How does it feel to go into space? What does it make you feel about the future of our planet, and your own place in the universe? What are the moral implications of space travel? And just how do you take a picture of Pipeline from the International Space Station as it flies overhead at 17,000 mph?

All questions that I discussed with one of my favourite ever guests: Christina Koch, a surfer and – yes – astronaut who spent 328 days in space in the International Space Station, setting a new record for the longest spaceflight completed by a woman in the process. She also, as we discussed, spent her downtime photographing the planet’s best surf locations, posting them on her hugely popular Instagram feed and outing herself as a serial surf geek in the process.

In this blog, I rounded up four things we learned from our lengthy and inspirational conversation. And click here if you’ve yet to listen to the episode - it’s a good one.

1. Focus On The Now

Christina’s record-breaking spaceflight was as much a mental as it was a physical feat. To manage this challenge, she utilised the Expeditionary Behaviour training she received from NASA and also came up with her own coping mechanisms to deal with what she calls ‘sensory underload’ – the lack of new stimuli that is a disconcerting feature of space flight.

When things got tough, she focused on the positive experiences she’d miss, rather than fixating on her mission end date. It’s a technique she applied to her time in Antarctica, her time aboard the ISS and her time in lockdown.

2. Have A Hobby

“I don’t think I’d have survived 11 months in a tin can without a hobby I was really passionate about. For me that hobby was photographing surf spots.”

The impact of Christina’s celestial side hustle on her time in space was significant. It gave her a focus away from her tightly schedule workdays, offered a technical challenge that occupied valuable headspace, and kept her connected to her favourite earthbound hobby.

“It was a project I was absolutely in love with. It brought me so much joy, it connected me with my friends who were surfers and, having watched all of the competitions up there, it was neat to know there were instances where the picture I took was during the final heat of a competition.”

3. Learn From The Past

NASA’s lengthy experience of sending humans into space means the organisation has accrued an enormous amount of knowledge when it comes to the psychology of small groups living in small, enclosed spaces.

As a result, understanding and adhering to best Expedition Behaviour practice is one of the key reasons Christina’s mission went so smoothly. As Christina explained, there are five tenets of ‘good’ expeditionary behaviour: Communication, Leadership/Fellowship, Self-Care, Team Care and Group Living.

“It’s an entire part of our training flow, learning how to live with other people in a group setting… we talk about these skills in a way that creates a common language between you and your crew mates. I would say that that’s the main way that NASA enables us to cope with what is a very challenging and unique situation”.

4. Avoid The Stereotype Threat

A ‘Stereotype Threat’ is defined as the fear of inadvertently confirming a negative stereotype, something Christina became acutely aware of while undergoing her astronaut training and during her record-breaking spaceflight.

“Spacewalking is the biggest intellectual and physical challenge of every flight”, she explained during our conversation. “It’s the equivalent of running a marathon, and I was constantly worried about the fact that it was this well-known stereotype that women were not as good in the suit”.

To counter the self-fulfilling effect of the Stereotype Threat, Christina replaced these negative thoughts with positive visualisationsl

“I would imagine the people in the control room watching me saying, ‘Oh she is so good at this! Watch what she’s gonna do’:”

By replacing the Stereotype Threat with positive images, Christina found herself able to overcome these intimidating situations and succeed on her own terms.

1. I recorded some thoughts on the Sidetracked column on the value of storytelling I shared last week, on whether brands just follow what they think is popular (spoiler alert: I think yes), and what the ensuing debate says about the type of storytelling we actually value these days.

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

2. Giving myself a tentative public pat on the back for achieving a mid-term/mid-life goal. I’ve been taking running a little more seriously over the last year or so, with the extremely vague idea that I’d try and run 10k in under an hour. So it was really nice this morning to tick this one off a month or so before my big 50th birthday (53:35 if you’re asking. What have I turned into?)

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

3. Timber Timbre are a really important band to me, so I’m really devastated to hear the news of Taylor Kirk’s outrageously premature death.

4. Who says activism doesn’t work? A concerted social media campaign in Cornwall seems to have convinced the council to end the proposed use of glyphosate.

5. My pal Keme has written a brilliant piece about our recent trip to Georgia which complements my own piece perfectly. (Yes, that is me in the pic)

6. So Robert Capa had an especially hectic D-Day then. (Taken from Stephen Ambrose’s excellent history of D-Day which I’m currently reading).

Joshua Heath Scott

I CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED

A couple of hours ago, I found out that Pearl Jam posted about the local nonprofit community art center Alice and I started, Art House Grandview, on their Instagram…

Read more

8 days ago · 222 likes · 42 comments · Joshua Heath Scott

7. Finally, some good news. Pearl Jam fund fan’s none-profit music academy on the quiet.

8. Congratulations to my pal Si Belson on the forthcoming launch of his new House of Maiden Chinwag podcast. If you’re into the core end of the snowboard scene, you’re going to love this.

9. I posted a short video of some Asian hornets we trapped here in Normandy, which caused everyone on Instagram to lose their minds. So I thought I’d share it here. (Viewer caution advised - they’re grim little fellas)

10. Finally, a question: what’s the best book you’ve read this year? (The Pretender, above, is mine; see my whole 2026 list thus far here).

I need some new inspiration, so let me know in the comments below.

Leave a comment

1. I’ve had some really interesting responses to my piece on Georgia: not least from a travel writing friend and colleague of mine who basically said I was laying it on a bit thick, and the adventure writing industry is these days much more responsible than the picture I painted here. (He also gave me a great note on a shonky, hyperbolic line that didn’t help my argument, and which I’ve since edited; merci Tristan!)

Having reflected on it though, I stand by the points in this story. I know anecdotes don’t equal data, but having visited Ahangama and Courchevel recently, I think it’s hard to argue we have made much progress, beyond the odd pocket or responsibility-minded company (admittedly, they are out there). And that’s before we look at the impact of influencer culture closer to home.

Plus, in writing the piece I was just trying to reflect a pretty specific trope of surf and snow culture, as well as a moment in time for this particular valley. I’m not trying to dissuade people from visiting these places. But locals trying to influence how things develop has to be a good thing. As does gently asking travelling surfers and snowboarders to think about the impact of their actions.

Anyway, here’s the piece again - let me know what you think.

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

Sidetrackedmag

The Value of Storytelling

Our creative director John Summerton writes about his hopes for mutually sustainable collaboration within the outdoor industry – and for storytelling to be valued as it deserves to be valued…

Read more

15 days ago · 29 likes · 13 comments · Sidetrackedmag and John Summerton

2. As a) a journalist who’s been pitching magazines like Sidetracked for 30 years and b) the owner of a PR/creative comms agency, I am so intrigued by the points raised in this article, and the very fair questions being asked in the comments.

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

3. For years now I’ve been making the same point whenever a debate around the ethics of paying somebody fairly comes up: anybody who says they can’t pay people properly for their work either has a problem with their business model, or is being disingenuous.

So thank you to Terri White for basically saying the same thing with such righteous fury in response to the Plum-Sykes-doesn’t-pay-her-interns brouhaha (and here is the original Substack post that kicked the whole thing off.)

