12

AHE SANDS OF TIME

Since you have been with me this far, I can let you into a little secret. You may not notice it but when I walk down the street you may detect a little rattling noise coming from my rucksack. It is not the sort of thing which draws attention, not when a guy is bejewelled and wearing a sky- blue leather jacket and trousers, but for the last few years I have been carrying a little plastic container with me at all times. In this translucent cylinder are a bunch of white tablets clattering around. And once or twice a day I need to pop a pill or two to keep my body in check, since I may or may not have a certain condition. The name of this medication? It has a rather appropriate label for an urban climber. Urbanyl.

On the 27th of December 2003, a few days after we had spent Christmas together, Nicole saved my life. During winter I am often unable to train on the cliffs so I work out regularly on the climbing wall that I have installed in my attic. It is only two and a half metres high, but by organising the holds it is perfectly sufficient for me to work on the majority of the moves I need to test my coordination and keep my muscles trained.

Part of the wall is a large overhang onto which I cling for no more than half an hour at a time, often with my feet at the same level as my head. I have attached a number of holds to the ceiling and the ground below me is concrete. I have never bothered to carpet the floor, nor place a protective mat on it, since I have rarely fallen from this position. But when that does happen, I release my feet and regain my equilibrium with a swing of my arms before I hit the ground. I never fall from very high and with a swing or two I usually land on my feet, and if not it's only a minor stumble. I train two or three times a day for only up to half an hour because these workouts are intense and my muscles need to rest in between sessions. This time limit is often frustrating when I am perfecting a particularly difficult move. I know that given enough practice I will master the move I select, but if I fail more than three times I have to rest before trying again. Not being particularly patient, I tend to get frustrated. This is exactly the situation I find myself in on this December day.

Gradually I warm up my muscles and after a few minutes I make an attempt at a tricky move. I need to insert my feet into two small holds and then throw my body towards the ceiling to be able to catch an edge. At this particular moment my feet are higher than my head. I contemplate the move and prepare to hoist my torso upwards, but after this point I have no idea what happens. It's a total blank...

The rest of the story is told to me by Nicole when I recover consciousness a few hours later. Nicole had been chopping and dicing in the kitchen, two floors below the attic. The house was quiet and the children were not at home. Suddenly she heard a thump from above. She knew I was practising on my climbing wall and immediately imagined the worst when I didn't respond to her calls. Quickly she ran up the stairs, and when she opened the attic door she found me lying in a pool of blood on the concrete floor, having a seizure. Amongst all that blood and frothing saliva was the form of her shaking, contorted husband. Freaked out, she had no idea what to do to help me but fortunately had the presence of mind to call for an ambulance. Ten minutes later I was surrounded by medics. I don't remember anything but apparently I came round and started mumbling unintelligibly. My words were muddled, my sentences incoherent, but I seemed to be asking the same thing over and over again.

"What happened?"

The medics secured my body into a scoop stretcher, a type of protective case that avoids disturbing the position of an incapacitated casualty. Lowering me down the narrow spiral staircase was not easy but the scoop stretcher was necessary to keep me immobilised and prevent further injury.

Three hours later I am awake but have still to recover complete consciousness. I am still woolly and mentally docile. At Beziers Hospital the doctors slide me into a scanner to check what state my head is in. Blearily I learn that instead of two turtle doves, the second day of Christmas has brought me a double cranial fracture. For safety reasons I am kept overnight in the hospital in case I develop complications such as a cerebral oedema. After an uneventful night in the ward they discharge me and I can go home. The fracture is not too serious, my head has seen worse. But what does bother me are the convulsions I suffered. According to the doctors, I have had an epileptic fit... a fit!

The big question is this: did the epilepsy appear as a result of the fall, or did I fall because I had a fit? It's the most important chicken-and-egg question I have yet faced. There is a cavernous difference between the two. Questions race through my throbbing, fractured head. This fall changes everything. If I have become epileptic then a fit could come anywhere, at any time. The prospect greatly disturbs me.

To settle the issue I schedule an appointment in January to see a neurologist. I arrive outside his office two hours before our meeting and wait outside in my car. It's fairly typical of me to turn up like this since I dislike being late and I have a habit of listening to CDs in my parked car. Time passes by with the music. But, ten minutes before the appointment, I am struck by a panic attack. Instinctively I turn the key in the ignition and head back home. I don't want to go through this rigmarole all over again: the tests, the results, the doctors' prognoses, the medication... And I will not take an electroencephalogram either, nor will I learn whether I have become epileptic. I have made my decision. This will not stop me from climbing. Instead I decide that from now on I will have to concentrate even more acutely before each climb so as not to ponder this question while gripping onto a wall of glass 150 metres from the ground.

