- Bishop Hill blog

The Mawson vacationers' exploits continue to amuse and appall in equal measure. After the happy campers were helicoptered to safety, the Chinese rescue ship itself became entrapped in the ice. There seems to be a suggestion this morning that they expect to free themselves imminently though.

The media have been far from supportive of Professor Turney's adventuring, with even a dyed-in-the-wool green like Andy Revkin highly critical of the need to divert resources away from serious research in order to rescue a team of public funded holidaymakers.

But nobody is going to top this morning's blast from Christopher Caldwell in the FT:

A beset ship is like a skint bank, and we can draw certain parallels to the financial crisis of 2008. The voyage of the Akademik Shokalskiy mixed public and private purposes, and all such enterprises nowadays invite scepticism. Those who stood to reap the benefits of the voyage were able, when things went sour, to pass on many of the costs.

And for those who haven't seen it yet, and who are not bothered by a wall of bad language, you can enjoy the Turney downfall video:

Update on Jan 4, 2014 by

Bishop Hill

The French seem none too pleased with Prof Turney

In an interview with AFP, Yves Frenot, director of the French Polar Institute, said he had no issue at all with rescuing those aboard the stricken vessel.

He said the trip itself was a 'pseudo-scientific expedition' that, because it had run into difficulties, had drained resources from the French, Chinese and Australian scientific missions in Antarctica.

The University of New South Wales must be very proud of the scale of disruption they have caused to the Antarctic research effort.