4. Patrick Radden Keefe part 1 - his latest for the New Yorker.

5. Patrick Radden Keefe part 2 - interviewed in the New York Times about his new book London Falling.

6. This Sidetracked conversation with Alice Sainsbury is a good companion to our episode 258 conversation.

7. My pal CJ Mirra has a new soundtrack out, and this piece has made my week a better place.

Well spent.

The Manosphere is so close to getting it

I posted a video yesterday evening about the Louis Theroux Manosphere documentary and … let’s just say it’s blown up…

Read more

a month ago · 310 likes · 18 comments · Well spent.

8. A Substack piece about the manosphere that nailed the feeling I had while watching the Louis Theroux thing but couldn’t quite articulate - it’s a ponzi scheme and they’re all essentially salesmen praying on the credulous.

9. Nike’s Parkrun blunder (LI).

10. Helen De Witt’s (lengthy) account of why she turned down the $175,000 Windham-Campbell fiction prize (spoiler alert: it meant she had to do a load of promo)

Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️

Leave a comment

“The newly emerging ideal was solitude, purity, perfect waves far from civilisation. Robinson Crusoe, Endless Summer.” - William Finnegan, Barbarian Days

In the weeks since my recent catboarding trip to Georgia’s Bakhmaro valley in the Lesser Caucasus, I’ve been thinking a lot about scarcity, and what it means for surfing and snowboarding.

Why? Because scarcity is one of the things that makes us unique in the sporting world, something fundamental that anybody who follows these pursuits at all seriously comes to understand.

Think about it. Footballers don’t have to travel across continents to find a pitch worth playing on. Swimmers can lap the local pool. Runners can step outside their front door.

But unless you’re lucky enough to live by the ocean or in the mountains, surfers and snowboarders are travellers by default.

Most of us have to go out and find it. And that peculiarity has shaped our culture in profound ways.

“California was getting crowded, so in high school a friend and I said, ‘Well, let’s graduate high school early and drive down to some place like Central America.’ You know, because there’s maybe uncrowded waves there.” - Craig Peterson, Looking Sideways, episode 077

The most obvious consequence is that scarcity has always been one of our key currencies: hunted out, hoarded, jealously guarded.

Another is that ‘the search’ for a particular type of untouched paradise has become one of our most persistent and influential tropes. Adventure as a solution to scarcity is part of it, of course. But over the years the romance - or ‘purity’, to use Finnegan’s revealing signifier - of the search has taken on equal importance.

Think of Endless Summer, surfing’s ur-text. Or Peterson and Naughton, our own Lewis and Clark, questing their way across continents in the 1970s, documenting it all in a series of massively influential dispatches for Surfer magazine, and creating the wave-hunt template followed to this day by everyone from Kepa Acero to Chris Burkard.

It’s why, in Barbarian Days, Finnegan casts his surfing life as the search for ‘a scratched-out frontier, where we would live as latter-day barbarians’, and names his entire book after it.

In recent years, though, there’s been a growing understanding that these sideways Shangri-Las don’t exist merely as backdrops for our own solipsistic imaginings. Reconciling the impact of surf and snow tourism on the places we visit has become an increasingly important part of the culture.

Becky Coley’s essential Point of Change, which tracks the generational impact of surf tourism on the Indonesian island of Nias, is one such example. At its heart, a film like Point of Change asks us to ponder a shamefully overlooked yet vital question: how do we reckon with the impact of our own narrow fantasies on destinations ill-equipped to handle them?

All of which is useful context for why my trip to Bakhmaro proved so thought-provoking.

I’d wanted to visit for years, lured by the stories that always do the rounds about such places. If friends who’d made the trip were to be believed, here was a proper throwback of a valley: the beneficiary of a geographical uniqueness which means it gets dumped on with light, dry coastal Black Sea powder; yet close enough to Russia and other perplexing geopolitical realities to scare most people off and keep the crowds down.

My kind of trip, in other words.

When it comes to snowboarding, I’ve always sought out resorts at the margins. Shemshak and Dizin in Iran. The Cedars and Mzaar in Lebanon. Beldersay in Uzbekistan.

These trips had dual inspirations. There were the magazine stories I’d devoured early in my career - Craig Kelly in Iran; Trevor Graves, Jamie Lynn, Dale Rehberg and Mike Ranquet in Greece - as influential to me as Peterson and Naughton had been for an earlier generation of surf travellers.

But equally important were literary influences: Robert Byron’s The Road to Oxiana (the reason I dragged everybody to Isfahan) and F.M. Bailey’s Mission to Tashkent (ditto Samarkand, when we went to Uzbekistan).

As well as being miles from the mainstream, visiting these places fed an adventurous curiosity that eventually became at least as important to me as the riding itself - just as it so obviously had for Finnegan, Peterson, Naughton and the rest.

As I worked out what snowboarding meant to me and how I could express it, these trips seemed like a mix of adventure and pretension that was right up my youthful boulevard.

Subscribe now

So when I was invited to Bakhmaro in March 2026 to write a story for The Times, as part of a group of UK journalists, I was excited to fulfil a minor snowboarding ambition.

Even better, as became clear on our first morning, the riding is ridiculously accessible and fun: perfect for the vast majority of snowboarders and skiers who want to ride untracked hero snow in an insanely beautiful spot, with very few people around.

Personally, I also loved that it isn’t frightening. I’ve always been a bit of a coward when it comes to exposure and steeps (though, weirdly, my appetite for fear in surfing is much higher). I used to beat myself up about that; these days I couldn’t care less.

One of the joys of the trip was that you could absolutely pin it everywhere, without worrying too much, and just enjoy the snow, the turns, and the environment.

As the trip continued, the rhythm of lodge life - snowcats each morning, post-ride beers, falling asleep into enormous plates of mountain food - reminded me of surf trips to the Maldives, Sri Lanka or Morocco. Not that Georgia has the crowds that are now the reality of those places. (At least, not yet.)

So yes: Bakhmaro is an outrageously user-friendly version of the promised land we all seek. And only a short day’s journey away from London.

As you might be gathering, I had a blast.

Still, as the week unfolded, I began to wonder what the future held for the valley.

There was our experience on the second day, when we found ourselves in a small queue of cats heading up to Sakornia, one of Bakhmaro’s most sought-after runs, and had to wait in line to make the access traverse. Normal in, say, Chamonix. But not really what I’d been expecting here.

Then there was the encounter on our last morning, when we were overtaken by a group of apparently guide-free riders gleefully breaking every rule of guided backcountry snowboarding - to our head guide and Georgia Catskiing co-founder Shota Komakhidze’s evident fury.

Individually, these moments were trivial. Together they were telltale signs that Bakhmaro is already being fast-tracked to a critical point in its history.

Hardly post-Instagram Canggu or Ahangama (although neither were they, until fairly recently).

But enough to raise a couple of questions:

How did Bakhmaro get here?

And how would inviting a group of journalists to spread the word help?

A couple of nights later in the capital, Tbilisi, I sat down with Shota Komakhidze to ask him just that.

Shota had been our constant companion for the last four days. He’d guided our jet-lagged group around Kutaisi, Georgia’s third city, on our first morning. He’d been lead guide on every drop.

And he’d joined me, Caroline and Keme as we’d ill-advisedly necked late-night chacha from a shot-ski.

