[meteorite-list] re "Meteorite Man" UK TV program

From: Matteo Chinellato <mcomemeteorite2000_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:44:35 2004
Message-ID: <20010302191100.45114.qmail_at_web10315.mail.yahoo.com>

Hello all

I am very grateful if is possible have a copy of this
documentary, under payment or trade meteorite.
Regards

matteo

--- STUARTATK_at_aol.com ha scritto: > Hi all,
>
> Thought List members might be interested to hear a
> bit more about last
> night's meteorote-related TV program, as mentioned
> earlier this week by
> myself and Rob.
>
> I'm sure Rob will agree with me that it was a quite
> bizarre little
> documentary! In shaky handicam Blair Witch style it
> basically followed a trip
> by the "meteorite man", Andy (never heard a surname,
> maybe Rob will know) to
> Morocco in search of Saharan meteorites, and his
> later efforts to sell his
> finds in Paris.
>
> The doc opened before the Morocco trip, with Andy
> standing outside a shop in
> Paris, waiting for it to open. The shop was called
> "Galerie Alain Carion",
> and inside Andy met with "The biggest meteorite
> dealer in Europe," Alain
> Carion, who sat him down and examined some specimens
> he'd brought with him.
> Didn't see anything he really liked, but agreed he
> would look at any other
> pieces Andy found after his trip to the desert, then
> - after telling Andy no,
> he'd never heard of his Moroccan contact "Idris" -
> took Andy downstairs to
> his storage area, to show him some of his
> collection, including a huge thin
> slab of gorgeously-polished Esquel.
>
> Scene 2, and after arriving in Morocco, Andy spends
> a frustrating evening on
> the phone trying to get in touch with the mysterious
> Idris. No luck, but he
> is given another dealer to check-out, an "Ali"...
>
> Scene 3, and Andy arrives in Zagora and after a solo
> piece to camera
> describing the elusive Idris as "untrustworthy" and
> worse, the aforementioned
> Moroccan appears at his car window. Idris is short,
> has tight permed hair,
> and laughs like a hyena, I'm not kidding. Andy's
> travelling partner - never
> seen on cmera - asks Andy what he thinks of Idris.
> "He makes me sick, to be
> honest, but he's the best meteorite hunter in the
> Sahara, so.." Andy
> recounts how his last deep-desert "hunt" with Idris
> was a nightmare; at one
> point he and his companion "Joel" feared for their
> lives and were ready to
> jump Idris and his friend, but they got back okay.
> Andy and Idris agree to a
> pre-expedition meeting later that evening... but
> Idris fails to show, leaving
> Andy to watch a lunar eclipse alone.
>
> Scene 4: Next morning Andy decides to go and find
> Idris at his shop, and when
> he gets there he is shown inside and is offered a
> large number of specimens
> for examination. Some are clearly just rocks, others
> are possibles. There's a
> lot of examination, weighing, banter and haggling
> (At one point Andy
> expresses interest in buying one stone from a
> collection of several, and
> Idris is not happy: "Why you choose? Mike Farmer buy
> whole bag! Whole bag!!"
> ! ) Eventually Andy buys several specimens, though
> he's not 100% sure if
> they're real meteorites, and leaves, ready to go to
> his second meeting, with
> "Ali". Only thing is, Ali lives 200 miles away, so
> Andy has to take a long
> drive thru the desert... but that's okay, cos he's
> heard reports of a "fall"
> in the area, so he figures he can check out the site
> along the way...
>
> When he gets to the "fall site" he has a look around
> with his metal detector,
> and finds some interesting-looking rocks, which are
> dark, and make his
> detector ping, but it's an iron ore area apparently,
> and the dark coating, he
> thinks, is just wind damage and "desert varnish".
> But he collects a few
> anyway, figuring he can get someone to check them
> out later.
>
> Scene 5: A sleep-ruffled Andy lies in bed, reading a
> battered copy of "Rocks
> From Space", planning the day ahead, which basically
> involves finding "Ali"
> and seeing what he has to offer. Ali greets him at
> his bazaar shop - v roomy
> and airy inside, unlike Idris'
> cat-swinging-impossible-here shop back in
> Zagora - and agrees to look at Andy's finds. Ali
> examines them all VERY
> closely, but isn't impressed, buys nothing, and
> suddenly can hardly speak a
> word of ENglish, either... but he agrees that yes,
> he will look at any rocks
> Andy finds out in the desert later.
>
> Scene 6: Andy speeds off into the deep, orange
> Saharan desert in his Range
> Rover, to meet up with a nomad called "Achmed" (I'm
> not making this up, I
> promise!). But when he arrives at the agreed meeting
> place Andy gets the car
> stuck in a deep sand drift, right up to its wheel
> arches, so all he can do is
> wait for Achmed to arrive. The nomad duly appears
> out of the desert... on a
> motorbike, well, walking alongside his motorbike...
> and spreads out a
> collection of rocks on Andy's beached car's bonnet.
> Again, some look like
> just rocks... couple of fossils in there too... but
> a few look reasonable, so
> Andy buys them. Achmed takes off into the desert
> again, wheels spinning...
> leaving Andy still stranded with his car. With no
> help in sight, Andy decides
> to walk back to town, and come back the next day
> with help, if he can find
> it. Luckily he can, and the next morning several
> townspeople accompany him
> back to the car, and help him get it unstuck. Andy,
> obviously sick of dealing
> with the likes of Idris and Ali, decides to deputise
> his new friends as
> meteorite hunters, and shows them pictures in books,
> and also demonstrates
> how magnets are attracted to meteorites. The nomads
> look at him as if he's
> crazy, but agree to help him look the next day.
>
> Scene 7: Andy is back at Ali's shop, and offers the
> dealer the specimens he
> has found (if his deputies found any isn't
> revealed). Ali isn't interested
> very much, but offers Andy some of *his* rocks
> instead. Andy examines them,
> and while most are quickly discarded one catches his
> eye, an apple-sized
> chunk of dark, glassy rock with a brownish-green
> tone. Even before he says so
> in the voice-over, Andy is clearly thinking
> "Martian!!!" and seeing dollar
> signs before his eyes, so after much to-ing and
> fro-ing he buys the riock and
> begins his trip home, with Ali's sincere assurances
> that if the rock is *not*
> a meteorite he will buy it back from him ringing in
> his ears...
>
> Scene 8: Paris, Alain Carion's shop. Andy and Mr
> Carion are hunched over a
> desk lamp, examinging the specimens Andy has
> collected / bought in Morocco.
> Mr Carion quickly tosses the first few aside,
> confidently dismissing them in
> tirn as "rock... just a rock..." confirming Andy's
> suspicions that the dark
> surface material is desert weathering and varnish
> and not fusion crust. Andy
> then hands over his "Mars meteorite", and waits for
> the verdict. "A rock," Mr
> Carion declares, as confident as before. Andy tells
> him that Ali promised him
> he would buy the rock back if it wasn't a real
> meteorite. Mr Carion falls
> about laughing. I can't speak French, but I suspect
> what he said inbetween
> guffaws was something along the lines of "Yeah,
> right..." ;-)
>
> However, Andy's trip hasn't been in vain, because
> as the documentary ends Mr
> Carion is on the phone arranging for one of ANdy's
> other specimens to be
> analysed properly. Turns out that it's a rare
> howardite. Ironically, as Andy
> points out to the camera, the howardite is one of
> the rocks sold to him by
> Idris... so the guy he trusted least of all is the
> only one who has come up
> with the goods.
>
> Program ends...
>
=== message truncated ===


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Received on Fri 02 Mar 2001 02:11:00 PM PST