500,000 cubic metres of sewage. Vomiting. Chronic diarrhoea. Hazardous debris. Strong currents. A "painful rash where his wetsuit had rubbed his neck." Saving the odd drowing dog. None of these things stopped David Walliams from swimming the 140-mile-long Thames for charity.
Sky News reports: "The comedy star, who suffered from "Thames tummy" during the journey, swam from Gloucestershire to central London in eight days and managed to raise more than £1m for Sport Relief. Walliams completed the challenge after reaching Westminster Bridge, cheered on by thousands of fans. Among those who greeted him at the finish were his wife, model Lara Stone, Walliams' fellow comics Lenny Henry and Miranda Hart, actress Barbara Windsor and Olympic rower Sir Steve Redgrave." Peggy Mitchell came armed with a bottle of Thames Water, in case Walliams missed gargling with it on a daily basis.
Of completing the mammoth journey, David said: "Thank you so much, thank you for your waves, your cheers. I know times are hard so I really, really thank you from the heart, you're really going to make peoples' lives better... I believe myself it's great work the charity does, so it just makes me want to do more and more. But most of all thank you for your donations, because each time this would be completely meaningless unless you all put your hands in your pocket. I know if you do something tough like this you can capture the public imagination and people are more generous than when you do a comic strip with a famous person. Day three or day four I got ill. I had a really bad upset tummy, and was feeling sick and the last thing you want to do when you are ill is exercise. It is also very hard to prepare for this type of distance. The most I'd done before was 20 miles and this was 20 miles day in day out and that was hard."
All that was left for a rubber-clad David to do was celebrate his feat with a load of jovial men in their pants.