There are some 12 million married couples in Britain, and I am confident that Mrs Coren and I speak for all of them when I say we are flabbergasted at the hysterical adulation currently being lavished on Mr and Mrs Thornewill. We are flummoxed; we are gobsmacked; we are stumped; and, yes, we are not a little gutted. We cannot for the life of us understand what all the fuss is about. Why are Mr and Mrs Thornewill being lionised and feted, simply for becoming the first married couple to walk to the North Pole?
What kind of achievement is that? To walk to the North Pole, you point the compass at the horizon and put one foot after the other. There being neither roads nor car, one spouse does not have to read the map while the other spouse drives; there is no risk of yelling, grabbing, chucking maps out of windows while swerving dangerously, or turning this bloody thing round right now and going straight home, it wasn’t my idea to come in the first place. Nor, as night falls, is anybody sitting in the middle of nowhere interrogated as to why they didn’t have the sense to fill up when they had the chance, or invited to explain in words of one syllable why they won’t stop and ask someone the way, since there is no one to ask, unless you speak bear. As for finding mutually satisfactory overnight accommodation, transarctic spouses do not have to run in and out of a dozen hotels to find a room one of them neglected to book in advance, or end up sleeping foetally on the back seat while drunks widdle on their bumpers; transarctic spouses have a folding nylon hotel on their little sled, and when they are tucked up snugly inside it and fancy dinner, they do not go nuts trying to catch the waiter’s eye or ringing a room-service voicemail that never rings back, they simply pop a bubble-pack and chomp on a nourishing pellet that tastes of nothing requiring comment. Neither of them orders a second bottle when they know what it does to them, your father was the same, nor do they engage in stand-up rows about toenails in the bidet or hairs on the soap.
Upon arrival at the North Pole, no married couple will suffer recriminatory disappointment. Of course it is not finished. It is not even started. There is no lying ratbag of a manager to wave a brochure at, there are no rooms better than the one they thought they’d booked, and the swimming pool is a reproachless umpteen miles across, albeit solid. Neither spouse will find the place infuriatingly classier or tackier than the other had led them to believe: the clothes they stand up in will be absolutely perfect, because, if they try to change into anything else, they will not be standing up for much longer, they will turn blue, topple, and snap.
Polar couples do not bicker about what to do during the day, either: shopping, scuba-diving, sightseeing, paragliding, gambling, visiting the doll museum, lying by the pool staring at that woman, I wasn’t staring, and so forth, are unavailable for marital dispute. What polar couples do during the day is walk. They do not even have the option of standing still. If one of them stands still for more than a few seconds, he or she becomes a permanent topographical feature. Nor are they required to argue nightly about whose turn it is to get up at the crack of dawn and bag a lounger: any territorial claims that German couples might have entertained about the Arctic Riviera have so far proved to be atypically muted, and while there must always be a chance that, some day, Herr und Frau Jerry will be sprinting out six months before sun-up to begin oiling one another at minus 60 degrees, it was not, as I understand it, a problem for the Thornewills.
But did this first mould-breaking couple run, as so many of Britain’s other 12 million have run, the risk of holiday boredom? Unlikely: while there are, admittedly, precious few topics of Arctic conversation, all of them white, no couple can manage more than two seconds of speech before tugging their balaclavas back up, lest their lips go solid and chip off. Since most duologue therefore consists of waving mittens about, the likelihood of vacational chat occasioning marital ennui is remote; unless, of course, one of the Thornewills was a semaphore freak.
In short, their chilly stroll was a doddle from start to finish. I was not in the least surprised when Fiona hugged Mike and confided to the phalanx of goggling hacks that ‘the trip has brought us much closer together. I really want to encourage other couples so that they too can achieve their lifetime’s dreams.’ Bang on the money, Mrs Thornewill: look for me and Mrs Coren this very weekend, and you will find us shopping at Sleds ’R’ Us.