Jeremy Clarkson on the year he lost his Top Gear job, his home and his mum

Spiral: After a successful career and personal life, three years ago Jeremy Clarkson's 'luck stopped' For years, Jeremy Clarkson has seemed like the world’s luckiest man. On Top Gear, Clarkson, pictured with his co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May, rarely held back — entertaining and offending in equal measure Like the time he drove a Toyota Hilux into a 30-year-old horse chestnut tree to test the vehicle’s strength and the BBC had to apologise unreservedly to a Somerset parish council and pay a £250 fine. Fight: Clarkson clashed endlessly with Danny Cohen, the BBC’s director of television, during his time on the hugely successful Top Gear ‘Normally, you could find some common ground with someone, but I think Danny and I could probably only get on perfectly well so long as we absolutely never had to think about each other.’ He seemed to enjoy winding up Cohen, claiming he was berated by the BBC executive and summoned to his office two years ago after he had tweeted a picture of his black West Highland terrier — and revealed he had named it Didier Dogba — after the former Chelsea star, Drogba. Clarkson famously punched Top Gear producer Oisin Tymon, pictured, during a row over a steak dinner and the incident proved to be the final straw for his BBC career When producer Oisin Tymon didn’t have a nice hot steak supper waiting for Clarkson in a North Yorkshire hotel after a long day filming, he called him a ‘lazy Irish c***’, punched him in the face and cut his lip. While he’s a natural broadcaster and can chat happily while driving round a hairpin bend at about 600mph, he insists he is rubbish at pretty much everything else remotely practical — putting up pictures, opening bottles, playing tennis, understanding a car engine, cooking or skiing Clarkson, pictured filming with Hammond and May, claims that Top Gear is the only thing he’s ever done really well in his life He claims Top Gear is the only thing he’s ever done really well in his life.