Latest / Chris Thrall's Bought the T-Shirt Podcast / The REAL Reason The US Navy SKYDIVE Into ANTARCTICA | Wells Jones

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The REAL Reason The US Navy SKYDIVE Into ANTARCTICA | Wells Jones · Chris Thrall's Bought the T-Shirt Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good to see this, great to be here. Good.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm excellent, excellent, thank you ever so much.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: So.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, can't remember how your email ended up in my inbox,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: but when I read it, I thought, oh my gosh,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: here's a guy that's lived ten lives exactly the reason
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: why I started the podcast. I'm not going to embarrass
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: myself by trying to sum up your bio, but I
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: think we'll we're going to cover a lot of it.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: But when I saw para rescue in the Antarctic camels
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: across the desert author, I thought, yes, this is exactly
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: the reason I started my podcast. And what I just
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: wanted to start with, welles, if we can just launch
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: straight into it is you know, I'm a father. I've
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: seen this culture that's just I don't know if the
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: word is insidiously infecting our youth and we're all to
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: a degree guilty of it. And it's it's the scrolling
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: for dopamine or the xboxing. And when I think of
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the life you've led, which I know you wouldn't change
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: for the world, and I think of the life I've led,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I wonder where we're heading for. And it's not just
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: young people it's people our age that can't you know,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: can't resist sitting in a bus stop and relaxing and
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: taking in the spiritual and being present in the moment.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: It's the phone comes straight out. There's no Hello, there's
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: no communication with fellow human beings. It's just head is
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: stuck to that device. And yeah, I mean you asked me,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: how's my day been? And I said to you, I've
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: been laying conduit for a new high speed broadband ironically,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: and you know, my neighbor comes out of the house
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, warning, there's nothing there. Wells literally, there's
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: just nothing. There's no nothing there. So I thought, you know,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: let's let's just chat about adventure and what it's like
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: to live a legendary life that you you know, if
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: our lives ended today, we just be more than more
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: than satisfied. We've got our quote as well. And you know,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: if I think if a lot of people's life ended,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: they say, well, what did I really do? I did
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: a job that was pretty unfulfilling and I scrolled on
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: my phone and you know, maybe they bought themselves a
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: mountain bike. And I'm not being judgmental. This is not
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: aimed at you wonderful people that are entirely happy with
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: your lot. If you are, I'm envious. This is for
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: people that are that are like christ you know what,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: you dude, You're right, you know, I'm you know, scrolling
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: five or six seven, eight hours a day, and that's
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: eight hours. It could be you know, writing a book,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: getting out there so wells you know, over to you.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Are you glad we didn't have cell phones? We call
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: them mobiles?
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Oh well, sure, but there's an advantage to all of it.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And don't forget. I mean, they're still they're still getting
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: a dopamine fix. There's a different one. But I don't
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I think that what happens is uh, you know, it
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: was George Mallory, why do we climb the mountain because
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: it's there? Why Everest because it's there? And he says, no,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: it's really it's not the mountain we conquer, it's ourselves.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: And so what happens when we're just buried. Anyone that's
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: just focused on a little box or a little machine,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: they're they're missing out on so many elements and attributes
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: that they could be expressing or learning about themselves that
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: would assist them in their lives I don't know. It's
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: like a deterioration of the human spirit, the spirit that
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: you could only get through endeavor. What comes out of
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: that is you're you're You're You're learning about yourself, which
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: which begins to empathize guys with your community around you.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: You know you've been through adversity, you've overcome, you've found
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: out a level of capacity, and you don't get that
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: being stagnant, standing, sitting, eating on the phone. And it's pervasive.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: So I don't know the direction is going to go.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I just would. I have guided my children into the
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: water and onto the mountains, and they've carried that forward.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: And now I have grandchildren. And what I'm seeing with
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the way the grandchildren are being raised is wonderful because
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: what they saw Papa doing, they accepted. They saw my behavior.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Now I could say, well I was leading them. Well,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: it's up to them to decide whether I'm leading them
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: or not. I'm their leader. And after the years and
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: then seeing other children, boys, little boy, and a lot
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: of girls, a lot of granddaughters, you know, they're softball players.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: They're California's second place winners. One is the most stunning.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: She looks like a model, and she's the catcher and
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: you're going, are you're kidding me if you were to
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: see she's a catcher on the team that came in
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: second in their league in California. Yeah, you can have both.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: You can be pretty, you can love music. You want
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: to go see the concert and be down in the front.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: But you also have experienced physical activity and endeavor that's
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: beyond your phone. And believe me, all those grow up.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: My granddaughters are totally into their phone, but they also
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: have other things. That's that's from my view. Chris, Well,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: it's the spirit, you know, it's it's a deterioration. It's
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: not it's a it's a slumbering life. It's it's they're
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: not without that curiosity to look beyond the horizon. Gee.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I would just encourage people to do that and not
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: judge them for not doing it.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: I went to speak to the Air Force the other day.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: They asked me to go and speak to their people,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: give me inspiration, and yeah, and I did my machette
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: speech because the machete is the most important item you
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: can have in the you know, in the survival situation,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: especially the jungle. And I say, guys, I'm going to
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: give you the machete, you know, the metaphorical one as
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: tor Hiadl, the famous Norwegian explorer, was given when he
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: went to stay on an island in just a pair
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: of shorts with a wife that he married through a
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: newspaper article in the in the Norway Times. And anyway,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: cutlong story short, you know just.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: A second now, he went across what what? What? Yes?
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Body of water? Did you cover.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Several over the course of his lifetime. The most famous
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: one was Cantique expedition which him and his mental and
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I say that respectfully Norwegian Army and a Swedish Swedish
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: chap They were all in the resistance and Norwegian resistance
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: in the Second World War. And these guys were all
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: you know, they were hands on with the Germans, you
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: can say, and tour hired all just said. He sent
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: them all a telegram. So fellas raft trip across the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Pacific in a bolsal wood raft to prove that Polynesia
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: was populated by South Americans. Are you in? You got
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: to remember there's no safety back then. There's no e
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: per beacons, there's no satellite radio, there's no radar. The
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: dirt der dirt all the stuff I've just had to
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: cross the Atlantic, and the replies they got were arm In.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Ever since, ever since I read that, well, anyone asked
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: me on an adventure, I'll just say arm In right now, Yes,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: excellent book, folks. By the way, Kontiki. I'll flash it
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: up in a moment if I can remember. But here's
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: the thing. I started off my speech, I said, folks,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: who's heard of tour Hired? Well, there's I'm in a
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: room with thirty odd people, some of them you know,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: not quite my age.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: But not one person.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: But there they didn't, not one person. And I'm like, guys,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: stop scrolling and read books for Christ's sake, and you know,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: not a lecture just because if you if you don't
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: program your life for legendness, the psychopaths are going to
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: do it for you, you know. And they're very good
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: at it because they own Silicon Valley and they own
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: the algorithms. So yes, So you mentioned that Mallory and Irving,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: and my first thought is I wonder if people watching, No, no,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: they are, Well, look what Jimmy Chin found in June.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean it was one hundred years to almost
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: to the day, and he finds Sandy's boot. It's just phenomenal. Well,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I've got to say something about this whole thing about reading.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I said to my mother. First. One of the things
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I said is I'm running away. I'm getting out of here.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I was in high school. She said, what are you
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: talking about. I said, I've had it living in Vermont
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: five towns feeding the Union High School. I was one
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: of thirty one people in my senior class, very rural,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and I said, there's a bigger world out there. She said,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: why don't you read? I don't want to read. I
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: want to get out there. She said, read Jack London's
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: into You know why. I said, I don't. I don't
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: want to read. I want to experience. But since Chris,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: it's been the reading that has opened my eyes. It
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: was like a Churchill quote that I read you just
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: a bit ago. It's it's getting those nuggets of knowledge
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: that just inspire and know that it's possible to go forward.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: So my reading has been extensive since. But Sahierdal, you
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: know Shackleton, all the guys, you know the antarchy, even
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the early ones. You know Worseley, who lost to who
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: who was ed? Is trying to ski and assisted and
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: a British guy. Do you know what I mean? Major Worseley,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Henry Worsley.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's he's he's a friend of a friend of mine. Well,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: you know that's just rest in peace, Rest in peace.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Before he passed on, he wrote, you know, I will
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: lick my wounds and come to terms with my disappointment
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: and come to terms with my disappointment. I thought it
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: was just a brilliant thing to say. But he passed on.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: And now we've had a young Norwegian.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Can I can I just interrupt and just say we
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: need to be explaining to the people out there these
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: names because Mallarin Irving very okay, do you want to
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: explain Mallory Irving first, and we'll talk about Sir Henry Worseley, okay.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: George Mallory. It goes back to the early nineteen hundred.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: He was a teacher. He was went to charge i'll
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: score to a private to a private in the terms
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: of Americans school, and he was introduced to mountain mountaineering
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and he went on climbs. He was just an excellent
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: He was like a path They say, this guy could
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: just scramble up. He had very unusual style, but he
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: worked his way up to finding out about Everest, and
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: so he's had three rounds trying to get up Everest.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: His last round was in nineteen twenty four. This is
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: in the day, George Mallory. This is in the day
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: when you didn't get airlifted to base. It took month
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: to go. I don't know exactly where they started, do you, Chris.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I mean they had count Mandy, Yeah, and.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: The time to get to Everson. Of course they're mapping
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: it out. At any rate. He was last. He was
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: last seed below the Hillary step. As I understand, there's
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: photographs and the point is that he and his climbing
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: partner Sandy were making a final ascent for the top
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: of Everest. I don't know if it was a June
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: twenty four, nineteen twenty four, something around that time, nineteen
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: twenty four, and he disappeared. He was found by Conrad
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Agkar on the side of the mountain his body. And
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the claim is that they had a camera, a Kodak
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: camera and Kodak company. A Kodak it's a camera company
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: for the people that don't know, and if they were
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to find that camera, they could process the film and
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: know whether or not George and Sandy made it to
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the top. This last year, Sandy Irving's foot was found
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: in his boot and DNA tests were done to verify
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: that it was Sandy Irving at the very on the
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: very edge of a melting glacier, and it was fined.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: This found this last June by Jimmy Chin, who was
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: a mountaineer and cinematographer.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: And Mallory's So Mallory's body was it found? Was it
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: approximately five years ago? Wasn't I'm just I'm just showing
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: a boot here, folks. There is the you know, there's
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: whole documentaries about this, but probably out of respect and
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: also the fact that you're not allowed to show this
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: stuff on on YouTube. And then then years later, when
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: nobody thought they'd found Irving, they found his boot. Jimmy,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: it was ninety nine.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: It was ninety nine, actually, so it was twenty five
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: years ago. Can you believe it? It was nineteen ninety nine.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: It's that long ago, gosh, and his body was faced down,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: clearly had broken a leg and the back of his
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: clothing was exposing his back. But he had been there
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: for seventy five years.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: And the so we came on to mention a couple
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: of other names, didn't we and it was.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Worridly And I think that would be wonderful if view
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: were to because you know more about him. I was
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: just very moved by his his strength, his tenacity has
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: resolved in his disappointment and not being able to put
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: one ski in front of the other to continue to
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: make his crossing to the south paw. Yeah major Wordsley.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Just yes. So friend of mine is Captain Lou Rudd
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Special Force, so he's in our s A S and
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: and I did a podcast with with Lou back along
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: and his one of his mentor, no, sorry, I should
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: say I did a podcast with with Lou because he
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: crossed Antarctica. He crossed the whole of the land mass,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: not not the ice shelves, but the actual geographical lamb.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: He crossed it on a pair of skis. He's actually
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: the second person in the world to sort of do that.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: And his mentor was a chap called Sir Henry Worsley
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: who had tried to do the same and he'd actually
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: died of some don't quote me on this, but you
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: know it's some like heart condition or something. Thirty thirty
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: miles from you know from his pickup from his no, no, no,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: he'd passed over the pole across the rest of the
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: continent and died thirty miles from his pickup point. In fact,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: he dies. I'm just going to show did.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: He actually pass on in Argentina? He was metavac out
