Thanks for the info I've tried and failed [ it'll take days to download ] ,so I'll stick to bikes , it's a million times more fun than getting frustrated with bloody computers and dodgy wireless connections .
I can wait to watch the wandering actors on tv , I won't lose any sleep over it and by the time it arrives on tv the snow will be so deep and I'll have cabin fever so bad ,that I'll watch anything .

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Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."

your reading seems to be in time with the UK tele release. I missed the 1st episode. So I can speak to the Rachel house, but yes both the Riders for health and Unicef bits are in the show. But unfortunately like most tele things it really does just come off as a Celb taking a few shots with the unfortunate wearing charity X's shirt and then they piss off to act like nobs at a camp ground. there is no mention of giving them actually giving them any help. So it does not really seem to play a part in the show just a side line, so this is probably why there is little to no mention of it in the threads. The unicef one in particular kinda annoyed me, they show up; CB rants about how landmines only kills kids, EM crys, and the next shot they already forgot about it .. and are complaining about something trivial.

Funniely the thing that is really starting to get me goat is the really shit camera work.. there shots are really bad. LWD the shots were really good, but for some reason the editing the "pretty" shots out to show CB lighting his farts.. (yes i am a bit too in to my photo/videography.)

I do feel sorry for the pair, but at the end of the day they chose this ride. they both have more money they most of us do. they did not have to make this in to a comercal venture.. they could just do the ride for them selves...

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2000 Africa Twin
http://two-up-ona-twin.blogspot.com

Thanks Xander - Thats my view of the proceedings and saves me typing!

I can see how the Guardian newspaper review of the book was written, now part 3 of 6 has been aired.
A case of another day, another T shirt?

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Dave

Really warms my heart to see them handing signed glossy photos of themselves to the poor African kids.....

Having watched 3 episodes, all I’ve come away with is : what a miserable bunch of blokes, always complaining about something – and riding through Libya in the dark and a sand storm !!! I bet that was fun


Is that what life on the road is about !! then I’d better cancel my trip…..

Others have said it before but its harmless and Like most I,m just jealous I have neither the time or the money for such an extravagant trip, but Fair play to em it certainly makes for better than TV than all the other celebrity/reality crap.

Lets not forget they are doing it for Charity Mate ! that can only be a good thing and as for awareness of biking in general.

Ive read the book its OK but they do highlight other peoples adventures such as a couple of cyclists who have been on the road for 9 years.

Yes the spirit of adventure is lost some what compared to MONDO but thats only for those of us in the know.

Ask any non biker about Louis on the loose and they will look at you gone out but mention LWD or LWD and everyone has something to say. It beats talking about the latest footy results at work.

I havnt watched any of the TV show yet as I will watch it in one go at xmas but hopefully this time Claudio gets some more coverage as I belive he is the true star of the series.

As for doing everyones dream trips yes Aus and South America will probably be their next destinations but instead of moaning about it. Give ourselves a good kick up the arse and get out there and beat them to it. Record the stuff yourselves and Post it on the web look how popular that Matt guy got from going all over the globe and doing a funny jig.

I dont think we should get on to that F-ing Charlies case. No one can surley say that the Dakar is easy, the guy gave it his best shot and fell hard now he says he will give it another go.

Anyhows me soap box has collapsed so c ya.

It's a full-fat commercial production, I don't know what the exact arrangement is, but the profits don't go to Unicef or Riders. Not that there's anything wrong with that particularly.

I think I heard C say in an interview that he was doing it to educate people about Africa and challenge stereotypes. The irony being that ---sorry causes with celebrity saviours--- is probably the biggest single stereotype of what Africa is about. You half expect the camera to cut to Madonna buying a baby.

Ethiopians are very touchy about the way their country has been presented as a charity basket case over the years. Better for them would have been something showcasing their mind-blowing tourist attractions rather than poverty, landmines etc.

Sad fact is that with the crying actor/crippled child effect - whatever LWD ltd. rakes in with extra sales and the Western charities gain in donations, the country itself loses in tourist & business dollars a hundred times over.

Finally watched an epsiode last night and thought it was enjoyable telly, better than the last series, but I'm still with the Guardian review!

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Pictures, Mauritania 2011

The Guardian review wasn't as good as The Times one I suspect?

Two’s a crowd - Times Online

(The comment from Susan in London at the bottom is Susan the founder of this site by the way...)

Two’s a crowd
It’s just Ewan McGregor and chum alone in Africa – apart from support vans, a TV crew and medic

I just want to goooooo,” Ewan McGregor moans, sitting astride his bike, in the first episode of Long Way Down. He is eager to start his journey: Africa, from top to bottom, by motorcycle, starting in Tunisia.

Alas, however, the caption that has just melted from the screen – “Five Months Before Departure Day” – suggests that McGregor will not be gooooooing any time soon. Indeed, McGregor is sitting in a cavernous garage-cum-office in West London, where two beautiful PAs are doing 12-hour shifts trying to sort out visas, inoculations, routes, filming permits and the special, customised leather bike jackets from Italy. No one just goooooes, these days.

Gone are the days when Shackleton just put on an extra jumper, packed a fruit-cake, and sat on his tobacco to defrost it whenever necessary.

