Looking Sideways Action Sports Podcast

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If you’ve been following Looking Sideways for a while, you’ll know that I’ve covered the conversation around chloroprene rubber and Yulex extensively over the last year or so - through my conversation with Big Sea documentary film-makers Chris Nelson and Lewis Arnold (below), for example, as well as blogs such as this one. If you aren’t yet aware of the connection between neoprene and higher rates of cancer among one hugely impacted Louisiana community, find out more by clicking those links.

It’s through those conversations that I first made contact with Liz Bui, CEO of Yulex, the natural rubber alternative to neoprene and so-called limestone neoprene, which is touted by Yulex and partner brands such as Patagonia and Finisterre as a natural alternative to these materials and is, according to Yulex ‘proven equal or better when compared to neoprene in all applications’.

So when my pals at Finisterre invited me to host a live q&a with Liz and Yulex founder Jeff Martin at Finisterre’s London store in February 2024, I was in. Particularly because, whenever this conversation comes up among surfers, you always hear the same (to put it politely) received wisdom about Yulex. It’s too expensive. It’s not flexible enough. It’s just as bad for the environment as neoprene. (And that’s just some from some of the surf industry’s trade bodies).

Here was an opportunity to put these very questions to Liz and Jeff in person, as well as find out more about the basics of the Yulex process, while also exploring some of this issue’s more contentious talking points.

So that’s what I did, and the result was a fascinating, insightful and revealing conversation with two people who understand this topic, with all its nuances, intimately. Huge thanks to my Finisterre family for getting me involved, and to Liz and Jeff for answering everything with such clarity and transparency.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

It's a return visit for friend-of-the-show Thomas Campbell this week, who is, as I said last year, ‘one of surfing and skateboarding’s most important influences thanks to classic films such as The Seedling, and a singular aesthetic and approach that has an outsized influence on what it means to be creative in our world’.

I think it’s fair to say myself and Thomas got on pretty well first time around, and we’ve stayed in touch over the months.

This redux episode came about after I asked him if he’d be up for taking part on one of my Open Threads, in which guests (such as the great Jeremy Jones, here) answer questions from listeners and readers.

Thomas was up for it, but asked if we could just do it as another conversation. Which I thought was a great idea, and is exactly what we did.

The result was yet another brilliantly entertaining, discursive chat about life, art, surfing, music, creativity and the rest of the good stuff. As it was originally supposed to be a written piece, you can find the transcription for the entire episode here as well.

Huge thanks to everybody who contributed questions for this one. I’d love to know what everybody thinks of this new format - let me know by either leaving a comment on my Insta or Substack 🤙

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Photographer Skin Phillips, this week’s guest, has had one of the most extraordinary careers in British skateboarding. Completely self-taught, and driven by a thirst for knowledge and a desire to experience life behind the borders of his hometown of Swansea, Skin came up in the late 80s and early 90s.

Initially published in RaD and mentored by the great Tim Leighton-Boyce, he soon followed in footsteps of Bod Boyle, Steve Douglas and Don Brown by heading to the States, where he embarked upon a truly remarkable career in the US industry. He was a staff photographer at Transworld, and eventually ended up running the entire thing during that institution’s undoubted heyday. Later, he took a role as team manager at adidas Skateboarding.

An amazing CV -but this brief overview really doesn’t do justice to Skin’s outsized influence on global skate culture during this period. He shot with absolutely everybody - and I mean everybody - and has the tales and respect that go with such an outsized CV, as a quick look at the comments of any his recent Instagram posts will demonstrate.

So far, so legendary, and if you checked out Skin’s Nine Club chat from the other year, you’re probably familiar with that part of his story. What hasn’t been so well documented is the way things changed quickly for Skin after he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Finding himself unable to stay in the States, he returned home to Swansea where he’s spent the intervening years coping with the new realities of his life.

I went to see Skin in Swansea early in January 2024. We cover the history, sure. But we also cover plenty of themes that aren’t discussed too frequently in the skate, surf and snow industries: how quickly his career in the industry unravelled, and how he’s coped with such an abrupt change of circumstances, with all the mental challenges this has entailed.