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of there.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Sure, my home phones go or my landline, I should say,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: which is hardly ever does that? Yes, I'm just showing
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: the BBC article now.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: In the morning of iners in Shottage Balls.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: To inform you in.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: To my journey.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, he's saying his speech there that he he's run
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: out of physical endurance and and then he died it
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: was from an infection. Sorry, So it's kind of yes,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: it's I'm trying to say, kind of interesting. When people
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: say the Earth flat and Antarctica's and ice wall, I think,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: do you want to go and explain that to his
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: late late wife, that that your husband's a fraud. It's
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: it's kind of crazy, But that's another story. Well, so yes,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: let's move on to your good self obviously, and we
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: can have a chat about Antarctica, but stick with the
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: mountains first. What what's the highest peak you've you've climbed
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: all the most enjoyable the first time I did beer
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Mine have all been under fourteen fourteen thousand feet.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Or the mountains I've climbed. I've not climbed around the world.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: This has been something that I did out in my backyard,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: like in Colorado, after moving from inside the Beltway in DC,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: moving to Golden Colorado and figuring out that I wanted
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: to get to with my very good friend to the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Middle East. We trained. He trained on the East coast
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and I trained in the Colorado mountains. And it started
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: with Beerstatt, which is fourteen something thousand feet, so that
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: what four thousand meters And I did it once and
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: then I said, I'm going to start doing mountains in
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the morning, as if I was doing a summit, that
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: this is the final summit run. And so I would
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: start out, depending upon the mountain one thirty in the morning.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: You know, at Beerstad you have to go through the willows,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and willows are just like fame and everybody knows about
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the willow now since then, since two when I was
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: doing it, they built a bridge over the willows so
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: that people don't get lost in this mass of willows
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: before they get on the trail. Getting up the mountain,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: so I would do so. I just figured I didn't
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: want to get up into time for sunrises. And so
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: wherever I've lived, I've just found a mountain that's at
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: least twelve thousand or fourteen thirteen to do solo hikes, scrambles.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: And it's very interesting because I found I had to
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: come to terms with fear, I had to come to
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: terms with weather, and I would do it in all
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: kinds of weather. And there were times I had to
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: turn back and to reach that point where I decided
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: it was time to call it, and people family and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: anyone that hurd I just didn't talk about it. And
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: for me, I find a place like that, Like I'm
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: in Santa Fe now, I've done Baldy Baldy, the twelve
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: six hundred foot mountain, seven miles in, seven miles out.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I usually am with a pack that's under thirty pounds
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: twenty seven pounds, and it has a gear in it.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Something happens, food, different things, but I'm also carrying snow shoes.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I'm carrying depending on what's going on, and I've done
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: that many times. I think I've got around, you know,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: seventy eight sunrises on the mountain, and so that's what
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I do. It shows my resolve. It shows I find
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: each one is an adventure and each one is unique,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and I treat it that way. There could be it
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter if it's raining or snowing or sunshine, full moon,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: no moon, you know, minus fifteen. It doesn't matter. I'm
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: on the mountain. And so I've continued with that, doing
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: other things, smaller mountains, local.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, there's a satisfaction, isn't there. We got up early
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: the other day, my friend and I and my family,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: and we went to the highest point in our county.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Just showed a picture of it that it's called High Willay's.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: The photo people are seeing is actually, yes, tour I
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: believe in High Willays is in the far distance. And yeah,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: there's some satisfaction. I mean it's only it's two thousand feet.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: I mean we're at sea level here where I live anyway,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: but two thousand feet it's some hike for a nine
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: year old.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And I thought it was Oh, that's correct. Good.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Didn't complain once I was thinking, oh my god, what
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: have we got ourselves into it? It was like that.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: But once you're up there and you have a cup
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: of hot chocolate or a cup of tea or coffee
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: or whatever, and you take in the views and then
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: you know it's all downhill the way back, you know,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: for a nice meal when you get what a day
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: it was, just, you know, what a day wonderful.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I was out this morning. I every other morning I
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: do a mountain or I do I'm in the pool.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I like to swim, and so this morning, because you
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and I are coming on at this time, I was
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: on the mountain at four fifty this morning and got up.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: It's the elevation gain is like fifteen hundred a little
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: over fifteen hundred feet, and it's steep. It's a scramble,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: but I can do it, you know, in an hour
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and forty five minutes. It's up and down, you know,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: and it's such a wonderful And the weather, especially here,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the air is so clear, clean, and the breeze. It's
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: just it's a wake up. And so I do that regularly.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: At this point. I don't do it for the sunrise
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: because I can't wait that long. I just get up
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and get down and get to work, you know.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: And you clearly keep fit, which is another thing that
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: people let go either buyers to get older.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a lifestyle, and I worked it out that
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I had to change some things around. It changed my diet.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Around about ten years ago, I stopped drinking. You know,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Saint Patti's day was just boring yesterday. No, but it's
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: it's better for me.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I just want to focus on these things because again alcohol,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: so many people giving it up now. I try to
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: stay clear of it as much as I can. I
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: have my moments, but I even I just knowing myself,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: they have to be few and far between. And if
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: I never had a drink again, I know that's better.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: I know that's best for me. What did you get
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: to the point where you had to look yourself in
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: the mirror or was it purely lifestyle? And how has
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: it been?
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Well, it's it was over drinking vodka. It was a
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: really relationship with the lady. We both drank and the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: relationship which was tumbling. By the way, I've been married before,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: but it was like twenty nine years and my relations
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: were committed in long term and I was looking for
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: another relationship. Apter my wife and I the contract was up.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: That's all. We have the kids where everybody's happy. Things
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: are good. She went her way, she's with someone else.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Everything's fine. She's a Bozeman. I kep thinking hearing in
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: the United States. Bozeman, Montana is a very hot spot
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: if you maybe you know for mountaineers and as such
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: in Montana at any rate. It was my daughter that
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: came to me and she said, Pop, you're a different
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: person when you drink. And then she just stopped and
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: she choked up, and she's there was some tearing, and
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: she's not one just to cry. She's a very empathetic person.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: She's a wise soul. And she said, you just shouldn't drink.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: You're the person that should not drink. And I know
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: you if you were to say to yourself, I'm done,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: you would never drink again. And that's what I did
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: that moment. And I'm telling you, Chris, it was just me.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's relative. It was me. I did listen
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: to I went through an online twelve step that was
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: what is the Wild? Maybe I'll remember his name, but
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: it was wonderful to do that as a backup of understanding,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: which centered me. And then I realized I wasn't doing
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the mountains as much, and so I dug back in.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: You know, and then it became a diet and I really,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: you know, I will say I went plant based, and
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I found that I have shifted a bit because I
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: like salmon. I mean, I eat salmon fish and it's
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: you know, pole coot, it's not farm raised. But that's
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: about it. And I find that at my age, I
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: enter my seventh decade in a couple of weeks and
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I was up at four fifteen this morning. I was
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: on the mountain forty minutes later and scrambling, and I,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not weighing myself against anyone else. I
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: just am not into peak bagging concept. I thought, you know,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: it's not about the pictures and peak bagging. It's about
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the experience. And it's a consciousness of just opening up
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and engaging and knowing where you are and knowing where
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: your feet are. Can you go faster instead of going
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: on the trail, Can you go onto boulders, you know,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: polls and just really do a power hike and always
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: run down. It's just I'm a downhill runner, you know,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: It's like a downhill racer on skis. But and all
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of this has fed from the skydiving and Darctica Vermont,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the plays, the different characters and seeing strong and weak
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: characters at Shakespearean that I've played, the events that I've produced,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: in the magnificent talent that I've been around. Look at
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the talents around your Everest client. Think of the talent,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: what you were bringing and what is going to be
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: you're engaged in your circle. It's going to do whatever
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: it is you're going to do. And that I mean,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: I'm just you just said you're going to do everything well,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, what a magnificent collaboration of spirit. You know,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: and this phone thing. People don't know, but they need
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: to see you do it and they'll pick it up
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: to watch it on their phone. You know, they'll see
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: or maybe that'll be the draw. But I have had
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: all these things that have been in my life and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I recognize what you're doing on Everest and I think it's.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Quite a few bases there and it's kind of amazing.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: I'm sort of like into progressive living. I suppose you'd say,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: I really believe it's a spiritual battle, because there is
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: always temptation there. But what I started to realize about
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: fifteen to twenty years ago now was the smart the
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: smart people were all going plant based, the climbers, the
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: ultra runners, the longest distance runners on the planet. We're
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: talking these guys run three one hundred miles non stop,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: were going plant based, and the world's strongest man. I'm
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: talking like not you know, not steroids was he was
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: a vegan, you know, and his name like, oh, I
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: can't remember his name.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: It's not because I thought he was considered the most
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Oh I guess he was considered the most fit man.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like an endurance guy.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: No, I'm around the UK.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: The ultra runner, I'll flag it up. You're talking to
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: someone that's been to lots of parties in my life. Wells,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And that's a euphemism for overdoing it my memories. Sometimes
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: I'm good with it. Sometimes I struggle, But I have
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: got when I keep looking across here, I've got another
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: screen that I'm showing our friends at home what we're
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: talking about. But yeah, it was inspired by my friend Dan,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: who's a mountaineer, and you know, like yourself, I think
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I like thee well, I mean, I try to live
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: majority plant based so ever since I started loading up
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: on greens and I actually buy super Greens, and yeah,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: this is twenty five years. I've never been ill, and
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I defy anyone to say that they never get sick,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: and I never get sick. And I know why, I
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: know what. I won't bore people with it now, but
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: you know, I try to like yourself some fish and
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: game meat as if we would eat as if we
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: still lived in the forests. You know, That's what I
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: sort of try and aspire to. And you know it's
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: it's you just knowing yourself when you're progressing. And that
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: alcohol is another big one when you've been off it
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: for I mean, I think the longest I went was
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: two years. You know, you're firing. Your life is good,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: your relationships are good. You have no guilt, no anxiety,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: no depression, all this kind of stuff. And and you know,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: we live in a massive lie, don't we. Everything we
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: were ever taught was a lie. Alcohol is, you know,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: is fun, and meat makes you strong and and and
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: and all these kind of you know, falls, fallacies, And
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: I should just say here and now, I am aware
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: some people believe they can only eat meat, and I'm
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: not even going to get into that. I'd say I'd
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: say to anyone, like before you leave a comment, folks,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: I want to know your pH level because it's no
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: good saying I just eat, you know, crisps or potatoes
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: if you can, if you not can produce your pH level,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: it's useless. That information what you choose to eat is
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: no good to anyone because if you're a civic, you're
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: going to die younger. So but yes, fascinating, do you
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: think wells? I mean when I look at my life,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: and yeah, I probably pushed the boundaries in every theater,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: whether that be alcohol or adventure and all the rest
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: of it. And you know, I know I came. I
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: had quite a challenging childhood, you could say. And when
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: I look back now, I see it's self medicating a lot.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Really with these coping mechanisms. You would you say you
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: had a challenging upbringing or do you think that related
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: to your drinking?
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Very very possibly. But I fought against the adversity that
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I was in. My father was a captain in the
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: army Korea General's aide. I guess the thirteen months that
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: he was in combat really messed him up. We came back.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I was born in Stuttgart to Germany. Brother born on
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: my first birthday, two older twin sisters and a younger
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: twin brother and sisters, all of us within six years
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: of age. Born on an army basis, ended up in
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Vermont because my father found a job through a friend,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: and a year and a half later he took his life.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I was eleven, brother, ten brother, and sister eight and
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: older sisters that were thirteen in a foreign land called Vermont.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Is your father my father?
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Wow?