Of course, even in this era of extreme bureaucracy and psychometric passport blether, there are ways in which one can make it easier for oneself. Deciding not, after all, to have commissioned two SUVs covered in “Long Way Down” lettering, “Long Way Down” fleeces, or the special, turquoise-coloured Belstaff leather jumpsuit might have sped things up a trifle. Indeed, given that McGregor has done this kind of thing before – in 2004, he did London to New York, via Russia – he should know exactly how much money, effort and artifice it takes for a wealthy celebrity with a penchant for adrenalin sports to “just gooooo”.

All of the first episode is taken up with trying to arrange the trip. As the hour rolls on, it’s hard not to feel increasingly bemused about what your response, as a viewer, is supposed to be to the whole thing. Are we meant to admire McGregor’s derring-do? He’s got GPS, a 24-hour doctor and two branded vans full of spare tyres. Feel all warm and fuzzy about the charity aspect? Well, McGregor went three-quarters of the way around the world on his last trip, and raised £100,000 – an absolutely piffling amount, really, compared with how much the trip would have cost. There’s no getting around it – this isn’t, really, either an adventure or a charity endeavour. It’s just the most famous holiday of 2007.

On top of all of this, there is the considerable consideration of the actor’s long-term motorcycle buddie, and companion on this trip, Charley Boorman.

To be both blunt but also, I feel, totally fair, Boorman comes across as a copper-bottomed, ocean-going, 24-carat *****. The unsuccessful actor son of director John Deliverance Boorman, Charley is the kind of spoilt, charmless boor whose self-satisfied bull-honking floats down from first class on transatlantic flights, and actually makes you glad to be poor. In the first episode alone, Boorman departs on his epic journey despite his wife being in hospital with pneumonia and a collapsed lung; is questioned by four policemen at Gatwick after telling an air stewardess that he has a bomb; and cuts up rough when McGregor’s wife – who is, let us not forget, left at home with the kids for three months while her husband burns rubber in the Dark Continent – says she wants to join the trip for just ten days.

“I want to protect the experience, and keep it real,” Boorman says, sulkily, standing next to his branded SUV, being filmed by a TV crew.

In the second episode, his major contribution is lying in a field in France, lighting his own farts.

It’s left to the oddly innocent McGregor to try to lend the expedition any sense of purpose or joy. That he does is all credit to his sap-rising exuberance, still-startling handsomeness and renegade-prince charisma. But Boorman – ugh, Boorman. You can only hope he gets raped by a lion. In a bad way.

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Kiwi, 7 years around Africa. Overlanding channel:https://www.youtube.com/c/roamingyak

Boorman, Boorman - was a man ever so well named?

Charlie, Charlie, was a man ever so well named?

However I must thank CB for that priceless comment which I will use for everything; "I want to protect the experience, and keep it real." You couldn't make it up!



Overall, however, even if for dodgy and dubious reasons, (e.g. I detest empty "celebrity") the profile of overland biking has certainly been raised. But the downside of that is I did have one colleague ask me "When you rode to Turkey, how did you cope without a doctor on your trip?".

Good roads HUBBERS! Dont forget your convoy! TeeHee!

There I was all happy to be watching them biking about through Africa, I even signed up to the nesletter on their website (they had a charidee party and raised £300,000 the other night btw).

BUT... what do I see on the latest newsletter? a buy a mile sponsorship idea, you get to buy one of their miles travelled and it goes to charidee. But that was my idea !!!

Now I'll just look like I'm copying E & C.

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Alex

Be proud to be French -even 50%. The French didnt make illegal war on Iraq. Vive la France!!!

But I'm not, I only live here.

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The whole thing just gets worse; entertaining laughable Sunday night television (followed by the 'Life of a Motorway' BBC must be getting desperate!)

So much for the 'crew' & 'support vehicles' only being with them on occasion, they've followed all the way tonight ...

It would be applaudable if they did it on their own with 2 bikes & Claudio (who I have a lot of respect for - I hope that David the American meets a lion shortly and is chased off the whole project!)

Kira

OK just finished watching this weeks episode, 'WTF IT WASN'T TOO BAD'.

I actually penciled in one or two places to visit and learned a little more about what to expect of the road conditions, that's a first while watching this series INFORMATION from the WrongWayBoyz.

Ewan crashing all the time rocked, what do you expect when you take 1/2 a ton of beast into the wild, next time take a 650 then you might be able to pick it up yourself (remember his only carrying a pair of spare pants in those panniers, we saw him pack didn't we). And I didn't see him use the droking force to pick up the bike or traverse the MUD, some flippin Jedi even that snot ball Yoda could lift an Xwing out of the mud.

And for gods sake stop whinging like a little girl about EVERYTHING, it's an adventure learn to go with the flow it takes 100% less effort if you chill.

On a personal note I've found a nice big sh*t eating grin has started to creep across my face in situations where I'd normally be stamping around and waving my little arms about getting all stressed out and red in the face.

Is this the famed Zen Motorcycling I've read so much about? And if I've found it why haven't you two?

This week, episode 4, I fully sympathised with EM. So he fell off - who doesnt? But he has to put up with tossers in restaurants telling him he falls off too much. I really liked him on this episode - and he diplomatically but loyally admitted that Charlie was difficult. To his credit, CB agreed.

I would have fallen off more than him on those powder dust roads so I'm in full sympathy.