In this post I’ve written about a 2017 book launch, for A.A. Gill’s Uncle Dysfunctional.

Unfortunately, the book launch was posthumous as Adrian had died on December 10th 2016.

Regarding the circumstances around the above picture. Jimmy needed to go to Whitby (on October 16th 2016) to film The Grand Tour (S1, Ep4 with Clarkson, May and Hammond) and they (presumably Amazon Prime) provided a helicopter as transport.

Some years later (2022) Jimmy was having some issues with a joke in one of his Netflix specials and Jeremy wrote a supportive column in The Times, that told the story of this day

Jimmy had phoned the night before filming, to ask if he could take Adrian along and, although Jeremy said Adrian was “grey faced with cancer” at that point, he loved Whitby’s fish and chip and Jimmy thought it might cheer him up.

On the day of the shoot Jeremy opened his trailer to find the 2 of them standing in front of him and, at some point in the day, Jimmy and Adrian went to Whitby’s Magpie Café for fish and chips (Adrian’s review is here).

Jimmy filmed his “James Bond on a jet-ski” segment (wearing a suit to tear around Whitby harbour – see here) and ended up sitting on the sea wall with Jeremy and Adrian, talking about television. As Jeremy told it:

Adrian said he’d just started watching Vikings on Amazon Prime. “Vikings?” asked Jimmy. “Bit ambitious. It’s a ten-parter, isn’t it?” That’s probably the meanest thing you could say to someone with cancer, and yet Adrian didn’t just laugh. He guffawed so hard, some fish came out of his nose.

JC and JC met up again at Adrian’s funeral, where Adrian was lying in a wicker coffin. Jeremy said:

It was desperately sad and everyone was heartbroken. But, again, the mood was improved by Jimmy, who walked in and said: “That’s perfect for a food critic. He’s in a hamper.”

I never met him – but I suspect Adrian would have laughed at that.

Griefcast 2021

While on Cariad Lloyd’s Griefcast podcast (here) Jimmy talked about the loss of Adrian (following on from talking about him losing Sean Lock). He said he had a graph in his head of how upset you should be, when someone died, in accordance of how long you have known them. At Adrian’s funeral he described himself as “being in a puddle” to the point where Adrian’s children were looking at him.

And that grief is the price we pay for love.

You Made It Weird 2022

In the You Made It Weird podcast Jimmy mentioned Adrian, right at the end (around 1 hour 10, if you want to skip to it – here). Jimmy recommended Adrian’s autobiography – Pour Me: A Life and mentioned that the A. A. was a joke because he had been an alcoholic (hence the book name).

Jimmy also expanded on the helicopter story by adding that it was the last conversation they would have, before Adrian died, and Jeremy had been in the passenger seat of the helicopter.

Adrian was telling Jimmy (both sitting in the back) that in life you should “keep your side of the road clean”. Jimmy related this to having narcissists in his life.

When the chopper landed Jimmy said Jeremy and the pilot both had tears running down their faces.

Earlier in this podcast he had also mentioned that we die twice – once when we physically die and then again when there is no one to say our name.