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I have not said this in any part cast yet,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: because we're talking about it's not about something, it's adversity
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: and it's growing up. My mother loved him, and her
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: reasoning was that was his last resort. He was a
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: good man. He was very messed up and he went
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: through very serious therapy with a VA in a hospital.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: They released him and he had demonstrated he had it
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: together and he drove to his father's grave and then
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: took his own life. And so for as a kid,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the ramifications of that have have echoed all over the place.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: But what I was in my in my being was
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and this is you know, nineteen sixty six, it's flower power,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: it's being a kid and seeing you know, this is
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: you know LSD and Vermont. It was just lots of
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: it was there I was. I'm just organically not into it.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: It was truly something that did not appeal to me.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I tried, you know, just smoking some weed, and it
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: was just I just threw up all over the place,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: and I realized where I wanted to be was in
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: the forest. It was beyond the river. Had a river
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: that ran over our property. Our property line went into
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: the middle of the river and had a canoe and
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I was there all seasons checking it out. I would
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: hold my breath as long as I could. I said,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I'm a fish. I can go under water for four minutes,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: and that's just on my own as a kid, wouldn't
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: do it longer. But it was what I was doing
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: which brings me to Te Lawrence, who was the reason
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: behind going to the Middle East to see for our
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: own eyes in two thousand and six what's going on here?
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Because this man Te Lawrence of Arabia loved these people.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: So I found that his childhood and what he put
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: himself through to show his stamina, his endurance, and he
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: was five or five and a half.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: I went to see him. Believe it or not. His
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: his grave is in a place Mordan Uh, It's a
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: place in Dorset again. Let me just have a look.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: As you're looking. So I was not drawn into the drugs.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I was drawn into the dopamine evidently, and the oxytocin
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: and the the the other things that just lit me
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: up organically.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Do you not when did the drinking come in?
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Then drinking came in with women? Is that sort of
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: big stressed? No, No, service was just a fabulous, very
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: very fit. We had my climbing partner and I did
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the Grand Circuit or the Schorcery Geno McMurdo.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Antica. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I have Hey, I
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: haven't been there, but it's where the US base is,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: is it not correct?
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Correct?
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: We would well, we would do a two and a
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: half hour, three hour run. It included going up Obbs Hill,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Observation Hill, dropping down the other side, doing the pressure ridges,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: getting up to Star Lake, I mean, going up to
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Castle Rock, either going up and over and then running back.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: We would smoke a little little weed for that and
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: we just we got into Antarctica. He did, and for
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: me it was like a puff or two and we
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: just would get up and run. It would take two
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: days for the buzz and the humming from that intensity
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: of that kind of a run in Antarctica to get over.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: But it was I just wasn't into drinking or drugs.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I wanted to run. I wanted to climb, you know,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: not a great deal of technic climb, but certainly enough
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: to do rescue. You know, that was all about rescued,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: setting up zlineans and pulleys and you know, and speaking
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: of you had mentioned earlier the difference in equipment what
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: we had in nineteen seventy four, five and six years.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, just think of Edmund Hillary the clothing. We
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: didn't have qrtex or we had canvas. The Kiwi's made
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: the best down a racks fella club as Duckstein gloves,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: their thick worsted wall and outer layers, even skydider we'd
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: jump at that. I mean I've jumped out one time.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: My outer layer blew off and it wasn't tied in
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and I felt like my hand frozen thought in you
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: know minutes.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, just the reference I got. You were right,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: it is more Morton and I went. I went there
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: in a with a motorbike club that I was with
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: one time, and just to see his to see his
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: grave as.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: We were Oh yeah, we were, we were.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Far away, and it was quite interesting really because it's
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: such an antiquated graveyard. Some of the graves that were
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: coming to the surface, which is anyone who's seen the
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: film Poltergeist back in the eighties will remember, it's not
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: a pleasant it's not a pleasant sight. There's a few
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: bones knocking around. To think that one of them could
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: be Thomas's Thomas Lawrence's is interesting. But yes, so I
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: don't know what to talk about first, because I've been
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: in wady Rum. I've certainly been on a camel, but
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: not nowhere near to the extent that you have. Actually,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: let's stick with Antarctica. I went there on a diving expedition,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: or I went to an expedition to Antarctica, and we
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: scuba died when we were down there. We had one
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: of our team drowned on our first dive. So it
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: put a bit of a bit of a spin on things.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: And you were a para rescue what do you call
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: that trooper.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Which is a member of the pair rescue team. Yeah,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: and it was the team had Navy correct right, it
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: was the only one one of the things the Navy,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: as far as parachuting, they had the shooting Stars, you know,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: for a while, like the Army had Golden Knights, and
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: of course we have the Blue Angels in the Navy. Well,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: we used to do air shows with the Blue Angels.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: We would be the opening act in the seventies at
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: a couple of air shows. But so we were trained
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: to skydive into to land on the target and it
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: was free fall. We were jumping para commanders and the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: stratus stars and clouds. Those mattress Ram air mattress, the
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: very beginning of them came out in nineteen seventy five
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: and they were very dangerous. Actually we were given one
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: for the team to test it in Antarctica and the
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: opening was such an impact it almost knocked you out
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: because of the way it was packed.
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: In the shoot in the back back.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: And the short shroud lines and it was just an
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: eye opener. But we jumped pair of commanders and we
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: were prepared to jump in given the weather not being
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: too extreme, to assist with mishaps as we call them,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: and we did and that was thrilling for a young
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: man and to learn probably the biggest thing I learned
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Chris was learned something about ego and how ego can
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: kill you. Your ego can put your butt on the
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: line and you can lose your life. I was felt
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: like I was quite a hot shot, being young, twenty
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: years old, strong. We were jumping. We jumped with the
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Blue Angels. We had beautiful jumpsuits like theirs, almost the
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: same color, you know. But not long after our first
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: time with the Blangels, and feeling pretty pumped up, and
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: of course the women being young, wanting to go out
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: and date. That was all there. And flying in the
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: UH one N stepping up to a Three of us
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: were going up getting a lift through altitude to do
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: a skydive jump. One went in on one side. I
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: went on the door on the right side, and someone
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: got in the cabin in the middle, and I thought,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: just sit in the doorway, you know, don't don't table
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: in had a parachute on. He could just almost reach
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the skid of the helicopter. And the pilots were hand
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: picked pilots for the Sea one. There is a lot
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: of them. The one thirty guys are guys that were
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: trying to get into jet school, but they were assigned
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: to do duty and an architects. It was a special
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: you know, arduous duty. And this helicopter lifted off and
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: we were flying over the camar Real Mountains in California,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: and suddenly it took a right hand bank. I mean,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: it went with me and I slid off my seat
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: in the doorway. My feet caught the skid and I
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: was leaning back into the thing. I thought I was
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: going to die. I thought I broke out in a
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: cold sweat. My entire body was just I was out
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: of control. It leveled off. Someone said, hey, everything good,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: and I just turned around and went and gave them
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: the thumbs up. I lost control of myself and I said,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? What are you doing? Why are
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: you doing this? You don't need to do this. This
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: is why are you doing this? It's like and I
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: couldn't stop shaking. I said, why are you doing this?
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: And I said, transportation is transportation. I'm jumping out to
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: get down as fast as I can to a need,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: and That's what I'm doing. And then everything just that
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: was answer and I realized that my ego stepping up
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: to the helicopter not really following protocol. And you know,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: you see in the movies now out in the seventies,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: but guys just you know, putting your butt just barely
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: inside the cabin of the helicopter, and they can beach helicopter,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: they drop the nose, they just go twin jets. And
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: so I realized, your ego, get a handle on it,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: and you need to have purpose. That was the big lesson.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Why are you doing this? Why did you climb that
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: mountain this morning? Why are you doing this? Everyone's saying
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: it's risk. To me, It's like, that's what someone else thinks.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: It's not what I'm thinking. Right for you? I mean,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: people say, whoa, come on, risk, You're going to paddle
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: across the Atlantic? K why would you risk your life?
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: You're not even that's not what you're thinking, is it? Yeah?
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Kind of like I don't think I'm risking my life.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: If I thought there was a risk in it, I
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: probably Actually, you know, there is a minimal risk, isn't there?
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Row in the Atlanta course I did. Can I tell
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: you something? Sorry, I'm coming No, this is.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: All coming in, No, this is all good, go for it.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: It was. It was I felt really weird on this one.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: I've always done some sort of extreme stuff, most of
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: it I was a young man, so it didn't matter.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: You know, I've seen, I mean, you know, seeing a
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: few people die in my in my company. When I
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: ran Marathon Disablers, I think it was eighteen months two
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: years ago, guy dropped dead literally in the next tent.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: I stood there, just stood there. They managed to bring
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: him back to life, but it was I was thinking,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: you know, the poor guy's family think he's out, he
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: having the experience of a lifetime. They don't know now
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: that the paramouts are jumping on his chest trying to
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: bring him back from the debt.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: So anyway, I was walking with my son through Grand
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Canarrea in just off Africa the day before. We were
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: going and you know, I never get emotional about stuff.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: I'm a bit of a sociopath. I always think you've
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: got to be able to turn on your sociopath when
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: it's needed. And I'm quite you know, perfected the art.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: But this one I just said to my boy, and
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: he's still quite young, and I said, look, you know, son,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: ordinarily I promise you I'm coming back, but I don't
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: want to go and promise you something. And the last
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: thing you remember of your daddy was I promise you
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: something and I let you down. But obviously I told
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: him stististically, it's statistically it's quite safe. But there was
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: a funny one on this one. Wells, you know, it's
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: just you know, as I rode out of the or
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: my buddy and I rode out of the marine, and
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: my son was just there crying his eyes out, and
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: you know, you have to weigh this stuff as an adventurer,
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: because yeah, it's there's a fine line between traumatizing your
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: kid and giving him a life experience. So he learned
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: emotion and he learns, you know, trust and this kind
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: of thing. So you know that it's a weird one
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: when you're walking up to a boat knowing you're getting
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: in that now and you're going to row three thousand
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: miles across an ocean. There's very little support and you know,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: you don't even see many people out there. But just
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: wanted to go back and say, what was the training like.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: So when I did my parachute training, I we did
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: a parachute the military parachute course, which every service person does,
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: even if you go on to free fall, you do
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: the basic course. I was very fortunate we did two jumps,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: or I did two jumps out of a balloon, a
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: helium helium balloon, which is just amazing. I then progressed
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: after the forces to skydiving. I just wanted to go
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: and do the skydiving ticket just for the because I
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: watched point braank break, actually the first point break, and
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: I thought, I've got it.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: I've just got to do that. Yeah.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: So I went off to Florida and I did my
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: pilot license, and I've got my pilot license, and they
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: gave me a plane to fly to the skydive center
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: and that was that was quite unique. So what's the
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: progression to become an antarctic will you? Would you call
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: it para rescue?
