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Like playing golf in sand ?
We had 100 balls . We did a couple of holes , lost 20 balls , and realised we couldn ’ t finish the round . So we retired to the pub . After about four pints , somebody came up with a brilliant idea about how to track a golf ball .
The next morning he brought a bucket of balls and each one had been drilled and a three foot section of red cotton had been siliconed in . As you struck the ball it had a massive tail . You could follow the path and you ’ d get to the place where you ’ d normally lose your ball and see this red tail sticking out of the snow . Dig down , find your ball , whack it off again .
And you played cricket in the South Pole ?
That was quite a recent adventure that finished in the South Pole and we just thought it would be fun to set another world record .
I arranged sponsorship from the MCC and they give us a set of cricket gear and when I got there I recruited all the other adventurers from around the world . We were all gathering for the 100 th anniversary of Scott ’ s arrival on 17 th January 2012 . On that day we had a five hour game of cricket at -35 ° C .
What was lovely was there was a tourist flight and out popped a 75-year-old gentleman who I got chatting to in the tented canteen , and it transpired he was the editor of Wisdom Cricket Journal . So he was immediately roped in , despite his age , to be the umpire in Britain versus the rest of the world .
Who won ?
Britain . By two wickets . And that was with a broken bat that didn ’ t survive the cold .
I was reading your website and I seem to have blinked at the moment Back to the Future came true and someone invented a road legal flying car .
I ’ m quite proud of the flying car mission because back in 2007 we were on the sides of Mount Everest again , setting a world record for a high altitude motorised paragliding flight , which was achieved by my friend there . We were in a tent having a cup of tea with Giles Cardozo , the young British inventor . After getting a
small aspirated engine to 30,000 , which is an incredible engineering feat in its own right , he said “ This can translate to the dream of a flying car .”
The prototype was going to cost £ 150,000 and I was sure we could find somebody to help us realise this dream so I committed to order the first one and organised an expedition for a maiden voyage . It was a road legal bio-fuelled flying car , effectively a car that flies underneath a paraglider ’ s canopy with a propeller at the back of the car pushing it through the air .
We did a 10,000 kilometre , 46 day journey from London to Timbuktu with a hair-raising flight across the straits of Gibraltar illegally . We spent a bit of time arrested but we were released and crossed the Sahara desert .
Of your many adventures , which are you most proud of ?
The expedition to celebrate Shackleton ’ s epic expedition 100 years back ranks up there . Getting a replica sailing boat down to Antarctica via the RAF , a Russian cargo ship and a cruise liner , and getting my team safely across South Georgia having made the first landing on Elephant Island since Shackleton ’ s day was pretty special .
How do you relax ?
I have a fabulous family , a very supportive wife and a lovely house in