I smell a rat. The Pickerings live wild on a volcano. It’s an hours trek by horse to a basic shop! Except their food is surprisingly fresh, and has bar codes. Oh look! A handy Land Cruiser and paved roads. And they paid £20k for a few acres? I’m not convinced their life is as wild as presented. It looks more like a hobby.

Could be wrong but it looks like toffs playing to me.

Does it matter? It still beats the daily grind most folks never escape from,good luck to them I say at least they have the balls to chuck it all in and do something different

Have recorded it for later so will see then. Really enjoyed the Ben Fogle series. That was proper with some real crazies in amazing locations.

The mains electricity seemed to be brushed over a bit too.

I thought that volcano must have been waaay higher than ‘9,000 ft’.
Googled it. He was bloody right.

Does it matter?

It matters a bit for the same reason it mattered on GD: The builds where folk had a big pot of money to throw about were often less engaging to watch as they revealed much less about human spirit and ingenuity.

On GD they may have had some money but if memory serves me corretly very few dont end up with massive mortgages!

I was thinking more along the lines of the fact the Pickerings had taken a very young family to a new land far away with different culture and are at least giving it a go, now if that is not human sprit then I dont know what is.

Can’t help but feel those kids are going to end up in boarding school soon.

And not so remote that Jago can’t tweet.

I normally like Kevin McCloud and his programs but the last two are utter dogs doo doo…

It tantalizes to child abuse last weeks which was on an island was horrendous. I get folk want to live the dream but not as your children’s expense, next weeks sneak preview looks equally as horrid.

I’m all for traveling and showing children different ways of life etc but this is clearly the parents dream yes to an extent the children’s dream until they realise they have no friends last week episode showed that clearly…the selfish bint pushed her son away and the whole purpose of the island/dream was to be together as a family unit !

Not for me I’m afraid pure selfishness at every level, and don’t get me started on the money side of it…

There’s more to it you don’t see…

Kevin your program is cak !

I’m glad other people were thinking what I was thinking. The phrase ‘selfish bint’ sprang to mind more than once when I caught bits of it. Mrs SP saw the positives in their decision as she normal does to her credit, but it struck me as whilst Mum and Dad might be living the dream, the kids were living a life that might be great when you are 7 or 8 but not when you are 13-14.

It tantalizes to child abuse last weeks which was on an island was horrendous. I get folk want to live the dream but not as your children’s expense, next weeks sneak preview looks equally as horrid.

Dry your eyes, it wasn’t much worse than living on a farm in the UK. And given they seemed to be able to afford boarding school (and building supplies, and food, and everything else) I’m guessing they have a lot more interaction with tourists than the film showed.

tantalizes

tantamount

Dry your eyes,

No you dry your eyes !

Its a lot worse than living on a farm in the UK…you clearly have something in your eyes if you cant see that !

tantalizes

tantamount

ah what ever !

Looks more like a vehicle to move our Kev inevitably to being yet another travel writer than a program about wild living. Boy, our nearest Waitrose is two miles away – that’s wild for some folk.

The food was from a supermarket, mains electricity, Land Cruiser, dress in matching North Face, and they lived next door to a riding school? How is their life that different to somebody living on the A3 corridor??

http://www.workaway.info/233927718432-en.html

“We are a 20 minute drive from Pucon in a peaceful location. You can often get a lift if you want to go to the town or there is a bus stop 4 km away.”

Did anyone see the programme about 10 years ago with the bunny girl who bought a Caribbean island?
They wanted to set up a dive school but the locals didn’t like them. The island was on a drugs route and they ended up being kidnapped. They escaped by setting their captors on fire.
They tried to carry on with the school but the stress was too much for the husband and he died.
She stayed on but I have no idea what happened to her.

Well there you go. Well found that man! Can’t see me watching any more of this drivel. Cynical tv at its worst?

Its a lot worse than living on a farm in the UK…you clearly have something in your eyes if you cant see that !

I grew up on one (well, several), looked pretty familiar. Yes it’s rubbish for a few years between adolescence and being able to get a mopped at 16, but it’s not child abuse.

Could we not just have done with it, and rename all further Kevin McCloud programmes ‘More Whims of the Moneyed Upper Middle Classes’.

