In 2007, James May seriously considered killing Jeremy Clarkson. It was a long shoot, cold temperatures. The three of them were “on our trip to the North Pole”, says May, when suddenly, he found himself alone with Clarkson.

“We were miles away from the crew behind a big sort of ice floe thing,” he says, “so nobody could see us. And I had a shovel …” He pauses. “And I thought, YEAH!” He could have staved his head in or just smashed him silently into the sea. He could have pushed him over, or cut him off completely. He thought: “This bit’s going to melt,” by which time Clarkson, bleeding and unconscious, would have simply floated away and been “gone” for ever. It wouldn’t be