INTERVIEWS AND MEDIA Q&A's:
My Life In Media - The Independent
'I was told to track down two terrorists in Boston, and went dancing round the newsroom at the thought of a flight - but they were in Boston, Lincolnshire'
Sunday Telegraph interview
By Michael Deacon
Simon's Travel CV at Wanderlust
Fresh from traversing the Tropic of Capricorn, journalist and TV presenter Simon Reeve sat down with Dan Linstead to talk about his travel passions
The Observer
On the road to nowhere
Terrorism expert Simon Reeve travelled to places that don't officially exist for his new TV series and found it a humbling experience
Wanderlust travel magazine
The journalist and presenter talks about his series Places That Don't Exist
Another Wanderlust travel magazine chat
Simon Reeve’s Equator was one of the best travel documentaries of recent years. Now he’s done it again – along the Tropic of Capricorn. He tells us about his toughest trip
BBC website interview
There are almost 200 official countries in the world. But there are dozens more unrecognised nations determined to be independent. Simon Reeve set out to visit several of these lesser-known places.
My Life in Travel - The Independent on Sunday
'I fell ill with malaria in Gabon while travelling around the Equator'
My Week In Media - The Independent
Interview by Sophie Morris
Så farlig er verden heller ikke - Stiften
chat with Pia Richter from the Danish Stiften newspaper
Politik, mærkelig mad og nuttede dyr er de faste ingredienser i BBC-journalisten Simon Reeve succesfulde rejseprogrammer, som lige har været sendt herhjemme. Sådan får man alle hen til skærmen, mener han. Han er ved at afslutte sin tredje jordomrejse, men har lige kunnet klemme lidt ferie ind i Danmark, »verdens bedste land« - og landet, hans hustrus familie stammer fra.
Photos 1, 2, 3
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THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
My Life In Travel: Simon Reeve
'I fell ill with malaria in Gabon while travelling around the Equator'
Saturday, 10 March 2007
First holiday memory?
Going to Bude in north Cornwall and watching my younger brother James crawling around scoffing sand. I remember thinking I should probably stop him, but he seemed so happy. He survived to enjoy other delicacies.
Best holiday?
It has to be a trip to northern Borneo a few years back. Much of the south of the island has since been devastated, but the north was a magical place with extraordinary wildlife, beautiful beaches and glorious sunshine. I canoed down the Kinabatangan river, then visited the cathedral-sized Gomantong Caves, home to thousands of swifts and bats.
Favourite place in the British Isles?
Studland Bay in Dorset. My family went there several times a year for more than a decade after my dad found a cheap place to rent in nearby Wareham. We'd go sailing, walking, swimming or just laze.
What have you learnt from your travels?
Preparation is really important. I've had some bad experiences with illnesses abroad, so I make sure I get medical advice before travelling somewhere exotic. I'm now more careful about getting jabs and taking anti-malarials.
Ideal travelling companion?
I'd love to meet Michael Palin and hear his travel stories. Richard Branson seems to have a good approach to life and adventure. Perhaps he could take me to his Caribbean island.
Greatest travel luxury?
I don't travel without a Leatherman (a multi-tool instrument), but my favourite luxury is my iPod. I have wires to connect it to a car stereo when I'm trying to persuade a taxi driver to listen to my music rather than his crackly radio.
Beach bum, culture vulture or adrenalin junkie?
A bit of each. I get to travel through some fairly hairy parts of the world while working, so on holiday I like to relax in the sun, and read and drink too much.
Holiday reading?
Mainly non-fiction and essays I spot on Arts & Letters Daily (www.aldaily.com). I'm also addicted to The Week, a fantastic magazine digest of what's happening in the world.
Where has seduced you?
Bukhara in Uzbekistan and Somaliland in the Horn of Africa. Bukhara is an ancient Silk Road city with a majestic 16th-century madrasah and a minaret built in 1187. It's so beautiful, I was awestruck. Somaliland is the stable, breakaway and unrecognised bit of completely unstable Somalia. Somalilanders are building a country with very little money or help from the outside world - they're inspirational.
Worst travel experience?
While travelling around the Equator I started retching blood at 3am in Gabon. My temperature went up to just under 40C and I felt terrible. I was diagnosed with malaria and it was months before I felt completely better.
Worst holiday?
Last year my girlfriend and I had a few nights away in a B&B in the West Country. Someone crashed into our car, then we had to kill scores of houseflies that infested our room. And both of us were poisoned by the breakfast.
Worst hotel?
