No doubt there will be much rejoicing if, as looks very likely at the time of writing, Mr Brian Jones and Mr Bertrand Piccard succeed in their bid to become the first people in the world to encircle the globe in a balloon.
On the other hand it is quite possible that because of their acute fuel shortage they may have ditched into the Atlantic ocean by now; and cruel as it sounds, there is a little bit of me that hopes that they have.
There may be many advantages accruing from such a trip, if successful, but the only ones clear to some of us are (a) the relief at not having to endure further tedious tales of would-be heroes and sky-high heroics, and (b) the slightly increased security felt as a result of there being at least one less giant balloon up there ready to fall on the innocent passer-by: fully loaded, these things can weigh up to 10 tons.
There is nothing particularly heroic about such exploits. The people who indulge in wholesale ballooning are not heroes or even adventurers. Indeed the wife of Brian Jones has pointed out that her husband is "not an adventurer" but a professional pilot, yet her voice has been drowned in the jingoistic celebrations.
Most would-be round-the-world balloonists are either there for the publicity, like Richard Branson, whose entire existence is predicated on the media, or they are not-so-harmless eccentrics, or egotists: Tony Brown was supposed to accompany Bertrand Piccard on the most recent balloon flight but he dropped out at almost the last minute apparently because of squabbles with Piccard, a noted perfectionist, i.e. difficult person.
Incidentally, one of the unexpected joys of last Christmas Day was seeing Richard Branson prematurely end his latest balloon romp by tumbling into the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii.
The $1 million offered by Budweiser for the first successful round-the-world balloonist is the only good reason for becoming involved, but balloonists are always at pains to dissociate themselves from the taint of money, especially money offered by a brewery, since they are usually teetotallers.
Because of the involvement of Englishman Brian Jones, the whole thing has been written up in the British press as if it were on a par with the exploits of Shackleton or Scott or Hillary, real heroes who faced real dangers. We have read such bilge as the suggestion that Jones's dream of landing a balloon at the foot of the Egyptian pyramids "calls to mind a bygone era of intrepid British Empire explorers."
If anything did happen the Breitling balloon, the thing was packed with parachutes, inflatable dinghies, life jackets, survival wet suits and food for several days. Naturally it was also being tracked on the Internet.
Because these so-called challenges are so much easier these days, or were never genuine challenges at all, the self-appointed organisers have to draw up all kinds of ludicrous restrictions to make things look good.
In the case of the balloon race, for example, the Federation
Aeronautique Internationale stipulated a minimum distance, not less than 18,000 miles, to stop balloons claiming the global circumnavigation prize by flying a tiny circle over the North or South poles. Thus a silly claim to fame is made even sillier.
Similarly, other "adventurers" try to better previous records by their own foolhardy self-imposed restrictions. Just the other day, David Hempleman-Adams abandoned his attempt to complete a solo unassisted trek to the geomagnetic North pole. He had disdained the use of dogs, snowmobiles and air supplies, but finally had to be rescued from an ice-shelf.
It is a bit like hearing of a young mother setting out to travel 100 miles alone in a car with a twoyear-old toddler, and making this sufficiently desperate venture more challenging by leaving all pacifiers, teddybears, sweets and sticky drinks at home.
In very recent times I have read about only one genuine hero-adventurer, whose achievements got very little publicity in the British press, perhaps because he was American. Mark Ross was the blond 42-year-old tour operator in Africa who saved the lives of a number of hostages seized by Hutu rebels in Rwanda at the beginning of March.
Ross was himself taken hostage and marched away from the camp with a number of others. When the rebels began to turn nasty, he talked to them in their own language, Kiswahila. He passed the tourists off as a group of PhD students. He intervened fearlessly to save the lives of an Englishman and a Swiss air hostess.
When Ross and his group managed to get back to the burned-out camp, passing some of the eight murdered tourists on the way, he loaded his companions on his damaged small plane, managed to start the engine with a penknife, and flew them all safely to Kampala.