. Also, Melissa Joan Hart, a spunky little American actress, a “teenage witch,” I think, who had her own race team. She was definitely the fastest, but bad luck would dog her week. Then there was Denise Van Outrider hosting. She was a lovely lassie, with a “What the fuck did I get myself into?” look on her face at all times. The male presenter was—oh, fuck it, the less said about him the better.
Let’s go on to the cars. Maseratis, the Le Mans ones. Oh, they were wicked sexy, hot ’n’ horny, Italianly stallionly heavenly! Minis, the sixties type. Caterham 7s, bloody gorgeous li’l racing cars. Then there were the Lotus Exiges—as I have said before, made to race, not to run to the store. Then the open-wheel Formula Ford single-seat race cars, the ones all the greats have to start in, pure penis on wheels.
In between racing the cars, we were to race Monster Trucks—not me, unfortunately, but I did have fun doing steroid-upped cross-country go-karting on a mud heap—now that was fun. It was like mud-wrestling a car. As in a Robert Mugabe speech, you were covered in shit.
Ingrid Tarrant was to be first away in the Monster Truck, against Gary Numan.
The owners told them, “These things are just about unbreakable and it’s nigh-on impossible to overturn one.” Right then, they’re off. First jump, Ingrid overturns the truck and does a lot of damage. Oops! I see movement in the cab; she’s fine. Beyond that, I see movement in the bushes, furtive movement at that. What the—? Uh-oh, guess who? Men with cameras, “papascumerra” with names like “Rat.” Then this guy whispers to me, “Hey, Brian, give us the dirt and we’ll pay you well. Here’s my card.” I wasn’t too pleased. After I told him to piss off in nine languages, he disappeared into the murk where he belonged. One of England’s national tabloid embarrassments.
Once again, European tour buses rear their crap heads. There were two of ’em at Silverstone, and they were in a compound surrounded by a wire fence and eight guards, so we couldn’t get out at night. This was crazy. I said, “Where are we going to sleep?”
“Oh, you have a bus each,” said an assistant. There were sixteen assistants and no bosses. I smelled poontang. I got the boys on the bus and immediately organized an escape committee. This was a bus with coffin-size bunks. Lift your head an inch, and bang! Get an erection, and you’re shaggin’ the roof of the bus. Well, at least you can’t roll out of bed.
There was a huge camera on a stand in front of the bus that moved by remote control. So we were to be observed, and all arguments recorded for public consumption. It hit me that they were trying to make a reality show out of racing. I coulda boiled a kettle at ten paces!
Then I looked closer at the inside of the bus. Aha! I saw a wire sticking out of the roof. I pulled it out—a microphone! Further investigation revealed more cameras and mics. The bus was a trap; their plan—no drink, cold showers, etc. David and I thought it was a plot to get everybody pissed off, thereby causing arguments they could film. “Does it all end here for Tamara?” they could spout. Then let’s get a close-up on her eyes in case there’s a teary moment—the vultures! Aneeway . . . David smuggled three bottles of beer into my bag, and I promised him I would never tell anybody about it . . . Oh shit!!
If it wasn’t for the chance of driving all those fabulous cars at Silverstone, I would’ve left, but I gritted my teeth. Next day was the Mini race, which I won. Eddie Irvine and David Coulthard said I was “in the purple.” I think that means as smooth as the pope’s underpants. I moved up the points board to third.
Next day, the Lotus race, and I come second in the rain to Gary Numan. Ooh, this guy’s smooth as a gravy sandwich, but my points go up. Suddenly people are taking notice of the old fart.
Next day, the Caterhams. I was looking forward to this. The race starts. At turn two, Nigel Benn spins, and I can’t get outta the way. I spin, too. We’re off, and have to catch the pack. I leave Nigel and start picking my way through, and there are my quarries, Les Ferdinand and Gary Numan, duking it out at the front. Oh, this is going to be fun.
I go up to overtake Gary on the inside of turn one; he brakes hard, locks up, and goes straight through the corner. Just Les now. Ooh, Les, it’s your Uncle Brian come to gobble up your arse. Then they threw a red flag, meaning stop, so they could pull Gary from the gravel and he could restart the race. Never mind, we’re off again; and as usual it’s me, Gary, and Les tussling for the lead. I think I’m going to hang and wait for an opportunity; these guys are going to put themselves out. Au fucking contraire! Coming in to the left-hand turn, Les tries to out-brake Gary. He spins sideways right in front of me, head turned towards me—his eyes looked like Marty Feldman’s with a pit bull on his dick. I think, “Well, either kill ‘Sir’ Les Ferdinand or go into the gravel. Surely they’ll stop the race to pull me out, too.”