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, rescue. Well, we the training was first
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: of all as being accepted, physicals and counseling to see
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: if you were fit to kick it on. That was
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: done in the States in California at the at Point
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Magou and the first order of business was dealing with skydiving.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: And so we did five static line jumps out out
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: of a helicopter, a U A tow one end twin
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: jet helicopter. They were really they were terrific. The helicopters
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: that we flew in an after they were orange rescue
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: helicopters and they're very powerful for then back then, and
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: so they were thirty five foot keu, great big, huge
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: green canopies that we had to learn how to do
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: a parachute landing fall a PLF. And we would start
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: with the back of a truck of a pickup truck
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: literally and go off the back and then end up
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: on standing on top of the cap and jumping down
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: and not hurting yourself. There's a way to land where
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: you roll and you absorb the shock through your body,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: and that you'd have to do with these big the
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: beginning parachutes that were given and we went from that.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: We just worked our way continued with those parachutes to
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: free fall and it was a clear and pole and
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: all out of a helicopter, and then we went into
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: a sea and the sea one thirty. We always went
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: off the tail ramp and all of our jumps were
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: spotted by us. Jump master would throw streamers out. We
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: did not go on navigational aids through the cockpit, and
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: we did not go out the parachute door. And so
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: we did ten jumps with the static line and then
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: we moved on to the clear and poll and then
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: five second which is basically five seconds and then ten
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: second delays, and we just worked our way up in
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: altitude to you know, we did clear in some areas.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Sixteen thousand feet was the high high end jump, and
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: that's three miles up. And by that time we were
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: able to do a lot of maneuvers in the sky,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: so we knew about tracking, barrel rolls, front back, hooking up,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: how to come in into a group and tag and
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: grab hold, how to break away, track out, and it
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: was just exciting. The nice thing about when I mentioned
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: about doing the Blue Angels air show, we did a
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: couple of them. But doing that, we had smoke canisters
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: different colored smoke attached to our ankles and that was cool.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: The totter pin was attached to a string up our legs,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: so when one canister was done, we pop it from
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: our thigh the next canister, so we always had smoke.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: You could see where we were going in the sky.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: We would have tracking races. Tracking is where you have
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: a position you're basically covering two feet of ground for
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: every foot you descend our two feet descent and a
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: port around the ground and it was great fun. And
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: then actually going to the ice going to Antarctica and
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: the first time jumping there, it was just it just
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: seemed like it was a nice sunny day. You know,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: it's the summer austral summer, southern hemispherits day's light. It
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't stay full light twenty four hours a day. But
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: to close, I mean, that's the whole point. You're there
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: when the Earth and the sun are working together. With that,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: you know, three o'clock in the afternoon is the same
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: as three o'clock in the morning. It's bright, you know,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: suns up. And so we jumped on glaciers. We would
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: cargo drop a container. The container would have all the
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: survival medical equipment, you know, things that we would need
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: on the ground, and would use that as the target
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: and then we'd go up to altitude and fly in
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: and land on target. And so that the training was fantastic.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: The greatest piece about the training was the collaboration with
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: the New Zealanders. For those guys, I mean Gary Ball,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Stu I can't remember Patty Freemy. These guys were fellas
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: that were mountaineers on on Mount Cook at the Hermitage
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: and Gary Ball was I think he was maybe two
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: years older than I was I mentioned Gary because while
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: we were there were around, you know, there's kettle ism
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: and getting ready to have tea and these guys are
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: smoking a fag as they say, you know, everybody smoked.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: All these guys were smokers, you know, smoking a cigarette
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: and then having a biscuit with tea on the glacier.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: And they're talking about this kid back home. They're saying,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: can you believe that kid holds he's fifteen? Really? What's
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: his name's Rob? Rob? Yeah, that's right Rob. What's his
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: last name? Someone says Haul? Haul?
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: Was that the road?
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, fifteen years old? Gary Ball was like Gary must
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: have been like twenty two or twenty three. Gary and
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Rob Hall were the first two guys that did the
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: eight Summits around the world. Yeah, do look them up.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm showing. Rob famously died, didn't he in the
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: Storm on Everest? Yes, in the nineties ninety correct ninety six.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: And his climbing partner Gary passed on a few years
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: before that, and the two of them did the eighth
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Summits in eight months and that was acclaim to fame,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: and there was like Adventure Unlimited. They had an organization.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: It's funny because Gary, at the time I knew him,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: was pretty distressed because Walter Bannatti, the Italian, came through.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard the name Walter Bannatti Banasi.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is he, the guy the pillar is named
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: after the Bannazi pillar.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I do believe, yes, the guy is was was epic. Well.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: He came through Scott Base, which is the New Zealand
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Antarctic Exploration Group, and and Gary was told that that
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Banati was going to climb Vincent Massif, which is the
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: tallest on the Antarctic content, and he was he just
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: thought he wasn't going to be able to do it. Anyway,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I had a little saying when I met Colin Mumty
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: through the commander of Scott Base, and I mentioned how
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: great it was working with Gary and Stu and Patty,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: and that I understood that Walter Banatti was coming through
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: and what an icon he is. And I said, and
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: all Gary can say is that he just hopes he's
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: going to be able to climb with him and then
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: come under. Is that right, That's what that's what he says.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: I said, yes, sir. And so it turned out that
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: that Gary and Walter Banatty did have an opportunity. They didn't.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: They didn't summit bad weather, but they did the next year,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: I guess. And I want to say something about the
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: the uh so, these guys what they did is they
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: were training their own guys and then they gave us
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: their techniques and in rescue techniques, mountain rescue techniques, and
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: ice and climbing in and out of crevasis and how
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: to go across kavas fields and really intense stuff. You know,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: did you you know about your you know, I expected
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: you you've done some of that, and certainly Everest you
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: will be dealing with that of ours fields and so forth.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Was rope together climbing in Norway. I'm not I haven't
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: really climbed an awful lot, but I just called it
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: going for a walk with a rope wrap round because
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: legally it was no I think it was Norway's highest point.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's called gowder Peek And apologies nor Regions
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: if I've got that those details wrong. But yeah, we
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: were roped up for our summit bid and as we were,
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: we we went with a tall company because the organization
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: I was with booked it for us as we were
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: going up all roped together for crevasses. We were people
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: like out you know, eighty year old grandma's walking their
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: dog like overtaking us. But we got the experience of
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: walking through the rope with the.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Rope, or when you did it, when we did it
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: in an art the first time. It's pretty wild when
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: you see the front lead guide disappear.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I take you.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: It's just going like this, like this, and then all
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: of a sudden it takes another step and and then
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: you it's just like you go down and and you
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: blame them, you know.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: Well it's you know, Scott, Scott and Shackleton's expeditions when
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: if anyway, anyone who's ever read those chronicles, blimey. They
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: they were left dangling with their huskies, dangling in the
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: in in these enormous crevasses, and you know, they didn't
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: have the technology we had now to get out the
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Caribbeanas and the Zumas and.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Pussics and yeah ju mars, I mean, my goodness, it's
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: we We made our own process. So we were we
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: were tying them up on the rope and loosening them
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: and it was all nylon, you know, rope different gauges
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: instead of jumars, and we weren't able to go. Yeah,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: we just didn't have that.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: I can make them out of your shoelaces, Am I right?
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: If you? If you absolutely have to, yeah.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, as long as it holds up. But yes, right,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: and it's good for your hands, yes, but for your
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: feet with all of your weight, you're sticking your neck out.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: Can we wells talk about? Okay? Quick one again. Antiarctica
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: was the seventh continent I visited. I honestly, I didn't
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: really have a massive interest to go there. I've been
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: in the Artic, I've been snowboarding, skiing, all this kind
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: of stuff, and I just thought, Ah, it's just going
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: to be a lot of ice and maybe a couple
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: of penguins. How wrong was I? It turned out to
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: be the best trip of my life.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: What made it the best? Ah? It was?
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: It was just phenomenal.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: For a start.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: You're down there in Tierra del Fuego meeting your ex
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: ndition ship as a place called Uschwire. It's barren. It's
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: probably what the Falkland Islands is a bit like, or
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: or to be in the the the Orkneys or somewhere
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: north of north of Scotland and it's just wild and
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: and then you wake up one more more morning. Haven't
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: eaten your eaten your crab the night before, because it's
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: all you know, a big sort of fishing kind of
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: thing going on there as well. And anyway, I'm digressing,
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: but you you wake up in your in your digs
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: and you look out the window and the suddenly your
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: expedition ship's there, your icebreaker, and you're just like, oh gosh,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: this is real. And you haul all your dive gear
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: and all your your kit down to this boat. You
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: meet your your teammates, and I was partnered up with
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: a very deer ossie chap and and Matt just turned
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: to me. He said, it's turn the massive match. We're
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: going find We were in our cabin and uh there
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: was a couple of Russian guys. They're getting all their
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: equipment out. So I looked at Matt said she'll go
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: and find find the bar. He said, does the Pope
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: need a shag? And that was it, and uh, yeah,
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: like I say, you know, we had a fatality. I
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: was the last person, you know, I sort of like
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: what I was the last person to see this girl
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Japanese girl and seconds later she she drowned, which you know,
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: did put a bit of a you know, a bit
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: of a sad angle on the whole whole thing. But
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: you know, we're we're we're adventurers, we're on expedition. It's
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: just you. You just you continue as you know, as
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: mountain climbers do, as as as skydivers do. You you
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: just just pick yourself up and go on. But anyway,
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: you wake a quick one go on.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: No you go oh no, no, no, no, you're you're in
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: the middle. I'm just going to say, you wait, that
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: is just amazing.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: You wake up the first morning, you look at your
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: porthole and you see an iceberg floating by the size
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: of Belgium, maybe exaggerating slightly behind it. It's just you're like, whoa, guys, guys, guys,
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: look at this. Look at they are enormous. And the
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: next thing, it might be not the first day, it
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: might be the second day at sea, but whatever in
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: the Drake passage, and then you're seeing whales of all
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: different species, all different watch we watched a pack of
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: killer whales orcas taking down a whale, and we watched
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: this play out for sort of two two and a
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: half hours or I've got all the I've got it
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: all on film, not not the whole. And then you
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: we we we went ashore in the South Shetland Islands
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: and we went ashore in a T shirt. That's that's
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: you know. We went ashore on the on the on
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: the the inflatables, the ribs, and I said, you know what,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: I'm just gonna wear a T shirt. It's it's will
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: people believe you're in Antarctica wearing a T shirt. And
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: and we went ashure. There's hundreds of penguins. And then
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: if we got we got further down the peninsula. We
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: went to visit the old explorer's huts, tins of marmite
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: that are one hundred years old, and they had won
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: one had a recipe book just for cooking some one
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: of the explorers had written up just for cooking penguins.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: Then we visited we dived outside the Ukrainian Research Center,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: and as we dived towards the center before going in
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: to meet the people, there was a sea lion. The
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: sea seat I can't, I don't know, basically, seal carcasses
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: all along the floor where this these guys have been.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: You know, topping up their larder with the local wildlife,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: and that.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: It was phenomenal, you know, sleeping out. We just slept
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: out in sleeping bags and a bivvy bivvy bag, two
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: sleeping bags, one inside the other and a bivvy bag. Sure,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: it's just such a great, great experience. And I met,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: you know, and I met wonderful people.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: It's the people that you meet because I mean it's
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: from all over. That's what I was feeling about the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: the Kiwis, the New Zealanders. Just how magnificent it was
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: to meet them, and scientists that came through an assistance
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: and researchers fascinating. I wanted to say, one, that's a fact.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: That's a wonderful story about landing there and the enthusiasm, excitement,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: the the atmosphere that you were engaged in when you
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: went there. I felt very much the same way in
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: mcmurdoll my first time in my walking into the mess hall,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: there were all these guys and just these baggy clothes
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: and beards and night watch hat, you know, caps and
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: stuck in caps and all these maps were spread out
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: on the table and it was a French leading an
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: expedition into Mount Erebus, but it was something from another era,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: although it was nineteen seventy Ford, it just seemed so
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: exciting and the conversation, you know, there was French, there
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: was Daan and different different nationalizes were a part of
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: this group that was going into the to the interior
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: over the edge of the crater, and then weeks later
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: they needed to be evacuated, you know, from inside there.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: So that was another another thing. The South Pole jump
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: was done in January of nineteen seventy seven, and it
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't for until another twenty years that anyone jumped poll
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: And the next time they did it it was a
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: civilian group that jumped out of an otter and six
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: guys or a couple of European fellas and Americans three died.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: Whoa out of the combination.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: I never really the information that I sent you includes
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: when it talks about the pair rescue. That link that's
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: in that email that I sent you has this story
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: at the bottom. It's our story when we jumped, and
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: I'm noted as Wyan two PJ. I think this is
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Wellington Jones, not Wells, and below it shows that twenty
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: years later, in nineteen ninety seven was the next jump
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: at South Pole and six guys three passed on. One
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: was a tandem and one was a solo, and they
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: had more jumps than us. Well, the things that we
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: were aware of is that you have to really back
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: then had you know, the housing of very cabled metal
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: housing for the ripcord to go in, and it would
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: be very easy for between the aircraft from where the
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: parachute had been condensation freezing your ripcord in the line
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: and not being able to pull it out. That's something
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: that we were very aware of to make sure that
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: our ripcord was free and clear. And I'm not certain
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: if they ever came up with exactly why. They talk
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: about the different stages that they were in and one
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: they tried to release their reserve and bottom line, they
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: lost track of where they were period and it's South Pole,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: the pole sits it around. Back then, it was probably
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: ninety eight hundred feet above sea. You know, it's above
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: the land. That's the ice thickness to the land and
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: jumping out. We were jumping out, we computed above sixteen
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: thousand feet. There was oxygen being passed around before we jumped.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: I didn't need any oxygen and on our jump, the
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: tail ramp to the C one thirty was frozen, so
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: we had a hand crank it open before if he
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: could jump. It was a bizarre, bizarre thing.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: It's yeah, I was just watching. I love these kind
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: of air crash investigation programs. One of my ones I've
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: been watching a lot recently. It's called Pilot Pilot Briefing,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: a chap called who Pilot I think it's called Pilot
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: Briefing on YouTube, and Hoover goes through all these he's
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: obviously a pilot himself, goes through all these fatal crashes
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: and how they happened. And a lot of them are
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: trainee pilots that have sort of gone out on their
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: own when they really shouldn't, you know, or take them
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: family out to show off sort of thing, and just
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: sort of circumvented all the rules and paid the ultimate price.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: But one of them was a pilot in I think
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: it was Hawaii that had really kind of he bullshitted
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: his qualifications or his experience really got this job. I
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: think it was Hawaii, and as a result he started
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: to get like really kind of cocky and reckless. And
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: as a pilot, I can testify that's quite easy to do.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: I remember spinning my plane around once at the end
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: of a runway. When I just landed, I spun the
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: plane un and I took off the other way, thinking
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: I was miles from any you know, any other pilot
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: in the in the in the in the swamps in Florida, Florida.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: And suddenly a voice came on the radio and said,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: you know, November five zero, brother, are you intending to
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: take off that way again? And I was like, oh
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: shit for you. I didn't even see them as traffic.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: I didn't even see it, you know. And I was like, oh, yes, sir,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: I I believe the wind has changed. I just like
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: waffaf waffled, you know. But this pilot briefing this this
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: plane had got all kind of smashed up and they
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: put it back together, and it hadn't had the right
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: stringent safety checks done on it, and it ended up
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: being leased to this skydive center. The pilot, you know,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: he made up his experience and and as a result, yeah,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: a whole a whole plane for the skydivers died. Basically
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: not even sure. Sorry, I'm losing my train of thought
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: because I was trying to get to your photos as
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: I was, as I was, uh speaking there. But you know,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: these fatalities are actually few and far between in sky
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: it's a pretty safe sport. But when they happen, they're
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: they're obviously always horrendous, aren't they they are?