As co-owner of Georgia Catskiing - the outfit hosting our trip - the bearish, avuncular Komakhidze was both the reason we’d been invited and the only person I’d seen express any tangible disquiet at the vibes on the hill.

Now, on our final night in the country, I wanted to understand how he reconciled those two seemingly contradictory positions.

It soon became obvious that I’d underestimated how quickly ski tourism in Bakhmaro had developed. According to Shota, the transformation had taken less than a decade.

“The first time I visited Bakhmaro there was almost nobody skiing,” he told me, over the khachapuri, khinkali and mtsvadi that are ubiquitous at every Georgian meal.

Early pioneers like Shota and Ingo Schlutius - a Swiss skier whose explorations of Bakhmaro predated Komakhidze’s own - were drawn to the valley by forces Peterson, Naughton or Finnegan would recognise: fun, adventure, wildness, and a crowd-free riding experience you simply couldn’t get anywhere else.

“The conditions were difficult,” he reflected. “It was completely wild. People didn’t understand why you would even go there.”

In those early years, ski touring and splitboarding kept numbers low. The turning point came when Schlutius opened Powder Project, Bakhmaro’s first catskiing operation.

As a mountain guide who’d set up his first ski touring, mountaineering and trekking businesses in 2009, Shota moved quickly. His Georgia Catskiing company began operating in the valley soon after.

Snowcats enabled pioneers such as Shota and Ingo to open up vast swathes of terrain, and made the valley viable as an international destination.

“That changed things,” as Shota says.

Before long, increasing numbers of a particularly intrepid type of skier and snowboarder began making the trip: unable to afford a once-in-a-lifetime splurge to, say, Baldface; and drawn by word-of-mouth about an affordable, beguiling powder paradise.

For Shota and Georgia Catskiing, growth was rapid.

“The business grew quickly, around 20% each year. But growth means challenges. I realised I couldn’t guide everything myself anymore. I had to build something bigger, bring in other guides, and scale it.”

Soon, Komakhidze and the valley’s other established operators faced the problems that can bedevil such scenarios: less scrupulous operators, lowering safety standards, and a shifting Overton Window of acceptable behaviour.

I’d seen something similar while surfing a reef called Gas Stations in Sri Lanka in February 2025. A quiet dawn session was suddenly flooded by beginners on foamies, their instructor pushing them into waves over the reef.

Later, over coffee, I asked my friend Ed, who runs an established outfit called Soul & Surf in Ahangama, how long this had been going on.

He grimaced. “Since last year. Lazy Left and Right (the area’s two beginner breaks) are so crowded that one of the surf schools started taking his lessons to the reef. Now everyone’s at it.”

Share

According to Shota, a new wave of ‘cowboy operators’ in Bakhmaro are already exerting a similarly unwelcome influence. Take the company that knocked up a website and lifted Georgia Catskiing’s pitch in a bid to siphon off their business.

This, it transpired, was the group that had scooted past us on that final morning — which helped explain Shota’s furious reaction.

“These people just want money,” he says. “They make a website, copy the name, and start selling. They’re cheaper. But they don’t think about safety or responsibility.”

For Shota, this is Bakhmaro’s doomsday scenario, especially given the very real avalanche risk in the valley.

“Mistakes out here mean serious problems. Some people don’t even have rescue equipment. There are people doing this without proper training. If something happens with an unlicensed guide, it’ll affect everyone.”

There’s also the question of capacity. By Shota’s reckoning, anything over 180 skiers and snowboarders on any given day and the valley will be maxed out.

“How many were on the hill during our week?” I asked.

“The busy day? Two hundred.”

In grappling with this growth-or-management dilemma, then, Bakhmaro is facing the same juggle as countless other prized surf and snow destinations, from Kuta to Niseko.

That’s why Komakhidze is on a mission to ensure the valley avoids the same fate.

His plan is bold: devise a regulatory system based on existing European and North American models, adapted for Georgia, so that visitors choose certified, responsible operators.

“I want something sustainable. Regulation is essential,” he says. “We’re trying to introduce a licensing system with rules that only qualified operators can meet. That way only responsible companies can operate.”

Shota wants to shape, rather than stop, growth - ideally within the next two years. The first step is gathering data and developing guidelines that all operators in the valley must follow.

It’s a progressive idea, especially in a country without strong central control. Any regulation would require cooperation between government and the mountain guide association, and support from competing operators.

“It’s not easy, but there is some progress. The other companies understand that regulation is in everyone’s interest.”

Shota’s urgency is palpable. Without action, the fear is that the valley could become another Niseko: crowded, lucrative, but stripped of what made it special in the first place.

“We’ll earn money,” he says. “But the experience will be gone.”

Over the years I’ve been on countless travel press trips, and the deal is always PR at its most transactional: hosts provide the best possible time; you write the place up glowingly; they get more visitors.

So to be invited on a trip where the unspoken goal is “controlled, safe and sustainable” growth, as Komakhidze puts it, rather than unfettered, damn-the-local-consequences growth that can still be a huge part of the travel industry’s MO, makes a change.

And it’s here that Shota’s decision to invite journalists to the valley in the first place seems strategic, rather than contradictory. Driving the kind of cultural and regulatory change he’s after will require political will and leverage. And coverage in an outlet like The Times could certainly provide it.

“We knew nothing. We were so naïve.” — Kevin Naughton, Looking Sideways, episode 077

In the end, my belated pilgrimage to Georgia was a reminder that the journeys we take in pursuit of scarcity shape the places we visit in ways that far exceed their influence on the romantic surf and snow stories we like to tell ourselves.

In Barbarian Days, Finnegan invokes Joseph Conrad - a writer who spent his life exploring these impacts and tensions on the grandest scale, in works like Heart of Darkness and, in this case, Lord Jim:

“We wander in our thousands over the face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond the seas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me that for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.”

When I first read this passage, I assumed Finnegan was referring to the kind of ‘did-I-waste-my-life?’ pondering that comes to anyone who spent their twenties chasing waves or snow around the world.

But now I can see another interpretation: that the ‘account’ to be rendered from these trips also runs in the other direction, and in different ways — some negative, some positive.

The turns and memories I immortalised in an Instagram carousel and Reel (the one above) I edited on the plane home (and the “Looks insane! I’m gonna go there!” messages that followed) are one obvious manifestation.

But then: so is the local restaurant being squeezed out by a multinational, undercutting prices and shipping profits offshore.

Or, as in this case, a local operator grappling with the profit-versus-preservation conundrum as he attempts, Canute-like, to influence the course of ‘progress’ in the valley he loves.

“We are adept at saying what we make of places but far less good at saying what places makes of us.” — Robert Macfarlane

So will Shota’s gambit work?

Infrastructure and regulation will certainly help.

But ultimately it will depend on us. And whether we can learn to see the places shaped by our search for scarcity as active participants in the stories we tell, as opposed to mere backdrops.

Leave a comment

1. I think my latest Looking Sideways episode with Julie Maughan and Chris Hines, in which we discussed the recent series Dirty Business, the scandal of the privatised water industry in this country, and the death of Heather’s daughter’s Julie after she contracted E-coli from raw sewage, is without question the most emotionally impactful and important episode of Looking Sideways I’ve ever released.