This is a tale about the challenges of dealing with a diagnosis that changes your life overnight, when there’s no safety net in place, and you’re left to work it out.

It’s also about the last thirty years of the UK, and the political manoeuvring that has wrought such havoc during that time, as epitomised by Skin’s South Wales home turf. And it’s about British working class culture, and how things such as skateboarding, football, music and art are the light in the darkness.

It’s an important one, this. Big thanks to Skin for this poignant and powerful conversation (and to listener Marc Evans for the help setting it up).

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Ah, Christmas. A time of friends, family and tradition - which in Looking Sideways world means the much loved Festive Special with my close pals and stalwart podcast supporters Tim and Gendle!

Yep, we’re back once again with our very own addition to the Christmas canon -even if, this year, we managed not to get blind drunk while recording this one. Apart from that, it was the usual story - our highlights of the year, our hopes for 2024, the usual quiz (spoiler alert: I lost yet again), and a freewheeling catch for our annual Yuletide review.

As ever, wherever you’re listening to this, grab a festive drink and a mince pie, don the Santa hat, and join us as we wax festive for a couple of hours. I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy another brilliant Looking Sideways year, so huge thanks for listening and supporting what I do. I’ll be back refreshed, rested and ready to go once again in 2024 - in the meantime, have a brilliant break 🎄

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

The roadshow continues! Following my recent Roundtable live, recorded at the Kendal Mountain Festival, I’m back with yet another special panel discussion, this one recorded live at the London Surf Film Festival in November 2023.

I was lucky enough to be official media partner for this year’s festival, part of which was hosting this special workshop with four brilliant film-makers and creatives: Rebecca Coley, director of the brilliant Point of Change, which scooped Best British Film; Maddie Meddings, director of Yama, which won Best International Short; Chris Nelson, writer and producer of The Big Sea; and Owen Tozer, my creative right hand man and director of the beautiful, unsettling Blood Type Plastic.

A word of warning: there’s a LOT of background noise in this one. But I hope you can bear with me, because there’s some proper gold in here from these four - film-making, storytelling, creativity, and all the other good stuff that makes the Looking Sideways world go round.

They’re all at different points in their careers, each with very distinct style and approaches, which is what I think gave this chat such depth and resonance.

MASSIVE thanks to Chris and Demi at the London Surf Film for getting me involved, to the panellists for being such good sports, and to the audience for being so engaged and up for it.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Welcome to an extra-special episode of Roundtable, free for all subscribers, and a collaboration with my pal and podcasting peer Matt Pycroft of the brilliant Adventure Podcast, recorded live in front of an audience at the 2023 Kendal Mountain Festival.

This conversation came about when Kendal founder and friend of the show Steve Scott asked myself and Matt to pull together a panel for a discussion on the topic of The Power of Storytelling - New Perspectives. We invited our pals Adam Rajah, Soraya Abdel-Hadi and Roundtable regular Lauren MacCallum to join us, and this conversation is the result.

In this episode, we discussed, among other things, the following topics:

- Vulnerability in storytelling.

- How do we take climate storytelling out of the echo chamber?

- Is longform dying?

This one was really special. I’m really grateful to Steve and Matt for being such great collaborators; to Adam, Lauren and Soraya for their trust and openness; and to the audience for being so engaged and receptive to this format and conversation. Let’s do it again!

As usual, I’d love to hear what you think about this episode. And make sure you follow Matt and his brilliant podcast.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

If you follow what I do at all closely, whether through my newsletter or my podcast, you’ll know that ‘how we talk about activism and the climate’ has been a bit of a preoccupation for me these last few months.

I’m loosely connected to what you might call the wider activism movement, which has become a proper industry these days. And much of it leaves me cold. From my slightly remote perspective, it seems to be an echo chamber full of impenetrable language, where activism tends to be cast as a personal journey or - worse - a nakedly commercial business opportunity: as opposed to a genuine attempt to invoke change that will benefit everybody, and not just those that trade in the same wonky jargon.