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: They just it catches your breath. And if you know
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: the person, I mean I haven't, I haven't known anyone.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: I did know someone and all my climbing partner went
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: down on a weekend and I was not able to
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: go with and we would jump on weekends because of
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: Paris Valley in California that now has become a major
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: drops on. Back then it was just a runway, you know,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: DC three, a couple of plans and they were all
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: you know, hollowed out for for skydarbors familiar wells.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: With the term backyard a backyard backyarding or backyard landing.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: No, I mean I can imagine what that is.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, someone that I was skydoming at Fort ps in
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: Florida and they and someone came up with this expression
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: and I was like, what what is it? And they said,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: it's when the pilots chucked you out in the wrong
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: place and you have to just like look down and
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: pick somewhere to land. And this girl said, I just
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: landed in someone's back garden. All came out of the house.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, we've got a skydiver, you know, quite regularly.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: One of the guys I was jumping, we landed on
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: the golf course.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: I have done I've done that, and just missed the
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: telephone pole in the wire, I mean my legs. I said,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: I'll just brush off from it because I thought and
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: then I was concerned about the canopy, but it just
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: wheeled around and didn't get caught up on the on
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: the line, but it was the golf course.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: One guy that I jumped with, he'd come down in
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: a corn field as like a wheat kind of corn
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: not the corner the cobb and or wheat wheat field
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: rather sorry, and he thought, oh, I'll be clever if
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: I'm landing in a field, I'll just swoop down anyway
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: like they do doing one of these you know, massive
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: swoops that they come into land. And he didn't know
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: there was a barbed wire fence half halfway across this
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: th field, so he had he had the scars to
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: show that. And of course it's one thing if you're
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: over land, but sometimes the pilot gets it wrong and
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: they're over water and that's yeah, that becomes really serious.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: Then we were planning to do a water jump and
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: we didn't have done night jumps. We were planning to
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: do a halo didn't happen. That didn't happen. The halo
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: didn't happen, and the jumping out of the the blimp
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: a good year blimp, which is you know what do
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean by yeah?
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: Like I said, okay, helium or hydrogenals?
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: Correct? Correct? Yeah, bad weather for that and the halo jump.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: We didn't get clearance from from our command because of timing,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: but it was we're ready to do it, you know.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: I The longest delay I've been on is ninety second
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: lay and that was a good amount of time in
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: the air of flying.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: Well, there's so much to ask you about it. Have
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: you done the running with the bulls or is that
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: your writing partner?
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: No, we both did that a year ago.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm just saying it is that you in you
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: wearing the is it like Spanish cap on your head?
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, And it's a bit I can understand. It's a
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: bit controversial.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: Is it.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: Some people think it's unnecessarily cruel Is that is that cruelty?
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: Is the ball? Well, it's the bullfight at the end
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: of the day because the six balls, they run it
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: for seven days, eight days. It's it's July seventh through
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: the fourteenth. Every day eight am, the rocket goes off.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: The streets have been has been closed off. It's a
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: half mile between the gate here the bulls are released.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: There are six balls, are between fifteen and two thousand pounds.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: They have grown up together on one farm, so they
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: know each other, and there's a leader that's a natural leader,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: that's been a leader their whole life. Of the balls
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: that those five six balls, I mean, And so they're
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: going at a pace a four minute mile pace the
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: balls on cobblestone streets for half a mile. Nothing's happening
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: to the balls for the running of the balls. It's
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: in the evening that those six balls. It's a bull
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: fight and it's a very big deal. And it's not
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: something that interests me, you know, I'm.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: Just in that it's kind of crazy, isn't it to me?
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: It is?
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, we had fox hunting banned in the UK
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: that was really sort of you know, depending on what
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: side of the fence, you well, both sides. It was
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: a controversial ban, but it was a controversial. They didn't
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: even call it a sport. They said it was pest control.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: And you know, everyone's going to have their own view
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: with it, aren't they. It's obviously highly historic in this country,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: but it was just deemed cruel to chase an animal
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: for you know, ten miles across countryside with thirty horses
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: and fifty baying hounds and kind of hardened to defend
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: that one, right, But of course putting an animal in
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: the ring knowing it's going to end up dead, and
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: the irony being like when the mattador gets he gets
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: prodded or stabbed with the bulls horns, everyone has a
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: hissy fit. It's and I'm well aware, you know a
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: lot of people are they're on the side of the bull.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: Obviously it's a strange. I'm not judging it. It's their culture.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: It's probably I don't know, a thousand years old.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: That's that older than that. It goes way back to
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: the third century when the farmers would bringing the bulls
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: into town and it was a two day festival. It's
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: called the same saint for mean festival sat for men
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: and that was a martyred saint. And then it evolved
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: into well, let's have a bullfight, you know, and so
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: by the sixteenth, very late fifteen hundreds, it turned into
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: an eight day event where it was let's run with
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: the bullets through the street. Same place Copplestone. I mean
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: it's the same place.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: Pamplo, Pamplona, Pamplona.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's northern northern Spain and it's beautiful. I mean,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: is Pamplona beautiful. Pamplona is very interesting. I really don't
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: know the city, but San Sebastian and bill Bao are
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: really amazing places in Spain. The food is phenomenal and
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: so they you know, when we we ran the second day,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: miles and I decided we would run with the professional guys.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: The guys start in the beginning because they want to
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: run on the horns of the bull and they We
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: had a trainer, a coach that is very well known.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: He's done over one hundred runs and he need runs
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: on the horns of the bulls. So you are running
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: directly in front of the bull, where the nose of
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: the bull is basically on your back and the horns
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: around or like right here, or you're on the side
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: of your head and you are running, and that requires
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: tremendous skill, requires knowledge of bulls in their temperaments, but
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: you never know what you're going to get, who you're
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: going to be in front of, And then avoiding the
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: pile ups because they just happen. It's not the bulls
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: you have to be concerned about. It's your fellow runner.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: They trip. One trips and suddenly there's nine guys piled
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: up and the bulls are coming and they charge through it.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: That would be nine guys with my shoe print on
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: their faces.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: That's that's exactly right. I figured I would try to
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: hit shoulders. I went over one pile up and I
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: just I land. I mean it was like on someone's
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: shoulder and leapt over it to get beyond them and
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: and then try to just you know, wheel around them.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: But it was really it was It was Miles's birthday,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: an important birthday, milestone birthday, and we decided after the
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: first of the year that that summer we would run
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: with the bulls, and so he did his sprints and
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: I did my you know, going up and down mountains
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: and we figured out that I did. I said, I can't.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: I've got to have a shoe that's going to handle
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: cobblestone that's damp. And so I found uh Solomon Solomon
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: branded you know. There. It was just that it was
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: excellent and it just held up, you know, and it
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: was wonderful, lovely. So there were a bunch of us
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: did it and we had a great time in San Sebastian. Particularly.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: Have you seen it?
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: Have you seen that Charlie Sheen's dad is Michael she
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: I really haven't an old mind. I know she's dad
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: from was in Apocalypse Martin Martin, Martin, gosh, yes, have
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: you seen the film the way that he did?
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: It's wonderful.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that's quite a nice film to watch, isn't it.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: I thought it was and I thought it was very real.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know, to do the Camino, I've thought
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: of it, and Miles and I have thought of it,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: and we've just steered away from it. I mean, it's
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: not something that really would take more time. I did
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: a motorcycle trip. I did a journey into British Columbia
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: with a friend after coming back from the Bulls. I
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: did a four thousand mile motorcycle trip. I ride a
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: twelve hundreds adventure and it went from Santa Fe, New Mexico,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: up through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, you know, cut
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: over to Idaho in different places in Utah and went
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: into British Columbia. We went wanted to see the land
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: we had. There was purpose behind. I needed to see
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: a daughter in Bozeman that was on her way to
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: graduate school in Seattle. And Thomas needed to say goodbye
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: to his brother that had passed on a year and
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: a half before that died fly fishing on a river
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: outside of Bozeman with a storm. We came in and
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: the tree knocked down and hit him. Yep, yeah, gosh.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: And it was a very favored brother of a very
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: large family there. I think there's like nine children in
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: his family. And Patrick was was an adventurer and he died.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: So Thomas and I did this drike. He was also
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: on a a GS goal sport.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: And they wonder, no, BMW, I'm sorry, Yeah, it's it's
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: the same.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: It's the same one. It's the same as what Charlie
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: born In and Neoan McGregor did on the Long Way around.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: And that that was interesting, wasn't it? Because their cameraman,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: the the Central European guy, I can't remember, from Czech
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: or somewhere. Yeah, he's BMW broke in half and he
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: bought bought a local bike, didn't he and it and
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: it proved to be much better than the BMW's.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: Well they're they're big and cumbersome actually, you know, and
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: but they're of as you could see in the journey. Now.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: The guy that trained them for risk crisis management assessment
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: was the same fellow that they work with us, Jamie
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: Lowther Pinkert, and he's a SAS major retired from the
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: Irish Guard, and he was very knowledgeable on checkpoints and kidnapping,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: ransom and he knew exactly he could tell us, you know,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: Saudi Jordan, Siria, Israel, where what to do, how to
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: behave and so anyway, from a motorcycle standpoint, we it
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: was really a trip, you know, to do a long
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: It was an eighteen day trip, which was long, and
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: I had planned it to do the Camino. Referring back
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: to Charlie and Martin and his dad would take a
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: long time. You know, I think it would be great,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: but I find, you see, I find my meditation and
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: motion like this morning on the mountain. That's my time
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: to balance out, to get in tune, you know, with
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: my show. And so I don't I won't don't have
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: the time. I want to do the matter Horn. That's
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: the mountain I want to do, is the matter Horn.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: I played Edward Whimper in a play in New York
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: City off Broadway, and I found out when he was
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: the one that first made it to the top in
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: the eighteen hundred eighteen sixty five or something like that,
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: and on the way down because of the hemp rope
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: that he grabbed to use, broke and three fell to
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: their death of his team, and he was trying to
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: beat the Italians that particular day. And it's a mountain
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: just like Everes. In the beginning, so many people tried
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to get up and they couldn't. Well,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: he figured it out and at the same time the
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: tragedy of the loss. But that's the mountain I would
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: like to climb because of the beauty. Have you been there?
