Looking Sideways: 10 Things
The Wave closes, my live panel in London, and a memorable trip to Iran.
1. The biggest news in UK surfing right now? Undoubtedly the sudden closure of The Wave. More here.
2. Another plug for my session at next week's MAD//FEST. On Wednesday 2nd at 12.15 I'm leading a discussing on whether effective activism for brands is, these days, an oxymoron with Finisterre CMO Bronwen Foster-Butler, activist Lauren MacCallum, author Thomas Kolster and B Lab UK CEO Chris Turner.
Huge thanks to Dan Brain and team for getting me involved in this one, and for this nice blog piece and kind words about Looking Sideways.
Plus! Insights subscribers - I have some free tickets to give away, so if you’re in town and want to come along, DM me
3. 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.
I hope my friends over there are doing OK.
4. Big fan of this acerbic yet large-hearted collab between Mancunian poet Mike Garry and the Cassia String Quartet.
Big up everybody who’s been adding recommendations to the Reading List! Join in using that image/link above.
5. Congratulations to my friends at Re-Action Collective on the launch of their brilliant new ACTIONism website.
6. Steve Coogan as Mick McCarthy in a film about Roy Keane’s 2002 World Cup walk out? I’m in (and Trigs better be in it).
7. Congratulations to my friends at The Big Sea for more well-deserved recognition for this essential film. This week: Best Feature at the Noosa International Surf Film Festival, and Grand Jury Prize at Surf and Skate Film Festival Milano.
8. Are Israel and Ukraine fighting a proxy war on behalf of the rest of the western nations?
Insights subscribers - and there are a lot of you out there now - I want to hear from you! I’ve started another specific Insights chat thread here - let me know what you’re working on, what’s been going well, what hasn’t been going well, and how I or the rest of the Insights community can help.
9. A lovely piece by Mat Arney on his ritual of capturing every solstice dawn for the last five years.
10. An interesting article arguing that calling people who make things - art, music, literature - ‘creators’ is to demean the act, and unthinkingly acquiesce with the tech world’s attempt to monetise absolutely every aspect of human endeavour. Hard to argue, really.
That piece on 'creators' is so on point. Articulates something I've felt instinctively but haven't really known how to put into words.