Telly traveller Simon Reeve is one of the few BBC workers never asked to take part in Strictly.
And he fears it could be because he slipped Mary Berry booze when he was on the celeb version of Bake Off.
In 2013, Simon pulled out all the stops to win over the veteran judge during the Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer.
And he says: “I never get asked to do Strictly. I did Bake Off and really enjoyed it.
“I took a special bottle of brandy along, which I claimed was for my ingredients, but I kept giving Mary Berry a drink.
(Image: BBC/The Garden Productions/Simon Reeve)
“She was great and taking it like a fish but after plying Mary Berry with drink, and someone stealing my sieve, I was screwed.”
Sticking to what he knows best, the 49-year-old presenter is back with a new travelogue on Sunday, this time exploring the Lake District and surrounding Cumbria.
Visited by 20million people a year, the Lake District is England’s biggest national park and covers nearly 1,000 square miles.
(Image: BBC/The Garden Productions/Jonathan Young)
Simon says: “Expect a bit of the familiar and the surprising.
“I climbed England’s highest peak, slept overnight in a church and got blown up at Sellafield, the big nuclear site on the coast which is being cleaned up.
“We went to see the heavily-armed squad who protect it – they’ve got a live-fire training facility which the SAS use.
“I had to be the bad guy and they came looking for me in this warren of rooms and chucked stun grenades at me.
“It looked like a James Bond set.”
Cumbria is at the centre of climate debate – with natural beauty in danger of being destroyed forever.
Simon says: “We were with firefighters in Carlisle who have been dealing with endless flooding in recent years. They’ve become a water rescue service as much as fire because of climate change.
(Image: BBC/The Garden Productions)
“I had a chill down my spine. You’ve got this tough firefighter who sees it happening now.
“A lot of Brits think it’ll happen in the future and won’t affect them.
“And it’ll be the poor who will be hit most – the wealthy will be insulated and that’s why people should be upset.”
A warning was issued this week about Lake Windermere being at risk of becoming ecologically dead due to raw sewage dumping – a problem happening around the UK.
(Image: BBC/The Garden Productions/Jonathan Young)
“It’s mad that we c**p in our own nest in different ways,” says Simon.
“There’s too many of us to keep doing what we’ve done in the past. We’re a crowded
island and need to start behaving more sustainably and put our poo where it needs to go – which isn’t our glorious lakes and sea.”
As someone who travels for a job, Simon is aware of his own carbon footprint.
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He admits: “What could be a greater hypocrisy than someone who spends their life jetting around the planet going on about climate change?
“My footprint is the size of an Asian town – I’m ashamed of it.
“I don’t come from a wealthy background, left school with no qualifications, was on the dole. I don’t take the life I’ve got for granted.
“We’ve sent people to the Moon, so we can run a plane on something other than aviation fuel. It definitely makes me rethink how I travel but we all need new ways of living.
“It’s not enough for us all to make a little change – we need action that helps fight the war.”
The Lakes With Simon Reeve starts Sunday at 9pm on BBC Two
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
