Looking Sideways: 10 Things
Memories of Iran, and part two of my second post Winter Olympic debrief.
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.
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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 sam haddad 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.
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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 ✌️