This accident has brought Nicole and me much closer. It is the first time she has seen me unconscious at the foot of a fall and in a bad state. When I try to imagine how I might have reacted if I were in her shoes, I have to say I find her very courageous. I now realise how much I need my family. To be in Pezenas, my home for the last few years, and to be surrounded by my family also helps me to prepare mentally. I draw energy from it. The walls of my old house are as twisted as I am. It must also be why this ancient house has acquired a warm aura of peacefulness. Our house has managed to survive the ages by bending, distorting, but never breaking. I feel it is more solid than any building I have climbed! No steel girder, no pile nor concrete slab has survived the passage of time my house has. They built things to last in the old days.

Athletes have teammates, trainers and coaches on whom they can count to help them train and instil motivation. I don't. My team consists of my family and friends. Like anyone else I need a rock to hold onto without fear of falling; an anchor point, a reference, a base to withdraw to in difficult times, a solid wall to shield me. This rock is the people around me, those who will not lie to me, and those who know how to reassure me. These are the people who respect me not for what I do but for who I am. To be under the spotlight, to be complimented, to be the centre of attention, is of course very agreeable. But crashing back to earth amongst my family is fantastic. It is here I can let myself go. I am not afraid that I will be seen as I am, vulnerable, sometimes worried, with hidden pain, regrets, remorse, uncontrollable feelings... in short like everyone else.

Just before my climbing wall accident in December, I had received an interesting proposal. The University of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates was organising an international conference with the title of 'e-education without borders', a large event held once every couple of years. Sixty-six international delegations were expected to attend the conference. Among the numerous academics and speakers they also wanted to invite an adventurer. After the Swiss traveller Bertrand Piccard, who went around the world in a balloon, and Bernard Harris the American astronaut, they thought of me! It was very flattering. This year the conference theme was focussing on the 'without borders' aspect more than in previous years. They felt that with my global approach to my sport, I fitted the concept perfectly. But to go this far to a foreign country that I didn't know only for a conference seemed to be a real shame. Therefore I had countered by offering to climb a building in the city in order to participate more actively in their event.

As I am unfamiliar with the Middle East I immediately start digging around on the internet for more information. On www.skyscrapers.com, my reference website for first impressions, there are dozens of gleaming buildings in Abu Dhabi. And for good reason. It is one of the newest cities in the world. Thirty years ago there was nothing here but a small town marooned in the desert. An entire city was planned from scratch. Sheik Zayed helped form the UAE after the British withdrew in 1971 and after becoming its first president he forged forward with a vision to build this city in the middle of a sea of sand. A city originally planned for 600,000 inhabitants sprung up, but today the population has blossomed like a desert flower into almost two million. Every month new buildings are going up, always more handsome, always higher.

Surfing the website and leafing through my climbing bible I spot a few good-looking skyscrapers. But the latest building techniques have been used and this is not particularly good news for me. The installation of windows and glass has changed quite a lot over the past decade. Right now there aren't even metal joints to keep the windows together — simple rubber suffices. Unfortunately for me, rubber does not allow for climbing. It is soft, irregular, springy and giving, an unkind surface for any climber, and to make matters worse my feet can never stick to this gelatinous material. In the modern boomtowns of the Middle East, where the heat is oppressive and structures expand and contract, this may be popular. The trend there does seem to be towards these annoying new fittings. I'm crossing my fingers that there will be a few decent towers in Abu Dhabi available for me to climb, some without these rubber window joints.

Days later the event organiser calls me back. Dr Kamali, director of the university, approves of my proposal. He finds the idea terrific. We discuss the general outline of what I will contribute to the conference. Without any fuss the building is chosen, the authorisation obtained and the climb set for the opening day to help launch the conference. Mission well and truly accomplished. I only have one small worry — that the building joints are made of rubber... The prospect of attempting an escalation and then discovering it is loaded with rubber joints is a dire one and would definitely torpedo the ascent. I won't know until I get there, and I toss and turn at night wondering how they will turn out. I must be the only person in the world who frets restlessly at night over whether the window joints of a building in the United Arab Emirates are made of rubber or metal. Thankfully Dr Kamali sends me a ticket to see the building as a matter of course, and I jet out to the desert city for a quick two-day trip to the site for the usual ground checks.

The building I will attempt to climb is the city's tallest building, the new headquarters of the National Bank of Abu Dhabi. The skyscraper is a fine- looking building, abstract at the summit and base with sharp triangulation but utterly sensible in the middle. The National Bank is not yet occupied nor is it open to the public. The interior decorations and fittings are not finished but the structure and fafade certainly is. Despite the irregular base of the building an escalation is indeed possible. The base is a surrealist jumble of concrete blocks and table legs that appears to support the central, more orthodox body. But this chaos is only true from certain angles. One face of the building is certainly climbable as it soon gives way to a glazed stretch. Much to my approval, the window joints are metal, and every 70 centimetres the architect has felt the need to decorate the building with horizontal metal bars of a healthy depth. In short this will be one of the easiest climbs of my career. The bank is inadvertently tailor-made for urban climbing. For me it looks like a ladder — a ladder 180 metres in height.

