'Point a gun in my face' or 'make me carry it above my head for hours'? Prior to Hell Week I'd probably have chosen the latter, but after 48hrs of Israeli hell I was wishing someone would put a bullet in my brain to stop the suffering.
Days three and four focused on leadership. Namely the people who think they're good leaders and the people who come across as not being good leaders.
Whether it was pushing Land Rovers, carrying sand bags or carrying stretchers the thing they were focusing on was leadership - they didn't really care about the results even if us guys did - which inevitable caused slight rifts within camp.
Rory was the star of episode two and started out great winning the first event as team captain. But getting a little carried away he started to turn people against him. Not just us fellow competitors it spread to the camera crew and medics who saw him as a loud mouth. I personally didn't mind his authoritarian leadership style and even found it quite helpful - making sure my normal carnage organisation was a little bit more in line. He also was a stickler for everything being tidy and clean so he tended to make sure the Mess Tent was all cleared up before most of us had finished our meals.
The thing that will never be clear to the viewers is the pure sleep and food deprivation we went through clouding Rory's and the rest of our minds. As we progress through the show you can see that this living style actually becomes our reality rather than a game show which it kinda felt like as we arrived in the coach. We are purely surviving and decisions are made based on the reality we were living in rather than considering how we looked from the other side of a TV screen. The other thing that the show doesn't make clear is how much we were beasted by the SAS 'staff' in between challenges. It was continuous and brutal - and still at this stage the 'staff' we're treating us like animals - as upstarts who thought they were better than we were. The feeling in my back as the weight of the gun crushed any misaligned vertebrae - I shuddered a couple of times watching when he shouted 'Gun above your head'.
David Hellard was also singled out but for the opposite reasons to Rory - he'd started flagging at the pushups (we had done about a bazillion in three days) and was a clear joker amongst the pack. He seemed to do pretty well in my eyes though but the trailers for episode three show a clear story of David being put under the spot light again.
I'm still yet to shine on the show - other than a few comments about flowers, showers and making tea in opportune times but I'm hoping next Sunday people will start to see whom Danny Bent is! Bring it on!!!
Check out my website at http://DannyBent.com