London seems really grimy – I never remembered it this way. The constant drone of the city is almost unbearable – the crawling traffic, the antique buses belching black smoke, the trains, the sirens, the car alarms, a million noisy conversations in a few square miles. There’s dust everywhere. It’s unbearably warm. My senses are amplified – it’s like watching a tv that needs the brightness, contrast, colour and volume turning down.

Ben Saunders is off the ice. He was originally planning on skiing right across the Arctic alone, from Russia to Canada. However, ice conditions and a late start due to administrative delays forced him to cut the expedition short. He made it as far as the North Pole and a little farther beyond in order to make up for some “cheat” miles at the beginning, when they started him from a point closer to the Pole than originally planned.

He’s well and glad to be home, but I expect he’s disappointed not to have made the crossing and walked onto Canadian soil.

Still, there’s always next season. Full marks for effort.

His blog has been interesting to follow – it’s another example of a cool use of the medium. Very cool, in his case.

And I totally got what he was saying about London’s noise and grime. It’s an assault on the senses – for him, magnified by his months of solitary trekking. No wonder he misses the ice.