Somehow, one always associates Lonely Planet (World, 8 pm) with hot countries: backpackers wear sarongs or shorts, not parkas. Over the past few weeks Ian Wright has visited Mexico, Zanzibar, and he spent some time in a yurt in Kirghizstan, but nothing so far could have prepared him for the cold that is inevitable in Iceland and Greenland, which is where he is going this evening.
Wright and his fellow traveller Justine Shapiro are always pretty brave about eating whatever is on offer in the true spirit of Lonely Planet, and usually what they eat is considered a delicacy by their hosts, so it is impossible to refuse anyway.
Iceland and Greenland seem to have more than their fair share of odd things to eat, and as the weather hardly produces a surfeit of local fruit and vegetables, it seems like most of the delicacies on the Arctic menu are made from the same animal.
In Iceland, poor Wright cannot turn away fermented shark, made by leaving the shark flesh in rock covered boxes for several months. He also has to wash it down with potato wine, nicknamed Black Death.
An Inuit family treat him to seal liver, so it is hardly surprising that when a reindeer farmer called Stefan tells him the stomach contents of dead reindeer is an absolute must, Wright accepts his advice and munches it down.
It takes some time to realise that the endless days and a diet of too much reindeer have warped Stefan's mind and this is in fact a tasteless practical joke.
