When I picked up the Spiegel on my way back from Berlin, the title story was about the increasing popularity of "extreme sports". Apparently, mountain biking, climbing, surfing and base jumping all come into this category; although personally I'd put base jumping into the "unusual suicides" category. The article was about the way that people... Continue Reading →
Chamonix – Arete des Cosmiques
The weekend climbing the Arete des Cosmiques from 14 th September to 17th September was everything I expected, while also being even more frightening than I had prepared myself for. I am feeling the need to document every single action, because I have some vague impression of it all being terribly significant in the future.... Continue Reading →
What is sport for?
I went to see the Paralympics today. The atmosphere was fantastic, and we had the good fortune of perfect weather - a beautiful sunset visible over the stadium, and the usual people-watching in the crowd, Mexican waves, random cheering and incredibly overpriced beer. It was still a bit depressing though. I was watching people who... Continue Reading →
Making creative stuff can’t be that hard
Adrien Brody is a great actor. He plays every part he takes with an amusing seriousness, and The Pianist made me cry, a lot. Unfortunately, with the exception of that film, his greatest gift seems to be picking the worst scripts ever created. I just wasted some more of my life watching Splice, a 2009... Continue Reading →
First Alpine trip – fun, but frightening
On the 20th June, we drove out of Finsbury Square towards the Blackwall Tunnel with a car full of ropes, hardware, a posh tent, an ultra-light cooker and in my case absolutely no idea what I was letting myself in for. It was my first climbing trip to the Alps, and while I had done... Continue Reading →
Climbing in Frankenjura
I've been on two short climbing trips recently - or more accurately one climbing trip and one bouldering. We decided on a long weekend in the Frankenjura, a part of German that is known in German as the "Fränkische Schweiz", not to be confused with "Sächsische Schweiz", which is another big climbing area, but is... Continue Reading →
Simple pleasures
In an effort to prepare for the hideous chaos that will be the London Olympics in 2 weeks' time, I ran home from work yesterday. For some reason, I constantly think that Liverpool Street to West Hampstead will take me an hour to run, which it never does. So after an hour I got a... Continue Reading →
Progress – why?
The recent purchase of Instagram by Facebook amused me, not least the idea that a company valued at 100 times' earnings feels it can spend $1 billion on another company that makes no money at all. Basic economics obviously don't trouble people's consciousness any more now than they did in the South Sea bubble. The... Continue Reading →
Cabin in the woods of your mind
I dislike horror movies. The world is full enough of evil people to find the idea of watching sadistic cruelty on screen very unappealing. Perhaps people like the comparative relief that their own everyday hassles aren't quite on the same scale. A nasty boss making you work late is after all not quite as bad... Continue Reading →
Delhi wedding
The thing that makes travel writing so difficult is that one starts to live in the moment so immediately, and absorbs the reality of a very different environment. I then no longer think to make notes of moments that would be utterly bizarre if they happened in England, but so unremarkable here that it seems... Continue Reading →
The resting writer 