Over the Christmas season, while most of us are munching turkey and passing the cranners, Mark Pollock will be preparing for a race to the South Pole. It’s the first time it’s been done since Amundsen and Scott raced there in the early 1900s – the race which made Ernest Shackleton famous.

Pollock is retracing Shackletons’ steps – but he’s at a slight disadvantage, being totally blind, but believe it or not has done this sort of thing before, running marathons at Everest Base Camp and in the Arctic.

I wrote about Mark Pollock’s entry to this race in August (here) and below is a brief snippet of the interview in which he describes racing against, then meeting the world’s greatest living explorer, Ranulph Fiennes, who unloaded a few harsh truths on him during an interview after the North Pole marathon. Ice Cold.

Check out his website, where you can get your face on the flag he plans to plant at the pole.

[audio:http://expad.ie/audio/Pollock1.mp3|titles=Ran Says 'Go Home']

More from Mark’s interview in the next few days.

I’m fully behind Red Mum’s campaigning on cervical cancer, and the sentiment behind it. A good friend of mine was diagnosed this year and had to undergo surgery – hugely traumatic for a girl in her early twenties, and something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

But I have to take issue with something utterly trivial – the common pronunciation of the word ‘cervical’.

With the word referring to the cervix (pron: SIR-vicks) I can’t for the life of me see why politicians and the media are pronouncing ‘Cervical’ as sir-VYE-kel instead of SIR-vickle.

It’s driving me mental. Am I alone in this? Can anyone explain it?