The 17th of February is set as the departure date for the Emirates, and I will climb a few days later. I fly out for the conference accompanied by my friend Marie-Ange who will be filming the trip and the climb. But I feel a bit apprehensive. First of all, I am uneasy because I still have the nagging thought floating around my head: am I epileptic? This thought is not obsessive but it is still there. This strikes me as a normal reaction to events over the New Year since epilepsy could prove fatal to me.

However, my main worry is my left thumb. During my brief stay in hospital the doctors were principally concerned with my twin cranial fracture. I complained about pains in my thumb, but they had found nothing wrong with it. Two days later, when I returned home, I felt sharp shooting pains that prevented me from properly holding onto my wall grips. Something was up so I made an appointment to see Dr Hoël.

On the X-ray he spotted a fracture in my thumb and, on top of the fracture, a torn ligament. I asked if it could be fixed and he told me yes, it could. But he gave me some bleak news too. There was only one way to achieve full recovery — operating to reattach the ligament and immobilising the thumb for two entire months. With my upcoming climb in Abu Dhabi, it was of course impossible for me to undergo such a procedure. It was less than ideal but I decided I could climb the National Bank more easily with a painful thumb than with a thumb in a plaster cast. So I refused the operation, at least for the time being, and started my training again with my broken thumb.

Climbing is not easy without a thumb, but it is nevertheless possible. However, when I had inspected the National Bank building a few weeks before, I had assumed my bothersome thumb was a minor injury and that I would be fully fit. I hadn't taken into account the fact it might be broken. It is with this small worry that I shoot down the runway and head into the French clouds. I confidentially share this little problem with Marie-Ange on the flight over.

The plane touches down with a screech of rubber as we arrive at the international airport in Abu Dhabi, creatively named 'Abu Dhabi International Airport'. The interior though is quite original with a curved tiled ceiling drawing upon elements of the internal design of a mosque. As we pass through immigration and proceed to our hotel we note the buzz about town. The arid city is effervescent. More and more delegates stream through the airport and the hotels are fully booked by the conference participants. Everything is well organised and we have to adhere to the demands of the organisers, to attend pre-arranged meetings and hang around in between.

I cannot go by myself to the skyscraper to try it out as this may be misunderstood and would risk the cancellation of our authorisation. It is only the day after our arrival that we can get out to Al Khalifa Street to a scheduled meeting at the National Bank. There I am required to meet the chief of police, shake hands, smile and answer the habitual questions. Pleasantries are exchanged but we have been at the foot of the building for more than an hour and I still haven't had a chance to try it out. I cannot wait any longer! I make my excuses, put on my slippers and start climbing a few metres.

The most dangerous part of the climb is situated less than 20 metres from the ground where there is a small roof to climb through. There's no major problem here since I can bypass it to one side, but I still want to check that the move is achievable without using my thumb. I go up and down the first few metres a few times. My thumb does interfere with my movements quite a lot but I can still ascend and descend okay. The climb will be possible but it will effectively mean going up with one hand! The ascent is scheduled for Friday the 21st. Fridays in the Emirates are equivalent to Sundays in the West, a holy day and a day of rest.

Relieved and mentally invigorated I go back to my hotel to take advantage of the dazzling sun and the fine swimming pool. My worries have largely dissipated as I now know what is in store for me. I relax by the pool like everyone else, using the time to focus and collect my mind. But sadly I can't do this for very long since the next two days involve intensive public relations and promotion. These two days are anything but relaxing! From morning till night I meet literally hundreds of people, without really knowing who they are. I confess that when I am introduced to these people I have difficulty remembering their Arabic names as they are often very long. What is more, the men all wear traditional Arabic dress consisting of broadly identical djellaba and keffieh. And the bountiful profusion of moustaches in this part of the world makes it even more difficult to remember and recognise everyone. I do my best but I am introduced to someone new almost every minute of the day. I end up trying to memorise these wonderful moustaches and spend quite a bit of time staring at the bristles below these guys' noses, trying to put names to them. Without a moustache I am beginning to feel somewhat underdressed.

As I am expected and the news of my climb has spread, everyone seems to know me and they all greet me warmly. And what a hospitable people they are. After Wednesday's meetings and greetings, in the evening I am invited to the palace. Whose palace? I don't know. Down here, a lot of people have palaces since they are all part of the extended family of the president.