I've visited dozens of places untroubled by even medieval hygiene standards, but a dark, dank, mouldy hotel room in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, was particularly memorable. I was standing at a sink, waiting for brown water to turn clear and watching two cockroaches mating or wrestling, when I trod on a sharp rat-trap the size of a house-brick. I left.
Best hotel?
The Lalu in Taiwan, which used to be the summer home of Chiang Kai-shek's wife. It's now modern, beautiful and is situated on the banks of Sun Moon lake in the heart of the country.
Favourite walk/swim/ride/drive?
Walking on Hampstead Heath when the sun's shining is one of life's great, free pleasures.
Best meal abroad?
A couple of years ago I had a bizarre but fantastic meal with the President of Moldova, who insisted on plying me with the finest Moldovan cognac. I don't remember much beyond the first course.
Dream trip?
I'd love to take a long journey around India. But I'd also like to try island-hopping by yacht in the South Pacific.
Favourite city?
London has some of the best urban green spaces in the world and is a fantastic city in the spring and summer, but when it's a bit dark and cold I prefer Barcelona.
Where next?
I'm in discussions about another big work trip, and I'm trying to organise a skiing holiday with friends. We're looking at www.seat61.com, trying to work out how we can get to the snow by rail.
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DAILY TELEGRAPH
Simon Reeve: Tropic of Capricorn
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 09/02/2008
Author and traveller Simon Reeve has just completed his greatest challenge yet out - circling the world around the Tropic of Capricorn, the southern limit of the tropical zone. He tells Michael Deacon about his latest epic journey
Simon Reeve is becoming one of television’s seasoned travellers, but that doesn’t mean the world is running out of ways to surprise him. Filming in Madagascar for his latest BBC series, he was urged by his guide – a member of the Madagascan royal family, no less – to sample a local delicacy. ‘It was Giant Penis Soup,’ he recalls. ‘It’s the penis of the zebu, which is a kind of Asiatic cow. And its penis really is giant. One of the least pleasant culinary experiences I’ve had.’ Which means it must taste really bad: these are the words of a man who, in other countries, ate dried caterpillars, grilled llama and sheep’s eyes.
The series in question is Tropic of Capricorn, which starts on BBC2 on Sunday. In 2006, Reeve made a travelogue series called Equator, in which he traced the equator round the globe, meeting and learning about the people who live in the countries it passes through. Tropic of Capricorn is a kind of follow-up: this time he traces the line that marks the southernmost latitude at which the sun appears directly overhead at midday. Or to put it more simply: the line on the atlas that passes through South America, southern Africa and Australia.
‘It takes me round a fascinating region of the world that I think isn’t in the forefront of everyone’s mind,’ says the 35-year-old reporter. ‘It’s one of the most arid regions of the world – there’s the Kalahari desert in Namibia and Botswana, the Atacama desert in Chile. But it’s got variety as well: the Andes mountains in South America, Madagascar, the beauty of Mozambique.’
But Reeve’s purpose wasn’t simply to marvel at the landscape. His main interest was in the local peoples: their histories, their battles, their cultures. In Botswana, in the first episode, he meets the San tribe – better known as the Bushmen of the Kalahari – and learns how the country’s government has herded them into ‘resettlement camps’, in a bid to force them to become part of the modern world, rather than continue their traditional tribal ways. In the second episode, he’s horrified by the sight of Zimbabweans desperately fleeing their crumbling nation, fighting their way through razor wire to cross the border into South Africa.
Then there are the more eccentric characters. Take ‘Catman’, whom Reeve encounters in Namibia. ‘Catman’ is a French conservationist who prowls farmland, feeding wild cheetahs that are at risk of being shot by farmers if they attack livestock. Reeve joined him on a typical expedition – and the pair soon found themselves surrounded by roaring beasts. On screen, Reeve looks impressively unperturbed.
‘When there’s a TV camera on you, it encourages you to be a bit braver than you are naturally,’ he says. ‘But it also creates this illusion of safety. I remember we were flying across Paraguay and were about to land our tiny plane on a grassy runway. There was a sheep on it. I turned to the camera and said, “Ha ha, there’s a sheep on the runway.” And then a part of my brain went, “Hang on – we could die!” Luckily the pilot pulled back on his controls and we just whizzed over the top of the sheep.’
In his other career, as an author, Reeve has had some even more disorienting experiences. He was one of the first Western journalists to write about al-Qa’eda: he started to research a book about it just after the World Trade Centre bombings in 1993, when he was 21. The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism was published in 1998. He wrote it ‘for peanuts’ and nobody bought it. Until, of course, 9/11.
