Bear Grylls

[barto]

Anybody watch Bear Grylls a few months back? Ex SAS bloke "being dropped into some of the world's most inhospitable places, equipped with little more than the clothes on his back, and showing how to survive and get out alive!" I quote from http://www.beargrylls.com/

Anyway I know it's one of those BS reality tv things but I at least believed he was sleeping rough in the desert/jungle/etc... turns out he didn't even do that!

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 116195.ece

What would say.....

[Quickfire]

What would say.....

Something along the lines of

"Slot the bastard!" or "I put a full mag in him and he dropped like a sack of spuds. And that was him out of the game..."

Anyway, this brought back some memories from my youth and if he's the Bear I'm thinking of his "free-fall" parachute accident involved jumping out of the back of an ultra low-level Herc into trees. Moron. So maybe there is some verity in that.

Meantime, I hate the TV. And motivational speakers. Why doesn't someone reanimate Friedrich Nietzsche and liven things up a bit?

Slottingly,



PS. If you really, really like this kind of banal TV thing instead of playing with then check out Chris Ryan's Extreme Survival (or whatever it's called - his hunters are mainly Yanks SEAL/Transformers/Green Beret/Steroid Rangers and clapped out Brits with helicopters, esp. the one where they get stuck in the mud) or, more seriously, anything with Ray Mears in (including Belarussian forests). Working class heroes all, like

Otherwise get yourself over to the nearest slotting fest and away from Old Etonians in general. With the exception of

[barto]

the deceit goes on:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 241720.ece

Should of realised he was an etonian! how else do you have a name like bear.

"who once served with 21 SAS Territorial Army Squadron" - does anyone know much about these T.A. SAS? It doesn't sound right one of the worlds top elite forces having part time regiments...

Oh and yep I do like Ray Mears - but have not seen the Chris Ryan thing - if its not on freeview I probably won't get chance. Anyone know if his book worth reading?

[Quickfire]

Just to satisfy your curiosity..

On the contrary, TA SAS are usually very effective. There are two units, 21 and 23, 21 used to be in the Duke of Yorks Barracks on the King's Road in Chelsea with 10 Para, but the base was sold off by Mogadon Broon and their old head shed is now a fuggin antiques dealership. The lugbrious locale thus attracted a lot of City folk and public school chaps. 23 used to be in Leeds (!) it's Newcastle or Brum now. All the candidates go through selection like 22 and have to be similarly proficient in skills, but the TA selection has a couple of the final regular selection elements cut off (a month in the jungle being one). Quite a lot of ex-22 as well as ex-Army join the units.

The TA guys are usually individual combat replacements or get tacked onto 22 for specific missions. They often have specialist skills, for example some of them are professional medics/surgeons in civilian life. Sometimes the regiments even get deployed as an entire sabre squadron: in Gulf War 1, 21 infiltrated Kuwait and nicked a load of new SAMs the Iraqis had deployed and the Allies wanted intel on... before the war started! During Bosnia loads got deployed on recce missions, then went in during Op Deliberate Force in 1995. Also loads were on mission for the somewhat feverish Kosovo-Sierra Leone-East Timor actions from 99 to 2000 which came in rapid succession. Many now get rotated through Iraq, Afghanistan is left to the regulars though (also as use of SF via the NATO command is totally ineffective at the moment, the war is being fought in a very conventional and counter-productive way).

The full time officers in the units are from 22 so gives you an idea of how the professionals value the TA sister units.

As for Chris Ryan, his account of B20 "The One That Got Away" is a bit controversial as some of the stuff he mentioned in the book wasn't mentioned in his debrief. Since then he's worked on fiction, squirrelled away in the North as he doesn't seem too popular in 22's home town, but he is a good guy so dunno what all the fuss is about. Years ago a rather good TV movie was done with Marwood himself Mr. Paul McGann as Ryan, methinks the director was Greengrass who's now done the Bourne Ultimatum. Some of it is quite realistic.

To round all this off nicely, Ryan got into 22 from 23 in Newcastle. Michael Asher, author of "The Real B20", explorer, and biographer of T.E. Lawrence, was another guy who completed selection with 23 in Leeds.

And, just in case you're wondering, the TA units don't do the Counter-Terrorist role. With the bureaucratisation of UK SF into US style "SF division" muppetry it's not clear if the TA units will survive long term. Skillsets being duplicated in two other p%sspot "reconnaisance" regiments.

Anyway, all this reminds me that a return to full time AF muppetry is long overdue.

[Quickfire]

Here's the Chris Ryan stuff, loads more links in the right menu.


The start is unintentionally Withnailian, on that note an AF-SF Withnail movie would be most apt methinks.

"You are cordially invited to enjoy a delightful weekend in the Pampas, SAS swine!"
"I have some distressing news, we've run out of 9 milly"
"Have we gone on holiday by mistake?"
"It's like Greenland out here."
"Is that the farmer?"
"Get in the back of the van Baron-San!"

Anyway, all this reminds me that Chris is a good guy. Dunno if I agree with all this type of stuff being spread over the tv and interweb though, various enemies will learn and copy one day...

Meantime, the hunter force gegen Ryan are very GI Joe, though more so in other episodes I think. Reminds me of an old argument on another forum (again).

[barto]

Finally got chance to watch this, really good stuff. Thanks Quickfire!