Tonight Marie-Ange cannot come with me as the ceremony is restricted to men. It's a shame she can't be there as she is often much more attentive than I am and helps me later on by summarising the people we've met. Personal meetings are the only way to conduct business out here. In this country everything is done by meetings and handshakes, it's all face-to- face. I understand that being invited to the palace is very important so I had better find out whose palace this is. It's a bit embarrassing to ask, but we manage to weasel out the information. We discover that tonight I am heading to Sheik Nahyan's palace. Sheik Nahyan is the Education Minister, the man who has authorised my visit and the climb.

I arrive at the minister's wondrous palace in the hot evening. I was expecting a meeting in an office for a few minutes, a handshake or two and a bit of a chat in order to get to know each other. Was I wrong! More than 300 men are here. We all line up, one by one, to greet our host and his associates. A welcoming word, a smile, a handshake, a photo. and my turn is done. After that, mint tea in hand in the middle of a crowd, I chat with people I don't know. We sip tea, of course, since alcoholic cocktails are strictly forbidden in this part of the world. From time to time, Dr Kamali introduces me to someone and I chat some more. Then our host leaves and, within seconds, everyone disappears as if whisked away on magic carpets. I take my cue and likewise make for the exit. The following day I learn that Sheik Nahyan was delighted to have met me. I too enjoyed his company — though I hope to have a bit more time to talk to him next time.

On the morning of the climb, I have breakfast with Marie-Ange in the hotel. With few worries ahead of me I slept well. The event is scheduled for the late afternoon to avoid the scorching midday sun, giving me the whole morning to rest and prepare.

As I nibble on a croissant I pick up a newspaper. My eyes widen. To my surprise, on the front page of the national newspaper, I see my picture and an announcement that I am to take on the National Bank of Abu Dhabi later today. A quarter of a page is dedicated to the story. A quick glance at the other papers reveals the same. What a superb way to publicise this! Usually the people who witness my climbs are just curious passers- by in the right place at the right time. This public announcement will enable those people of the Emirates interested in watching the ascent to come down and enjoy my escalation first-hand instead of hearing about it afterwards. Without a doubt there will be more people at the foot of the tower than usual.

The police have decided to close off the entire road to provide access to the public. There is plenty of space since Al Khalifa Street, like most of the city's main arteries, is nearly as wide as a 12-lane motorway. Marie- Ange is as pleased as I am about the coverage. And the two of us are now placing our bets. Usually when I go up a building spontaneously I get a few hundred up to maybe a few thousand people, depending on where and when I do it. In Borneo, my climb was publicised and 15,000 spectators turned up. In Poland, when I took on the Marriott Hotel, a crowd of more than 10,000 watched on. Both were very good crowds and ringing successes for the organisers. Here in Abu Dhabi the organisers say they are expecting 5,000 people. Okay, we're betting there will be double that.

An hour before the start of the climb, a long limo with dark windows pulls up by the lobby to collect us. Marie-Ange packs her camera equipment in the boot. I leave the hotel wearing a big smile and with the encouragement of the hotel employees, disappointed at having to work and miss the show. The chauffeur and I chat on the way, telling each other daft stories and generally having a good laugh. I am glad this guy is a bit of a joker as I typically need a release valve before I climb.

But I can't help noticing that we seem to be going very slowly and the trip is taking us a lot longer than I expected. As we make our way to the bank the streets are all packed. I ask the chauffeur if it is always like this on Friday, and he says that it is not. All around, crowds are heading in the same direction as us. They are all walking towards the National Bank. Cars have stopped in the middle of the road and people are just leaving their vehicles where they are. From time to time I flick open my window to say hello. I don't like to be remote from people, to be imprisoned in this mean- looking limo. We continue inching through and the crowds thankfully part when we tell them that I am the one who is climbing the building.

After a while we arrive at the cordon and the cops wave us through to the parking lot just behind the building. The chauffeur kills the engine and Marie-Ange takes her equipment and makes her way to her position near the foot of the tower. I now need to gather myself, to calm down, and to enter my zone. I drop my gear and attentively clean my slippers. Once I am happy they are immaculate I put them on and prepare my pack of chalk and drinking fluids. My thumb is then immobilised and I bind and protect my fingers. As my preparations end, I settle in the back of the limo and enter a semi-meditative state. The climb has no exact scheduled time and I don't expect it to start quite yet. Time passes.

We've now been waiting behind the building for more than half an hour. Marie-Ange is in place and she is filming the scene already, which I understand is packed. Attached to my clothing is a button-sized microphone that will enable me to contact her. She will be able to hear me all throughout the climb and will be able to act should any unforeseen hiccups occur. I am ready and waiting for the green light. But we have to wait. And wait...