‘As soon as news desks started typing “Osama bin Laden” into Amazon’s search box, there was really only one book that popped up,’ he says. ‘Suddenly I had a bazillion TV crews turning up at flats I’d lived at years before, let alone the house I was currently living in. The big media machine needs feeding, and they needed people who could talk about al-Qa’eda. The thing is, my dad had just died too. I was in a daze.’
After Reeve’s blizzard of appearances as an al-Qa’eda expert on news programmes, the BBC commissioned a series from him on central Asia, 2003’s Holidays in the Danger Zone: Meet the Stans, and his star has risen steadily since. There are, he adds, many other far-flung places he wishes to explore.
‘Most people think the world is becoming very samey,’ he says, ‘but there are still extraordinary parts of it that we can show people, and tell them stories they haven’t heard before.’
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THE INDEPENDENT
Simon Reeve: My Life in Media
'I was told to track down two terrorists in Boston, and went dancing round the newsroom at the thought of a flight - but they were in Boston, Lincolnshire'
Monday, 4 February 2008
Simon Reeve, 35, is an author and broadcaster. Presenting BBC2's Equator, part-travelogue and part-current affairs programme, earned him comparisons to Michael Palin. He returns to our screens on Sunday with Tropic of Capricorn, a journey from Namibia to Australia and on to Argentina and Brazil. Reeve's first book, The New Jackals, predicted the rise of al-Qa'ida and became a New York Times bestseller. He grew up in Acton, west London, and lives with his wife Anya in north London.
What inspired you to embark on a career in the media?
I had a vague notion that journalism could be interesting, but I never thought it was an option. After leaving school I had no idea what to do in life. I went on the dole, ran a charity shop, and I was turned down for a job as a white-van driver based on Wembley Trading Estate. That was a low point. Then my dad saw an advert in The Sunday Times and somehow I landed a job.
When you were 15 years old, which newspaper did your family get, and did you read it?
We used to get The Times, largely because Mr Murdoch introduced a complicated cut-price scheme. I was equally interested in the Ealing & Acton Leader, which I delivered locally. It grabbed eyeballs with headlines of the "Slasher horseman stalks Acton Park!" variety. A clever mix of parochial shockery.
And what were your favourite TV and radio programmes?
On the TV it was anything that had even a suggestion of violence or sex. I loved Minder, partly because I'd see them filming as I walked to school. But I was also obsessed with the news, documentaries, and travel and adventure shows: anything that involved wielding a machete in a jungle. We'd have the Today programme on every morning, and that encouraged an ongoing affair with Radio 4. It's one of the many things I miss on my long journeys away.
Describe your job
I've written and edited a few books, and now I'm travelling to far-flung parts of the planet and hoping I can interest people in what happens there. It's hard when Amy Winehouse and Paris Hilton are so fascinating.
What is the first media you turn to in the morning?
Radio 4, then the BBC news homepage. I get The Independent news email every day, which is still free – thank you very much.
Do you consult any media sources during the day?
Endlessly. If I'm preparing for a trip then I have a slab of travel guides to use as reference. Otherwise I'm on the BBC website, Google and all the usual. Everyone slags off Wikipedia, but I think it's getting stronger and sharper all the time.
What is the best thing about your job?
The fact that it's less like a job and more of an education. Travelling around the Tropic of Capricorn, I was overwhelmed by new information, knowledge, smells and sights. Travelling makes up for never having gone to university.
And the worst?
I seem to work every day of the week. There's always something to do. That's the downside of being freelance.
How do you feel you influence the media?
Not a jot. But I hope the TV programmes I've been making show viewers a bit more about life in dusty corners of the planet.
What's the proudest achievement in your working life?
My first byline. It was a tiny "compiled by..." on a Sunday Times table of worst theatre reviews. My gran framed it. Close second was winning a One World Broadcasting Trust Award for Places That Don't Exist, a series I devised about unrecognised countries. The citation said it made an "outstanding contribution to greater world understanding". You can't get much better than that.
And what's your most embarrassing moment?
When my big break came I still hadn't been on a plane. I was told to track down two terrorists hiding in Boston and went dancing around the newsroom at the thought of a flight, only to be told they were in Boston in Lincolnshire.
What do you tune into at home?
At home or in the car it's Radio 4. I even podcast programmes like From Our Own Correspondent. I love watching TV while I'm abroad, particularly when I can't understand the language. I once saw an It's a Knockout competition in Saudi Arabia that gave me a whole new take on life in the kingdom. And a dubbed, pirated version of Titanic in Kyrgyzstan was better than the original.
