Looking Sideways: 10 Things
Here are the 10 Things I thought were worth sharing this week.
1. My interview with Leo Sharp
The launch of The Skateboarder’s Companion, the new UK skate magazine set up by this week’s guest Leo Sharp (and his friends Ryan Gray and Matt Law), is an important moment.
In Leo’s case, this is the latest chapter in a three-decade long career at the sharp end of UK skate culture. According to legendary skate photographer Wig Worland, Leo Sharp is ‘a modern British skateboarding hero. He is both a true professional and a true enthusiast. These things are often mutually exclusive and very rare to find in a single individual. I'm very happy that he's still involved in documenting skateboarding in Britain. The UK scene deserves somebody so loyal and somebody so talented’.
Look back at Leo’s body of work, which he has been compiling week in/week out since the early 1990s, and you see Wig’s point. Taken as a whole, Leo’s works stands alone as a unique record of UK skateboarding in all its glory.
I very much enjoyed this conversation with a truly selfless documenter of UK skate culture. Hope you do too. Click here to listen or watch the whole exchange above.
2. I very much enjoyed being guest on The After Hours Lounge podcast this past week. Host Sandy Clunas is a great host and asked some thoughtful, sensitive questions about mental health and how it affects our lives. Click here to listen.
3. My friends at Finisterre are busy organising ‘an online ocean activist training camp’ called Sea7. Timed to coincide with the G7 Summit in Cornwall and presented by friend of the pod Dan Burgess, the event is live-streaming on June 10th and features talks from ‘thinkers, scientists and activists’ who will be ‘debating the seven key issues affecting the health of our seas’. More here.
4. Last year’s Type 2 episode with Len Necefer was a thoughtful chat about activism, and Len’s quest to ‘empower native and indigenous communities for a sustainable world’. So I found this Outside piece by Len on the racist defacing of petroglyphs in Utah to be thought-provoking and insightful. Click here to read it.
5 Torren Martyn and Ishka Folkwell’s Lost Track Atlantic has been out for a few weeks now but is highly recommend. Watch it above.
6. Congratulations to my pal and previous podcast guest Easkey Britten on the publication of her new book 50 Things to Do by the Sea. Buy Easkey’s book here, and listen to our conversation here.
7 Are UFOs real? The US government appear to think so. This fascinating New Yorker piece brilliantly treads the fine line between sensationalism and sober reporting - click here to read it.
8. More jaw-dropping surfing from John-John and friends. Watch it above.
9. Some prime skate geekery here - skater and journalist Anthony Van Engelen on his favourite spot. Click here to read it.
10. Next week I’m publishing a fascinating blog by my old friend Lesley McKenna on what surfing, skating and climbing can learn from snowboarding’s Olympic experience. While we were putting the story together, Lesley pointed me in the direction of this intriguing piece about ‘ironic’ sexism in climbing. Click here to read it.