I met Charlie at one of his talks last year and he seemed to be a lovely guy. We had a bit of a chat before the show, even though I had never met him before, and a little longer one with him and Si Pavey afterwards at the book signing. All I can say is that I warmed to him more than I expected and I suspect that if you could afford to go on one of his Africa trips with him, he would be good company. Listening to him talk warmly about both Ewan and Russ, I felt that the differences in the way he sees the two guys is more to do with him being far more of a petrol head and biker than Ewan, and therefore maybe wanting to spend more time than Ewan on trips, and Russ' 'greater willingness' and 'greater availability' over Ewan for doing stuff. They make a good team - simples. I'm a little disappointed to see the derogatory remarks about him, just because he isn't as hard core as some of our own contributors
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