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: Have you been there?
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: But I've read all the stories on the Eiger and
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: the matter Horn, and Eiger is at the Hinter's choice
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: of traverse that the other ones. Yeah, that's my gosh.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: And the little route way that you can get out
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: through the rock face halfway up. I wanted to say, oh,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: what we're talking about biking, won't we.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mentioned I brought that up because of of yeah.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't remember what, but this is on behalf
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: of my son, my son. Have you seen wild Hogs?
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: Oh a long time ago? Yeah?
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, John John John Travota.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: It was it was filmed film fourteen miles away from here. Ah, okay,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: it was a filmed in Madrid, New Mexico. That was
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: that was that was the town that they went through.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: And you know, funny stuff, right.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: We love that. We love that food.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so funny. It's amazing that you you talk
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: about it from from your position, and that's something it's
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: seem Yeah.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: The the Comino, so friends at home that at El Comino.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: The way the walk is that the old pill Pilgrims walk,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: and it starts in France and goes down into Spain
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: and then ends up at the sea.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: Does it not understanding?
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but what I've heard is some people go and
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: do it in sections. Yes, so they you know, one
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: summer they'll do one bit, then at the next holiday
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: they'll they'll they'll do another bit. Yeah, So let's talk
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: about your camel track. How what was the inspiration behind that?
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: Can?
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: Can you explain? Where did you go? How did how
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: are you hire a camel?
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: Well, the camel was a part of the journey. The
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: track it was it was inspired from what a desire
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: Miles and I meeting up again after how I was
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: working in another in DC and I came back through
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: and saw Miles. And this is two thousand and five.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: When two thousand when nine to eleven happened, I was
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: with Well, the chairman of the board was Alma Powell,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: and Colon Powell, of course was Secretary of Defense at
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: the time, and I knew him before that knew her,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: and she hired me to be the chief operating officer
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: of this organization. And so my boss, who was also
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: a cabinet secretary, wife, a former drugs are and Secretary
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: of Education individual. I don't want to get into all
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: these names, but I was there and then experienced nine
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: to eleven from DC and New York because I lost
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: friends and the organization I was working for and people
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: running that they were leading. The organization had friends on
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: flights and the school. There were three schools that were
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: young children that were picked for a science project to
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: go to California there on the White and my foundation
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: served those schools and so there was a very close tie.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: And all this, I had just hired the personal secretary
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: to my boss, whose father was the head of the
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: Naval Reserve, Admiral Toteshek And on nine to eleven, First
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: of all, I had arrived with my family in all
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: my trucks, the trucks with a move friday before. On Monday,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: I hired the gal whose father was the head of
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: the naval Reserves. On Tuesday morning, she showed up early
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: and I thought, this is a great sign. She's a
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: dedicated work. She's going to dig in. And the first
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: thing I heard was a scream, I mean from the
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: boardroom where the TV was on, and she was responding
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: to the tower. And then it wasn't long after that
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon was hit. That's where Admiral Toteship was and
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: his office the wing that was hit with his wing,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: and so I had this young girl in tears and
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: she had had to leave. He crawled out with his
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: group from their officers. But anyway, from nine to eleven
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: up to two thousand and five, I had left the foundation.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing miles. He's saying, what do you think about
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: this war? It was said, mission accomplished. It's not. It's
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: clearly a mess. Do you know anything about T. E. Lawrence?
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: And I was going, yeah, how do you know? T. E. Lawrence?
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: I said, I was going to do a one man
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: show because I thought I could, you know, be the
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: Peter O'Toole character, because you know, I figured I ought
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: to be great to have as a backup to my acting,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: which was my main thing at the time. He said,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: that's great. I said, no, it's not great. He was
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: five f five and a half. I'm six three. You know,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not ge Lawrence, but I think he's phenomenal. He said,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: you know what, we need to do a show. We
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: ended up introducing a concept to a Broadway producer. She
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: contracted with us. We're on it to this day. Yesterday
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: we had a meeting. We've had four different riders. After
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: we came out of the meeting with her, we looked
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: at each other and said, you know what, yeah, I
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: do We've got to go so we wanted to go
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: because of the plane, have information about the play, follow
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: t Lawrence's path because he's the only Westerner that we
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: knew that had anything good to say about Arabs and
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: about the area. And he was a guy that understood
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: the tribes. We've done enough research. He understood, you know,
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: the culture. He loved it. He didn't try to change them,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: and so we wanted to see for ourselves or our
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: own eyes, get our butts in camel and go through
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: the desert and follow his path from Jiddah up through
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: through Akaba, going north in through Jordan into Syria and
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: then get over to Israel. We did camel ride from
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: Akiba to Wadi Rum, so it's about fifty clicks to
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: get to water. We run somewhere around that that amount
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: of travel, and we spent four days on camels in
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: between we did There was a lot of backstory to
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: this that I didn't need to get into it because
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: it's about the setting it up. But it took eight
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: months to train and included training that I mentioned with
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: Jamie Lother Pinkerton, the SAS individual. At the time, he
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: was the Private Secretary to the Queen in charge of
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: Prince Harry and Prince William's security. He was also a
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: partner at an international risk management insurance company, Ackerman and
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: look it up. I mean you don't need it to
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: right now, but I mean it was back back in
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: two thousand and five, and it was through that when
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: we realized we needed to get insurance and we needed
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: to ride our will. We needed to get a lot
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: of things together before going that. We hooked up with Jamie,
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: and Jamie was a practicality and he really broke it
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: down by country, what to expect, what to avoid, how
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: to deal with kidnapp. We had the most recent uh,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: the the clearance for four hundred and six Megga Hurts
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: had just been cleared in two thousand and five, so
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: personal locator beacons were available. We had one, had sat phone,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: we had tough book, we had foldable solar powered on
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: a rechargeable panel, and we had a began a began.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, you remember began.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: We had We were lucky on our Atlantic road. Always
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: traditionally they've taken began and always traditionally people have been
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: able to upload like a you know, a six photo
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: or something. Of course, we had Starling so we had
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: high speed broadband the whole way.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: You know, we had to we dealt with with broad
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: down global access and that was a very peculiar looking
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: thing for at at border crossings, especially going into Israel.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: What she said, the began did you say.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: Was what? Yes? She said, what is this? She opens
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: it up, there's nothing inside. I said, it's a began
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: brogdown global. It's just a network to connect with the Internet.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: And she let it fly. But she brought associates over
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: to see the gear that we have because the PLB
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: that was brand new, they didn't have it in Israel.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 5: You say, it's a four hundred and six megahood did yes, what.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: Do you do? I said, we're just travelers. No, what
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: do you do is we're entertainers. Why were you in
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: Sudi Syria? Jordan's he's your friends. It's like God intent,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: it's in the book, in the book. So we were
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: which border? Was this? Where? Where? She said this immigration
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: that in Israel?
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: Were to Yeah, Oh, it's it's it's a known thing
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: amongst travelers. If you go into Israel, yeah, don't get
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: don't get your passport stamped.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: And if you go that infuriated her too. That was
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: in two thousand five. So when I she said watch this, oh,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: and by that time she just slammed it down.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: I had the same I can't remember which one it was.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: I was going into.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: Where did you cross into? So we went on the
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: from Amman. We went to the King Hussein Alan b
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: Bridge on a bus.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: The back of it lat is it, yes.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah?
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: And I can't remember which which immigration it was where
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: I said just I just said, don't stamp my passport
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: and the guy went like that, which makes me think
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: it might have been the Israeli side, And you know,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: he was like scoffed, does this say like, you know,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: like I'm stupid. You don't need to tell me that.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: And he put my passport on this big pile with
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: the other tourists that were coming through. He turned to
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: do something and then he turned back, got these passports
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: and went and I thought, I know what he's going
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: to do. And mine came about and it was I
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: was like whoa, and he went sorry and I was like, yeah,
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: not so clever, now, are you, dickhead? And he did.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: I asked him not to stamp it, and he said,
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 2: don't worry, I'm not stupid, I'm not going to stamp it.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: And then he accidentally stamped it. So it was fine.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: It was gosh, it was. It was fine because I
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: didn't did.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: I we weren't going back.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't remember which way I where I flew
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: flew out of?
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: Was it Damascus? Uh?
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: No, Jordan or ah. Look, I'm getting totally confused.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: I can't, but it's important because it was important for
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: us because we were coming back.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just a known thing like don't get
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: your part. If you get your passports, stampeding is was it?
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: If you've got it stand in Israel, you're not going
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: to be welcome in the Arab countries or I can't remember. Yeah,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: I think it was.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: No, that is what it is. Yeah, because Saudi people
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: are they're just I mean, they were not up for it.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But I must have gotten back. I must have
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: got back into Israel because I'm sure I flew you.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: Could keep you could getting into Israel is fine. It
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: would be getting into Arab country.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was Yeah, but Chris,
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: it was it was.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: A it was a it was a challenging situation. And
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: she was so pretty. That was the thing I mean,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: we've been in in, you know, with all these guys.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: And then it was like three weeks and I hadn't
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: even thought much of my wife. There had been some communication,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: but we were just so focused on our scan situational
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: awareness where we were, what was going on on that
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: it were exhausted. And I got a whiff of rose
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: perfumed wow, And she tells me, right off, I look away,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: look at me when I talk to you.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 5: I was like, okay, well there, and then it was
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 5: the questions, questions, questions, you.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: Know, and and she but she figured out and in
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: she figured out that I was, you know, Blackwater triple
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: canopy because I never said and said, oh, I get it.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: You've got all these nice toys. Maybe someday I will
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: do it and get a nice paying job like you.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: I was good East. I was not. I Brewer often asked,
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: are you consultant consulting thirty nine checkpoints? And people have said, well,
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: once you go through a couple, you're good, right, and said, no,
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: every single checkpoint, you pay attention. You've got your gear together,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: you kit together, you've got your head to get then
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: you've got what you need at your fingertips and keep
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: your mouth closed, you make direct eye come through. Well
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: it's a long lakem If they shake hands, you hold
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: it just a little bit longer and let them know
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: everything's good because they have to respond. And then that
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: sets the tone. And if you're asked to sit down
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: and have tea in a date whatever, no, no business talk,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: fit talk, family talk. You know, how many boys do
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: you have except your area? How many sons? Oh, how
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: many sons? Mister? You know he said, Bookla and Sharlah tomorrow,
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: God willing and anyway, there are many, many experiences in
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: the Middle East and going to the different cities, being
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: on a camel. The camels are just magnificent. We were
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: on thoroughbreds. We had a guide, a single guide, a
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: little fellow called Sabah. He wore flip flops. You know.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: You take his flip flops off, or you had him
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: on a little bit and we'll climb up the crowd
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: of some of the formations in Wad, I run just lead,
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: just free, and it was it was magnificent, magnificent. Yeah.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: I was just shown some of my pictures there of
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: of what I Raman and Petra, isn't it the ruins? Yeah,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: you go through that crack in the in the cliff
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: and then suddenly you're in this kind of amazing, amazingly
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: stunning part of history.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have you have you been there? Yeah?