The only difference from Grand Designs (long since renamed: Look at the Size of my Cheque Book) is that the phrase

“yes, we’ve having the windows imported from Germany”

has been replaced by

“there isn’t a Waitrose for over 3 miles!!”

Its all just tedious, self-indulgent, self-absorbed middle class bollocks!

Remember when he used to do stuff that was actually interesting?

What about the delightful child who could only say “boring” each time her dad spoke?

I’m not convinced their life is as wild as presented.

I think the ‘wild’ is the landscape around them rather than the lifestyle they’re living. That’s more your Ben Fogle.
However, yes it does seem to be ‘whims of the Moneyed Upper Middle Classes’.
Still an interesting building, will be interesting to see what it’s like when finished.

….. ‘More Whims of the Moneyed Upper Middle Classes’

Hmmm, sounds familiar

‘More Whims of the Moneyed Upper Middle Classes’.

does seem to be channel 4 remit that and poking fun at the unemployed/benefit scroungers

I watched the one about the couple with 3 sons who moved to this island, built their own gaff.
Whilst I can imagine it will teach their kids survival skills, what about social skills?
Plus I’d be shit scared about hurricanes, tsunami’s etc. Oddly they also had pots of money and could afford to do it.
It was absolutely beautiful there though.

Alasdair* left his job as a stockbroker and Tabitha* left her business consultancy because they found that the London lifestyle was affecting family life. They sold their Surry home and moved……

Rarely a promising start to TV. 🙂

*insert middle class names as needed.

I gave up as soon as I heard he was called Jago.

I get and applaud the whole give it up and try something else notion, no matter a person background or wealth. It’s this programme with its “beyond the back of nowhere, mule trains needed!” lies that annoys. Why dress up the actual and obvious facts with blatant tv’isms? Kev now comes over as a smug git where he used to be likeable. This programme really is nothing more than some clever Dick realising Channel4 have a gazillion pounds to spend on Our Kev, but it has to be spent quickly and in the most obnoxious way possible.

You also have to question why these people are running away. In a sense they are hiding. You can leave it all behind quite easily even within the UK. So there must be some sad motivators behind the moves that have been done.

They tried to carry on with the school but the stress was too much for the husband and he died.

Wasn’t she sh*gging one of the builders. Then it turned out that they didn’t own the island anyway because it was owned by the government? All of which was carried out to the background music of gunfights between the drug runners and the law? That was awesome telly.

The builds where folk had a big pot of money to throw about were often always less engaging to watch

I can’t help but think my imagination would be pretty good if it were fuelled with a decent sum to invest in my build. I assume they get something from the filming too.

That straw bale house, now that was worth watching. Though I dare say someone will have a link to spoil it for me now 🙂

You can leave it all behind quite easily even within the UK.

But not the weather.

They must get paid to do the telly, subsequently be in the mag ad infinitum then go onto GD Live*. Must be a money making machine similar to Top Gear, hence now the big budget travel films?

As for the weather, not so sure they beat us? As for volcanic eruptions, we’ve not had one of those for a good few years.

*Wife took me to one. Gawd can Our Kev talk on and on and on. He must run on auto pilot.

Just a reminder that this starts on Sunday. Which is infinitely more enjoyable than anything Kev has managed for years.

For a start, it’s far less likely to feature a retired financial director, laughing nonchalantly as he notes… ” well, yes…. We did actually go slightly over the original £2.5 million budget. How much? Just the £325,000, but Tabatha did have her heart set on the kiln-dried Bolivian mung-bark cladding, and the air formed individually hand-crafted Botswananan ceramic columns. And looking at them now, I’m sure you’ll agree it was worth it….”

binners – Member
Just a reminder that this starts on Sunday. Which is infinitely more enjoyable than anything Kev has managed for years.

I disagree. I enjoy George’s stuff but the Shed of the Year didn’t do it for me last year.

Which is infinitely more enjoyable than anything Kev has managed for years.

You reckon? It’s fun, but GC is pretty insufferably smug as well. At least I get the feeling Kevin’s taking the piss (while laughing all the way to the bank).

Did you know that George Clark is tall and an architect?

Did you know that George Clark is tall and an architect?

Really? I’d never heard that.

Did you know that George Clark is tall and an architect?

That’s amazing!