We wait more than an hour. After a while I get fed up with all this waiting. On days like this I miss the climbs where I break the law, when I alone choose my target, when I choose the day and the time that I go up. We are told we have to wait a while longer. Sheik Nahyan is caught up in the crowds and has not yet arrived, and it is obviously impossible to start the escalation without him. And more news — it seems that Sheik Zayed, the President of the United Arab Emirates, has also decided to come and watch the climb! But his car is also stuck in traffic. Although I can't see what is going on, the vibes I am getting are telling me that this thing is certainly turning out to be big. A certain electricity is in the air and I am growing increasingly excited. I feel like a rock star waiting to burst onto stage. The major difference is that a rock star does not risk his life by singing to people. There is a palpable buzz in the air and tension is rising. Finally I get a call and the green light from Marie-Ange.

"They're ready, Alain. You can go!"

"How about our little bet?"

"There are a lot of people here, Alain, a lot."

"More than in Malaysia?"

"I really don't know, but it looks like a rock concert out here. You really just have to see it."

"I'm not Mick Jagger! I can't play to a hundred thousand people!"

But it's on, and it's time to face the music. I open the car door and step out. As soon as I'm out of the limo I am surrounded by bodyguards. We make our way to the edge of the parking lot which is already filling with spectators who ought to be around the front. The bodyguards manage, with difficulty, to find a route for us through the crowd towards the entrance of the bank. I am swamped! Arms are extended. I instinctively shake and tap as many hands as I can in this dizzying throng. My spirit is not on earth any more but way up there in the air. There are definitely thousands of enthusiastic and jubilant people here.

The bodyguards get me through to the foot of the tower where I need to pose for some photos, shake hands with a few dignitaries and climb onto a table for some unknown reason. The usual pre-climbing media routine is in full swing. It seems to make everyone happy but I am keen to get out of all this. Finally I break free of this madness and touch the face of the building. I gently brush my fingertips over the structure. I feel it. I absorb it. And now I can do what I came here to do — put on a show. For some nervous wrecks this would be the beginning of hell but for me it is deliverance. Deliverance from the overwhelming crowds and attention, the bodyguards and the press, the weeks of anticipation. At last — at long last — I can start the climb.

I pull myself up from the ground metre by metre and those at the front start applauding. The cheers grow the higher I go, as more and more people see me. As I imagined, the climb is not particularly difficult. The early stages pose the technical challenges but I pass the lower roof structure without any problems. As I had discovered a while back, the window joints are indeed metal rather than the dreaded rubber, and the horizontal bars stretch out before me like rungs on a gigantic ladder. My rigid thumb makes things awkward but such is the nature of the exterior of the National Bank that it is not a significant handicap. My thumb does get in the way, aching and generally irritating me, but I have enough grip in my four remaining digits to climb. I need to stay focused but with such an audience it is not at all easy.

As I come into view to those further back, the cheers of the crowd are increasingly impressive. I make my way up another floor of the bank to huge stadium-like roars. It feels like I might be blown off the side of the building, such is the volume of the support behind me. The crowd are with me all the way, clapping and roaring me on, but I keep my eyes and my mind on the task in hand. I put another floor behind me. The noise is awesome. This crowd is huge! It's like I have scored a goal at the Stade de France.

At the tenth floor, the temptation is too strong. Holding on with only my good hand, I turn around and face the streets behind me. And I cannot believe my eyes... it is impossible to see the smallest bit of tarmac or earth. People are absolutely everywhere, everywhere, packed into the streets further than the eye can see. The buildings opposite are swarming like beehives. All the windows on every floor of every building, the balconies, the terraces, the rooftops, all are crammed with people! It is a truly astounding sight. All these people... and they are here to see me. Little Alain Robert, a mere rock climber from the south of France. It is humbling.

With my free hand I wave to the crowd. Before I left the ground I was comparing this climb to a show. If that's the case then let this be a great show! I have a duty to all of these people, the thousands and thousands who have decided to spend their free day watching me. This is their day off, their Friday. It is a time to be with their families, a day of relaxation, fun and smiles. I must make sure that they are pleased with my performance, that I do my utmost to bring a little something to their day. The building permits it. The people demand it.

So I play to the crowd. After each of my moves, the crowd screams. I continue my climb slowly and methodically to heighten the experience — for me as well as for them. To be honest I am still blown away by the atmosphere here, and despite the wild reactions below surely no one is as excited or as amazed as me.

Through the windows of the National Bank I can see film and television crews with cameras and video cameras. With the crowd-control measures in place, only journalists have been admitted inside the building so it is not as crowded as the towers opposite. Nearby a helicopter is holding a stationary position, with a harnessed cameraman seated at the open door. From where I am the view is mind-blowing but from his perspective the view must be even more fantastic.

I can't help but get lost in the view below. The roads look like Venetian waterways flooded with humanity. The crowds seem to wrap around buildings so there must be many more people out of sight. Several times I turn around to wave at this blanket of spectators and they go bananas. At these times the cheering is so loud that I literally can't hear the helicopter blades.

