Did he get someone else to wear out his five tens for him?
As a non climberist can someone point out all the dodgy bits please.
To me it looked like he climbed up a cliff.
My Mrs calls RM 'that fat bloke that eats leaves'.
Lots of calories in those leaves.
My Mrs calls RM 'that fat bloke that eats leaves'.
If you're gonna find yourself in a survival situation you don't want to be going in skinny. That Ray Mears is a planner.
As a non climberist can someone point out all the dodgy bits please.
To me it looked like he climbed up a cliff.
You're the target market then 🙂
As a non climberist can someone point out all the dodgy bits please.
To me it looked like he climbed up a cliff.
Nothing 'dodgy', just funny.
It was presented (just about) as a rope solo, where you climb up in sections, placing protection gear, then abseil from a ledge to retrieve gear, reascend the rope to your high point, rinse and repeat till you get to the top.
Except his rope was way too short for that to be a possibility, and he was carrying approximately 2 pieces of gear, which doesn't really seem enough... plus there is this mysterious second, very taut, rope from above which appears in half the shots.
If he's got a top-rope, why is he placing gear, or even uncoiling his own little rope?
Basically, I can't imagine he climbed any of it. Just got dropped off on the top with a belayer, lowered down for the long shots of him basically hanging on the rope looking extreme, then hauled back up. Climbing technical cracks in ratty approach shoes might be a bit beyond his abilities.
Which is all fine, as long as you're fine with the premise that everything he does is total fakery in the name of entertainment. There was an episode of his show which involved climbing around inside disused warehouses, which was far dodgier in terms of potential copying from his target audience of nine-year-old boys.
It's good he's inspiring youngsters to join cubs and get active, in the same way it was great that Biggles probably inspired loads of kids to train to be pilots.
Full disclosure: I'm not a real panther
Next you'll be saying you're not even called Percy.
My Mrs calls RM 'that fat bloke that eats leaves'.
Read several anecdotes on Popbitch about RM taking a healthy supply of Mars bars on his exotic trips, scoffing them in between takes.
I'm not gonna throw the first stone.
I bet you're not even a dog!
I bet you're not even remotely a route. Besides, what bearing does that have on anything? It's ursine irrelevant...
Aside from a few climbing 'experts' does anyone care whether it's real or not?
I quite enjoy most of the stuff he does. Sure most of it is a bit OTT & dramatised, but it's just meant to entertainment.
The show he did with Barack Obama was excellent.
In other news:
- those geese that fly alongside boats & microlights are not doing it naturally, they are trained.
- Coronation St is not a documentary, and
- KITT wasn't a real product of Knight Industries
Aside from a few climbing 'experts' does anyone care whether it's real or not?
I have no interest and don't find it at all difficult to avoid watching him.
My kids love him, they watch a prog or two then go outside and hack stuff up, get muddy and generally do what boys their age should.
They love the survival school stuff he does with kids as well.
It's escapist TV. I don't know why people complain about it.
Coronation St is not a documentary, and
- KITT wasn't a real product of Knight Industries
Are there lots of people down your way who believe these things? 🙂
My kids love him, they watch a prog or two then go outside and hack stuff up, get muddy and generally do what boys their age should.
#casualsexism #tryingtostartanarguementontheinternet
Don't worry, my life partner and I are raising them as transgender.
I've read through the anecdotes posted on this thread and I've one burning question:
What exactly are "Men's survival trousers"?
I'm intrigued and I need to know.
He’s like the worst bits of Ray Mears and Chris Ryan rolled in to one. It’d be great if he was actually eaten by a bear whilst arsing around. Or, even better, has to be casually rescued by Ray for some reason.
Or even betterer, eaten by Ray Mears.
😆
I have no interest and don't find it at all difficult to avoid watching him.
and
It's escapist TV. I don't know why people complain about it
It's as if [s]lots and lots of[/s] some people struggle with using a TV remote. 😛
I'm planning on watching something I don't like tonight and then bitching about it, possibly a programme about antique hunting or house buying. That'll be easy to get all frothed up about
Aside from a few climbing 'experts' does anyone care whether it's real or not?
I kind of think that if he gets a few people out doing stuff rather than sitting on their backsides then it's a good thing.
I don't understand why people seem to cultivate this weird, burning hatred for media figures. It seems like a waste of energy.