Here’s a short clip I recorded here in Normandy this morning (above) explaining why, and here’s the episode below so you can have a listen:

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

2. My friends at Huck Magazine just celebrated their 20th anniversary, which means they have successfully navigated the advent of social media, a global recession, COVID and now AI. No mean feat, I think you will agree.

So allow me to use this occasion to give you my semi-regular nudge to support independent media. In an era of increasingly centralised media AI slop, we should be supporting this stuff more than ever. After all, we’ll miss it when its gone.

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

3. My friend Keme Nzerem delved into the whole sorry saga Ye/Wireless saga on this excellent Channel 4 podcast.

4. Got to be honest, I think Harry Styles’ Meltdown lineup looks kinda banging…

5. So ace to see CJ Mirra going through a bit of an imperial phase right now. He was a guest on Zakia’s excellent 6 Music show this week, and was interviewed about his brilliant new soundtrack for My Father’s Shadow alongside director Akinola Davies Jr and fellow composer Duval Timothy in this Clash Magazine piece.

6. The trailer for Undercurrents, Maddie Meddings new film about Laura Crane and Imari Hearn, is great - watch it above. And get tickets for a limited run of screenings in Bristol, Newquay, London and Braunton here.

7. It’s pretty difficult to do something new in the podcast (ahem) space these days. So big up Bjarne Salen who’s gone down a really interesting path, and clearly invested a lot of time, love and energy, for his new series Fika with Bjarne.

His first episode with Jeremy Jones is out now - watch it above.

8. I enjoyed this reflective piece by on finding another type of creative validation. I shared it in a Note, which turned into an interesting back-and-forth with Sidetracked editor Alex Roddie on the same topic - click the image to check that out.

9. Updated: my evolving 2026 playlist, with new songs from CJ Mirra, Her’s, Bill Orcutt, and, er, Laurel and Hardy.

10. Also updated: my 2026 reading list, which includes this brilliant historical novel that I’m enjoying as much as anything I’ve read for as long as I can remember. ‘Like a Plantagenet Adrian Mole’ sums it up well.

And don’t forget that you can see what the LS community have been reading, and share your own recommendations, below:

PLUS! There’s still time to apply for one of the two roles we have going at my agency All Conditions Media. Find out more about the type of work we do above, and apply here.

Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️

Leave a comment

1. Our pal Christina is on her way to the moon!

I’ve been very excited and tickled to see the great Christina Koch finally take off on Artemis II this week. One of my fondest memories of recent years was meeting for lunch in London in February 2023 (above) and asking her how work was going: “Well, looks like I’m off to the moon in a year or so”.

If you’ve yet to listen to my episode with Christina, in which we discussed her experiences as an astronaut, and why she loves surfing so much, catch up below. (And yes, I will be inviting her back for a second round once she’s back down on earth).

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

2. My agency ACM is hiring. Know anybody out there who’d be suitable for this, or who might want to come and join our team? Click this link to find out more.

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

3. Congratulations to the gang behind Hotpipe Hillbillies for winning the Best Emerging Talent award at the recent North East Surf Film Festival, which sounds like it went right off last weekend.

4. Speaking of Sal McGee from Yonder (one of the organisers of last weekend’s event) this is a really nice back-and-forth between her and Easkey Britten on Finisterre’s excellent Broadcast blog.

5. Rest in peace, The Face magazine. Again.

All At Once by Dr. Len

Who Gets to Be an Early Adopter

There’s a moment on every backcountry film expedition where someone looks at a pile of dead batteries, a cloudy sky, and six more days of shooting, and says something like, “I think we’re fine…

Read more

a month ago · 21 likes · 7 comments · Len Necefer

6. I know I’m sharing a lot of Len Necefer posts at the moment, but I’m finding his entire take on the AI conversation to be provocative and fascinating. His latest piece is another example - I would love to know what people out there think of the arguments he’s making.

7. I’ve been enjoying The Horrors on the BBC’s reliably excellent Artist in Residence series (UK only)

Yvette’s Substack

The Exclusive Nature of Inclusion in Conferences

This is a topic I have spoken with friends about so often for years now and it continues to be a real problem, especially as ‘Change-makers’ seem to be a sellable commodity and almost a business of its own…

Read more

a month ago · 1 like · 2 comments · Yvette - Wave Wahines

8. Interesting read from - if you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know I’ve been making this point for years now (notably here and here - and yes I made my usual points in the comment section of this piece).

Interestingly, I’ve yet to hear anybody responsible for organising these conferences credibly defend the practise.

9. This week I read the most remarkable piece by Jamie Brisick about the 2019 Woolsey Fire that took all of his possessions.

Naturally, being by Jamie, our most talented surf writer, it’s about so much more than that.

Reading this story took me back to the first time we met in person, which was in Malibu in 2019, a few months after the fire.

We sat in the ashes of his former home and recorded a beautiful and honest Looking Sideways conversation about life, love and loss; and how he was processing the impact of this cataclysmic event.

At the time I remember being struck by the generosity with which Jamie approached what must have been a really difficult morning with two people he didn’t really know. Owen captured this moment in a series of typically brilliant pictures, which I’m sharing here.

Since then we have stayed close, and his support and friendship have become increasingly important to me.

I love the fact that we tend to only see each other in fairly random and impromptu places( Malibu, Santa Monica, Biarritz, London); that our conversations take flight in unexpected directions each time we meet; and that he’s such a champion of my own work. Listen to our conversation below:

10. It’s always a slightly discomfiting experience to find a beloved book a bit ‘meh’, which has been my experience with Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. Anybody else out there read it? What am I missing?

Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️

Leave a comment

In this episode of Looking Sideways, I speak to Julie Maughan and Chris Hines about Dirty Business, the recent Channel 4 drama that exposes the state of the UK’s water industry since privatisation, and the real-life tragedy at its centre.

The story of eight-year-old Heather Preen, who died after contracting E. coli following a sewage spill on a Devon beach, forms the emotional core of the series, and is what really makes this such a powerful piece of storytelling.

Because what Dirty Business does so effectively is remind you that behind all of this - the corporate failure, the regulatory collapse, the wholesale extraction of profits, the outrageous cynicism - there are devastating, long-lasting human consequences.

Julie, Heather’s mother, has spent nearly 30 years campaigning for justice. Alongside environmentalist Chris Hines, she has worked tirelessly to hold those responsible to account and bring national attention to the issue.

In this essential, riveting conversation, we explore Heather’s story, the long-term impact on her family, and the wider context: how the UK’s water system reached this point, why it has been allowed to continue; and what it reveals about privatisation, regulatory failure, accountability, and public apathy.

This is an urgent look at an issue that affects us all, and what might be the most emotionally impactful and important episode of Looking Sideways I’ve ever recorded. Don’t miss it.

Leave a comment

1. I’m lucky enough to get a lot of feedback and good vibes from my readers and listeners. But it doesn’t change the fact that making things on the internet can be a lonely pursuit. Like everybody, I’m prone to frequent bouts of ‘Why am I doing this? Nobody cares’ introspection. (It’s why I’m such a huge advocate of sharing or commenting on your friends’ work, and believe that you should ALWAYS back the Kickstarter. These small gestures matter.)

