The inevitably English Mr Gough is planning to walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats, bollock naked apart from rucksack and hiking boots, and continues the Scottish leg of his journey this weekend.

But nature is fighting back, with midgies and sheep ticks lined up to send Steve homeward to think again. As Professor Beaker of Aberdeen’s Department for the Study of Things that Bite Lumps Out Of You explains: "There’s a world of difference between tramping along The English Downs, or the Lake District, as our southern cousins call it, and facing acres of boggy moorland full of airborne piranhas. If I was Mr Gough, I’d put on some pants pronto."

If Mr Gough’s exposed manhood survives the initial onslaught, nature has another trick up its, er, greeny sleeve. Scientists have just discovered a new species, the nadger gnat, which homes in on the soft dangly bits of pathetic inadequates who think waving their willie about amounts to some philosophically coherent expression of human freedom.

As a completely different Professor Beaker from the one above explains: "If Mr Gough wants to know the true meaning of the crushing of the human spirit he should try the same trick on a Friday night in Glasgow just when posses of blootered hen parties spill out of the boozers. Derision and scorn? The laddie disnae know the meaning of the words. Yet."