No one likes to go to a boxing match and see a fighter knocked out in the first round, so instead of climbing at a logical pace and finishing this escalation off within minutes I continue to take my time and please this awesome crowd. I feel an overwhelming joy at pleasing the spectators so much. To be doing what I love, to be sharing this consuming joy with others, and to be bringing a smile to the faces of all these magnificent people is the best thing in the world. How could I ask for more out of life? It really does not get much better than this.

When I get to the summit, 40 minutes after my feet first left terra firma, I raise my arms in victory to an explosive cheer. What a noise! What a sight! Then, as a little flourish, I brandish a flag of the United Arab Emirates, dramatically flying it from the rooftop of the building in triumph. Everyone is ecstatic. And how many people are there? How many people turned up today? More than 100,000 people are applauding for me at the foot of the tower and across the surrounding streets! Over a hundred thousand! It's an astounding figure! That's as many as a Rolling Stones concert! Our bets were indeed very low. No one imagined such a mind- boggling turnout, least of all me.

The security and police are all smiles as they guide me graciously off the rooftop. Whilst descending via the elevator I am told that the President himself wants to congratulate me. As always, I vaguely hear the usual recommendations as to what I should do and say, The thing is, now is not the time to try to tell me anything as my brain has been shot to pieces by sweet and intense emotion. I am running on pure adrenaline and instinct.

In the lobby of the building, TV stations have set up mini-studios, each erected like little booths at a trade fair. Interviews, congratulations, camera flashes, questions, all are in my face and my head is spinning. I am tossed around from pillar to post like a baseball. But I am on cloud nine, so I am perfectly happy to comply. After an hour I am told that the president's car was not able to force its way through to us and that for security reasons, he won't be able to commend me in person. It would have been great but it doesn't matter. Right now I am living an intense moment that I am not going to forget in a hurry.

I pose for a few more photographs and then the police shepherd me to a car with an open sunroof. The cops tell me to stand through it, apparently as a way of letting people know that the event is over, and to help disperse the crowds. Instead I hop up and sit on the roof, face to the wind as we drive through thousands of smiles. They seem to scroll by forever, becoming one big intoxicating blur. All this warmth and joy... It is a glorious and magical moment. You can read it on my face. I am radiating elation, happiness and serenity.

Thanks to this experience, I now understand that transmitting my passion to others is my duty. This will be a big part of my future. I have already started by participating in conferences and forums where I express my heartfelt belief that we should never renounce our dreams. Man creates his own limits, but we all have in us the power to overcome them and to reach our goals. We just need to find this power within ourselves and harness it, for it is there within all of us, within you. We have the ability to soar to great heights if we direct our energies away from doing other people's work, fulfilling other people's dreams. That may be easier said than done but the good fight must be fought. Each man or woman must stay master of their own destiny. Of course some things are out of our hands. It is impossible to foresee a plane crash or a serious illness and one can't build a rocket and fly to Saturn. But a man must make his own decisions in life, and be true to himself. And he must define his own vision. You may suffer quite a lot for your dreams — I certainly have — but the fulfilment gained from pursuing them is second to none.

I am going to spread my passion for climbing with children and the young, those who have always held the brightest dreams. I will be doing this by creating a school and I have obtained the agreement of the Education Ministry of the United Arab Emirates. The Alain Robert Climbing School will see light very soon. The idea came to me after my climb of the National Bank, when I saw the fire lit in the eyes of the kids at the bottom. The looks on their faces reminded me why I climb. It is children who inspire me the most and it is an honour and a joy to be able to share my desire with them. To be able to perhaps help a youngster discover this miraculous activity and excel in it would enable me to pass on this magnificent torch, a fire which turns any mountain or tower into a fiery volcano or brilliant lighthouse.

The young climbers of tomorrow will have a very different vision of climbing to the one that me or my peers have held throughout our lives. For the generation before us it was all about conquering new peaks. For many of my peers it was a matter of climbing solo. A lot of my old climbing partners strove to conquer mountain tops and take more audacious routes to their icy summits.

It must not be forgotten that most of my serious climbing companions have died in climbing accidents over the years. Of course losing them is sad but it is vital to remember that these men were fulfilled and were following their dreams. And by reinventing climbing they hopefully helped open up a brave new world for the young. Today, you need not climb the same peaks that have challenged men and women before you. You can find and create your own mountains, define your own world. And you need not be French, Swiss or from any other nation living in the shadow of a craggy escarpment or peak. You can come from anywhere. Who knows, one day there might even be climbing champions from the flat arid plains of the Emirates.

One thing I hope to impart is a sense of urgency, a desire to break free of the apathy which so easily invades our lives, a need to fend off our cancerous comfort zones. You must strike out and seize your goals while you can, because you don't know what tomorrow holds. Sometimes something totally unexpected or unthinkable happens and a dream which was eminently achievable can go up in smoke.

I remember back in 2000 I was in New York preparing for an inspirational climb, a climb I had been eyeing for a number of years. I spent ten days checking out the World Trade Center, planning my ascent in the sub-zero winter. But that year the Big Apple's weather was oppressive, and the cold meant that I couldn't feel my fingers. I wanted to go up but eventually I had to turn back. I left the twin towers and went home to France. I hadn't given up on the assault and I rescheduled the climb for a year later. But of course disaster struck, destroying the beautiful towers and thousands of innocent lives. Who could have foreseen such a terrible event? Things we may take for granted can be snatched from us at any time and it is imperative to remember the transitory nature of our world and indeed our lives.

My ambition is not just to climb for myself but to achieve some good through my escalations. I have been involved in charity climbs for a while now, but over the last few years I have decided to chalk up the odd ascent in the name of things I believe in. I climbed the 180 metres ofTotalFinaElf in Paris to protest about the war in Iraq. In London I climbed the 27 storeys of Portland House to support a campaign against climate change. I find the prospect of our world being ruined by global warming much more frightening than falling off a building. It is probably the most important issue humanity has ever faced, but the world is ordered now in such a way that progress is almost defined by consumption of the world's resources. With Russia and China abandoning communism, the capitalist system is now rampant worldwide and virtually guarantees exploitation, pollution and environmental catastrophe at some point in this century. We will need a lot more maturity and a lot less greed from our leaders, but to be honest I doubt that we can expect much when our political systems select people whose lives are centred on the generation of money and the creation of laws to ensure society is geared towards it.

Any solution will have to come from the populace and that can only happen when we all wake up to the fact that our world is choking and growing seriously ill. I know that a mad Frenchman climbing up the side of Portland House isn't going to solve the problem but hopefully I can do my bit to support the movement.

Of course I want to keep climbing as long as I can. And not only that, I have to keep climbing! What job could I possibly get at this stage of my life that would pay the bills? What are my skills? Well, actually I am highly skilled, but only in an area outside the system. Put me in an office and I wouldn't last a day. But hang me outside it by my fingertips and I am in my element. How many CEOs could do that?

It is obvious that the only way I can earn a living is to carry on making ascents. And as I grow older I need to get one or two big ones under my belt. I have tens of thousands of Euros in unpaid fines and a 218% surcharge on my car insurance. I finally splashed out on a driving licence and decided this year to get my car taxed, something I do once every four years on average. My police record will soon be thicker than the Paris phone book. But I don't care. I shall pursue my solitary road and keep following it for as long as I physically can. I am not bothered by those who chastise me for not knowing when to stop, for pushing the envelope too far, or for wanting to perpetually warm the same soup.

Fortunately I am well known now and the climbing requests keep on coming. On average I receive one every week. Many of these are just speculative, submitted by people who haven't thought the proposal through. Due to legality and logistics only a handful actually end up taking place, which is just as well because physically and psychologically I wouldn't be able to climb a building every week. Right now, although a seasoned veteran, I am far from retirement. I have more projects in mind than there are days in a year.

And I am also getting more and more requests to climb buildings which are utterly impossible. Saudi Arabia, for example, offered me a lucrative contract to climb one of their grandest buildings. But this building is sheer, with nothing at all to hold on to. It would be impossible to scale unless I used suction cups. Climbing with suction cups is not really my forte. But when the equivalent of several years' pay is waved in front of your deformed nose for just one climb, it is hard to say no.

I used suction cups once before, when I made an ascent in Doha, the capital of Qatar. To be honest I didn't like them very much. They are a little scary. When I climbed in Doha I used two suction units, one for my hands and the other for my feet. I successfully reached the summit of the Qatar Gas Tower but I never felt especially safe. A suction cup is designed to repeatedly stick and unstick, in contrast to a permanent architectural feature like a window ledge or grille. For me the seal, a rubber-ringed vacuum, can never match the solidity of set concrete or reinforced steel. Additionally the suction cups I purchased for my climb were not particularly good ones. There are three suction pads per grip, each holding about 30 kilograms. A better model was available on which each pad held 60 kilos and I should have bought those ones. That way, if the surface of the building is dusty and one or two pads don't stick, then just the one pad would be enough to support my body weight. In the Gulf it does get a bit dusty and mine tended to slip a little.

Using cups also means radically altering your climbing technique. When climbing with suction cups you quickly find it is much easier to shuffle upwards in baby steps. If you try to vault upwards in big strides then you find it difficult to get the cups to stick. Although I much prefer climbing unaided, without ropes or suction cups, I plan to buy some new cups soon as there is a chance I might be needing them in the future. Personally I feel they are a little bit of a cheat, but if a proposal like the Saudi one materialises then I would have to seriously consider it.

