UKC

Has anyone ever carried a rope like this, or seen anyone carrying a rope like this?

http://www.gordonstainforthbelper.co.uk/images/TudorRope.jpg

From an advertisement for a watch in yesterday's paper.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Yes. Don't usually put my waist belt around it though.

In reply to jon:

That's what I was referring to.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Heroic stance!

In reply to DaveHK:

Not quite sure what he's doing carrying quickdraws while he's walking. And he really needs to learn how to coil a rope better than that.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

A rather archaic way to carry a rope if anything as you might expect from an advert.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth: I would be more worried about wearing as little as he is at -60 degrees.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
That's what usually happens to me when I forget to put my rucksack back on before outing the rope over my shoulder, and can't be arsed to sort it.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Does it matter?

In reply to PATTISON Bill:


Yes. To me the advert is an example of mediocrity, a kind of sloppy attitude towards research. Extraordinary, given that that the budget would have been huge. It smacks of arrogance too, as if they're saying, what we want to convey is that our wonderful watches will work in v low temperatures, in the sort of conditions experienced by those strange weirdos called mountaineers - so weird that they're not the sort of people we, or our customers, are ever likely to encounter.

In reply to PATTISON Bill:

PS. A bit like advertisements that use the Matterhorn (as seen from Zermatt - probably the most familiar mountain image in the world) and they print it back to front. It just looks so wrong and so different. ... I can't actually think of any other example of anything that looks quite so different when the image is reversed. But I digress ...

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I have used the waist belt to restrain a coiled rope from flopping about during a descent otherwise it tends to swing in front of you and obscures your view of your feet.

But I'm sure I don't give such an heroic image in the process!

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Sort of thing I could imagine on a bear grills advert.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Really? How do you know?

To me, your post is an example of astonishingly misplaced priorities. Do you honestly think anyone looking at the advert is going to go into the kind of analysis you've applied. It's a f*cking watch advert, not a statement on the soul of mountaineering.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Hasn't everyone taken coils after a break, looked down and said "oh sh1t" when you realise you didn't have your pack back on?!

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

- so weird that they're not the sort of people we, or our customers, are ever likely to encounter.

Isn't that true?

In reply to tony:


I'm not so sure! The level of consideration that companies put into their advertising is truly phenomenal. Or at least, it should be. So Suunto, as a company that manufactures "outdoor sports instruments" to a cost of several hundred pounds a piece do look a bit daft by the fact we're having this conversation in the first place.

A perfect counter to this would be the image that Glenmore Lodge seem to use everywhere, shortroping in Sneachda in winter - i.e. not a cheap photoshoot, real competency, real situation.

In reply to tony:

I used to be involved for a sort time with commercials.


I wouldn't take it too seriously. I just find it a bit irritating, that's all. Sometimes it can be quite funny (e.g. when you see someone belaying in an advert by simply holding the rope in their hands.)

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Not just climbing, I used to be into juggling and pretty much every advert where they fake up a model juggling by photo shopping puts the balls in an obviously incorrect pattern.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Looks like a Still Image, taken from the watch ad, on telly?

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

To be fair using the waist belt over the coils to stop them flapping about, getting caught or sliding down is not a bad idea.

I belay with the rope in my hands, do you use your feet?

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


It's a matter of priorities. Do you invest money getting an accurate representation of juggling (or whatever) when people who would notice are a small fraction of your target audience?

I remember a fantastic Honda ad some years ago involving an elaborate and intricate physical effect setup requiring many days, only for most people to come away thinking the whole thing was CGI.

In reply to Dell:


I said 'simply by holding the rope in their hands' ... meaning, not going through anything else, or even round their waist or shoulder.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Lost on the way to a BMC area meeting?

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed this! Is it just me or does it look look awfully thick for a winter rope as well.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
Even worse is that he's wearing a waterproof in Antarctica!

In reply to nclarey:

Awfully thick and awfully long. And the coils, of course, are far too big. No experienced alpinist ever coils their rope that loosely.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Just out of shot: Sylvester Stallone's bolt gun, Bear Grylls abseiling off a deer's antler and a man climbing hand over hand up a hemp rope.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Zzzzzzzz..

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I agree. I was recently on set where they were filming a re-enactment of the first of some nationality summiting Everest in the early 80's. I was on set in a different capacity (as a vet for some sled dogs...) but couldn't resist the pull of the climbing scene. They had done their research and found some old guides who had climbed Everest in the same time frame and borrowed their gear - all the gear was accurate. Then then hired some muppet who had never been climbing (at all) before to put it all together. I walked in and each (massive) pack had 3 or 4 ice axes all over them, one was even horizontally through the ice axe loops at the bottom... I just had to say something so I showed her how to put ice axes on a backpack. I figured it was for a moving-camp scene, but no, it was the summit shot. So in the finished movie (massive budget, academy award winning director), 3 guys summit Everest with 80 litre packs on, and all sorts of paraphernalia hanging from their harnesses (quickdraws, more than 1 belay device per person) etc...
The director spent a lot of time getting the dog sledding scenes accurate - they had people on set who knew and were consulted. But not the climbing scene. People take climbing for granted it seems. "it's just ropes and lots of weird gear and crazy people doing super dangerous things". Done. No expert advice needed.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


You mean a 'proper' Harrison's belay?

In reply to Robin Mazinke:

Sure. That always worked. But we relied hugely on the friction in the system and the fact that it was a top rope.

My memories of Harrison's are that we simply held the rope in both hands round our bums, and never had a problem holding people when they fell off. You just kind of wrapped the rope around yourself a bit if there was a problem.

And, as you probably well remember, there was a whole culture of not belaying people too well, particularly if they were faffing around on the top rope for too long. In the West London MC (as a bunch of us grandly called ourselves for a while in the 1980s), if you faffed around for over two minutes at a crux you were unceremoniously 'dropped'. It became a kind of rule. David Jones was a master at it, and would have you plummeting to about six inches off the deck.

Great days really.