To think Benedict Allen is an arrogant git?

[Shakirasma]

He comes across as a sulky child, annoyed that his game was spoiled while his family were breaking their hearts with worry.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42062933

He's actually a nice bloke in RL so I'm not going to join in the bashing of a person that the majority of people on this thread have never met but are happy to pile in and berate someone solely based on other people's negative opinions.
(I'm wondering if these might be the same posters who complain vociferously about those children joining in with others to bully a single child? Double standards? Hypocrites?)

He's actually a nice bloke in RL so I'm not going to join in the bashing of a person that the majority of people on this thread have never met but are happy to pile in and berate someone solely based on other people's negative opinions.

Well, no. It's based on his behaviour and the words coming out of his own mouth.

He does state in the interview however that he is still weak from malaria and "not that sharp mentally" so perhaps that can account for some of it.

I hope there won't be a repeat performance in any case.

I'm glad to hear he's a nice bloke. But he's nice bloke who did something a bit twatty and inconsiderate.

And did so knowingly perpetrating this harmful trope of heroic white explorer and exotic lost tribe, and exploiting it for profit.

So I'm not impressed.

Fluffy, he isn't the poor bullied child in the playground: he is a man who makes money from selling a particular version of White Man v Romantic Natives. His version of what he does is showcased on television and in books. Critiquing that version is a perfectly reasonable response.

(and yes, Ragusa, I agree that the noble isolated savage is also a problematic trope)

Isn’t this all a media fabricated story? He didn’t want to be rescued anyway, the Daily Mail organised a helicopter to go and get him. What a wheeze. As for his wife - yes selfish, but my goodness there are plenty of people who take massive risks as part of their daily lives. Could be worse.

Totally selfish git imo. If you want to disappear, minus any form of coms into unchartered territory then do it preferably when your single and definitely not with kids. A partner knows that someone is likely to go away never to return and makes their choice of getting into that relationship but kids don’t. Even then he is still putting others at risk when they have to find and rescue him. And this whole finding tribes is arrogant and intrusive. Leave them be. They’re not there to be followed, discussed like some exotic animal and recorded for the entertainment of other civilisations. So arrogant, patronising and dubious.

I wish I knew what ‘ he’s a nice bloke in RL’ means. I know quite a few people that I think are ‘nice in RL’ are am happy to have them as friends but I don’t think that this means for one minute that in certain situations eg work ( as he was doing) they are immune from being criticised - I’m sure some of my friends show a very different side to themselves in some situations and behave in ways they wouldn’t to me

Bourdic

Interesting. Why on earth do you think he expected to be rescued? Link please.

Layla8 Tue 21-Nov-17 08:28:48
He’s a git. How would a GPS have been detrimental to his exploration ?

The very fact that you need to ask that question, tells me that you really wouldn't understand the answer. I mean, why not just go to Benidorm for his holidays like the rest of us?

didn't realise he had children that young.

Nice for him to feel free to just disappear leaving his x 100% responsible and his children feeling abandoned and confused

Fekko Tue 21-Nov-17 08:57:47
If that was my husband I'd confiscate his passport and put him on the naughty step.

Lol, very good, Thank you.

Sensimilla Tue 21-Nov-17 09:57:36
However, had any of us heard of him, before this?

Erm, actually yes. BA has been doing this stuff for years. I admit, the type of viewers obsessed with the X Factor and Coronation Street are unlikely to of heard of him.

I always thought he was a bit of a twit since that programme with the camels years ago.

If there are two things more polar opposite than Mumsnet and the spirit of adventure, I can't think of them right now!!

Seriously, the contrast is practically Nietzschean. This forum is full of people who have chosen comfort, a detached house in the suburbs, and a life of middle class work and driving kids to music lessons. Why on earth would they understand someone who has the rage to explore the world, any more than he would be able to understand that life of settledness? It is just a completely different mentality. If you marry and have kids with someone like this, you accept different standards because that is who they are - same with war reporters, SAS etc.

Um. I have never seen the X Factor and have only a passing familiarity with Corrie, @user1492877024 And I still am not aware of this guy. Well, I am now but wasn't previously.

Are you related to him user1492877024 😉?

I think the tugging on heartstrings stuff about leaving his family etc is a bit OTT. Many fathers and mothers live away, Eg armed forces on deployment, scientists, anthropologists, oil rig workers, fishwrites workers, sportspeople. It's not what I'd choose but it doesn't necessarily make him the world's worst dad and husband.

(All that is not to say that the critique of him as an RGS neocolonialist isn't valid and important, by the way. If there are grounds to criticise him, that is a much more useful and thoughtful line than "Oh he's not settled at home living the full-fat capitalist life").

whiskyowl

Thank you. My thoughts exactly, although I could not articulate them like you can.

whiskyowl I am going to really feck with your head because I am an anthropologist by training who has lived in some far flung corners. However I now live in deepest English Suburbia and ferry my children to music lessons, work for the civil service AND bloody LOVE my tidy semi. Imagine!

Ragusa Of course you are dear. Sorry, I do not believe you.

Ragusa - I don't think it's about personality types, I think it's about choices. Many people travel when they are young, then settle down and have kids. In fact, that's part of the whole script of settling down to the capitalist lifestyle; the idea that travel is something you do at one period of your life (along with partying), and then you give it up in favour of waged work, a suburban house, a car, and kids.

I think there are many grounds on which to criticise the guy. Personally, I buy the neocolonialist argument, and I think he owes his wife the same number of solo months of domestic labour when he returns as the time he's away. BUT I hate the whole "Everyone should be super-disciplined and boring and never drink and never have adventures because that's what adulthood and responsibility is". I do think there is more to life than creature comfort and security and status symbols, and that something gets stripped out when excitement and positive action are reduced to "making memories" in bloody Centre Parks.

whiskyowl

Making memories, lol.

Haha you may not believe me but it's true. I have 1st in social anthropology and sociology from a red brick uni, and 3/4 of a PhD in social anthropology from.same uni. I now live in deepest SW SW London and work in an unconnected field. Two kids, you can backseat ch me if you are so minded 😁😁

That should have read 'search for me' on here. Long time member...

Ragusa - where's the most interesting place you've ever lived?

Everyone is presuming here that the wife is slaving away at home in the Czech Republic chained to the kitchen sink. Of course she may be, or she may be independently wealthy or have a stellar career and also contract out her child rearing to a nanny.

Things are often not as straightforward as they appear.