My worry with him, is that he is portraying actions and risk that he is not actually taking, and a lot of young adults and kids really like him, so why he may show himself jumping off a cliff into a freezing river, he is not showing the support crew, first-aiders and no doubt a few risk assessments that took place first.
So whilst i am all up for people being inspired to go outside, i'd rather it be shown how to do things the correct way, not the reality TV way, i think an outdoor programme can be inspirational and educational without you having to drink your own pee and eat a raw deers heart.
I enjoy watching Marooned with Ed Stafford.
Seems realistic. He tries to survive for 10 days in different locations with nothing but some hand held cameras and an emergency radio/first aid kit.
BG is just Made In Chelsea for kids of all ages.
Just like Top Gear/Bellends on Tour.
🙂
I like River Monsters, which is equally as staged.
Amazing how he catches the fish on his last cast, just as the sun's going down on his last day....
I don't understand why people seem to cultivate this weird, burning hatred for media figures. It seems like a waste of energy.
People dislike privilege and success, particularly when they perceive "they could do better".
It's completely moot, as I'll wager Bear Grylls inspires more young people every week than all the nasally-voiced IT-working climbing-expert armchair viewers pointing out the errors in his climbing ability do in a lifetime!
njee20 - Member
People dislike privilege and success, particularly when they perceive "they could do better".
Waaay too simplistic.
No one dislikes James May, even though politically he's slightly to the right of Moseley.
Many people hate Clarkson, because he's a thoroughly unpleasant man.
I dislike Bear Grylls because he's a liar, a cheat and a charlatan - as the OP's opening vid demonstraes to anyone who's spent time climbing. I realised it's all staged nonsense minutes into the first episode I saw about ten years back when he claimed to have "found" a steaming dead deer that just happened to by lying there in the middle of the Russian Steppe. Healthy deers don't just drop dead, but do so if shot from a helicopter that just happens to be there filming.
My worry with him, is that he is portraying actions and risk that he is not actually taking, and a lot of young adults and kids really like him, so why he may show himself jumping off a cliff into a freezing river, he is not showing the support crew, first-aiders and no doubt a few risk assessments that took place first.
I was at a Leo Houlding lecture where he talked about the amount of preparation that went into something like climbing a remote jungle waterfall - scouting trips, risk assessment, bolting, rigging safety lines for film crew etc - and while it was fascinating in its own right, you have to accept that it's not exactly broad spectrum entertainment.
He had a great reverse view image of the series publicity shot that appeared to show him in the middle of some remote wilderness. The other side of the camera were about 20 people.
The bottom line is that in this sort of stuff, where reality and entertainment intersect, entertainment tends to come out on top. Sometimes it's not obvious until you think about it - the film where Houlding climbs Ulvetana, some shark fin of a thing in Antarctica, features shots of the 'first ascent' filmed from above... You can either rage about it being some sort of abuse of authenticity or you can just accept that the film looks better and more exciting for it.
The film crew waited for a pitch to be climbed, jumared up after it, then filmed it being climbed again while someone else led the next pitch.
Is a Danny Macaskill video unauthentic because it mostly shows the successful moments rather than repeated attempts that didn't quite come off?
My worry with him, is that he is portraying actions and risk that he is not actually taking, and a lot of young adults and kids really like him, so why he may show himself jumping off a cliff into a freezing river, he is not showing the support crew, first-aiders and no doubt a few risk assessments that took place first.
I was at a Leo Houlding lecture where he talked about the amount of preparation that went into something like climbing a remote jungle waterfall - scouting trips, risk assessment, bolting, rigging safety lines for film crew etc - and while it was fascinating in its own right, you have to accept that it's not exactly broad spectrum entertainment.
He had a great reverse view image of the series publicity shot that appeared to show him in the middle of some remote wilderness. The other side of the camera were about 20 people.
The bottom line is that in this sort of stuff, where reality and entertainment intersect, entertainment tends to come out on top. Sometimes it's not obvious until you think about it - the film where Houlding climbs Ulvetana, some shark fin of a thing in Antarctica, features shots of the 'first ascent' filmed from above... You can either rage about it being some sort of abuse of authenticity or you can just accept that the film looks better and more exciting for it.
The film crew waited for a pitch to be climbed, jumared up after it, then filmed it being climbed again while someone else led the next pitch.
