Some people seem to have a problem with the rich going off and enjoying themselves and then filming themselves enjoying themselves and then selling this to Joe Public as some kind of anathema to their crushed dreams as they sit in an office wondering where their lives have gone. Why live like that when you can watch Ewan McGregor and Charley Borman piss off round the world on motorbikes. If I had the time, money and inclination and if I knew that I could sell a dvd, cd and book of me doing it, I'd do it too.
What I resent is the pretence that they're going by themselves when in fact there's this huge film crew and they've this tight schedule and all in all its treated like the shameless cash cow that it really is. Hey, it’s a shameless cash cow but there are ways of making it less obvious. A longer schedule for instance. 1 week to go through Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. If it wasn’t for the fact that they’ve already had a trip of a lifetime in the first series I’d be thinking that Ewan’s calendar is somewhat busier than perhaps Charley’s is. And then there’s the contrived conflict of Ewan bringing his wife along. It was like it was inspired by Spinal ‘Dobly’ Tap. And the ‘just dropping in on the Motoguzzi factory’. With our camera crew.
You see there are three big differences here:
1) Series 1 really was a great journey
2) Series 1 was on Sky 3 and Series 2 is on BBC2
3) The Long Way Round DVD an unexpected runaway success.
And the upshot is this. Ever been on a guided tour when there wasn’t enough time to see anything as you were hustled on all the time. That’s what this is. Tunisia in one day, Libya in two. Its just annoying now.
Should you be tempted by the book, don’t. My brother read the first one: Long Hard Slog. Here’s the Guardian’s take on the second one:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/digestedread/story/0,,2206031,00.html
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