So you can imagine how chuffed I was to receive this message the other day from a highly-respected and high-profile British musician who turns out to be an avid Looking Sideways listener, and who clearly absolutely understands what I’m trying to do with this whole thing.

And yes, I have asked him if he fancies coming onto the show for a chat. Watch this space.

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

2. This week I had the great privilege of interviewing Julie Maughan (that’s me and Julie above) and Chris Hines about Dirty Business for a forthcoming episode of the podcast. If you watched Dirty Business, you’ll know how devastating Julie's story is (and if you haven’t yet watched it, then really what are you waiting for?)

This two-hour conversation, in which I discussed Heather’s two decade campaign to find justice for her daughter Heather, the impact of the recent series Dirty Business, and the enraging history of the privatised water industry in this country, is one of the most moving and emotionally affecting Looking Sideways conversations I’ve ever conducted.

One particularly interesting part of the conversation was around the apathy that still exists among surfers, swimmers, paddleboarders and other recreational water users. Why is it so difficult to get people with an active stake in this (which in the UK is, well, everybody) engaged and roused to action?

It’s a topic that came up in my recent Ski Fossil Free panel discussion (that’s a comment from campaign initiator Calum Macintyre, above), specifically around the lack of engagement on that particular topic from pro skiers and snowboarders.

Brody Leven, who participated in that call, had a pretty interesting take on this, which I’ve clipped and shared below. Have a watch and let me know what you think:

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

4. If you’ve listened to my recent Announcement interview with Len Necefer, you’ll know that challenging the online Left’s propensity to unthinkingly focus on ideological purity, rather than consider what tactics and approaches are actually likely to succeed, is a key element of his work.

And, in challenging the terms of the way we currently frame the debate around the environmental implications of AI, Len has certainly found some fertile territory for these provocations.

Click the link to find out more, and listen to our recent chat below:

5. An interesting take on the ‘state’ of woke from Dorian Lynskey in the new Nerve.

6. Ted Simpson’s film about the search for ‘Scotland’s loneliest pine’ is lovely.

7. Congratulations to friend of the show Joel Gray, who’s just taken his place in the Carve Magazine editorial hotseat. I had a great chat with Joel about all things UK surf culture a few years ago, which is very worth a listen.

8. In the veritable deluge of post-Louis Theroux/manosphere hot takes, I found Chloe Laws’ Vogue piece to be one of the most insightful.

9. It’s always great when mainstream outlets give space to surf, snow and skate writers who actually know what they’re talking about - as with this great Observer piece by Thom Callan-Riley, which takes a close look at recent Skateboard GB research on the state of UK skate infrastructure.

10. Finally: this week I posted a new Insights piece about the creative lessons we took from my recent Kendal Mountain Festival interview with Oscar-winning filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel. It’s a good one - click the link below for more.

Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️

Leave a comment

Think of my ongoing exchanges with artist Thomas Campbell about how years of patient, thoughtful creative endeavour led him to his opus Yi-Wo:

Or last year’s chat with director Lucy Walker about how she developed the multi-award-winning Mountain Queen:

Then there’s my discussion with about his decades-long quest to bring his recent novel American Tiger to life:

And that’s just in the last year.

To this list, you can add my recent live Kendal Mountain Festival conversation with Oscar-winning filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel.

On paper, Orlando’s remarkable career represents the summit of modern documentary filmmaking.

With Virunga, The White Helmets, The Lost Children, and his forthcoming The Cycle of Love, Orlando’s films have shaped the visual and emotional language of contemporary non-fiction storytelling in ways that will resonate for years.

And from the outside, this looks like the creative promised land. Surely Orlando is now in a position to name his price and call his own creative shots?

What emerged from our conversation, instead, was yet another pitiless reminder of what it actually takes to sustain a creative career. Even when you’ve got an Oscar on the CV.

Here are my key creative lessons from this vital conversation…

Insights is the Looking Sideways section, exclusively for my paid subscribing community.

It’s an absolute treasure trove of the - well - insights and wisdom imparted by over 250 Looking Sideways guests; as well as from the 25 plus years I’ve been making a living as a journalist, author, podcaster, business owner, mentor and speaker.

It’s where you’ll find exclusive blogs, podcasts, video chats, guest posts and articles all geared towards answering that two fundamental questions:

• How can I spend more time doing the things I’m passionate about?

• What does a ‘successful’ creative life actually look like?

Here are a few recent Insights articles to whet your appetite:

1. Creative careers are never secure - even if you’ve won an Oscar

The simple, sobering reality that uncertainty never disappears, no matter what level of ‘success’ you attain, was perhaps the most important lesson of the entire conversation.

Read more

1. I had the best laugh I’ve had on a snowboard for quite some time in Georgia, which I visited last week to write a story for the Times (and which is why there was no 10 Things last Friday).

Sure, if you like it properly steep, enjoy being scared, or prefer it luxe and bougie, it probably isn’t for you.

Anybody else with a yen for a snowy adventure will love the outrageously user-friendly snow and terrain, the lack of crowds, and the chance to explore this fascinating country.

Think Sri Lanka, Morocco or the Maldives if you surf, or Japan twenty years ago if you ski or snowboard.

The challenge for Georgia Catskiing’s Shota and the rest of the Bakhmaro community will be how to effectively manage the valley as it inevitably becomes more popular in the coming years. I’ll have a piece about this coming out on here soon.

In the meantime here (above) is a short clip from the trip - merci Shota, Helen, Caroline, Lynsey, Will, Dom, Leslie and Keme and the gang for the good times. And to Peak Performance, Finisterre, Stance and Db for the support on this one.

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

2. I really enjoyed pulling together my recent Looking Sideways mini-series of post Olympic reflections.

In the first episode, I chatted to BBC commentators (and new national treasures) Ed Leigh and Tim Warwood about their take on the Games.

In the second, I discussed the tension that exists at the heart of snowboarding and action sports’ relationship with the Olympics with Lesley McKenna, who interrogated this for her Phd, as usual raising the bar significantly when it comes to how we discuss and understand these topics.

The final episode tackled fossil fuel sponsorship (one of the biggest controversies surrounding the recent Winter Olympics) and focussed on the Ski Fossil Free campaign, initiated by activists Calum McIntyre and Nikolai Schirmer.

This brilliantly effective feat of climate campaigning saw Nikolai deliver a petition - signed by over 20,000 people - to the IOC on the eve of the Games, an act which garnered much publicity and pushed the issue into the spotlight at a critical moment.

A week or so later, in an attempt to understand more about the campaign and its goals, I hosted an online panel featuring voices from across sport, activism and the outdoor industry, including campaign organiser Calum, Russell Harvey from Greenpeace, Lucy Von Sturmer from Creatives for Climate, Erland Eggen from Klimakultur, Magnus Graner from 1000 Skis, and Greenlandic Olympian Ukaleq Slettemark.

We discussed the campaign, the role of athletes and brands in driving change, the challenges of effective climate activism — and the accusations of hypocrisy that inevitably follow this conversation.

It’s a conversation about where responsibility really sits when it comes to the future of outdoor sports, and as such is a fitting end to this short Olympic series.

