On Thin Ice.

BBC 2, Sunday 21:00

Polar regions have a fascination for me.  The environment is so bleak and alien it's difficult not be fascinated.  Add to that a layer of British boys own adventure from the heroic age of exploration and it's all over bar the shouting for me.

So I was anticipating greatly this series charting the efforts of Ben Fogle and James Cracknell in the first ever race to the Pole.

I am not a fan of celebrity adventurers and when these two suggested Gordon Ramsey as their 3rd team member the program looked like it was heading South a hell of a lot faster than expected.

Fortunately the foul mouthed boiler of eggs was in far too much of a social whirl to plod to the pole (only 1 day off that year, which I can now reveal is not so he can attend my birthday).  There might have been some amusement in watching him suffer, but unless he regularly fell through the ice it would not have been compensation enough.

As the episodes progressed the sheer misfortune of Ben Fogle unfolded in front of us.

Now I have always considered this chap a bit too foppish but that is to do the fellow serious dis-service.  He is made of British steel in an old fashioned way.

Flesh eating diseases seemed like a pretty major blow and the cure was only marginally less likely to kill him than the disease.  Missing out on vital training the chap kept his chin up, even if there is a distinct lack of stiff upper lip about him, Ben blubbing seems to be a stock feature of his pieces to camera.

Then his wife miscarried.  Devastating stuff really, but Ben kept his eyes on the goal originally set.

He clearly must have had serious misgivings and doubts about this venture, its not a place to go underprepared or with too many thoughts elsewhere but the team must have been relying on him to some extent to keep his end up, and so he has.

At the end of Episode 4 the teams have yet to actually get to the start line.

Call me a cynic but there is not a lot of the series left for our lads to get to the Pole victorious.  Methinks there might be some noble failure in the air.