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I have been away for a few days and get back to this,, omg , some ones slagged of Ray Mears, well i am afraid thats life, everyone in the public eye will get it, no matter what line they are in, Ray has brought the wilderness into our front rooms, and i must say thanks, :beerchug: , and he is now recieving the bashing, remember Graham Kerr, he was a chief on tv years ago, he helped make cooking on tv a spectator sport,, he got well and truly slagged and has been away for most of the time since, John Wilson brought us main stream fishing (excuse pun) he is slagged of nearly daily in the angling press, but they all have somthing in common, they entertain ME ! so what ever this writer has to say will not change my mind i am a grown up ( when the wife lets me ) ;) i make up my own mind about if i watch Ray's programmes, or buy his books, or even if i have his picture as wall paper on my pc( i havent by the way) :rolleyes: , i have this last bit to say and i promise to shut up :) Keep making your programmes Ray, you jammy devil, you are going to places i will never in a million years, but i can see what they are like through your eyes, thanks .. ok finished now.. Yours Den
 
mr Mears is the first to say he is still at the beging of the road of bushcraft and he will never be an expert just a willing pupil as we all are! just as a pupil his had a hell of alot more chances to learn than me ! but there we go
me i look to the collective to learn theres no one better to teach than the person who has to live it my 2 p
 
Let's not get too excited chaps. Mr Freidrickson (sic) is just a columnist writing for a magazine/webzine. He has to be a little controversial I suppose - it's his job. Just take it with a big pinch of salt. He's a critic, nothing more.

Mears is something of a celebrity now, but he's brought a lot of people to bushcraft and done more than anyone else to popularise it. He is therefore a good thing in my book. I'm sure he won't be in the slightest bit bothered by one bad 'review' in an obscure journal. It's hardly Kenneth Tynan is it? :D

Cheers,
Rod
 
Rod, you could be right a lot of columnists do seem to say something controversial just to improve sales or their reputations.
Ray has done so much to bring bushcraft into the mainstream and is popular as well some people dont like that and like to try and make them unpopular.
 
It may have been a columnist that made these comments, so why has the slagging carried on through this forum.O.K everybody has a right to their opinion but why have most people here jumped on the bandwagon.
Clayton
 
Graywolf said:
Is it because people in this country hate winners and love losers?eg.Frank Bruno,Eddie the Eagle and all the other pointless celebrities.
Click to expand...

Sort of maybe, but I think it's more to do with people not liking other people that show off....easy now everyone, I'm not saying RM is a show off here but he certainly only shows us the polished and edited version of his skills on the tele and some people don't like that...it's not real enough for them. Especially when they go out into the woods themselves and suddenly find that what he does (and does well) isn't quite so easy as it looks.

In my personal opinion he could do a lot worse than show himself messing something up from time to time...

Maybe that's something to do with it....maybe it isn't but the bottom line is each to their own and what ones likes another won't.

For me he's a good ambassador for bushcraft and has brought a lot of new people to the woods, I appriciate his skills and experience but I will NOT idolise him and take his word on bushcraft matters as gospel, him or anyone else for that matter...I like to find out for myself. :)

The other thing he has done is make it soooooo much easier to explain to non-bushcrafter friends what my hobby is...so thanks for that Ray! :lmao:

Cheers,

Bam. :)
 
bambodoggy said:
Sort of maybe, but I think it's more to do with people not liking other people that show off....easy now everyone, I'm not saying RM is a show off here but he certainly only shows us the polished and edited version of his skills on the tele and some people don't like that...it's not real enough for them. Especially when they go out into the woods themselves and suddenly find that what he does (and does well) isn't quite so easy as it looks.

In my personal opinion he could do a lot worse than show himself messing something up from time to time...

Maybe that's something to do with it....maybe it isn't but the bottom line is each to their own and what ones likes another won't.

For me he's a good ambassador for bushcraft and has brought a lot of new people to the woods, I appriciate his skills and experience but I will NOT idolise him and take his word on bushcraft matters as gospel, him or anyone else for that matter...I like to find out for myself. :)

The other thing he has done is make it soooooo much easier to explain to non-bushcrafter friends what my hobby is...so thanks for that Ray! :lmao:

Cheers,

Bam. :)
Click to expand...
There is actually a part on his Bushcraft series two whilst he's in america when he messes up. If you watch it in slow motion it's rather funny. When he's in america he's talking about something or other to do with tracking while sitting next to his fire and billy can, and when he finishes talking he seems to want to make the whole thing end smoothly by reaching to see how his water has boiled or whatever, but he clearly loses his concentration and grabs his billy can handle only to be burned. You can see his face go "ouch". :D

Hardly a massive fault but it's in there!
 
