An evening with Kenton Cool … Aha!

Kenton Cool is one of Britain’s best-known high-altitude mountaineers, perhaps the best known of all. He has a record number of British ascents of Everest (12), he once guided the famously fingerless Sir Ranulph Fiennes up the North Face of the Eiger, and he has made a number of notable first ascents in the Himalayas and Alaska.

Yet for some reason I’m not quite able to put my finger on, he reminds me of Alan Partridge, the cringingly hapless TV-show host played by Steve Coogan. Perhaps it’s...