A COTSWOLDS adventurer has returned after a gruelling race to the South Pole, spurred on by the music of Abba.

Super trooper Phil Hayday-Brown, 39, was on one of six teams who set off on January 4 to reach the Pole.

Phil, from Rendcomb, said despite regularly skiing for over 15 hours the hardest part was the mental challenge but found comfort in listening to the Swedish pop band on a teammate’s MP3 player to much 440-mile trek.

Arctic explorer Eric Larsen, a Cedarburg native, intends to be the first person ever to reach the South and North poles and the summit of Mount Everest within one year.

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Only 15 people in history – no Americans among them – have successfully traveled to all three frozen places, according to Larsen. None of them accomplished the feat within 365 days, according to http://www.adventurestats.com and other international explorer Web sites.

Orlando Bloom in Antarctica

Monaco’s Prince Albert II visits South Pole

SOUTH POLE (AP) — Monaco’s Prince Albert II has reached the South Pole after a two-day-long cross-country ski trip across Antarctica, fraught by wind and fog.

The prince, whose team included a doctor and his friend, South African adventurer Mike Horn, reached the Pole at 1947 GMT (2:47 p.m. EST) on Tuesday. Temperatures during the journey reached minus 40 Fahrenheit (minus 40 Celsius).

Following a brief ceremony, the prince then visited a U.S. base near the Pole. The Amundsen-Scott base was one of 26 international bases the prince is expected to visit during his trip to Antarctica.

The prince, 50, has said his trip, which is to wrap up on Jan. 22, is aimed at raising awareness about global warming. The sovereign visited the North Pole in 2006.

It would be crass, shameful and, worst of all, common, to deny The Prince his glory, which is duly earned and praised, your lordship.

However, the AP newswire, when fed on a diet of press releases, can be as vulgar an entity as a Latimer Square glue-huffer, and must likewise be relentlessly policed lest its fantastic hallucinations virate through the populace.

Exhibit 1: “…Prince Albert II has reached the South Pole after a two-day-long cross-country ski trip across Antarctica…”

Discussion: This language suggests that the Prince skied across Antarctica in two days. Though I’m certain his lordship could do so if he put his mind to it, this article starts out more like a supernatural piece from North Korea than a legitimate piece of Western journalism.

Exhibit 2: “Temperatures during the journey reached minus 40 Fahrenheit (minus 40 Celsius).”

Discussion: Considering that this humble servant’s lord was entertained by the Antarctic weather in the summer, it is possible that this “minus 40″ spectacle included the wind chill factor, which should be mentioned.

Exhibit 3: “Following a brief ceremony, the prince then visited a U.S. base near the Pole.”

Discussion: Building on the previous wink-wink suggestion that the Prince skied to Pole from the coast like Kim Il Sung hitting a hole-in-one at every golf match, this quote suggests that the U.S. base is incidental to the South Pole, which is simply not the case. The U.S. base is about as close to the Geographic South Pole as one can be without putting plumbing there and shitting in it.

Exhibit 4: “The prince, 50, has said his trip, which is to wrap up on Jan. 22, is aimed at raising awareness about global warming.”

Discussion: Burning tens of thousands of pounds of diesel to zip around to 26 bases in Antarctica is an excellent way to raise awareness about global warming.