With fuck all worth watching on the telly at Casa Cunter, I had a flick through some of the 4.000 or so channels available but never explored on my IPTV app.
I came across a programme called Marooned, hosted by a guy called Ed Stafford.
Apparently there have been several series of this drivel, with Ed being put in inhospitable environments where he is expected to survive and even thrive for 10 days.
In this particular episode he was abandoned in the Gobi desert.
With nothing but the shorts that he was wearing and a camera so that he could film his adventure.
After 3 days of searching he came across a puddle of water which he eagerly stuck his head in and started to drink.
Call me sceptical if you want, but to find surface water in a searing desert is a little unlikely, and if you are going to drink it then the resulting bouts of the shits will dehydrate you and kill you even quicker than if you didn’t find water in the first place.
Amazingly he also found a tin can in the sand.
It had been opened with some precision and had no sharp edges.
It was completely undamaged, not even a dent, just a little dirty.
That, he explained, would be his cooking pot.
He found a few plants bearing fruit. Without knowing exactly what they were, he ate them anyway.
He dug up roots, mixed them with his berries, put them in his tin can with some of the water that he found and brewed himself some tea.
This gave him the energy to go and look under rocks for tiny lizards which he also ate.
He also smoked some rodents out of their burrows and ate them too.
I know who watches this rubbish.
People like me who are bored with nothing else to do.
But who would be stupid enough to believe that any production company would put a presenter in any danger at all?
At the end of Ed’s ordeal he was picked up by a car, so he wasn’t that far away from a road or, I suspect, the local Pizza Hut.
As I was pointing out these things to the lovely Mrs Cunter she accused me of being a ‘miserable bastard’ who spoils everything for everyone.
Yes, I suppose that’s true.
Nominated by The Artful Cunter.
Talking of production teams and thinking myself risk assesment, why I wonder do they think it’s ok for a paraplegic presenter of a darker hue referred to here, head up the Travel show? I remember him bumping over railway sleepers in his wheelchair in an Indian siding unaided. It was undignified for him and unnecessary just for the sake of ‘box ticking’ Worse was the Blind presenter who was lowered down a ravine on a rope.
1
I hope – at the very least – they didn’t make your first example there travel on the train roof, India-style.
0