Watch a short clip above, or listen to the entire episode below:

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

3. A great creative lesson from Paul McCartney, taken from Ian Leslie’s recent John and Paul book, which I finished this week:

The older I get, the more I am endlessly amazed by how personally people take having their creative ideas critiqued. As Lennon and McCartney seem to have realised at a very early age, feedback and constructive criticism isn’t a personal reflection on you or your idea - it’s an essential part of making any creative thing better. It really isn’t that complicated (or ‘It just doesn’t matter that much’, as Paul puts it).

4. A reminder that the 2026 reading list is go here, and there’s a great ongoing chat thread on which people are sharing their own recs which you can join by clicking the image above.

5. Before Penelope Spheeris made Wayne’s World, she made a pair of incredibly influential documentaries about the late 70s/early 80s LA music scene, both of which are now on YouTube, and which are very much worth a watch. Especially part one, above, which documents the very grubby LA punk scene, and the tragic, nihilistic antics of characters such as Derby Crash and his band Germs.

6. Hats off to whoever commissioned this Runner’s World conversation between Harry Styles and Haruki Murakami.

7. If you’ve listened to my recent episode with Alice Sainsbury, I imagine two mind-bending details probably stood out: the fact that all adaptive athletes, even up to elite Paralympic level, are forced to modify their own clothing to enable them to compete; and the fact that there an estimated 1.4 billion disabled and chronically ill people around the world, giving the lie to the idea that this is some kind of minority issue.

In response, Alice has recently helped launch an initiative called UN[PARA]LD, through which she’s attempting to address these issues. This new film, above, tells the story so far.

8. A couple of interesting podcast episodes I listened to this week - Lora Bodmer, PR supremo and a quietly unsung hero of the US snow scene, on FNRad, and my dear pal Jon Weaver on Thank U Snowboarding (above).

Both really fascinating stories from people who made snowboarding their life in very different and unusual ways. Highly recommended.

9. I’m pretty devastated to be missing next week’s inaugural North Sea Surf Film Festival (not least because I’ve STILL never been up there). If you ask me, organisers Sally, Tom and Lewis represent all that is brilliant about UK surfing - integrity, generosity, creativity and community - and the event looks like it’ll reflect this ethos beautifully.

Especially Thursday’s Cold Gold festival opener (watch the trailer above) for which NESFF invited crews from the east coast to submit their own edit.

As Tom puts it, “the films entered showcase every aspect of NE surf culture, from real amateur stuff to stuff that could easily sit in a proper festival setting. We have a group of mum who surf every Friday, groms from over the river, parasurfers and a couple of aspiring surf filmers.

We are so proud to be platforming aspiring film makers from across these sectors; and fopr NSSFF be the catalyst for friends to get together this winter with the shared purpose of film. The mana, the onda, the aloha spirit - whatever it is that is core to surf culture is already outstanding”.

10. Finally, I’m back in Normandy for a few weeks. The sun is shining and the blossom is flourishing, so I thought I’d share a quick clip, above.

Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️

Leave a comment

Welcome to the final episode of my three-part Winter Olympics series, in which we’re tackling one of the biggest controversies surrounding the recent Winter Olympics: fossil fuel sponsorship.

This episode focuses on the Ski Fossil Free campaign, initiated by activists Calum McIntyre and Nikolai Schirmer, which seeks to end fossil fuel partnerships across IOC and FIS events. This incredibly effective feat of climate campaigning saw Nikolai deliver a petition - signed by over 20,000 people - to the IOC on the eve of the Games, an act which garnered much publicity and pushed the issue into the spotlight at a critical moment.

A week or so later, in an attempt to understand more about the campaign and its goals, I hosted an online panel featuring voices from across sport, activism and the outdoor industry, including campaign organiser Calum, Greenpeace, Creatives for Climate and Greenlandic Olympian Uqaaleq Slettemark.

We discussed the campaign, the role of athletes and brands in driving change, the challenges of effective climate activism — and the accusations of hypocrisy that inevitably follow this conversation.

It’s a conversation about where responsibility really sits when it comes to the future of outdoor sports, and as such is a fitting end to this short Olympic series.

Leave a comment

1. Iran in 2005 was probably my favourite ever snowboarding trip. ⁣⁣

Some standout memories: coming down after an amazing powder day in Dizin to find Iranian state TV showing the Manchester derby live; the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan; riding the back bowl in Shemshak (pictured), then hitching a ride back to resort with a stoked member of the Iranian Air Force; being mobbed by the Muharram throngs in Khomeini’s hometown of Qom.

We arranged the whole thing through an Iranian government-sanctioned tour company. They organised two guides for us, the amazing Leily and Mahmoud who were completely brilliant and took real pride in showing us their beautiful, welcoming country. ⁣⁣

At the end of the trip we owed the company around £8000 in fees. Mahmoud’s face when I asked him if they took Visa was hilarious. Once he’d stopped laughing, he said: ‘Guys we are under economic sanction from your country! Of course we don’t take Visa! You didn’t bring cash!?’⁣⁣

Nope. And turns out those same economic sanctions make getting your hands on £8k in cash in Iran actually impossible - and we wouldn’t be able to leave the country without paying. So in the end Mahmoud suggested we ask his next client, a TV crew who were flying out to Tehran from London in two days, to bring the money out for us.⁣

I ended up ringing a mate in Brighton and asked him to lend me 8 grand, which he’d need to deliver to a random person in London - who’d then fly it out to me in Iran. ⁣⁣

Obviously, he thought I was taking the piss. When he realised I wasn’t, I had a hard time persuading him that we hadn’t been kidnapped. Amazingly, he agreed to do it. Even more incredibly, the film crew agreed to bring the cash in for us.⁣⁣

Two days later we met up with them in Isfahan and were finally able to pay Mahmoud, who found the whole thing hilarious and spent the rest of the trip dining out on how clueless and entitled most westerners are.

He had a point, to be honest. ⁣⁣

2. At the other end of the snowboarding spectrum: I am just back from a wondrous week in the Three Valleys to celebrate my 50th lap around the sun with a group of my oldest and closest friends.

3. ICYMI - I just released the second of my post Winter Olympic episodes with the great Lesley McKenna, one of snowboarding’s great original thinkers.

A pro skier, snowboarder, coach and team manager, she is herself a three-time Olympian, and helped run GB Park & Pipe in the years when Jenny Jones and Billy Morgan won their medals.

She has spent the last few years working on a Phd that analyses the tension that exists between a traditional sporting structure as epitomised by the Olympics, and a none-conventional action sports culture such as snowboarding. She’s has called it the Risk Aesthetic Framework, and it is fascinating stuff.

Why does this matter? Because while snowboarding now looks fully integrated into the Winter Olympics, its relationship with the Games has always been complex — and at times uneasy. We dig into judging controversies, cultural friction, performance vs progression, and ask whether something essential is gained — or lost — when snowboard culture enters the Olympic machine.

As ever with Lesley, this is a mind-bending conversation: endlessly intellectually-stimulating, and full of the ideas and provocations that mark her work out as so original. Listen above.

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

4. Mary Rand and Liam Gallagher (no, not that one) always collaborate on interesting projects and their latest series All Right Here looks great.

