Lots of pictues of that beaming and mildy irritating rah Edward 'Bear' Grylls in today's papers following his appointment as Chief Scout, a particularly pointless sounding job, but what sort of role model is he?
In the words of Loyd Grossman, let's look at the evidence: Channel 4 was forced to admit that his series Born Survivor misled viewers as it implied that he was stranded alone in the wild. Another episode showed him riding a remarkably well-groomed 'wild' horse, while a scene that was meant to show him stranded on a raft in the South Pacific was actually filmed on a film set in Hawaii.
Aside from his TV work, he has not been quick to dismiss those stories that go around that he was in the Special Forces. This isn't exactly true - he was in fact a part-time reservist and although he did indeed break his back parachuting, his putative SAS missions in Africa have never been fully explained.
While these sound like rather minor indiscretions given what's been going on in public life of late, I'm not sure that he's quite the hero that he's made out to be. Still, he replaces former Blue Peter presenter and ex soft-porn star Peter Duncan so he's in good company.