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: I trying to think of.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: Trying to think, yeah, ages ago, I thought, you know,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: I want to go to the quote unquote Holy Land.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: It was it must have been two thousand and five,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: because I remember I was training for the London Marathon.
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: So I flew to Israel, hired a car, slept in
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: the car for the you know, for the week, and
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 2: I just drove around to all the places slept. I
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: remember getting wake up and got a photo there somewhere
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: with me. I woke up there was a tortoise right
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: outside the car door. And but I just remember driving
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: into Palestine and back then. You know, I don't think
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 2: you'd get many tourists driving into West Bank and you've
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 2: got to go past all the you know, the huge
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: Israeli the water that they call it the Peaceful, don't they,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: But basically it's yeah, you know, apartheid Wall. And I
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: remember thinking how difficult is it going to be for
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 2: me to get into West Bank? And it was just
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: remarkably easy. I think they literally flashed my past, but
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: I don't even think I flashed my past with the
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: just waved me in. And and yes, when I first
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: got to meet Pales, the second time I got to
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: meet Palestinians. And I think we we have a distorted
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: view in the UK because the the the Muslims, well
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: we you know, we've got these want to say the word,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: but we've got gangs here that don't do very nice
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: things to women as such, they kind of tar that community.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: And that's not I'm not tying in the community myself,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: but I'm saying that. And we're subjected to massive illegal
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 2: immigration here. They they ship in foreigners as fast as
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: they can, just trying to destroy the UK. And they're
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: doing a really Sweden's destroyed already, the UK is not,
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: you know, very very close behind it. And sorry, the
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: point I'm getting at is I think in our country
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: we confuse Palestinians with like for example, Pakistan, Pakistanis which
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: is the majority of our community. We've got a big,
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: big and I think we've got a big Palestinian community
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: as well, but nowhere near the same numbers. Anyway. All
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: I was trying to say is, you know, I just
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 2: had a great time, just had a eight time in Palestine.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: Met just met wonderful, wonderfully kind people. You know. I
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: met them at the Dead Sea as well, and they
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: were just so welcome in once they knew that you
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: were a guest there. They just couldn't look after you enough.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: And it's kind of been it's say, frustrating, but it's
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: not been nice that.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: I don't want to turn this into a political discussion
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: at all, but it's not been nice to see the
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: level of ignorance in the UK that people don't understand
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: that the Palestinians they're not you know, they're they're not
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: like frigging undesirables. They're really great and I've worked with them.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: I've worked with Palestins in Norway. You know, I'm sort
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: of you know, done, like a I suppose you call
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: it a sharing ex experience, and yeah, you know, really
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: cool people. I remember one of them said, if you
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: wanted tobacco, and nobody had any tobacco. We were on
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: top of a mountain in Norway in this ski hotel,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: and they went, no problem, we will smoke apples, and
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: they could make tobacco out of apple peel and stuff,
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: and it was ah, sorry, I'm kind of like waffling
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: on a bit. I'm not sure how I got there,
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 2: but yeah. I went to Israel, went into West Bank.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: I was driving through West Bank and I picked up
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: this hitchhiker called Omri and he was Israeli. He'd been
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: in the Defense Force, and again, you know, he defied
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 2: all stereotype. He was a really nice guy. First thing
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 2: he said is do you like Pink Floyd. I said, I,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: you know, all my mates back home are into him.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not. He went, okay, you must. He pulled out
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 2: five CDs and insisted that I took them right then
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: he said and smoking, and he pulled out this this
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: blim of hash and I was like, I like you.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: And that was my first time in Israel and Palestine.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 2: I've been I've been there, been there a second time.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 2: But then I went through to Jordan, ended up in
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: Wadi Ram, obviously because you've got to go there on
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: some sort of jeep safari, and then went to Petra
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: and then ended up I think in Akoba by by
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: the sea. But I'm probably getting confused.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: Golf of No, you're not. It's the Golf of Akaba,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: which is the northern part of the Red Sea, and
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: that's the fort is right there on.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: Oh that's gone funny. You've gone funny now me. Oh
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: that's okay, I can hear.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 3: I mean now because it's picked up on the computer.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 3: That's good. Yea, I will not look away. So, yes,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 3: Akaba is was a destination, one of the main destinations,
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 3: because that's where the turning point of the World War
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 3: One in Lawrence of Arabia with Lawrence of Lawrence. For
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 3: the Arabs, it was a big wind because it was
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 3: a supply chain that was up to that fort. All
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 3: the guns were facing the bay, and so Lawrence came
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 3: up with the idea to come from behind. And it's
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 3: gorilla warfare. I mean, the guy wrote the definition in
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 3: the encyclopedia of what gorilla warfare is. It's mathematical even
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 3: it's just it's unfortunate that an English speaking Westerner wrote
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 3: the definition and now everybody's practicing it. I mean nine
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 3: to eleven talk about guerrilla warfare, you know, and the
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 3: surprise attack not knowing it's coming in boom in the
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 3: devastation that Petro was wonderful. Yep. We went through Petra
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 3: and we went through many went to castles, went to towns,
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 3: went to historical locations. Damascus was just magnificent, you know,
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 3: as one of the oldest cities in the world, and
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 3: it's just so the culture was amazing. And what you're
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 3: saying about Palestinians and Israelis, it's in our book A
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 3: Line in the Sand. We have two proteges ones a Jew,
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 3: Jeremy and Abdu is Muslim. They met at a camp
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 3: in Maine, USA. The camp is called the Real camp
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 3: is called Seeds of Peace, and it's where high school
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 3: students Israeli and Muslim Palestinian get together for the summer
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 3: and they have workshops on conflict resolution, on learning about
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 3: each other, you know. And now the Israeli guys who
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 3: are there there and they're fIF sixteen years old, they
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 3: go home and they're in the idea for two years.
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 3: What was beautiful is that we decided our fundraising model
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 3: to do this track included twenty five percent of what
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 3: we raised would go to Seeds of Peace. And when
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 3: we presented the idea that the people in New York
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 3: City of the Seeds of Peace, the woman whose husband
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 3: started it had passed on the woman. The wife said
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 3: we will set you up in Jeddah and then Aman,
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 3: and in Dabascus and in Jerusalem with seeds of peace
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 3: to meet. We have offices in all these places to
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 3: go and to meet people, and you can talk with
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 3: our people there that have come to the United States
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 3: for the summer. Some of them will be older. Some
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 3: work for us now because we've been around since nineteen
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 3: ninety three, and so the people that we met. One
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 3: of the most interesting things that happened in three different
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 3: situations with people.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 6: Saying, you know, my parents weren't one guys that, yeah,
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 6: they were okay about me going to this camp, and
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 6: others people said, well no, they're saying, why are you
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 6: doing that?
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 3: You know what those people think? The other people, whatever
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 3: they are, why are there because we have to we
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 3: want bring peace. Oh that's a bunch of baloney. Anyway,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 3: the kids get to the camp, they come with a
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 3: very altruistic sense that they're going to love everybody. And
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 3: then there's a conflict between an Israeli girl and a
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 3: Palestinian girl, and that Israeli girl just unleashes on her
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 3: and she sounds exactly in the end, she ends up
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 3: crying and asking for apology because she sounded just like
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 3: her mother, and she said, I swore I would never
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 3: say these this is what my mother has taught me.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 3: And the counselor says, that's why you're here. Do you
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 3: see her? She plays the flute. You know, she's a
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 3: real person. You're both young ladies in high school. What's different?
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 3: You see what we've been taught.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, of course, absolutely.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 3: Seeds of peace.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just showing some pictures.
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 3: Because I that is wonderful. You're doing this because it
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 3: is in the book. We call it seeds of Hope.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 3: And so we have Jeremy and Abdu. There's such colorful
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 3: young guys, you know, and they're based on real guys.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 3: And what you see and hear by reading is that they,
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 3: you know, they have a love of family, they have
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 3: a love of their religion, they have a you know,
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 3: they believe in who they are, and they're just very
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 3: perplexed by what their government is doing.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, we talk a lot about this sort of thing
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 2: on my when I do live shows. We also look
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: at the the Rothschild's influence in the area with respect
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: to T. Lawrence and how Yeah, the Palacine has got
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: sold out, sold out, obviously somewhat, but I don't want
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: to go there because this has been such a lovely
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: chat and I don't think we've always got to be political.
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: I just want to talk adventure and wells. Let's talk
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: a little bit about you. Are you a bard? Is
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: that right word? Or am I ever got that wrong?
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 3: I mean as as an actor?
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, someone who plays Shakespeare called a bard or ignorance.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 3: Well he is. He is the bard, which was a
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 3: writer that wrote everything. I've done some Shakespearean plays and
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 3: workshops and scenes a lot. My background was theater first,
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 3: and and I branched out once I got into New Mexico.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 3: It happens to have a lot of offerings for television
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 3: and film work here. Many films are done here. Lately
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 3: there's been a big stir up because there's been strikes
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 3: across the board. Actors strike, writers strike and whatnot. But
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 3: if anyone's interested, you can see my reel on IMDb,
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 3: which is the Internet movie database, and my name is
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 3: Tad Jones. Tad is my acting name.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's quite a lot about you on on the insnet.
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 2: You've got your whole You've got a whole page on Google.
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: But it just comes up when you put your name in.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: You've got a whole AI overview. Now if I.
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 3: See Wells Jones Ted Wells Jones podcast, I that's something
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 3: that will show some of the ones. There's many that
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 3: haven't been posted yet. And then Tad Johns as an actor.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 4: And and people go to the I m dB page
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 4: and that is that brings up a real and and
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 4: one's bio.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna get that out
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: now because oh.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 3: You're pretty cool doing that. That's nice.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well I'm friends, I say, friends, friends who are
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 2: doing the podcast with the stuntman who played our late
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 2: queen at jumping out of a hellic and parachuting into
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: the London Olympics. Yes, I say our Lake again. I
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 2: don't want to get pollical. There'll be people out there going,
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: oh she was your green Chris, but she was, you know,
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: known as the Queen of England. But yeah, he's a
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 2: stunt man he played her. He also was the first
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 2: guy to land in a wingsuit without deploying his parachute.
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 2: He landed on a load of gary I should say,
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: landed on a load of cardboard boxes.
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 3: How fast was he flying?
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: Slow?
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 3: Down? You know, how did you?
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the friends out there, the podcast is going to
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 2: come up.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: Soon.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: Let me just have a quick so.
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 3: You've been bringing up images.
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: Or it's a little bit at my cost. Here's Gary.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: So Gary Connery, folks, stay tuned. I'm doing the second
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: podcast with him. Gary's been very brutally frank and honest
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 2: because he served a prison sentence for assault and he
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: completely claims his innocence and wanted to come back on
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: the show to talk about it. But the first show
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: we did, we covered him doubling as the stunt double
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: for the Queen when she was doing her bit with
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 2: James Bond. And also let me just just type in, yeah,
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 2: this one here, folks, you can see wells, I'm just
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: showing them the what's on the internet search? But yeah,
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 2: he landed on these cardboard boxes. It was, yeah, pretty
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: brave to jump out of a helicopter and no, you're
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 2: not going to deploy your parachute, You're just you're gonna
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: you know, flare and then smack into these boxes. It was,
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 2: you know, pretty incredible.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 3: I just he injured it all?
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: No, he he what's that skydive in turn when he
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: nails something? But he he nailed it. I'm just showing
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: it now. You can see him over the boxes.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 3: They don't have that on my screen.
