Каждый экстраверт отличается определённым беспокойством чувств, определенной активностью, чем-то, что его гонит действовать в ситуациях, в которых интроверт лишь наблюдает. Наблюдает, создавая при этом впечатление погруженности в самого себя.
Bear Grylls, who thinks nothing of hauling a dead sheep out of a bog, cutting it open to eat its raw heart before settling down to sleep in its bloody fleece, cannot cope any more. In the past hour I have asked too many questions and he has reached the end of his endurance.
In truth, I am getting quite close to the end of mine. Bear Grylls is a well-mannered old Etonian, ex-SAS; a God-fearing boy scout who is good at climbing mountains and whipping his knife out — as well as compressing his muscular body into a tiny space under a table — but the cut and thrust of conversation is not really his thing.
All varieties of survival, on the other hand, are very much his thing. Surely, I ask him, when he is still sitting beside me, he has developed a strategy for surviving interviews? Grylls fixes his pale blue eyes on me; they show no trace of impatience — or any emotion at all. The blandness almost seems like a tactic; taken with the short-back-and-sides, neat checked shirt and jeans, he looks more dishy plainclothes policeman than TV personality. He rattles off a three-point plan:
“Try and be authentic. Don’t do very many. Don’t try and justify anything, and let things speak for themselves.”
Authenticity, I protest, can be a mistake in an interview; the trick is to be inauthentic in just the way that fits your brand.
“You’re right,” he says, surrendering without struggle. “I’m not very good at arguing.”
"OK, here’s the deal. I’ve genuinely never liked things that draw attention to what I do, to me. The irony is I’ve found myself in a job where it’s all about that. I have to always put my head above the parapet.”
I start to say that if he really hates drawing attention to himself, he could always just stop doing it. He’s 40 now, and could just do the adventures, and leave the telly cameras at home. If publicity is loathsome to him, he’s stupid to go on courting it.
“I would no sooner go and meet someone and call them stupid than go to the moon, do you know what I mean?”
His words are angry but his demeanour remains pleasant, in a bland sort of way.
Where do you go on holiday and have you experienced five-star luxury?
I love spending time at our little island off the Welsh coast, it is where I spend time with my family and remind myself of all that really matters in my life. We have no mains electriciy or water and run everything totally off grid. I love it! And as for five-star luxury, I reckon it would have to be the Four Seasons Hotel Singapore - it was hard dragging my wife Shara out of it!
We've been hooked to The Island with Bear Grylls. What inspired the show and has it taught you anything new?
If you strip man of everything and you've got nothing, no microwave, bed, hot water, blanket or any of the stuff you take for granted - are the skills, courage and resourcefulness that man has gained over thousands of years just gone in a generation? Have we lost our steel and edge? Or, when we're pushed, are they still somewhere in there? That's the experiment I wanted to delve into with this show. Are men still natural hunters or have we, as a species, been tamed by civilisation?
He remains mostly good-humoured, only occasionally sighing at my questions. He also has an alarming habit of asking his own, trying to turn the tables. “Look, you’re as scruffy as me,” he points out. “Can you get away with that in the office? What do your kids say? ‘Dad, get a grip?’ How old are your kids?”
He tells me about the Hollywood stars on Running Wild who have told him how good and natural it has felt to sit staring into a fire not saying very much.
What did Eton teach him?
“I’m not going talk about it – let’s not go there.” But he did go there. And he does talk about it – a bit. What did he learn? “I think first of all I learned fear, which isn’t a good emotion. I really missed home and my parents – it was an age where you were sent off to boarding school and didn’t see them for months.”
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