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You’ll have to bear with me on this…

Are you a fan of car-crash television presenters?  Specifically the ones where the hosts think that baiting a predatory animal makes great TV.  Steve Irwin got away with this cringe-worthy style for a while, and there’s another berk (Bershire Hunt) out there, a South African guy, who delights in saying, “Look at that, look at him, look how aggressive he’s getting.”  Well of course he was getting agressive, the bloody idiot had just picked it up by its tail and was shaking his hand in front of his head! 

Enter, Timothy Treadwell.  I’d heard about this bloke, but I didn’t know anything about him until I watch a documentary about his life last week.   What a knob!  It’s no wonder he came to a grizzly end, but the real tragedy about this story was so did his girlfriend…

Let’s look at the person first and what shaped him.  Treadwell was born on Long Island, NY.  He was an average student in high school and was Connecticut’s star diver, but to the public he claimed he was a British orphan who was born in Australia!   He went on to described himself as an aspiring actor.  However, after failing to get the role as the waiter behind the bar in the hit American TV series, Cheers he turned to substance abuse.  He then described himself as a recovering alcoholic, drug addict, and eco-warrior.  Can you see where this is yet going chaps?   To a degree it’s as bizarre as the Michael Jackson death saga. 

He turned his attention towards environmental film making, and picked up a girlfriend along the way, and she loved him to bits (no don’t laugh), and when he decided to live among the bears of Katmai National Park she went with him.  Which was  bit of a bastard really, because she stated somewhere along the line that she had a fear of bears and felt deeply uncomfortable in their presence.  So where did Treadwell chose to set up his campsite?  A salmon stream where bears weighing just under half a ton would come to feed on a regular basis!  Now call me stupid, but I don’t think that was his smartest career move.    

Anyway, he got away with it for 13 years on the trot, but God knows how, because he seemed hellbent on self destruction.   Was he on the old Persian rugs (drugs) while he was out and about with with his furry chums?  Hmmm!  Well it does seem as though he was getting a bit slapdash with his life out in the wilderness.  He accrued six violations from the National Park Service.  One citation was for storing an ice chest filled with food in his tent!  Oh dear!   Another was for using a portable generator!  Why not just buy yourself a loudhailer and shout out, “Come- an-git- it!”   The citation I was most alarmed about was the one he racked up for guiding tourists around. [Note to self: if your going to take the bears some lunch make sure you apply for a license first!]   And I don’t think it was a good idea to keep open snack packets in the tent either.  Just an observation you understand! 

In the documentary Tim baby was, ‘praying for rain.’  He ranted at the sky shouting, “I want rain Jesus boy,” and eight hours later, it turned up.  “It’s a miracle,” he said.  No. no, the weather change mate!  The bloke was completely off his trolley and was a section paper short of a ward.   He slept with a toy bear.  He used to crawl, on his hands and knees, towards a female bear, with cubs, and start talking to them in a young girlie type voice.  When asked in an  interview, was he ever afraid he replied, “They wouldn’t hurt me.”  In the 85-year old history of Katmai  National Park there had been no fatalities, none, none until soppy bollocks turned up!   Why, it’s as if the animals just want to be left alone!

Right I’m off, I’ve got a bear baiting class at the Haringey civic centre.  Well it beats wicker work classes hands down…  BB

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