So I chose the latter, and lost all my points. They said it was too late in the race to restart. The bastards were making it up as they went along. “Sir” Les, magnanimous as ever, said, “Fanks.”
The great day came on a Sunday. I was going to race a race car at Silverstone live on television, but that’s not why I was there. It was the history of it all, the auras of all the wonderful characters who I believe had left their footprints in the very air I was breathing. God, I felt happy. Still got a race to run. Gary Numan and I were the fastest, so naturally they put us at the back and the girls at the front. The stands were full of empty seats where people should have been. There were only about four thousand there, but in my mind it was packed.
We’re off. Gary has a belting start, but I stay with him. He’s first by turn three, and I’m third by turn one. By the second lap, we were first and second with nobody behind us. Suddenly we come to the front straight and there’s Ms. Dynamite, right in the middle of the track—not a good place to be. Gary went right, I went left; she saw Gary overtaking, panicked a little, turning her front wheel straight into my right rear, and off she span, right into the wall—and I never even saw it. We restarted; Gary and I went ahead, and had a great scrap. I managed to get him on the penultimate lap and hang on. I won The Race, with most points, and he won the team prize for the boys. It was a close-run thing.
I stood on the podium and received the cup from Bernie Ecclestone. He said, “One for the old boys. Well done!” Boy, that got me a woody. I’d wanted it all my life. Oh yeah, I’ve been on podiums throughout the U.S., but Silverstone! My daughters looked at me, shaking their heads. “Who is this guy we call Dad?” (They’d never seen me race.) I could see it in their eyes.
So I’d made it, I’d won, but I’d had to deal with some arseholes. The night before, they said a person from each team had to be dropped for the final race, chosen by the team boss—I know D.C. and Eddie were not happy about that. But Ingrid and Nick had the bad luck to be picked—for what reason I have no idea. He was quick. They took us to the studio for a rehearsal—I didn’t like the sound of that. We got there; these huge doors opened and there were these huge friggin’ round things with yellow and red police-type flashing lights, turning around like something in Star Wars, down each side of the audience walkways. What the fuck was this?
A turd in headphones said, “Right, everybody, settle. Listen, tonight the two losers will be called out and then meet in the middle, hold hands, and turn and walk through the smoke into the light, while we play some sort of music.”
There was stunned silence. Then there was me: “Losers? Fuckin’ losers?” I screamed. “There’s no losers here. These people just didn’t make the team, you prick. They’ve been putting their fuckin’ bodies on the line on that racetrack, and you call them losers!” With that, I ran to a spaceship thingy, turned it over, and kicked out every light I could. Then, into the face of the owner of the voice in the headphones, the cause of my tirade: “Now you, you useless cunt.” There, I’ve said it. “Have you got a plan B? Because I’m marching everybody out of here until you have!”
I could see the look of shock on my fellow racers’ faces, because that’s what we were by then: good or bad, we were racers. We walked out as one! And there was only an hour to go before it went out live. And I know the sphincters of the hidden producers in the control room were going like rabbits’ noses. They’d just forgotten about dignity. Everybody has their own level, and the TV people wanted to take it away, and I don’t think it’s theirs to take. That’s why I got mad. These reality people tried to demean the majesty of motor racing. You demean that, then you denigrate the honor of all the men who died racing, and that pisses me off. I shoulda stuck with my first answer: “Not interested.”
Still, I made some good friends on the show, Eddie Irvine and David Coulthard among them. D.C. got the shitty end of the lollipop: he had to coach the girls. Eddie had the slightly easier job of coaching the boys. Eddie’s not a male chauvinist pig—more of a male-chauvinist rutting rhino. He’d fuck the crack of dawn if he could get up in time.
One good thing was that I was the oldest one there and I won. It was a cool feeling winning at Silverstone, live on telly, and getting the cup from Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone. Nigel Benn and Les Ferdinand are just lovely fellows, except when young Nigel would punch me in the arm jokingly. Owww! As welcome as a blow job from a saber-toothed tiger. Man, it hurt. Les Ferdinand is impossibly handsome and impossibly fit. All the girls were cool and the guys, Gary Numan and Nick Moran—it was a fun time.
I don’t mean to blow smoke up anyone’s arse, but these two guys, Eddie and David, left an impression on me. They were normal blokes; they were fun. They meant what they said and they said what they meant—not a habit shared by many sportsmen these days. They were handsome, rich, and could probably shag every girl on the planet (and Eddie has certainly tried), but they are gentlemen and they are as “fast as fuck.”