AS YOU DO

“It sometimes seems like everyone wants to be on the telly and I felt it about time I spoke up about what it’s really like working on one of the biggest telly programmes in the world. I’ve driven across Botswana in a 1964 Opel Kadett, been chased for days across the Arctic wastes by Polar bears, crossed the channel in a pick up truck and being chased by rednecks with guns across three American States. All of these things have been on the telly, but this is the story of what is was actually like making those shows, doing those trips. I’m not saying it’s a useful guide to getting a job on TV – really, it’s not – but it’s a handy insight. And, I hope, a bit of a laugh too.”

AS YOU DO… Adventures with Evel, Oliver, and the Vice-President of Botswana chronicles Richard’s many scrapes and adventures over the past year. Moving on from the devastating crash that nearly killed him he ranges widely over his life and times: a visit to Glastonbury with James May reminds of him of his early years of playing in a band and how and why he never quite made it as a rock star; the stunts and other perils that come his way like the TopGear North Pole race (why is it Richard who is out in the howling elements in a dog sled whilst the others are in the heated cab of an all-terrain vehicle?), Africa where he falls in love with and repatriates a stray car which he names ‘Oliver’, and the US (once to be chased by Rednecks in middle America, the other in pursuit of his mad hero Evel Knievel). Converting a camper-van in an attempt to cross the Channel is a predictable disaster and he has to be rescued from the sea. A brief stop-over at home coincides with the great floods. He is forced to abandon his car seventeen miles from home and run all night to get back in time, as promised, for his daughter’s birthday party. Richard writes as well about his passion for cars, what he owns and why and, although he loves his wife, why it is a toss-up whether he says hello to the wife or the cars first. Balancing home and family with a crazy, peripatetic working life (or not, sometimes), the hamster is well and truly back on the wheel.

Richard’s Own Praise for As You Do
“Probably the definitive modern diary charting the life of today’s TV industry professional. A telling and beautifully told tale full of mystery and suffused with a haunting beauty. I really like the bit where he steals a pool ball from a bar in Evil Kneivel’s home town. And the bit where his mate throws Polar Bear poo at him”.