Is a Danny Macaskill video unauthentic because it mostly shows the successful moments rather than repeated attempts that didn't quite come off?
[b]ps: this was the second, successful post. My first one wasn't properly risk assessed, but I tried again and this is the result.[/b]
I went off him a bit after reading his autobiography.
He did his Everest climbing bit, got back to Base Camp and just jumped onto a passing helicopter. He seemed to think it was a great joke just to bugger off leaving the rest of the expedition to do the boring packing up and walking out of there. Not the sort of person you'd necessarily want on your team.
EDIT: I quite like his TV programmes (or the few I've seen), they're fun to watch.
It's not that, it is that he doesn't ever show any consequences, a young minds have a habit of copying things (i did), plus for me the best Danny Macaskill, skate or any sport where there is risk are those where they show the film edited, then you get the section at the end where they show how many attempts it took and that actually stuffing it up can really hurt.
While I don't like his style, other than the one to one adventures he does with celebs, he works very hard at being Bear Grylls, whether that's the TV personality or the Chief Scout.
It's not that, it is that he doesn't ever show any consequences, a young minds have a habit of copying things (i did),
How would he show the 'consequences'? That's a whole different genre of disaster TV... 'When three young people walked out of the front door on that bright and breezy May evening to walk to the newsagents, little did they suspect that this would be the worst day of their - and anyone else's - lives'
'Within minutes they would be involved in an epic battle for survival agains the elements, fate, bad hair and a flock of feral sheep'. The parts are played by actors as they are all quite dead etc...
Kids watched one yesterday, in it the real victim punctured a lung and bear told an anecdotal story about another guy who drowned crossing a river. It's hardly surprising that he didn't recreate both moments.
I find the amount of fervent hate bemusing, you climberists must be an easy bunch to troll.
You know those YouTube videos that consist of 15 minutes of "me riding down trail X"? Well TV would be like that without editing. You don't make an interesting TV show without having some form of storyline planned out beforehand, there has to be progression through each scene to lead to the next otherwise the viewer is just going: "a minute ago they were abseiling in the jungle now they are wearing snow shoes" or something equally jarring.
Unless it's one of the early Benedict Allen shows where he shoots everything on a small handheld camera then there will be a film crew on hand, naive to think otherwise.
The only BG show I've watched beyond the first 30 seconds was the one with Barack Obama and there was one point where the camera did turn round to show the rather large retinue that accompanies the POTUS (as Obama was at the time).
All the above is a bit different, it's *how* the programme is made, to the actual programme content being patently wrong or not in line with the narrative.
I find the amount of fervent hate bemusing, you climberists must be an easy bunch to troll.
You have absolutely no idea.
The UKC forum makes this place look like Gandhi's crochet club.
My worry with him, is that he is portraying actions and risk that he is not actually taking,
So what? Whats the point of inspiring people to go out and be adventurous then saying at the end "ooooh actually its really dangerous so lets dial down the fun please". Its going to put people off and parents might stop their kids doing it.
Anyway, the sort of people who are daft enough to be injured by, for example, jumping in a river or climbing up some rocks, would probably be daft enough to do it without watching the programmes.
I meet a different bunch of year 6 kids evey week and if I bad mouth him it’s like I’ve killed Santa in front of them.
They don’t care if he’s top roped up that. They don’t care if he sleeps in a hotel after pretending to whittle a bed out of a goat’s carcass.
They don’t care. He is awesome and makes them want to go outside and do stuff.
Which is great.
^^^^This very much...... you don't inspire kids by frightening them and warning them, you go out, do awesome stuff and they want to do the same. Ray Mears is also great, and probably inspires a love and respect for nature more than Bear, but Bear inspires excitement and adventure.
I'm just off out to jump in a freezing river then revive myself by disembowelling a passing sheep and wearing it as a gilet. After then I'm going to use a power-line as a zip-wire. Back later.
ps: don't try this at home kids. Remember all participants in this post are trained, professional stunt artists with skills developed over years of foolhardy buffoonery.
He was at Eton you know.
This will ruin your world.
Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall never actually lived at River Cottage.
He was at Eton, too.
yep, it was the association that put his name in my head.
Jivebunny could make a conspiracy theory from that....
fasthaggis - MemberIt's as if lots and lots of some people struggle with using a TV remote.
it's not as remote as it would have you believe you know
