Pen Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley receive the Royal Pennant from Prince Charles yesterday at a snowy (if only just) Clarence House.  It is the first time a polar expedition has received a pennant since Shackleton a century ago and is a huge honour for the team.
It was quite interesting to be with the royal press pack. Clearly I wasn’t aware of all the rules. When I stepped out of line to take the photo (above, right) I got a royal ticking off!

6-February-09

I’m typing this with sore fingertips that were injured during the extreme cold of last Sunday’s Tough Guy which I was competing in for an ITV4 show. Not even the windchill temperatures I experienced in the Arctic came close to the ‘perfect cold’ conditions of this unique event. With the repeated dunkings in cold water after a hard run, followed by blasts from Siberian winds, it was almost as if the race was designed with the sole aim of getting competitors hypothermic. This is what the Birmingham Mail reported:

A CATALOGUE of bone-crunching injuries made sure that sub-zero temperatures were the last thing on the minds of the 6,000 competitors at yesterday’s legendary Tough Guy challenge in Perton. A broken neck, a dozen broken or dislocated bones and 600 people struck down with hypothermia – including the winner – all meant it was business as usual in what’s been dubbed the world’s toughest endurance battle.

“It was a good year,” a marshall told me. “A few broken legs, plenty of hypothermia but we didn’t kill anyone.”
Oh, the thin line between courage and lunacy. Needless to say, 90% of competitors are men.

3-February-09