What is your Sunday paper? And do you have a favourite magazine?
I subscribe to The Week, which I think should be compulsory reading. And I love the scoop of analysis you get from The New York Review of Books. I'm fickle when it comes to papers. If I want a doorstop I'll get The Sunday Times. Usually it's The Observer or The Independent on Sunday.
Name one career ambition you want to realise
If I make it through life without being forced to take jobs that fill me with daily dread then I'll be happy.
What would you do if you didn't work in the media?
I'm endlessly trying to spot a great business idea while I'm away, but the best ones appear to be illegal. I think I'd settle on a tree stump grinding business.
Who in the media do you most admire and why?
Adam Curtis for The Century of the Self. George Monbiot for banging on about things that matter.
The CV
1990: Joins The Sunday Times as a post-boy.
1993: Starts researching the first World Trade Center bombing.
1995: Leaves The Sunday Times and starts writing a book on new "apocalyptic" terrorists.
1998: First book, The New Jackals, is published. Later becomes a New York Times bestseller.
2000: Writes One Day in September, about the Munich Olympics massacre.
2003: First TV series, Meet the Stans, on BBC.
2005: Places That Don't Exist, BBC4.
2006: Equator, BBC2.
2008: Tropic of Capricorn begins on BBC2 at 8pm on Sunday; the accompanying book is out on Thursday.
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THE OBSERVER
On the road to nowhere
Terrorism expert Simon Reeve travelled to places that don't officially exist for his new TV series and found it a humbling experience
Interview by Carl Wilkinson
Sunday May 1 2005
How did you get into travel?
My childhood holidays were usually to Studland Bay in Dorset. We rarely went abroad. Until I was 18 or 19 I had only really been to France and Switzerland. It was mainly through work that I started travelling properly. In the late Nineties I wrote a couple of books on terrorism and did a lot of travel for that. I like finding out about new places.
So how did you come to visit these places that don't officially exist?
A friend of mine mentioned that he had done business with some Somalilanders and to my shame I really didn't know where or what Somaliland was. I looked into it and discovered that there are dozens of these unrecognised nations around the world. If you look at a map of Somalia, you won't see a country called Somaliland in the north of it, but if you go there you find that there is a functioning state. It has a president, a very lively parliament, policemen and all the organs of a state, but no international recognition. I visited five of these places for the BBC: Somaliland, Transdniestria (between Moldova and Ukraine), Taiwan, Georgia and Nagorno Karabakh, which is in south-west Azerbaijan and connected by a single road to Armenia.
Did you ever feel under threat in these places?
My number one travel safety tip is not what you'd expect: it's to always wear a seatbelt. Risk is all relative. I never felt personally under threat, except perhaps in Mogadishu - it is probably the most dangerous city in the world, and there wasn't a moment I was there when I didn't feel desperately sorry for the people who live there. In Somalia they have no real government, no police force, no real sense of order. The place is ruled by warlords. It's tragic, especially when you look at the old postcards of Mogadishu. It was a beautiful city with Italian architecture and so on. Somaliland was devastated by civil war in the late 1980s and early 90s and tens of thousands died there, 50,000 in the capital Hargeisa alone. So the country was laid to waste. It's very humbling to see a country being built from nothing with little help from the outside.
Are these really places people could visit?
It would take a more independent, resourceful traveller to go to Somaliland than it would to Taiwan, but these are fascinating places. Visiting somewhere such as Transdniestria, you are going to get a very memorable experience, but it's not easy travel. One night we were detained by the Transdniestrian KGB for spying!
In your programmes you seem to meet fascinating people. Generally were you welcomed in these places?
If somebody turned up at my house from Moldovan TV and stuck a camera in my face, I wouldn't be very welcoming. So I was amazed by how willing people were to talk to me in front of a camera. Generally, people were pleased that we were taking an interest precisely because they feel that many of these places have been forgotten by the rest of the world. In Transdniestria, I met a guy who had sold a kidney to buy a cow - can you imagine? How can you ever look at your own life and think you've had a bad time? It's humbling, especially in a country like that, which is on the border of Europe. You realise just how lucky you are. My guide in Somaliland was a war hero called Yusuf Abdi Gabobe who fought with the Somaliland resistance. He had lived in the bush for 10 years and talked to us about fighting against a dictatorial regime. Everywhere we went, where they had hardly seen white people, they would stand open-mouthed and then see Yusuf and start cheering - 'Yusuf, the great hero!' Somaliland was my favourite place because of the spirit of the people. It was a really moving experience.
My Life In Media - The Independent
'I was told to track down two terrorists in Boston, and went dancing round the newsroom at the thought of a flight - but they were in Boston, Lincolnshire'
Sunday Telegraph interview
By Michael Deacon
Simon's Travel CV at Wanderlust
Fresh from traversing the Tropic of Capricorn, journalist and TV presenter Simon Reeve sat down with Dan Linstead to talk about his travel passions
The Observer
On the road to nowhere
Terrorism expert Simon Reeve travelled to places that don't officially exist for his new TV series and found it a humbling experience
Wanderlust travel magazine
The journalist and presenter talks about his series Places That Don't Exist
Another Wanderlust travel magazine chat
Simon Reeve’s Equator was one of the best travel documentaries of recent years. Now he’s done it again – along the Tropic of Capricorn. He tells us about his toughest trip
BBC website interview
There are almost 200 official countries in the world. But there are dozens more unrecognised nations determined to be independent. Simon Reeve set out to visit several of these lesser-known places.
My Life in Travel - The Independent on Sunday
'I fell ill with malaria in Gabon while travelling around the Equator'
My Week In Media - The Independent
Interview by Sophie Morris
Så farlig er verden heller ikke - Stiften
chat with Pia Richter from the Danish Stiften newspaper
Politik, mærkelig mad og nuttede dyr er de faste ingredienser i BBC-journalisten Simon Reeve succesfulde rejseprogrammer, som lige har været sendt herhjemme. Sådan får man alle hen til skærmen, mener han. Han er ved at afslutte sin tredje jordomrejse, men har lige kunnet klemme lidt ferie ind i Danmark, »verdens bedste land« - og landet, hans hustrus familie stammer fra.
Photos 1, 2, 3
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THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
My Life In Travel: Simon Reeve
'I fell ill with malaria in Gabon while travelling around the Equator'
Saturday, 10 March 2007
First holiday memory?
Going to Bude in north Cornwall and watching my younger brother James crawling around scoffing sand. I remember thinking I should probably stop him, but he seemed so happy. He survived to enjoy other delicacies.
Best holiday?
It has to be a trip to northern Borneo a few years back. Much of the south of the island has since been devastated, but the north was a magical place with extraordinary wildlife, beautiful beaches and glorious sunshine. I canoed down the Kinabatangan river, then visited the cathedral-sized Gomantong Caves, home to thousands of swifts and bats.
Favourite place in the British Isles?
Studland Bay in Dorset. My family went there several times a year for more than a decade after my dad found a cheap place to rent in nearby Wareham. We'd go sailing, walking, swimming or just laze.
What have you learnt from your travels?
Preparation is really important. I've had some bad experiences with illnesses abroad, so I make sure I get medical advice before travelling somewhere exotic. I'm now more careful about getting jabs and taking anti-malarials.
Ideal travelling companion?
I'd love to meet Michael Palin and hear his travel stories. Richard Branson seems to have a good approach to life and adventure. Perhaps he could take me to his Caribbean island.
Greatest travel luxury?
I don't travel without a Leatherman (a multi-tool instrument), but my favourite luxury is my iPod. I have wires to connect it to a car stereo when I'm trying to persuade a taxi driver to listen to my music rather than his crackly radio.
Beach bum, culture vulture or adrenalin junkie?
A bit of each. I get to travel through some fairly hairy parts of the world while working, so on holiday I like to relax in the sun, and read and drink too much.
Holiday reading?
Mainly non-fiction and essays I spot on Arts & Letters Daily (www.aldaily.com). I'm also addicted to The Week, a fantastic magazine digest of what's happening in the world.
Where has seduced you?
Bukhara in Uzbekistan and Somaliland in the Horn of Africa. Bukhara is an ancient Silk Road city with a majestic 16th-century madrasah and a minaret built in 1187. It's so beautiful, I was awestruck. Somaliland is the stable, breakaway and unrecognised bit of completely unstable Somalia. Somalilanders are building a country with very little money or help from the outside world - they're inspirational.
Worst travel experience?
While travelling around the Equator I started retching blood at 3am in Gabon. My temperature went up to just under 40C and I felt terrible. I was diagnosed with malaria and it was months before I felt completely better.
Worst holiday?
Last year my girlfriend and I had a few nights away in a B&B in the West Country. Someone crashed into our car, then we had to kill scores of houseflies that infested our room. And both of us were poisoned by the breakfast.
Worst hotel?
