Or not, as the case may be.
For Griff Rhys Jones, it was a high point of his television career. He had scaled the tallest mountain in Britain, the cameras rolling all the while, and last night he learnt that he had won a coveted Scottish Bafta award for the resultant series, Mountain.
But even as the series was receiving the plaudits of the critics, doubts were beginning to surface in the climbing world. Mountain had won the category of Best Factual Entertainment Programme — but one mountaineering expert commented last night: “Entertainment, certainly — but factual?”
Did Rhys Jones actually get to the top of Ben Nevis? Or was this another of the BBC’s minor deceptions, along with all the other controversies such as fake phone-ins, the naming of the Blue Peter cat and the trailer that wrongly claimed to show the Queen storming out of a photo shoot?
The BBC does seem to be making a habit of this sort of thing.
If Griff Rhys Jones left the Scottish Bafta on the top of Ben Nevis would that resolve the matter?
“Asked about the discrepancy, a BBC spokesman said: “Griff climbed the Ben via the ‘Ledge’ route, up the north face. This brings you out at the Carn Dearg ‘top’ of Ben Nevis, on the summit plateau. We felt it would have been overly technical to explain to the viewer that Griff had reached a ‘top’ on the summit plateau, as, for the great majority of viewers, we are sure that to stand on the summit plateau at any of the tops would be the same as having reached the summit.”
Ha Ha – ‘to stand on any of the tops would be the same as having reached the summit’. The lies from the BBC just don’t stop.
DO NOT TRUST ANYTHING YOU SEE ON THE BBC.
[Deleted – gratuitous profanity]
I don’t mean to be rude here but how hard can it be to summit a mountain that used to have a hotel on top of it? The north side is the steep face, right?