In the final days prior to departure, whilst packing their sledges and making last minute checks of their equipment, the team have stumbled across two separate minor issues with their kit. One issue concerns the technology (which has taken this long to discover due to the late arrival of all of the freighted equipment) and the other concerns the teams' survival equipment.

Both issues are being addressed at this very moment and will be resolved in a relatively short period of time. The glitches themselves are relatively minor, but even small issues rapidly escalate into major problems in Arctic conditions if left unchecked...more

Around the world in a thousand cities the lights went out.  Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower and the Beijing Olympic Stadium were among the iconic landmarks that joined WWF’s Earth Hour, to raise awareness of the environmental impact of global warming.  Pen Hadow led the countdown, watched by a billion people worldwide, to a global switch off at 2030 GMT on Saturday.

It was daylight for Pen, Martin and Ann who are working eight hours and forty minutes behind GMT to maximise the use of light in the far, far north...more