I've visited dozens of places untroubled by even medieval hygiene standards, but a dark, dank, mouldy hotel room in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, was particularly memorable. I was standing at a sink, waiting for brown water to turn clear and watching two cockroaches mating or wrestling, when I trod on a sharp rat-trap the size of a house-brick. I left.
Best hotel?
The Lalu in Taiwan, which used to be the summer home of Chiang Kai-shek's wife. It's now modern, beautiful and is situated on the banks of Sun Moon lake in the heart of the country.
Favourite walk/swim/ride/drive?
Walking on Hampstead Heath when the sun's shining is one of life's great, free pleasures.
Best meal abroad?
A couple of years ago I had a bizarre but fantastic meal with the President of Moldova, who insisted on plying me with the finest Moldovan cognac. I don't remember much beyond the first course.
Dream trip?
I'd love to take a long journey around India. But I'd also like to try island-hopping by yacht in the South Pacific.
Favourite city?
London has some of the best urban green spaces in the world and is a fantastic city in the spring and summer, but when it's a bit dark and cold I prefer Barcelona.
Where next?
I'm in discussions about another big work trip, and I'm trying to organise a skiing holiday with friends. We're looking at www.seat61.com, trying to work out how we can get to the snow by rail.
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DAILY TELEGRAPH
Simon Reeve: Tropic of Capricorn
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 09/02/2008
Author and traveller Simon Reeve has just completed his greatest challenge yet out - circling the world around the Tropic of Capricorn, the southern limit of the tropical zone. He tells Michael Deacon about his latest epic journey
Simon Reeve is becoming one of television’s seasoned travellers, but that doesn’t mean the world is running out of ways to surprise him. Filming in Madagascar for his latest BBC series, he was urged by his guide – a member of the Madagascan royal family, no less – to sample a local delicacy. ‘It was Giant Penis Soup,’ he recalls. ‘It’s the penis of the zebu, which is a kind of Asiatic cow. And its penis really is giant. One of the least pleasant culinary experiences I’ve had.’ Which means it must taste really bad: these are the words of a man who, in other countries, ate dried caterpillars, grilled llama and sheep’s eyes.
The series in question is Tropic of Capricorn, which starts on BBC2 on Sunday. In 2006, Reeve made a travelogue series called Equator, in which he traced the equator round the globe, meeting and learning about the people who live in the countries it passes through. Tropic of Capricorn is a kind of follow-up: this time he traces the line that marks the southernmost latitude at which the sun appears directly overhead at midday. Or to put it more simply: the line on the atlas that passes through South America, southern Africa and Australia.
‘It takes me round a fascinating region of the world that I think isn’t in the forefront of everyone’s mind,’ says the 35-year-old reporter. ‘It’s one of the most arid regions of the world – there’s the Kalahari desert in Namibia and Botswana, the Atacama desert in Chile. But it’s got variety as well: the Andes mountains in South America, Madagascar, the beauty of Mozambique.’
But Reeve’s purpose wasn’t simply to marvel at the landscape. His main interest was in the local peoples: their histories, their battles, their cultures. In Botswana, in the first episode, he meets the San tribe – better known as the Bushmen of the Kalahari – and learns how the country’s government has herded them into ‘resettlement camps’, in a bid to force them to become part of the modern world, rather than continue their traditional tribal ways. In the second episode, he’s horrified by the sight of Zimbabweans desperately fleeing their crumbling nation, fighting their way through razor wire to cross the border into South Africa.
Then there are the more eccentric characters. Take ‘Catman’, whom Reeve encounters in Namibia. ‘Catman’ is a French conservationist who prowls farmland, feeding wild cheetahs that are at risk of being shot by farmers if they attack livestock. Reeve joined him on a typical expedition – and the pair soon found themselves surrounded by roaring beasts. On screen, Reeve looks impressively unperturbed.
‘When there’s a TV camera on you, it encourages you to be a bit braver than you are naturally,’ he says. ‘But it also creates this illusion of safety. I remember we were flying across Paraguay and were about to land our tiny plane on a grassy runway. There was a sheep on it. I turned to the camera and said, “Ha ha, there’s a sheep on the runway.” And then a part of my brain went, “Hang on – we could die!” Luckily the pilot pulled back on his controls and we just whizzed over the top of the sheep.’
In his other career, as an author, Reeve has had some even more disorienting experiences. He was one of the first Western journalists to write about al-Qa’eda: he started to research a book about it just after the World Trade Centre bombings in 1993, when he was 21. The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism was published in 1998. He wrote it ‘for peanuts’ and nobody bought it. Until, of course, 9/11.
