The recent news, broken by The Telegraph, that select relatives and friends are finally permitted to visit Sir Ranulph Fiennes is misleading, the result of deliberate misdirection: the 82-year-old explorer continues to be kept in strict isolation by his wife, Louise Millington-Cotes, and his wishes continue to be disregarded. What is most shocking is that this new arrangement is the product of an agreement between LMC and senior members of the Fiennes clan, who have in the pa

The Guinness Book of World Records describes Sir Ranulph Fiennes as the World's Greatest Living Explorer. Ran Fiennes is the modern-day equivalent of Sir Ernest Shackleton. That such a legendary figure should be reported as a missing person is astounding enough. Yet Ran is not just a living legend but also one of the kindest, gentlest and most lovable men to roam this planet. That his own wife should be behind the sinister plot of his disappearance is, then, presumably worthy

"I just want to know if Ran is still alive," Arabella Pepper told me a few days ago. The sister of Virginia Fiennes, the late wife of explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, last heard from her brother-in-law during a 1-hour meeting in an exclusive London care home. "He told me he feels lonely, that he misses his friends and family, that he's afraid of contacting anyone because (REDACTED) monitors his phone calls, and that he has been left without money or credit cards and can't even b

Conrad Anker betrays fellow mountaineer; sides with Nirmal Purja Reinhold Messner reacts to the brewing scandal The recent New York Times...