I'm not familiar with the series, so this may have been addressed at some point but it makes me shudder to see them stand on all of those fences/barbed wire. Fences can add up to a massive expense...
I'm not familiar with the series, so this may have been addressed at some point but it makes me shudder to see them stand on all of those fences/barbed wire. Fences can add up to a massive expense for farmers and are hard work to deploy.
You bring up a good point, but I don't think Tom is oblivious to how risky, illegal, and justifiably annoyed farmers get with what he is doing, since he has been confronted by several farmers and...
You bring up a good point, but I don't think Tom is oblivious to how risky, illegal, and justifiably annoyed farmers get with what he is doing, since he has been confronted by several farmers and even the police before.
Any time I have seen him cause any damage (e.g. toppling a fence-post, knocking a wire off one, etc) he has stopped to try to undo that damage though. Granted, he gets to select the footage shown so there could be times he has caused more serious damage, not stopped to fix it, and not shown that. However, from having watched countless hours of his other videos, he genuinely seems like a pretty decent guy, so I think it's worth giving him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn't do such a thing. But you never know, I suppose.
However, what worries me more is the hedgerows, since wading through and scaling them invariably breaks branches, which is not something anyone can immediately fix. At least they do grow back and fill in again eventually, but even still that makes me cringe.
Regardless of all the above, I honestly can't deny how entertaining I find these videos though.
I have to say that, the more I have seen these posted here, and especially after watching this and the Scottish situation, the more I find them uncomfortable. This is a person whose primary...
I have to say that, the more I have seen these posted here, and especially after watching this and the Scottish situation, the more I find them uncomfortable.
This is a person whose primary motivation appears to be to walk across areas in a straight line, presumably for profit and popularity on YouTube. Yes, they'll try to avoid and undo damage when possible, but avoiding causing damage seems secondary to crossing in a straight line: if damage must be done, then so be it. That doesn't seem right. Perhaps, in reality, they are less single-minded on this point than they appear, but that single-mindedness is certainly being presented in the videos, presumably to make the videos more enticing.
To add to this, the confrontations with farmers seem to be one of the draws of the videos. While it might make sense as a protest about right-to-roam, the goal of crossing in a straight line above all else seems contrary to the arguments in favour of right-to-roam. And in the Scottish case, the confrontation with farmers and police, I felt, seemed less a question of property rights than ire, as the farmer and police I think pointed out, that they were traipsing illegally across a country where the residents themselves were legally confined, if I recall, to their counties.
I'm not familiar with the series, so this may have been addressed at some point but it makes me shudder to see them stand on all of those fences/barbed wire. Fences can add up to a massive expense for farmers and are hard work to deploy.
You bring up a good point, but I don't think Tom is oblivious to how risky, illegal, and justifiably annoyed farmers get with what he is doing, since he has been confronted by several farmers and even the police before.
Any time I have seen him cause any damage (e.g. toppling a fence-post, knocking a wire off one, etc) he has stopped to try to undo that damage though. Granted, he gets to select the footage shown so there could be times he has caused more serious damage, not stopped to fix it, and not shown that. However, from having watched countless hours of his other videos, he genuinely seems like a pretty decent guy, so I think it's worth giving him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn't do such a thing. But you never know, I suppose.
However, what worries me more is the hedgerows, since wading through and scaling them invariably breaks branches, which is not something anyone can immediately fix. At least they do grow back and fill in again eventually, but even still that makes me cringe.
Regardless of all the above, I honestly can't deny how entertaining I find these videos though.
DAY 2: Never Again - The farmer encounter I've been dreading for 3 years
I have to say that, the more I have seen these posted here, and especially after watching this and the Scottish situation, the more I find them uncomfortable.
This is a person whose primary motivation appears to be to walk across areas in a straight line, presumably for profit and popularity on YouTube. Yes, they'll try to avoid and undo damage when possible, but avoiding causing damage seems secondary to crossing in a straight line: if damage must be done, then so be it. That doesn't seem right. Perhaps, in reality, they are less single-minded on this point than they appear, but that single-mindedness is certainly being presented in the videos, presumably to make the videos more enticing.
To add to this, the confrontations with farmers seem to be one of the draws of the videos. While it might make sense as a protest about right-to-roam, the goal of crossing in a straight line above all else seems contrary to the arguments in favour of right-to-roam. And in the Scottish case, the confrontation with farmers and police, I felt, seemed less a question of property rights than ire, as the farmer and police I think pointed out, that they were traipsing illegally across a country where the residents themselves were legally confined, if I recall, to their counties.
DAY 3: An Ordeal To Forget - Things take an absurd turn for the worst in the mountains