Looking Sideways: 10 Things
Farewell to a legend, new Yearning for Turning, and skiing down Everest sans oxygen.
1. I was saddened this week to hear of the death of Araminta ‘Minty’ Clinch, above right, a true Fleet Street legend of the game who I was fortunate enough to count as a peer during my unlikely ten-year stint as a travel writer/professional press trip blagger.
At the time myself and my snowboard-riding friends were the Johnny-come-latelys of this tight-knit scene, yet Minty welcomed us into the group with kindness and generosity.
I ended up doing some pretty special trips with Minty (usually organised by my great friend Lynsey Devon, above left in this pic), and one memory has always stood out from those years.
We were on the junket for Chalet Girl, and ended up interviewing Bill Nighy as a group.
Doing the intros, the PR said, ‘Bill you must know Minty?’
Without missing a beat Bill (a legend, btw) replied, ‘Of course - Minty, my darling, how wonderful to see you again’.
They fell into it like old friends and the rest of us didn’t get a look in. Afterwards I said, ‘When did you become such good friends with Bill, Minty ?’
Minty, with perfect comic timing: ‘I’ve never met that man before in my life’.
They truly don’t make ‘em like that any more.
Thank you Minty and bon voyage ❤️
My code LOOKINGSIDEWAYS10 will get you 10% off any order from Finisterre.
2. One of the main themes of my recent series The Announcement, and follow-up pieces like this one, is about how, ‘attempting to be sustainable and mindful amid the consumerist hellscape we all currently live and operate in is one constant series of insidious moral trade-offs’.
Eugene Healey covers similar territory in this piece, above. Thanks to my pal Lauren MacCallum for sharing this one.
3. New Yearning for Turning! And a bonus: my pal Jon Weaver wrote a great piece for his The Anti Blueprint Project Substack about Korua’s outsized influence on the modern snowboard industry; and why it is, at heart, a masterclass in punching above your marketing weight. Check it here.
4. Yes, I’m sharing the Empire podcast yet again. But this latest series on the imperial legacies of our most famous authors could not be more up my (ahem) performative literary boulevard, especially this recent instalment about Jospeh Conrad (who wrote Heart of Darkness in his third language….)
5. Has anybody read Flesh, this year’s Booker winner?
6. A truly gripping visual account of Andrzej Bargiel’s recent, mind-boggling, oxygen-free ski descent of Everest.
7. Stab have gone deep on this summer’s debacle at the Bristol Wave (£).
Use my code LOOKINGSIDEWAYSXDB for 15% off anything from Db.
8. I loved this Vice piece on the painstaking, methodical genesis of early 90s house classic Plastic Dreams, especially how the ‘errors’ became what made the track great.
9. Another podcast I enjoyed this week - this series on the history of Bonfire Night, and why we still burn Guy Fawkes in effigy, 400-odd years later.
10. I’m somewhat in awe of Death of an Ordinary Man, Sarah Perry’s latest, and a remarkable and very moving examination of the death of her father-in-law, the ‘ordinary man’ of the title.
(As ever, find this and the rest of my 2025 reads here).
Thanks for reading and supporting Looking Sideways! If you have any thoughts about any of the stories I discuss this week, let me know:
appreciate the Korua shout!
The wave article being paywalled is a pain. That place seemed a muddy mess when I worked there a few years ago.