British adventurer Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes has said he's been left feeling 'deflated and unfulfilled' after being forced to call off a three-month nationwide expedition to find a bottle of Coca-Cola with his name on. Leading a two-hundred strong team of researchers and scientists, the intrepid explorer finally admitted defeat and abandoned the expedition, conceding that the closest his team came to reaching their goal was finding a bottle branded 'Randolph'.
After watching hundreds of his friends 'showing off' and uploading pictures of their own personal bottles of Coke on Facebook, Sir Ranulph says he became 'increasingly frustrated', and after conducting his own personal search in a Spar near his home in Exmoor, which ended in disappointment, the conquerer of the Antarctic and the White Nile set about organising a large team to track-down a bottle he could finally call his own.
'It's been a serious struggle', admitted Fiennes, who suffered a mild cold during the Scotland leg of the search. 'We've rifled through everything from newsagent fridges in the Gower Peninsula, to recycling bins on the Shetland Islands, all to no avail. It's tough to admit defeat, and of course it's disappointing that we lost three members of the team during the search, but I'd rather that than spending the rest of my life wondering 'what if'. I've had to settle with scribbling my name on a bottle of Pepsi Max with a black marker, but it just doesn't feel legit'.
The marketing team at Coca-Cola, who launched the 'Share-a-Coke' campaign in March, have sent their condolences to the defeated explorer: 'We're sorry to hear about Sir Ranulph's failed expedition, but we would stress to anybody else who is considering undertaking a similarly large operation to instead just check the list of all the names we've chosen on the website'.