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Now my eyes are turned from the South to the North, and I want to lead one more Expedition. This will be the last... to the North Pole.

I always needle a bit when people say I'm a champion of the Poles, because I've always had a very multinational view of Poland.

Ambition is to be the fastest runner on this planet, to be the first on the South Pole, which is a grotesque perversion of ambition. It's an ego trip, and I'm not on an ego trip. I don't have ambitions - I have a vision.

I seemed to vow to myself that some day I would go to the region of ice and snow and go on and on till I came to one of the poles of the earth, the end of the axis upon which this great round ball turns.

I kind of do think of myself as a superhero and just flying high, and doing these crazy flips.

I rendezvous with the long wire and perform the 'torero walk', gliding my feet, holding the pole away from my body, head high.

I have a visual imagination.

I've been lucky enough to stand on both poles, but the place that seemed the remotest to me was Butugychag, a former gulag in Siberia. It is completely cut off from the rest of the world.

If it's enough money, I'll play the North Pole.