5. Champions of the Golden Valley (watch a clip above) was one of the word-of-mouth sleepers of this year’s Kendal Mountain Festival - now my pal has written a great piece on the story behind the film for Huck Magazine.

6. Casper Brooker’s Epicly Later’d is as much a beautiful tribute to Ben Raemers as it is a spotlight on Casper’s incredible skating.

7. Bravo Wavelength for this interview with Julie Maughan about the loss of her daughter Heather and the impact of Dirty Business.

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

8. Turnstile covering I Wanna Be Adored is a wholesome bit of internetting.

9. With a new episode of Skate Muzik coming, catch up with a great episode from last year.

10. The Hotpipe Shootout is returning to my local!

Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️

Leave a comment

Welcome to the second of three post–Winter Olympics episodes in which I am examining the recent Winter Olympics from a variety of different perspectives.

In this second episode, I’m joined by Lesley McKenna, one of snowboarding’s great original thinkers.

A pro skier, snowboarder, coach and team manager, she is herself a three-time Olympian, and helped run GB Park & Pipe in the years when Jenny Jones and Billy Morgan won their medals.

She has spent the last few years working on a Phd that analyses the tension that exists between a traditional sporting structure as epitomised by the Olympics, and a none-conventional action sports culture such as snowboarding. She’s has called it the Risk Aesthetic Framework, and it is fascinating stuff.

Why does this matter? Because while snowboarding now looks fully integrated into the Winter Olympics, its relationship with the Games has always been complex — and at times uneasy.

In this conversation, we dig into judging controversies, cultural friction, performance vs. progression, and ask whether something essential is gained — or lost — when snowboard culture enters the Olympic machine.

As ever with Lesley, this is a mind-bending conversation: endlessly intellectually-stimulating, and full of the ideas and provocations that mark her work out as so original.

If you care about snowboarding and its culture, don’t miss this one.

Leave a comment

1. Dirty Business, Channel 4’s new docudrama expose about the British sewage scandal, launched this week and the response has been remarkable. Even if, notably, the UK surf press and industry has been pretty silent about this defining issue.

I’ll be chatting to Julie Maughan (here we are pictured above at the recent official launch of the series) and Chris Hines about the entire campaign and show for a forthcoming episode of Looking Sideways: stay tuned.

2. My recent Olympic debrief episode with Tim Warwood and Ed Leigh has been going down a storm. Here’s an extract above, and listen to our full conversation below:

3. This wondrous biography of Paul Gauguin has confirmed it: there are few none-fiction writers I enjoy reading as much as Sue Prideaux. THE most beautiful, enviable style; an ability to render difficult ideas with humour and affectionate irony; and the compassion she feels for her subjects is infectious and, at times, very moving. My favourite reading experience of the year so far.

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

4. Whitelines Magazine interviewed the judges behind this year’s Olympics womens’ slopestyle controversy.

5. Timeline cleanser: Alex Yoder camping in the Tetons.

6. My dear friend Marcus Chapman is this week’s guest on the excellent Thank U Snowboarding podcast

7. For years I’ve loved followed the adventures of a gang of mini shredders down in Cornwall - and now they’re the stars of this ace new film.

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

8. This Russian skater has turned a frozen river into a personal skate park.

(I thought about whether to share this, given what’s going on in Ukraine. Then I remembered an important lesson I took from travelling to Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, Uzbekistan and other countries over the years: judging people by the actions of their government is generally a mistake).

9. Rest in peace the inspirational Stratton Matteson.

10. Finally, the London Surf Film Festival hits the road next, with events in Newquay and Devon. It’s a great line-up featuring Kepa Acero’s brilliant new (and LSFF award-winning) film Kingdom of the Evening. More here.

Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️

Leave a comment

Welcome to the first of three post–Winter Olympics episodes in which we’ll examine the recent Games from a number of different perspectives.

As a lifelong snowboarder, I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the Olympics. The performances and spectacle are incredible. But beyond the hype, there are bigger cultural conversations worth having. That’s what this short series is about.

In this first episode, I’m joined by BBC Olympic commentators Tim Warwood and Ed Leigh — lifelong snowboarders and much-loved voices of Olympic action sports on the BBC.

In this riotous chat, we discuss their experience at the Games, their breakout moment this year, the cultural tensions between core snowboarding and the Olympic machine, the controversies, the progression — and what these Games really mean for the activities and cultures we love.

Leave a comment

1. As Tim and Ed fever reaches fever pitch across the nation, at my agency we’ve been playing Commentary Bingo. What did we miss?

2. Related: I posted a few thoughts about snowboarding’s fraught relationship with the Olympics.

3. Related: Lesley McKenna is one of snowboarding’s best analysts, and it is brillisnt to see her work around the ‘risk aesthetic framework’, as she phrases it, continue to be widely shared.

This week she was on the Science of Sport podcast, and it’s very worth a listen.

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

4. Related: it wouldn’t be the Olympics without a controversy around the judging on a particular snowboarding event: in this case, women’s slopestyle. The best take on this I read was by Stan at Slush Magazine, which I thought balanced the whole debate really well.

5. At the other end of the snowboarding spectrum: the great Nicolas Wolken, one of our generation’s most quietly influential riders, on the beauty and simplicity of turning.

6. The Farthest is a wonderful, awe-inspiring documentary about the twin Voyager space probes. If you’re in the UK, it’s on the iPlayer: seek it out.

7. Loved this collaboration between Finisterre and one of surfing’s most interesting thinkers. My 2023 conversation with Cliff remains a listener favourite:

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

general observations on eggs

this is not an essay about Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights"

The cover image for this piece is Cloud Inversion in the Hope Valley from Surprise View by Yorkshire landscape photographer Dave Parry and you can buy prints of it here…

Read more

2 months ago · 751 likes · 60 comments · Heather Parry

8. Maybe the most interesting interpretation I’ve yet read on the new Wuthering Heights adaptation. (Spoiler alert: I don’t think Heather liked it)

9 “If you've always wanted to write a book but couldn't find the time or struggled with the writing, you can work with AI to get it done”.

I’m probably overdoing the AI debate at the moment but I do find it fascinating to see how the debate continues to unfold, so here are two more links (apologies, they’re on LinkedIn) to mull over this week

The first: a viral essay by AI industry booster Matt Shumer which startlingly posits that 50% of white collar jobs will be gone in the next 1-5 years.

10. … and a necessary counterpoint from Ann Handley.

Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️

Leave a comment

Alice Sainsbury is a designer, writer and speaker who in 2015 was diagnosed with an acute neurological condition called transverse myelitis.

Since then, she’s been on a mission to break down the barriers that stop people with disabilities participating in the outdoor sports and activities that so many of us take for granted.

In this episode, we explore the reality of life for a disabled person in 2026, and the systemic, societal difficulties disabled people face when it comes to participating in outdoor sports and activities.

We also discuss Alice’s own story, as well as her latest initiative UN[PARA]LD, which launches at the Milano-Cortina Paralympics with the aim exposing a hidden barrier in elite sport: the incredible fact that many Paralympic athletes are still required to adapt, alter, or retrofit their own outdoor and alpine clothing in order to train and compete.

This is one of the most illuminating and intellectually-stimulating conversations I can remember hosting on the podcast. I learned a lot, and I think you will too.

