While the Big Brother contestants had their 14 minutes of pseudo-fame imprisoned in a cardboard house and watched by millions for the sake of ’entertainment’; while pop-trash nobodies Hear’say hit fame on the back of music industry puppeteers with dollar signs in their eyes; while the hollywood stars came out on their yearly jaunt across red carpet to give themselves a pat on the back at the Oscars; and while countless other people have become rich and famous for doing very little, Jim Shekhdar was getting attacked by sharks and battered by waves as he rowed [alone] across the expanse of the pacific ocean… he didn’t even have a tin opener. Driven not by fame and money, but by determination to do the near impossible, Jim battled the odds to “become the first person to row across the Pacific unassisted”. Surely this is an achivement to be celebrated. If I was currently wearing a hat, I would most definitely take it off to him.