Pole Dancing

‘REAL trail-blazing adventurers have no time for 4x4s or even people carriers, preferring to cut their swathe to glory with a pair of skis on their feet, a husky burger in their stomach and a knapsack on their back.

One explorer looks pretty much the same as another

The Times duly reintroduces the world to Pen Hadow, who has become the first person to travel solo and unsupported from northern Canada to the geographic North Pole, and make it back alive – eventually.

It took eight days to rescue the man the Times describes as looking like a cross between Howard Hughes and Barry Gibb, meaning he had been away for 75 days in all.

And having not spoken much to another human being in that time, Hadow is in full gush move.

”The truth is that this expedition has never really been about me,” he says, ”it’s been about what my endeavour can do for people around me.”

His ”endeavours”, as he modestly calls his trek, certainly had an effect on the Canadian rescuers who spent much of the past week looking for him.

But the Times cares not for any criticism, preferring to salute the man as genuine British hero.

We hear of his ”unshowy knowledge of the history of our polar past”, his ”intrepid spirit”, and above all things we twice hear of his ”dark, handsome, articulate Old Harrovian” credentials.

The conclusion is that he’s hardly ”conventional”. Well, he’s certainly not chipped from the same block of ice as they who drive 4x4s to the freezer section at Iceland, but to the average explorer, he’s just another bushy beard in the crowd.

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Posted: 28th, May 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink