| 1 | | | Action Man may no longer be the coolest toy | | | | | |
| | | in the cupboard, but in real life he’s ram- | | | | | stock exchange and with his own safety and, as |
| | | pant. Last week he could be found clamber- | | | | | such, a good figurehead for what the think tanks are |
| | | ing out of hot-air balloons, surviving freezing | | | | | calling the ‘risk society’. In the future there will be no |
| 5 | | oceans, narrowly avoiding death. Sir Ranulph | | | | | safety nets of state support, we must make our own |
| | | Fiennes says that if you have to ask why men like | | | 55 | | arrangements, see the creation of wealth become the |
| | | Richard Branson, Tony Bullimore and himself court | | | | | prerogative of the feisty chancer. |
| | | danger, you will never understand. | | 6 | | | Branson is a modern take on the old frontier spirit, |
| 2 | | | I think the question they raise is a different one: | | | | | when entrepreneurs were not techno-nerds but virile |
| 10 | | what is worth dying for, if anything? Our children, | | | | | gods who straddled the globe turning opportunities |
| | | our liberty, a religious principle, or to be the first man | | | 60 | | into fortunes. In his ballooning, if not his jumpers, we |
| | | to circumnavigate the earth on a bobsleigh? There’s | | | | | see the spirit that made the millions, and the egotism |
| | | not much left to be heroic about. The great courage- | | | | | which ignores the sobbing family, screws up its cour- |
| | | sapping causes are gone: there are no International | | | | | age and leaps off the edge. |
| 15 | | Brigades for young idealists to join, war has been | | 7 | | | And danger is the nation’s burgeoning hobby. The |
| | | stripped of patriotic glory, even the cathartic satisfac- | | | 65 | | salary-man’s weekend may be spent floating over the |
| | | tion of the war movie has given way to moral tales of | | | | | South Downs on a plastic glider or, like the founder |
| | | paralysed veterans displaying cynicism and | | | | | of the Dangerous Sports Club, flying across the |
| | | pacifist banners. From Born on the Fourth of | | | | | Channel on an inflatable kangaroo ’to |
| 20 | | July to The Regeneration Trilogy, the message | | | | | escape humdrum life’. Sport’s new con- |
| | | is: save your courage for your own dreams, | | | 70 | | tender is the gruelling Ironman triathlon, |
| | | nobody else’s fights are worth it. | | | | | a gladiatorial feat of swimming, running |
| 3 | | | The appeal of the adventurer used to be | | | | | and cycling. |
| | | that he lived for a noble cause, was fearless | | | | | Publishing is bursting with intrepid |
| 25 | | in its pursuit and utterly unconcerned about | | | | | travel writers, currently led by Redmond |
| | | the banal minutiae of life. But today, with all | | | 75 | | O’Hanlon’s malarial trek through the |
| | | the dragons slain and the continents map- | | | | | Congo, all clamouring for a virgin hellhole |
| | | ped, he must think of his sponsorship deals, | | | | | to call their own. Tourism’s white- |
| | | his television series and The Guinness Book | | | | | knuckle specials include bungee jump- |
| 30 | | of Records - anything which allows him a | | | | | ing for grandmothers, white-water rafting |
| | | reason to play Errol Flynn for the folks back | | | 80 | | for royals, and sky-coasting (suspen- |
| | | home. | | | | | ded by cable, you swing like a pendu- |
| 4 | | | The quest for danger is an odd one in a world | | | | | lum at a vast height) package tours to |
| | | which, in many ways, has never been more perilous: | | | | | New Zealand. |
| 35 | | violent crime terrifies us all, the tensions of race, | | 8 | | | At a time when our every timid thought is elevated |
| | | nationalism and poverty all routinely explode in our | | | 85 | | to the status of a phobia - flying, heights, speed and |
| | | faces. But these problems won’t serve the needs of | | | | | the rest - it seems we’re tired of our own ner- |
| | | the conquering hero, who would not dream of har- | | | | | vousness, preferring the aversion therapy of a serious |
| | | nessing his courage to Third World or inner-city relief | | | | | scaring. |
| 40 | | work, or even to journalism in war zones with shells | | 9 | | | The million-selling bibles of American pop psychol- |
| | | exploding all around. Too much competition. He may | | | 90 | | ogy tell us that we can conquer all fear, ‘heal our |
| | | raise money for charity, make an occasional contribu- | | | | | lives’, get in that yacht and make our dreams reality. |
| | | tion to science, but he is the apotheosis of the glori- | | | | | The problem is that that reality may be Fiennes with |
| | | fied individual, the more single-handed the better, | | | | | subzero kidney stones and Bullimore’s frostbite. |
| 45 | | because nothing must detract from his Boy’s Own | | 10 | | | As much as we applaud acts of valour, danger- |
| | | achievement. Look at me, I fought the lions and | | | 95 | | games often fail to reward their players with the eter- |
| | | tamed the seas. | | | | | nal glow of ambition fulfilled. ‘Had we lived,’ wrote |
| 5 | | | Branson’s world-circling balloon trip, even its fail- | | | | | Scott in his journal, ‘I should have had a tale to tell of |
| | | ure, has been called a mere publicity stunt, but he is | | | | | the hardihood, endurance and courage of my com- |
| 50 | | a natural taker of risks, an inveterate gambler on the | | | | | panions which would have stirred the heart of every |
| | | | | | 100 | | Englishman.’ The point is, of course, that they didn’t. |
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