Will I ever be able to stop climbing? I don't know. To end my escalations would be a kind of death for me. What will become of me when I can no longer climb? I have no idea.

As I cross into my fifties, if my physical condition no longer allows me to take on any more extreme ascents, perhaps I shall engage only the less sheer and more textured fafades, with the odd useful grip, buildings that lend a little helping hand to the ageing rock climber. Or perhaps I'll do battle with buildings of a hundred metres or so rather than the giants of 400 metres plus. I may decide to go solo up the easier routes of Verdon, looking not for extremity but more for leisure.

The prospect of taking my foot off the pedal is a big deal for me. It's excruciatingly difficult to stop the activity which has guided your entire life. But today I am not the young man I once was. My greatest successes are behind me. It's difficult to accept but I know it, I can feel it. I can no longer pull off the outrageous moves I once managed on the Night of the Lizard, for example.

Muscularly I am now weaker so I compensate with my experience. Despite the inherent risk of losing my life I think I make good decisions when climbing. My crippling falls all occurred on cliff faces when I was young and careless. I have never fallen from a building, even if I have had a few close shaves. But what am I going to do when my body starts to give out on me? What will I do in 20 years' time? I feel it is impossible for me to voluntarily stop climbing. I cannot imagine life without a passion. Could I find another one? I'm thinking about it.

But right now I am still in good shape and I can't help dreaming about new challenges and adventures. What buildings would I like to climb?

Well, I have unfinished business with the Petronas Towers, having been stopped twice at the same point. I was arrested on the terrace again in 2007 on the tenth anniversary of my previous escalation and, despite the serious legal ramifications of a third attempt, the towers do still tempt me. I like iconic structures, having taken on the likes of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Big Ben in London would be great though I can imagine the fuss after climbing that would be quite serious since it forms part of the Houses of Parliament.

Other buildings? Quite literally, where on Earth do I start? The possibilities are almost limitless. There are thousands of skyscrapers, towers and monuments around the world. Of course everyone can appreciate scale, but visionary architecture has always drawn me first. I have gained great satisfaction from climbing charismatic buildings like the Torre Vasco da Gama in Portugal even if they aren't the tallest.

Those buildings which are cocooned behind layers of security or iron national laws are also magnetic. I recently ascended the Western Federation Tower in Moscow just to see what would happen to me. I have no doubt that over the next few years I will gain more experience of the world's judiciary, diplomacy and policing. Much of it will be an interesting cultural exchange; some of it, I fear, might be less than enjoyable. In an ideal world I could go on climbing forever. I still have half of the planet yet to visit before restarting it all again.

As I write these passages, there are wonderful new buildings going up around the globe. There is a colossus going up in the UAE, a needle-like spire which will smash all the records and put any controversy to rest. The models of the building are incredible. It rises from the city like a spike on a graph. Right now the final height of the Burj Dubai is a closely guarded secret, but it has been guaranteed to be over 700 metres tall — and reliable sources put its height at a staggering 818 metres! That's enormous. almost like stacking the Petronas on top of the Sears. I can't wait to go to Dubai and see it for myself.

The Middle East is taking the lead with other dreamlike projects on the drawing board. The Murjan Tower in Bahrain, Burj Mubarak Al-Kabir in Kuwait and Al Burj, again in Dubai, are staggering proposals which will all measure over a kilometre in height. Of course I don't know if such buildings will structurally accommodate urban climbing, or even if it would be physically possible to maintain such an effort, but if so, how can one resist? If they are built while I am still fit enough to climb them, then I would love to take a closer look.

So what will tomorrow bring? Who knows? Resuscitated once, I am not going to linger in a grey land of paperwork or tedium. All I know is that I must keep following my dreams and remain true to myself. When I look in the mirror, I still see a decent guy, a fellow with whom I could be friends. And this is maybe my biggest satisfaction of all. For a lack of wealth, I have gained that which is most important and elusive — happiness and a full heart. And I have acquired it with my bare hands.

I am the owner of nothing, but I possess everything: a woman, three children, and a passion. Escalation is my life — and maybe also my death. So what? We have been warned more than enough that domestic boredom and apathy breaks up couples. This at least is a risk we do not take. We have no time for that, nor any opportunity.

Nicole and I married for better or for worse. Till death do us part. If my fate is to die at the foot of a building, then it is one that I seek. I know that one day I may fall. Maybe it is my inevitable end. Who knows, perhaps I have already gone by the time you read these lines. But today I am alive. And at the end of the day, today is all any of us have.

I am craving new adventure even if, one day, it proves to be fatal. And by sharing my experiences and my philosophy of life, and by following my dreams, I shall continue to live the way I have for as long as I can remember — with passion.