Fumblingly exploring these ideas is why I’ve published stories by Calum McIntyre and Lesley McKenna this year, why I am careful about which events I attend and which causes I personally lend my name to, and why I was so keen to speak to Gavin Fernie-Jones for this episode of the podcast.

You probably haven’t heard of Gavin. But for me, this is one of the most insightful and important conversations I’ve hosted this year. Gav lives in the French Alps, and originally his story was a well worn one - Brit skier moves to the mountains, embraces the seasonaire lifestyle, and ends up staying put.

And yet, over the last few years, Gavin has been slowly but surely changing his life in response to the climate crisis he can see unfolding around him, and impacting his local environment and community.

He’s quit the lucrative, ski season job that enabled him to work a mere few months a year; started a local grassroots community group called Re-Action; embraced a slower, more purposeful life; and has begun actively living as a ‘citizen’ rather than a consumer.

Why is this important? Because change is coming, and mountain communities like Gavin’s will be at the forefront of this change. Personally, I also feel that the type of ‘activism’ that Gav and his Re-Action peers are engaged in - local, grassroots, community-based, circular, symbolic, and undeniably impactful - is the type of quietly revolutionary approach that has the power to drive real change. Where the work has an impact on real people, is forward-thinking and inclusive, and will actually help real communities address the challenges they’re going to face.

So that’s why I asked Gavin to come on the podcast, and why I really implore you to check out this episode. Inevitably, because Gav is just an ordinary bloke rather than a massive name, these episodes tend to get much less traction. But I’m hoping that if you do give this a listen, it’ll give you as much food for though as it did me.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

I go back 25 years with these Adam Gendle and Johno Verity, my guests this week. We met back in the late 90s through snowboarding. But looking back, making things and creativity were equally as important. Music and writing in my case; film-making and art for Gend and Johno.

I’ve had a ringside seat as they’ve developed as artists and film-makers over the last two-and-a-half decades, so to see them have a hit on their hands with their new film Here, Hold My Kid, which they’ve just made with Jackie Paaso and Elyse Saugstad, is a really proud moment.

Here, Hold My Kid has a lot of interesting things to say about motherhood, parenthood, and the different ways men and women are treated in the industry. It’s funny, too.

And it’s also a really great combination of the pair’s talents, as well as the culmination of all the ideas, dreams, occasional dead-ends, and risks that go into the average creative career.

With all that in mind, it was such a treat to sit down with Johno and Gend to discuss the new film and all of the above. Hope you enjoy our conversation

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com

Paid subscribers! This episode comes with an extra 15 minute bonus section with me and Ray so make sure you have your paid podcast feed set-up.

Free subscribers! Don’t worry! You’ll still be able to listen to the main interview with me and Ray (that’s the ‘free preview’), but to hear the bonus chat about Ray’s music and next record, and HKC, you'll need to upgrade to paid.

Just where do you start with a legend like Ray Barbee? After all, this skate, photography and music legend, who happens to be one of the most influential skateboarders ever, has probably been interviewed thousands of times during the course of his career.

Perhaps it helped that our mutual friends Thomas Campbell and Don Brown did the intros, because I’m happy to report that Ray bought into the spirit of the podcast whole-heartedly, completely happy to ‘windbag’ about any topic that crossed our path. The resulting chinwag covers a lot of ground in the classic LS fashion: everything from how faith helped Ray cope with the intense fame he experienced early in his career, to his memories of THAT 1995 Radlands comp at which he came second to Tom Penny.

Even better, it is hallmarked by the wisdom, humour, generosity and candour for which Ray is legendary. We had such a laugh having this chat that I kept the tape running once the ‘main’ conversation was over, and am including this extra 15 minutes on Ray’s next record, his approach to music, and why the beat is the pulse of all things, as an extra section exclusively for paid subscribers. Free subscribers, of course, can still hear the bulk of the chat as per usual.

Welcome to the latest in an irregular series of bonus episodes of the Looking Sideways Action Sports podcast.

No fuss, no fanfare, just a non-traditional episode banged out every now and again when this opportunity comes up.

This episode you’re about to listen to is the full live chat with Schoph, Andrew Cotton, Helena Long, Marcus Chapman from Tour de Test Valley and Simon Gunning, CEO of CALM, which I hosted at the Vans store in London at the beginning of September 2023.

