Vote of Confidence in Bear Grylls

[batten135]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[badger]

it is good that caving is getting air time, also other activities within the UK, however his disregard for safety is in excusable, him and the TV company should know better.
And the statements seen on this forum from his agent and TV company are exactly what you expect them to say.
Unfortunately the reality it takes only 1 person to copy him and a death to occur for to get bad publicity for caving or any other activity, and we all know someone will copy him, and probably the outcome will be ok or a near miss.
He either is to much of a maverick to consider safety or he has been very badly advised, either way lets hope no one dies

 

[PaulW]

One person has already died trying to 'copy' him

 

[paul]

Yes - try googling '"bear grylls" copycat'.

 

[cap n chris]

86% so far consider him either a bad role model, a cockwomble or the mightiest cock of all cockdom.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Maybe that's because lots of people just like throwing brickbats at people who do stupid things. Or maybe they just have a good measure of the man. Probably the latter.

 

[pwhole]

Yeah, I've met his type before, plenty of times. A bully disguised as a choirboy. Give them a wide berth, always. I voted for the fifth option.

 

[Mark Wright]

I vote for giving him no further airtime otherwise this'll go to three bloody pages.

Mark

 

[badger]

I agree with Mark

 

[Peter Burgess]

It probably depends on what you want to achieve by keeping Bear Grylls caving on the current agenda. If you Google just Bear Grylls, you get page after page of hits all about what a hero he is. If you Google Bear Grylls Caving you get hit after hit of this sort of thing that we are posting. So making a big thing about how stupid he was seems to have hit the right note, and I see no reason why our disappointment should be stifled. He already has all the good publicity he wants and whether or not this topic continues will make no difference to that one way or the other. I say we have every right in our own small way to say what we think. I think the topic should run its course and fizzle out when we find something else to be disgusted by. 

 

[Badlad]

I was watching a documentary on Lance Armstrong last night.  When he was being interviewed in the studio, without all his cycle gear, there seemed a remarkable resemblance to Bear Grylls.  Or is it just me?

 

[badger]

Peter you made me chuckle, possibly your right, but bear bashing I have not seen many topics on the forum with so many cavers agreeing on. And I doubt whether he gives a shit, as someone has said somewhere he gets paid very well, and most of us wouldn't mind picking up the same salary. and no doubt your right we will keep in bear bashing, even when it is coming tedious cause we all agree, so all most of can do is repeat what a dangerous role model yadadada..

 

[badger]

Badlad, never considered whether they look alike, suppose there well could be other similarities, mavericks? maybe we should start a lance bashing topic to get away from bear, 

 

[cap n chris]

Anyone actually considered that he is not a role model, but a clever businessman who has made links with a well known youth organisation as it provides a marketing opportunity to a devoted following for any amount of diverse merchandise he sees fit to brandname? They think he's flying the flag for them but the opposite is true, perhaps.

 

[Inferus]

Anyone actually considered that he is not a role model, but a clever businessman who has made links with a well known youth organisation as it provides a marketing opportunity to a devoted following for any amount of diverse merchandise he sees fit to brandname? They think he's flying the flag for them but the opposite is true, perhaps.

I've no idea how one becomes Chief Scout but the previous incumbent was also a "celebrity/someone with TV presence" who was known for taking on adventures (obviously in a different style). But I agree there is too much brand going on with the un'Bear'able.
I guess it's a sign of the times, get yourself on TV, maybe do something random or pehaps boot a bag of wind around a field and it appears the world is your oyster..

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Somebody I know calls TV " The Fools Lantern " and in some respects that is correct. Most factual issues are dumbed down to appeal to the illiterate masses and anything " soap " just reflects bad behaviour and rudeness. This Bear bloke is just an epitome of all that. The masses seek to be entertained as they have lost the incentive to get off their backsides to do anything about it. I try to limit TV to no more that 2 hours a day and have never watched any of these so called reality shows as they are all sh+te. Pretty much the whole thing is scripted by the producers. ( Bear wont go off script ). Well there we go from somebody who rants at the BBC  children's programme Ceebeebies ( sic ). It is so politically correct and ethnically diverse it makes me squirm.

 

[david3392]

Not sure I'm adding anything new but it's interesting to see that the poll shows more people think an accident is waiting to happen (to someone else) rather than him simply being a dick. I watched the show in question and was appalled at the level of irresponsibility shown. As well as the flooding sequence (well discussed already) a couple of other things spring to mind. Whatever happened to the sound advice of jumping into unknown water facing out, feet first, and arms crossed? Doing a backflip every time is just juvenile showing off. Cue the abseil off Malham Cove. I loved the bit where he uncoiled no more than 50m of rope and proceeded to set up a single point anchor with no visible safety rope. So simple, anybody can turn up and do it can't they?  Oh yes, and the rubbing points on the first 20 feet. I could go on but it's all been said.

I wonder if the scouts themselves think of him as a good role model with a similar poll? The scout movement was responsible for introducing me to caving and climbing in the mid 60's in a responsible, safe (as possible) manner and made it fun. I feel angry they have publicly endorsed such a reckless attitude to adventure sports in the present day.

 

[badger]

quite a few things scout related, 1, I think the idea from the scout movement of putting in someone like Bear is that the younger generation know of him, where as when I was a scout I had no idea who the chief scout was, it was some air marshall bloke.
reading the scout people post on facebook, some think he has done nothing wrong, whilst others who maybe activity based can see all that is wrong with what he has done.
whilst the tv programme is not scout related I would personally say for me he has damaged the image of scouting.
there has been many years since a scout was rescued from a cave yet the comments from at least one person here seems to suggest that all cave rescue are scouts, yet when we take young people caving (cant speak about every scout cave team) we take lots of precautions, the first one being getting a weather forecast.
And we have all slagged of bear on his maverick attitude, and I think a lot of it is rightly said, however none of knows apart from the cave experts on the day what was done/said, they well might have done a forecast, their risk assessment might have for them justified them going into long churn, carrying a hand torch and water rising, and their fee did not come into the decision making.

 

[crickleymal]

there has been many years since a scout was rescued from a cave yet the comments from at least one person here seems to suggest that all cave rescue are scouts, yet when we take young people caving (cant speak about every scout cave team) we take lots of precautions, the first one being getting a weather forecast.

That's not what I said. I said that when I started caving back in the 80s and 90s it seemed like half the rescues seemed to be scouts so maybe Bear was carrying on a tradition. It was partly tongue in cheek but definitely based on what I remembered.

 

[badger]

its not necessarily what you said but how people will interrupt what you said, it might be tongue in cheek, but some on here are not going to see it like that. we work very hard in scouting and when someone who represent scouts does something without following the same procedures we follow it looks bad on scouting, even though at that time he was not in his scout role.
I could tell you how many times I have got to or either coming back to swildons 20 to see the appalling standard of rigging, or worse still even taking down our rigging and rigging a ladder plus a 40 year hawser rope on the same bolt. 
And crickmal your not the only one tongue in cheek or not having a small dig at the scouts, there is others.
Although in general it is mostly people bear bashing and pointing out his role in scouting.