SHHH, I’m far too much of a TV snob to watch reality television... it’s down there with cheese strings and cut-off T-shirts.
Big Brother was an absolute never. Mind you, I really rather like the sound of Yes to the Dress when the brides try on all the gowns and eventually get to say “YES to the dress”. But enough.
Normally, I’ll watch anything in Danish or Swedish; anything in English where we’re watching ordinary people shouting and moaning and flexing their tattoos is a big no no. You can get that on the bus, 24-seven.
Reality television always seemed too much like a human zoo. The Naked Ape is so yesterday. But then along comes Bear Grylls, intrepid island adventurer, and I’m a sucker, lurking in the mango grove just behind him, spying on all those poor Johnny-come-lately Man Fridays and whistling that theme tune from the old 1970s Robinson Crusoe.
Bear Grylls has been called the world’s poshest boy scout. He’s the kind of fella you’d want around if you ever fell off a cruise ship and landed on an island where there were only tarantulas for lunch.
He could make that mother awful eight-legged hairy beastie taste like a decent pot noodle. That is old Bear for you. He has, they say, slept in a deer carcass. I don’t know how the deer felt about that.
The island is where he takes a group of people away from their vital appendages like iPhones and laptops and fridges full of food and, oh joy, real flushing toilets with small jets to wash your left perineum (see last week’s column).
Bear deposits the bunch of volunteers on a pacific island to survive with just their wits and whatever they can dig up or kill – preferably not each other.
Suddenly the song “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts” is less chortle chortle and more –well, desperate. Not that I don’t like coconut, but I’m not sure I’d like to live on that alone, for six weeks.
Tis tough; tis very tough when you can’t rummage in the kitchen drawer for the Nifty Nosh phone number for a delivery. It is people watching. It is not quite 'I’m a Celebrity get me out of the jungle', but there is a tang of that about it, particularly when the insect population tends to outnumber the human one. I’m scratching just watching.
But Bear had us hooked. We ended up watching the island with the women castaways on it. I have vague unpleasant memories of the late Oliver Reed romping across a sandy beach in a film called Castaway. But this was a little better.
Many long years spent teaching Lord of the Flies to recalcitrant 13-year-olds should have taught me that it is never ever ever going to end well. Go ask Piggy. But you never learn. The women were a tough, resilient lot.
The other side of the sofa was cynical about the pig that they caught and roasted.
“Somebody must have doped that pig,” he proffered. “Pigs charge about and squeal. That one just lay there and asked to be killed and cooked for dinner.” But then, how many real pigs has he seen?
It was the co-operative nature of the women’s island that made me proud. There, they all were, working together – or not, as the case went. Of course you always have someone who refuses to fit in and if my stomach was growling like a large hungry wild boar then I’d flounce around and gnarl and huff and strounce off too.
The message from the women’s island was that cooperation is all very well but in the end, you need leadership. Once that was established they straightened the nets, cleaned up the sand, got with the programme and all was well.
But it was the sheer joy of two tins of cold beans that stayed with me. They found the tins while foraging. Cynics might think the beans had been deliberately planted. I beg to disagree. The women’s euphoria at a tablespoon of cold baked beans was a wonder to behold. They must have been real real hungry.
So that when Bear came charging across the horizon on his big motor-powered boat. I wanted to hug him too.
Could I survive without my wrinkle remover wonder cream and my teint miracle pancake? Ah, there’s the rub. Not sure that I could. But as weight loss programmes go, you couldn’t fault old Bear and his island.