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: No, I can't. I can't share it with you unfortunately,
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: Well I can't. I can't do both. But there he ghosts.
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 2: You can if you typing Gary Connery into a search engine, yeah,
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: you'll come. I've totally lost my train of thought. Now, Oh,
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: that was what I was going to say. Well, when
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 2: he was on, I got his eye. I always getting IMDb
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: up and my god, he's been in like two hundred
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: films or something.
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 3: That's amazing. So I was not my kids at all.
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 3: It's not my case.
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: I have not.
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 3: Pursueded like that. I've just been been fortunate to get
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 3: some nice roles and some recurring roles on some television shows.
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 2: The Lone Ranger was that the Johnny Depp one.
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, Wow, Johnny Depp and Army Hammer.
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: Army.
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 3: I met Army. I heard a motorcycle and I was
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 3: coming between trailers, and all of a sudden, that motorcycle
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 3: was in my face and it was Army on it,
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 3: and he kind of lost the control of it. It
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 3: was a scrambler. It was like a seven fifty scrambler
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 3: Yamaha Yamaha company you know, donated this to Army and
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 3: a couple of people, and but he what a nice
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 3: guy he is Army Hammer. When I was filming, Johnny
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 3: was not was not there. They the stunt guys were
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 3: handling all of his his work.
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 2: You've been in quite a few films though.
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: Oh so you've got it out yeah?
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, Yeah, that's why I'm looking this.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 3: You have the reel that's right there. It's like a
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 3: two minute reel.
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 2: Do you know what. I wouldn't be able to play
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: it because we get hit for copyright unfortunately with stuff
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: like that. I see, but I can, folks, if you
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 2: go to IMDb, you can see the demo reels, so
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: you can go and play them, play them for yourselves.
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: But Crash was.
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 2: Quite a I seem to remember that was quite popular
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 2: at the time.
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: Which one Crash?
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 3: Oh yes, you sure was?
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: Yes? Wow?
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 2: So yeah, what have you had to go to Hollywood
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: to be in these roles? Or are they filmed at
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 2: locations we wouldn't expect.
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 3: They're filmed here? All of these are? You know, there's
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 3: a huge Netflix studio in Albuquerque. Wow, I mean their
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 3: biggest their second largest facility, and it's the most you know,
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 3: up to date. And there are other studios that are
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 3: here as well. Right now. It's very because, as I
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 3: was saying, the writer's strike and the actors strike and
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 3: the teamsters strike really turned business upside down. Though we
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 3: needed to have a strike to get wages, the studios
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 3: or the payback is really brutal. They are not signing
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 3: on to do to do the same numbers of shows.
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 3: You know, Breaking Bad is a big one nuts here,
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was right Manhattan.
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 3: I enjoyed being in Manhattan. I've played a major Pelgrine
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 3: who was a major in the army, of course, and
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 3: that's all based on the Manhattan. The nuclear bomb. It's
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 3: out of Los Alamos. Los Alamos is just down the
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 3: road from here.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: Wonderful.
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 2: What's the temperature where you are.
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 3: Right where I am today, I'll give you fahrenheit. I
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 3: think it's supposed to be around sixty three, so it's
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 3: gone up.
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 2: I need to transfer that to Celsius because I'm terrible
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 2: at fahrenheit.
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 3: I'm terrible going the other way.
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: Oh seventeen degrees, yeah, and that by a bomby seventeen degrees.
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 3: Now, yesterday I was all set to go on a
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 3: motorcycle ride and front flat tire.
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: I know how you can fix that, but here in it. Yeah,
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 2: if you go on the eBay, you can buy green gunk.
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 3: I thought that I would do that.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how safe that I did it
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 2: on my motorbike.
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 3: We'll get me to the shop. You see, I need
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 3: to have an oil change anyway. I don't do my
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 3: own oil changes. But the bike is just high performance,
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 3: very well. It's just calibrated and tuned, and so I'm
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 3: actually going to take it to my guys just to
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 3: get an oil change. And I need a new tire anyway. Yes,
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 3: but thanks for the gunk, because that's what I thought.
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 3: At least they'll get me to the shop.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just put I had a really decent tire
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: on the front of my I had a Suzuki bandit
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 2: and the tire on the front was way too decent
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 2: to sort of get get rid of. So I just
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 2: shoved some green gunk in. And the green Gunk's amazing.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: I use it in my car because now it's all
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: tubeliss and you don't want to muck around cars now
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 2: they don't have spares. They have this seat seats seala yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 2: and if you don't want to muck around that because
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 2: the seiler in mine is probably like twelve years old now,
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it's gone hard. I just put I just
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: carry a green gunk in the car, and friends, if
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 2: you don't know what it is, you squeeze it into
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 2: the vat, you take the valve out, squeeze it in,
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 2: put the valve back, pump it up. My car's got
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 2: a pump built built into the you know, the the
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 2: boot or the trunk as you guys call it, and
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: I can just pump it, pump it up. But yes, Wells, listen,
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 2: what a fascinating, fascinating chat. Thank you so much for
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 2: coming on the show.
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 3: Great pleasure. Yes, this is one of fe and truly
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 3: just free flow. And it's so wonderful to hear your stories,
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 3: you know, not just about me just gone there's it's
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 3: wonderful to share ideas and people.
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 2: So I started my podcast, Wells, because I just wanted
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 2: to chat adventure with people. And that's what I want.
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 2: I want to meet the people that I want to
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 2: chat with, like we have just done. I've been fortunate
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 2: that I've had you know, rock stars and professional footballers
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 2: and you know, famous freedom campaigners, the DIRR and a
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 2: whole host. I mean, I just think everyone's got a story,
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 2: and for me, the interesting ones aren't the ones that
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 2: the public probably think they are. And spoke to a
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 2: lot of veterans, ventions of a lot of conflicts, and
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 2: what am I saying? Yeah, I started the podcast so
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 2: I could sit down and have a chat chat with them.
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 2: But it's quite funny. A lot of people are indoctrinate
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 2: into into thinking these are interviews and they don't like
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 2: it when I speak, and sorry, you can fuck off.
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to sit here for two hours, you know.
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 2: And if I'm talking more than usual, then that's because
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 2: I've got a great guest and I may never see
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: them again, I mean, never meet them. I don't know
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 2: what it's like to be, you know, to be a
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 2: film actor. I'd love to have, you know, to just
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 2: have a bit of a walk on part or a
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 2: cameo or something.
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 2: You know, I've been to Antarctica. I haven't skydived into Antarctica.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 2: And yeah, so that's what these that's what these chats,
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 2: that's what podcasting is. About and yeah. But it is
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 2: funny when you get some people that have kind of
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: they've been doing the circuit for years with things like
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 2: the BBC or Sky News or you know, you physically
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 2: see that they freak out when I start speaking. You know,
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 2: they thought they were being on because their egos like
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 2: it's massive and and it's like true, So this is perfect.
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: This is the reason I started a podcast was to
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 2: chat wonderful people like yourself.
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you and the same with you all. When
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 3: do you do everest? What's what's the plan? Are you
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 3: going next?
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: Well next year?
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 3: Just not this year or next year.
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 2: I'm almost I'm always you know, sooner rather than later,
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 2: get stuck in, buy the ticket as soon as you can,
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 2: so you're committed. But I was talking with my girlfriend
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 2: this morning and I said, do you know what, honey,
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: if I go next season, that's be next April. That's
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 2: that's just a year away now. And I lost work wise,
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 2: I lost all last year preparing for the Atlantic Row
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 2: and fundraising for the charities and for the row itself.
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't want my I almost say career,
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 2: that sounds that's not the sort of person. But I
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: don't want the things that I want to get done
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 2: in my work, like my books, my audio books, this
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 2: kind of stuff. I can't see me getting them done
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 2: if I take on Everest for next year, so it
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 2: might be the year after now, Yes, and to train
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 2: you know, so.
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 3: Chris, it's there, it's going to be there. Work it,
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 3: work it through so that it works for you. Think
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 3: of it. You all have a year and a half
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 3: of time.
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I'm you know, I'm well aware I'm not
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 2: getting younger, and that's obviously a factor. I want to
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: sort of do it sooner rather the later.
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 3: What's the oldest person that's gone down and do you
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 3: know I know one.
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 2: In eighty it so Japanese guy was about eighty two.
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 3: Eighty two.
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's it's debatable whether they actually do it though,
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: isn't it when the sherpers put in a lot of work.
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 2: There's so much trite and crassness around Everest and I
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 2: just don't get involved in it. It's really simple. Anyone's
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: got the right to want to get to the high
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 2: top of the highest mountain in the world if you
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 2: can pay someone. And I'm not saying I'm going to
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: do this, but obviously I would have a sherpa. But
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 2: if you can pay a local guy who probably earns,
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 2: you know, less than one thousand dollars a year, if
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 2: you can pay him five thousand to help you get
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 2: you're kind of like really helping him. Whereas the modern
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: view is like, oh, they make the sherpas like get
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 2: them up there. It's like, yeah, I think they do,
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 2: like really really.
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: Well out of it. You know.
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 2: It's like someone coming to my home city of Plymouth
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 2: and and you know, offering me a role in a
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 2: blockbusting Hollywood movie. It's it's it's a good deal, you know.
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 2: But I don't get involved in that. I don't get
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 2: involved in that. Oh it's not proper climbing. Who you
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 2: got who's got the right to tell someone at someone
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 2: else that they can't live there? Or you know, there's
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 2: much tough amount. Yeah, I fucking know there's much tough amount.
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: Is I just don't want to climb. I'm not a mountaineer.
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: I'm not even really a walker or a climber. I've
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 2: just read about Everest for twenty years. Chris Bonding film
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 2: was a big part of my childhood. My dad always
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: used to read his books and I grew up with
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 2: it with the hillary intensing you know, aura or species
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 2: around my sort of life, as anyone that read books
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 2: has always done. And yeah, I just always wanted to
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 2: give it go. And I don't know if I you know,
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 2: I'm not like obsessed about it or anything, but yeah,
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 2: I rode across the Atlantic pretty pretty.
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 3: Really, Chris, honestly I need I will. I will dig
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 3: a deeper dive into your your trip and see whatever
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 3: you have available to get a sense of your your
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 3: moments out there.
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we got, We've got. We're actually having a documentary
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 2: made about us.
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 3: I'm looking for.
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we had an American film crew actually attached themselves
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 2: to us in in Africa or well Granking area it's
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 2: actually Spanish island, but and also in Barbados where we
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 2: where we landed. Rad and Tyler, Hi guys. So it'll
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: be interesting to see what they come up with. They
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 2: might look at the footage that we took and say, sorry,
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 2: we're not doing it now, but but uh yeah, well
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 2: to be determined, yes.
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 3: But nothing can take away that you did it.
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 2: So yes, yeah, but the whole point of this podcast
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: wasn't It was say to people, you know take action. Folks.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 2: If you just scroll where's your life going to be
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 2: in forty years? You're going to look back and go, wow, Yeah,
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 2: I scroll, didn't I Raise your spirits?
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 3: Raise your spirits.
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, raise your spirit, raise the energy, raise your frequency.
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 2: Get out there, have some fun, and you certainly did.
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 2: Yes well, so telling us your adventures. Stay on the line.
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 2: So when I hit record off, I can say goodbye
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 2: to you properly. But for the purposes of the Bought
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 2: the T Shirt podcast, thank you so much for coming
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 2: on the show. That's been a wonderful chat.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 3: Wonderful chat, is right, Chris.
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, keep looking after yourself, keep keep your summating going. Yes,
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 2: and maybe we can bag a peek together. I think
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 2: the expression is at some point.
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 3: Thank you Chris.
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 2: Friends at home, hope you enjoyed this as much as
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: I have. If you want to do the line, I
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: can subscribe thing. We've got a lot more chats like
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: this coming. Look after yourselves, much love,