To find out more about Alice’s work, and the UN[PARA]LD initiative, click here.

Leave a comment

1. Earlier this week I was invited to the press screening of Dirty Business, a new Channel 4 drama about the UK’s ongoing water scandal. I think this is an important piece of work, and I recorded some thoughts on it that you can watch above.

2. I had a few people messaging about me use of the word ‘enshittification’ in that clip; and as coincidence would have it Cory Doctorow, the coiner of that term, was on Ezra Klein discussing it just this week.

3. As mentioned: next Thursday February 19th I am hosting a Zoom call about Ski Fossil Free’s Olympic campaign with initiators Calum Macintyre and Nikolai Schirmer.

We’ll be discussing the campaign and its aim with Greenpeace’s Russell Harvey, Creatives for Climate founder Lucy von Sturmer, Magnus Graner of 1000Skis, Erlend Eggen of Klimakultur and Olympic athlete Uqaleq Slettemark.

Sign up and learn more here.

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

4. Did you know that adaptive athletes, even up to elite Paralympic level, are forced to modify their own clothing to enable them to compete and participate?

Me neither. Which is why this week I recorded a fantastic episode with designer, writer and speaker Alice Sainsbury. Alice lives with a chronic neurological condition and collaborates with global sports and outdoor brands to break down the barriers of access faced by people with disabilities.

She is also one of the people behind the new UNPARALD initiative, which launches at the Milano-Cortina Paralympics with the aim of exposing this hidden barrier to participation, and providing a community based solution.

The episode is out next week; in the meantime find out more about the campaign above or here.

5. My favourite thing about every Olympic Games is, of course, the commentary of my old pals Ed Leigh and Tim Warwood. So big up none other than Caitlin Moran, who paid homage to the pair in the Times this week.

6. Arc’teryx and Spencer O’Brien, by way of Brian Eno, with just a very nice shot of a very nice looking turn.

7. The Society of Authors has just published ‘Brave New World? Justice for creators in the age of GenAI’, a really important report on the impact of generative AI on the creative industries that calls for the implementation of a new regulatory framework to prevent the ‘decimation of the UK’s £124.6 billion creative industries sector.’

8. Many thanks to photographer and film-maker Chris Baker for sending me a copy of his ace new zine Outer Regions, a collaboration with runner Decca Faire that is ‘ a conversation about running identity shaped by contrasting landscapes’ shot in Kitzbuhel and Norfolk. I think Chris has a few copies left - DM him on Insta to get involved

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

9. This week’s reading: my Joan of Arc jag continues, with the Thomas Keneally novel that Baz Luhrmann is apparently adapting for his forthcoming Joan biopic.

10. Among the widespread outrage at Jim Ratcliffe’s comments on immigration, trust Barney Ronay to have the most perceptive and vital take.

Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️

Leave a comment

1. I had a great time this week hosting a showing of Hotpipe Hillbillies, the ace new documentary about our beloved Brighton Shitpipes surf spot made by locals Claire, Al and Steph. Great to see our local surf and water community come out in such force to support local creative shenanigans ❤️

2. I’ve been enjoying experimenting and recording a few book recommendations recently.

Here’s this week’s: on the first great novel I’ve read in 2026 - and five books about the American Civil War to help you understand what’s going on in the States right now.

And don’t forget to let me know what you think about my recommendations, or any reads you think I should know about.

Leave a comment

3. If you’ve listened to this week’s conversation with Orlando von Einsiedel, you’ll know one key theme is the difficulty of funding projects in the current climate - even if you have an Oscar in the locker.

A timely week, then, for my pals at Finisterre and the London Surf Film Festival to announce the launch of their fantastic Women of the Sea Film Fund for 2026.

Applications are open until March 8th (international Women’s Day), and the winner will take him a not too shabby £10k grant and a guaranteed premiere at LS/FF.

10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.

So if you want to support Looking Sideways without taking out a paid sub - you can! Click right here.

4. On topic: very happy to see one of first Looking Sideways x Db Fund winner Turning Tides released out into the wild this week. Congratulations to film-makers Antoine and Eloise; you can watch their finished piece above.

5. Sir Ian McKellen’s performance of Shakespeare’s The Strangers’ Case from the play Sir Thomas More is a timely and timeless reminder of the power of art to help us understand our own times, even at 400 years distance - in this case, the ‘modern’ conversation around immigration.

If you click any links this week, make it this one.

6. One of the questions I attempted to answer in my series The Announcement, and through subsequent conversations with thinkers such as Len Necefer, was a simple one: what does ‘effective’ activism look like?

The Ski Fossil Free campaign, spearheaded by Nikolai Schirmer, just gave us one answer to that question - watch the head of the IOC being asked about the campaign at a press conference, above.

7. On topic - Greenpeace with a hard-hitting and AI-free campaign on the same subject.

8. On the subject of the Olympics - as somebody who remember well (and was indeed, part of) the debate around whether snowboarding should be in the Olympics back in the day, my social feeds are an interesting place right now.

Judging from the amount of cheerleading for the Olympics going on among my snowboarding industry pals, my position of sceptical critical thinking (is it possible for snowboarding to uphold it’s ‘core values’ in an Olympic setting, and should we perhaps question whether this is indeed possible?) has never been less fashionable.

Thanks heavens then, for thinkers like Lesley McKenna, whose work as an athlete, coach, administrator and now Phd student has been exploring the tension behind this important question for years now.

Lesley has just launched a new website and platform through which to continue the discussion, which was picked up in this really sympathetic and nuanced Guardian story.

More simple ways to support Looking Sideways - use any of these codes and I’ll get a small commission 🫡

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 for 10% off any order from Finisterre

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for HUGE savings on ski and snowboard hire with Intersport this winter.

LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance order

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any Albion purchase

LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for a whopping 20% off anything from Goodrays.

9. Misha Glenney just scored what is surely the most sought-after (and terrifying, given the size of the shoes to fill) job in British arts broadcasting: new presenter of In Our Time, after the peerless Melvyn Bragg retired last year.

10. Remember James Marriot’s essay on the death of literacy that went viral on Substack last year? Marriot has now turned the treatise into a book, which will be released later this year, and his conversation on the BBC’s Global Story podcast is an interesting explanation of his ideas.

Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️

Leave a comment

Oscar-winner, snowboarder, and one of the most influential documentary filmmakers working today, Orlando von Einsiedel makes his return to the show, nearly eight years after his first appearance.

In that time, films such as Virunga, The White Helmets and The Lost Children have set a new standard in gripping, immersive documentary story-telling.

Recorded live at the 2025 Kendal Mountain Festival in front of a sold out audience, this wide-ranging conversation centres on Orlando’s latest film The Cycle of Love, which is currently cleaning up on the festival circuit.

It also a rare, honest insight into the reality of life at the sharp end of documentary filmmaking, even when you appear to have achieved the success everybody craves.

We dig into Orlando’s creative process, the state of the documentary landscape, and the somewhat dire financial realities of getting ambitious projects off the ground, even for an artist of Orlando’s calibre.

If you enjoyed my recent episode with Lucy Walker, or are interested in the real, often precarious mechanics of a creative career, this one’s for you.

Leave a comment