Middle Youth

Have you seen the BBC’s On Thin Ice? (You can watch Episode 2 here.) Even if you’re not familiar with it you’ll recognise the format at once. It’s one of those shows that centres around some kind of quest by some minor celebs for the sole reason that they can then make a television programme about it to fill a gap in the summer scheduling. This time the protagonists are impossibly nice posho Ben Fogle and chisel-jawed rowing beefcake James Cracknell. These two have got form you’ll recall: they rowed across the Atlantic with their arses out or some such nonsense. Clearly they became great pals and decided to try their hands at something else ‘to push themselves to their limits both physically and emotionally’ (it says here). So they’re off to the Antarctic ice cap for a 500 mile trek in the Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race. They roped in Johnny Lee-Miller (obviously thinking he’d like a bit of that Ewan McGregor Long Road to Nowhere in Particular action). Who? Yeah, you know – he married Angelina Jolie before she became stupidly famous. He was in ‘Trainspotting’ too, I think he played Sicknote or something. Anyhoo, he was along for the ride for a bit, and then apparently he thought ‘fu** this for a laugh, Ewan go to ride on motorcycles and look cool, this is crap!’ and arranged for his agent to pretend his TV show had got a second series thus rendering him unable to compete. Or maybe he got fed up with BenFo and J-Crac asking him what La Jolie was like to shag? So JLM is out and this gave the lads a perfect opportunity to spend a whole episode hand picking a replacement. So there’s a lot of running and swimming in the rain and 30 or so were whittled down to just four. Almost all of them seemed to be doctors. We watched the lucky four running a bit more and sitting in a really cold room while BenFo and J-Crac asked them stupid questions to see if they could get along with them during those long dark nights (or days!?) of the soul. Ed Coats gets the gig, he’s a posh doctor (natch), good looking and will be handy to have around if BenFo’s nose looks like it’s turning a bit black in the cold. Annoyingly the chaps seem to react to all the gruelling training sessions and stage-managed setbacks with the sort of steely resolve you’d expect from people with expensive educations. Fortitude in the face of extreme difficulty, they’ve got it by the silver-plated bucket loads. Mind you to them the race is nothing compared to when they run out of Pimm’s at the Henley Regatta – now that’s hardship! So the BGB’s (Bloody Good Blokes) train by running up and down the desolate beaches of Blighty in the drizzly autumnal gloom dragging tyres behind them. And other stuff. Anyway, it’s all very nice and watchable, but can we please just get to the South Pole soon please? I’m sure it’ll get more exciting then.