Looking Sideways: 10 Things
A new Brighton surf doc, snowboarding in the Olympics, and a powerful Shakespeare recital.
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.
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 ✌️
That Guardian article was a great read!
Thanks for sharing the link to my research at Leeds Beckett Matt. I am very much open to hearing what people make of the ideas. I think you are right to question what we mean when we talk about 'core values' to consider what that then might mean for ethical considerations. The research helped me to uderstand the link between what we call stoke and notions of responsibility and what might lie underneath a broad view of sustainability for people and planet in relation to action sports values and experiences.