I was thinking about this today and i came to the conclusion that Ray or at least the producers are trying to make a programme for the masses. RM obviously wants to bring bushcraft to the masses but at the end of the day the bbc are the ones with the final say. It's a bit like watching the highlights to make it interesting and to motivate.
If i watch a pizza hut ( or similar advert ) with the waitress bringing out the steaming hot pizza, I WANT ONE!. However, if the ad consists of making the base and and adding the toppings, perhaps even a glimpse of johnny wiping his nose etc etc i will not want one. I think that's why we don't see the mistakes and why ray isn't allowed to specialize. So that the end result will be appealing to everyone.
 
bilko said:
I was thinking about this today and i came to the conclusion that Ray or at least the producers are trying to make a programme for the masses. RM obviously wants to bring bushcraft to the masses but at the end of the day the bbc are the ones with the final say. It's a bit like watching the highlights to make it interesting and to motivate.
If i watch a pizza hut ( or similar advert ) with the waitress bringing out the steaming hot pizza, I WANT ONE!. However, if the ad consists of making the base and and adding the toppings, perhaps even a glimpse of johnny wiping his nose etc etc i will not want one. I think that's why we don't see the mistakes and why ray isn't allowed to specialize. So that the end result will be appealing to everyone.
Click to expand...
Exactly true, if he speacialised and elaborated on everything he did then they would be limiting their target audience to folk like us, and I don't think that's exactly what the BBC are after :p
 
JoshG said:
Hardly a massive fault but it's in there!
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In fairness to Mr Mears, the programme is edited, and in the time allowed there must be some leaway. But I saw him demonstrate the use of flint and iron pyrites, and it was obvious from the footage (and indeed he made reference to) the difficulty of creating an ember with this technique. But he did it in the end....
 
I've resumed bushcraft after a number of years, and this is mainly because of the Mears programmes. As someone has already stated earlier, I realised that I was always practicing bushcraft, but didn't know the name.

Ray Mears philosophies are similar to mine in relation to wildlife and conservation. He must have influenced many other people through the media of TV and for this, he must be praised. If he eductates people in this way, then I can only wish him well if he makes a few bucks on the way.

Talking of educating people, I particularly remember one programme about a trip in the Amazon, where it was obvious the bushmen had forgotten to make fire. Mears re-taught them (even though he used the camera crew's cooton wool) and an everlasting image was those bushmen teaching their children throughout the next day.

Do I care whether he gets the technicalities of tree felling right or not? Do I hell!

Pueblo
 
"Thats the trouble today, knowone seems to take responsability for there own safety..... its always someone els's fault.

If i tell you to jump of a cliff and you do it, it's YOUR error."

I agree totally with your comment!! I live in a small valley with a 120 year tradition of timber cutting. My property is full of stumps from the red cedar cutters some of these old stumps are 10 to 12 feet in diameter, these are serious "widowmakers"!! The stories from the old timers are legendary regarding gruesome tree felling accidents!! At the end of the day some bushcraft skills are potentially very dangerous and if you are going to include them in an instructional book then it is essential that every effort is made to ensure that the information is correct, current best practice. Because you will get fools going out and trying this stuff after reading book!! :rolleyes:
 
Celt_Ginger said:
Who really cares what Lief Fredrickson thinks. I sure don't. I only know that I enjoy Ray Mears TV programs and that they have inspired me to actually get out of my armchair and have a go. If Lief thinks that Ray knows so little, well, I only wish I knew as little as Ray does.
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Haha! Here here! :beerchug:
 
AUSSIE said:
I agree totally with your comment!! I live in a small valley with a 120 year tradition of timber cutting. My property is full of stumps from the red cedar cutters some of these old stumps are 10 to 12 feet in diameter, these are serious "widowmakers"!!
Click to expand...

Aussie, just whereabouts are you from? I've seen some absolutely stunning slabs of red cedar that you could simply hang on the wall and look at for hours like a work of art. It's fabulous stuff. I hail from Northern NSW myself, some time ago. My departed great uncle was a bit of a bushy, he had used bullocks, apparently, when he was working. When I knew him (and he was getting on then) he had special shoes because of an axe accident (you can imagine what was missing).

On the topic of chopping:
What weighs 25 stone and can chop a 12" log in 8 seconds?
http://www.davidfoster.com.au/
Scary man.
 
bambodoggy said:
For me he's a good ambassador for bushcraft and has brought a lot of new people to the woods, I appriciate his skills and experience but I will NOT idolise him and take his word on bushcraft matters as gospel, him or anyone else for that matter...I like to find out for myself. :)

The other thing he has done is make it soooooo much easier to explain to non-bushcrafter friends what my hobby is...so thanks for that Ray! :lmao:

Cheers,

Bam. :)
Click to expand...

Long before Ray Mears was a TV person he was Ray Mears the adventure, and Ray Mears the teacher, unlike some people he walks the walk as well as talks the talk. He learnt bush craft the way we all hope to learn, by going out and doing it. Back in the 1990s he spent six months with his then girlfriend Ffyona Campbell walking into (to pick up the Landrover Ffyona Campbell had been forced to abandon at the border due to a major war going on at the time) and out of some of the harshest areas of Africa. Ok so she admitted later that in some of the American bits she hitched a lift, but no one can Ray didn’t step up to the mark.

If you follow the rules laid out in any survival book you will get hurt or get killed, as in the wilds or even in the local woods blindly following the rules will not help you, they will get you hurt. Use them as a guide and the worse that you will find is you will do “ok”, and the best, you might find is you will really enjoy yourself

Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.
Douglas Bader
 
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