Our Wanker this week is a gentleman called Tom Black from Dundee. He has written to the papers ("Points", Sunday Times 14th January) to complain about teenagers achieving things which, presumably, he hasn't achieved himself.
Last week Michael Perham, a 14-year-old schoolboy from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, became the youngest yachtsman to cross the Atlantic single-handed when he ended a 3,500-mile six-week journey on the Caribbean island of Antigua. Perham, who left Gibraltar last November, has been sailing since he was seven. He survived gale-force winds, giant waves and storms that "really do knock your teeth out", he said.
Perham, who was shadowed by his father in another boat, had been excused from his school to undertake the challenge.
Meanwhile 17-year-old Will Sharp is off to Africa aiming to become the youngest Briton to conquer all seven of the world's highest mountains. The challenge will take more than two years and lead him across seven continents.
And last April Jordan Maguire, 15, from Renfrewshire, realised his dream when he became the youngest person to reach the North Pole on foot. Joining a nine-man team, he had to drag a 176lb sled 111 miles across broken pack ice in temperatures as low as -22C to reach his destination. He had prepared for the trek by dragging tyres up hills and running every day and had spent a weekend in Norway to help him to acclimatise.
For a report about all three boys, click here.
But this isn't good enough for Tom Black. He complains "Just how many teenagers have parents who can afford to buy not one, but two ocean-going yachts to sail the Atlantic? The sheen went off when I heard that Michael Perham's father was never more than a mile astern.
"As for walking to the North Pole, a good achievement, but how much did Jordan Maguire's parents pay to get him onto the expedition?
"And how many could afford to take two years off to climb the highest mountains on seven continents, as Will Sharp aims to do?"
As an example of acid-tongued, wry-faced sour grapes this is hard to beat. What is Tom Black getting at here? That because all teenagers can't do this sort of thing, none of them should?
How would that work, then, Tom Black? And where would you draw the line?
Would you stop boys playing football because there are some who can't manage it from their wheelchairs? Would you not allow little girls to join choirs because they might have a friend who's tone-deaf? Would you disband every county schools' football team because not everyone is good enough to be in it? By this token you'd have to outlaw almost any activity that involved physical effort, skill or hardship - boy scouts, cricket, gymnastics, athletics, Duke of Edinburgh Awards, you name it.
Or perhaps it's just money you're talking about? Perhaps your letter was just an expression of plain simple jealousy?
There's no question that Michael Perham's dad must have a few bob. Of course big fibreglass yachts are expensive. But that shouldn't detract from the boy's achievement, and nor should the fact that he was accompanied on the voyage. If Tom Black knew anything about anything, he'd realise the enormous difficulty of keeping two boats within a mile of each other through 3,500 miles of open Atlantic. Sometimes it's hard enough to keep the boat and its crew together - and the GOS speaks as one who has more than once practically wet himself only half a mile off Felixstowe! And no doubt Tom Black would have been one of the first to squeal about the expense of an ocean search-and-rescue if Michael had been alone and something had gone wrong.
Young men have always pushed the barriers. Some do it by vandalising buildings and painting graffiti on trains, some do it by mugging old ladies or happy-slapping vagrants. Let's just be thankful that a few can find other outlets for their energy and aggression.
And let's also not forget that some young men manage to achieve astounding feats on a veritable shoe-string. In the 1970s a young man called Shane Acton, 22 years old and with no sailing experience at all, paid £400 for a plywood boat just 18 feet long. He then sailed it round the world, sometimes with a crew but mostly alone. Returning home he wrote a book about his adventures, but in 1984 became restless and set off to do it again - in the same boat. He lived the rest of his life in Costa Rica, and died of lung cancer back in England at the age of 55.
So, Tom Black, we don't know you but you've made yourself sound like a narrow-minded, bitter, class-ridden bigot. Congratulations. You're our Wanker of the Week.
The GOS says: Now that's an achievement denied to most other people, isn't it? Of course that's not because they're poor - it's because they aren't total plonkers.
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