‘As soon as news desks started typing “Osama bin Laden” into Amazon’s search box, there was really only one book that popped up,’ he says. ‘Suddenly I had a bazillion TV crews turning up at flats I’d lived at years before, let alone the house I was currently living in. The big media machine needs feeding, and they needed people who could talk about al-Qa’eda. The thing is, my dad had just died too. I was in a daze.’
After Reeve’s blizzard of appearances as an al-Qa’eda expert on news programmes, the BBC commissioned a series from him on central Asia, 2003’s Holidays in the Danger Zone: Meet the Stans, and his star has risen steadily since. There are, he adds, many other far-flung places he wishes to explore.
‘Most people think the world is becoming very samey,’ he says, ‘but there are still extraordinary parts of it that we can show people, and tell them stories they haven’t heard before.’
____________________________________________________________
THE INDEPENDENT
Simon Reeve: My Life in Media
'I was told to track down two terrorists in Boston, and went dancing round the newsroom at the thought of a flight - but they were in Boston, Lincolnshire'
Monday, 4 February 2008
Simon Reeve, 35, is an author and broadcaster. Presenting BBC2's Equator, part-travelogue and part-current affairs programme, earned him comparisons to Michael Palin. He returns to our screens on Sunday with Tropic of Capricorn, a journey from Namibia to Australia and on to Argentina and Brazil. Reeve's first book, The New Jackals, predicted the rise of al-Qa'ida and became a New York Times bestseller. He grew up in Acton, west London, and lives with his wife Anya in north London.
What inspired you to embark on a career in the media?
I had a vague notion that journalism could be interesting, but I never thought it was an option. After leaving school I had no idea what to do in life. I went on the dole, ran a charity shop, and I was turned down for a job as a white-van driver based on Wembley Trading Estate. That was a low point. Then my dad saw an advert in The Sunday Times and somehow I landed a job.
When you were 15 years old, which newspaper did your family get, and did you read it?
We used to get The Times, largely because Mr Murdoch introduced a complicated cut-price scheme. I was equally interested in the Ealing & Acton Leader, which I delivered locally. It grabbed eyeballs with headlines of the "Slasher horseman stalks Acton Park!" variety. A clever mix of parochial shockery.
And what were your favourite TV and radio programmes?
On the TV it was anything that had even a suggestion of violence or sex. I loved Minder, partly because I'd see them filming as I walked to school. But I was also obsessed with the news, documentaries, and travel and adventure shows: anything that involved wielding a machete in a jungle. We'd have the Today programme on every morning, and that encouraged an ongoing affair with Radio 4. It's one of the many things I miss on my long journeys away.
Describe your job
I've written and edited a few books, and now I'm travelling to far-flung parts of the planet and hoping I can interest people in what happens there. It's hard when Amy Winehouse and Paris Hilton are so fascinating.
What is the first media you turn to in the morning?
Radio 4, then the BBC news homepage. I get The Independent news email every day, which is still free – thank you very much.
Do you consult any media sources during the day?
Endlessly. If I'm preparing for a trip then I have a slab of travel guides to use as reference. Otherwise I'm on the BBC website, Google and all the usual. Everyone slags off Wikipedia, but I think it's getting stronger and sharper all the time.
What is the best thing about your job?
The fact that it's less like a job and more of an education. Travelling around the Tropic of Capricorn, I was overwhelmed by new information, knowledge, smells and sights. Travelling makes up for never having gone to university.
And the worst?
I seem to work every day of the week. There's always something to do. That's the downside of being freelance.
How do you feel you influence the media?
Not a jot. But I hope the TV programmes I've been making show viewers a bit more about life in dusty corners of the planet.
What's the proudest achievement in your working life?
My first byline. It was a tiny "compiled by..." on a Sunday Times table of worst theatre reviews. My gran framed it. Close second was winning a One World Broadcasting Trust Award for Places That Don't Exist, a series I devised about unrecognised countries. The citation said it made an "outstanding contribution to greater world understanding". You can't get much better than that.
And what's your most embarrassing moment?
When my big break came I still hadn't been on a plane. I was told to track down two terrorists hiding in Boston and went dancing around the newsroom at the thought of a flight, only to be told they were in Boston in Lincolnshire.
What do you tune into at home?
At home or in the car it's Radio 4. I even podcast programmes like From Our Own Correspondent. I love watching TV while I'm abroad, particularly when I can't understand the language. I once saw an It's a Knockout competition in Saudi Arabia that gave me a whole new take on life in the kingdom. And a dubbed, pirated version of Titanic in Kyrgyzstan was better than the original.
What is your Sunday paper? And do you have a favourite magazine?
I subscribe to The Week, which I think should be compulsory reading. And I love the scoop of analysis you get from The New York Review of Books. I'm fickle when it comes to papers. If I want a doorstop I'll get The Sunday Times. Usually it's The Observer or The Independent on Sunday.
Name one career ambition you want to realise
If I make it through life without being forced to take jobs that fill me with daily dread then I'll be happy.
What would you do if you didn't work in the media?
I'm endlessly trying to spot a great business idea while I'm away, but the best ones appear to be illegal. I think I'd settle on a tree stump grinding business.
Who in the media do you most admire and why?
Adam Curtis for The Century of the Self. George Monbiot for banging on about things that matter.
The CV
1990: Joins The Sunday Times as a post-boy.
1993: Starts researching the first World Trade Center bombing.
1995: Leaves The Sunday Times and starts writing a book on new "apocalyptic" terrorists.
1998: First book, The New Jackals, is published. Later becomes a New York Times bestseller.
2000: Writes One Day in September, about the Munich Olympics massacre.
2003: First TV series, Meet the Stans, on BBC.
2005: Places That Don't Exist, BBC4.
2006: Equator, BBC2.
2008: Tropic of Capricorn begins on BBC2 at 8pm on Sunday; the accompanying book is out on Thursday.
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THE OBSERVER
On the road to nowhere
Terrorism expert Simon Reeve travelled to places that don't officially exist for his new TV series and found it a humbling experience
Interview by Carl Wilkinson
Sunday May 1 2005
How did you get into travel?
My childhood holidays were usually to Studland Bay in Dorset. We rarely went abroad. Until I was 18 or 19 I had only really been to France and Switzerland. It was mainly through work that I started travelling properly. In the late Nineties I wrote a couple of books on terrorism and did a lot of travel for that. I like finding out about new places.
So how did you come to visit these places that don't officially exist?
A friend of mine mentioned that he had done business with some Somalilanders and to my shame I really didn't know where or what Somaliland was. I looked into it and discovered that there are dozens of these unrecognised nations around the world. If you look at a map of Somalia, you won't see a country called Somaliland in the north of it, but if you go there you find that there is a functioning state. It has a president, a very lively parliament, policemen and all the organs of a state, but no international recognition. I visited five of these places for the BBC: Somaliland, Transdniestria (between Moldova and Ukraine), Taiwan, Georgia and Nagorno Karabakh, which is in south-west Azerbaijan and connected by a single road to Armenia.
Did you ever feel under threat in these places?
My number one travel safety tip is not what you'd expect: it's to always wear a seatbelt. Risk is all relative. I never felt personally under threat, except perhaps in Mogadishu - it is probably the most dangerous city in the world, and there wasn't a moment I was there when I didn't feel desperately sorry for the people who live there. In Somalia they have no real government, no police force, no real sense of order. The place is ruled by warlords. It's tragic, especially when you look at the old postcards of Mogadishu. It was a beautiful city with Italian architecture and so on. Somaliland was devastated by civil war in the late 1980s and early 90s and tens of thousands died there, 50,000 in the capital Hargeisa alone. So the country was laid to waste. It's very humbling to see a country being built from nothing with little help from the outside.
Are these really places people could visit?
It would take a more independent, resourceful traveller to go to Somaliland than it would to Taiwan, but these are fascinating places. Visiting somewhere such as Transdniestria, you are going to get a very memorable experience, but it's not easy travel. One night we were detained by the Transdniestrian KGB for spying!
In your programmes you seem to meet fascinating people. Generally were you welcomed in these places?
If somebody turned up at my house from Moldovan TV and stuck a camera in my face, I wouldn't be very welcoming. So I was amazed by how willing people were to talk to me in front of a camera. Generally, people were pleased that we were taking an interest precisely because they feel that many of these places have been forgotten by the rest of the world. In Transdniestria, I met a guy who had sold a kidney to buy a cow - can you imagine? How can you ever look at your own life and think you've had a bad time? It's humbling, especially in a country like that, which is on the border of Europe. You realise just how lucky you are. My guide in Somaliland was a war hero called Yusuf Abdi Gabobe who fought with the Somaliland resistance. He had lived in the bush for 10 years and talked to us about fighting against a dictatorial regime. Everywhere we went, where they had hardly seen white people, they would stand open-mouthed and then see Yusuf and start cheering - 'Yusuf, the great hero!' Somaliland was my favourite place because of the spirit of the people. It was a really moving experience.
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