This was an event organised by my old pal Marcus to raise funds for CALM in memory of our much-loved and much-missed friend Nelson Pratt, who took his own life back in 2012.

This year, Marcus and the family decided to take year off organising the Tour de Test Valley proper, so this event was a way of celebrating Nelly, bringing a load of his friends together, and of course continuing to raise awareness of this important issue. I personally lost another close friend to suicide this year, something which has made me more determined than ever to speak about this issue.

It was a lovely evening. Bittersweet, as usual, but another fitting tribute to Nelly, and a great impromptu gathering of his tribe. I’m really grateful to Helena, Schoph and Cotty for trusting me to ask them some pretty sensitive questions.

Anyway, I’m releasing it as a bonus episode - these are usually paywalled and exclusively for paid subscribers, but give the topic here I thought I’d get it out there for everybody to hear.

Ride on Nelly. We miss you brother X

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

The average professional surf, skate or snow career tends to follow a pretty set path. Five-to-ten years at the top, usually from the mid-teens to late-twenties, before time, injuries, and the shifting vagaries of the industry draw things to a close, and the rider heads off back into obscurity.

Any pro hoping for a career longer than this simple arc better find another string to their bow quickly, ideally something marketable alongside the actual board-riding ability, which kicks in as their actual ‘riding’ career draws to a close.

Then there’s Cliff Kapono. Somebody who has done things the opposite way round and, as a result, has surely carved out one of the most unique careers in surfing.

As Cliff explains, he realised at young age that talent wouldn’t be enough - especially when your peers are surfers like Clay Marzo. Instead, he focussed on science as much as surfing, using academia and his intellectual smarts as a way of surfing more.

Today, this unlikely route has propelled Cliff to the top of the surf industry - supremely respected as a surfer by his peers, while also having an increasingly important voice on some of the topics that also impact wider surfing and surf culture, such as climate change and colonialism.

Perhaps it’s because Cliff’s route to the top has been so unusual that has such a reflective and insightful unique take on surfing, the surf industry, and the way we as surfers interact with our environment and the history that has impacted us in countless ways, whether we realise it or not.

I’ve wanted to chat to Cliff for a while, and this conversation didn’t disappoint. Hope you enjoy it.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Looking Sideways is proudly ad-free and reader and listener supported. Thanks to all my paid subscribers, who help keep the podcast and newsletter free for everybody. To support Looking Sideways with a free or paid subscription, sign up via www.lookingsideways.substack.com

It’s been a long time coming - five years since I first contacted him - but in July 2023 I finally caught up with artist, director and all-round creative legend Thomas Campbell for this Looking Sideways conversation.

And I’m happy to say that this conversation was everything I hoped it would be, and much more. Sure, Campbell - much as he would balk at such talk - is one of surfing and skateboarding’s most important influences thanks to classic films such as The Seedling, and a singular aesthetic and approach that has an outsized influence on what it means to be creative in our world

Thomas is a true omnivorous polymath, as happy to experiment with sewing or his record label as he making era-defining surf flicks, and for whom the act of ’sitting in the chair’ is the point of it all.

But as I discovered, he’s also a thoughtful and generous conversationalist, and our chat covers music, life, art everything in between.

This is already one of my favourite ever LS chats, in which one of most successful and engaging influences delves right into his process and motivation, and displays the charm, curiosity, and appetite for life that is such a feature of his work.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

When legendary surf writer Matt George got in touch asking if he could come on the show to chat about his new book In Deep, I was all in.

In Deep is a hand-picked collection of Matt’s era-defining surf writing that spans well over 30 years.

But, as I discovered during our conversation, for Matt it symbolises much more than this. It’s a flag-in-the-ground moment to memorialise a passing moment in surf culture, as the analogue age represented by Matt himself and the culture and writers he so venerates, is superseded by a new primarily artificial and digital culture defined by clicks, views and, latterly, AI.

No wonder at one point in our conversation he refers to the collection as his ‘cave paintings’, in what I assume is a very deliberate image.

Matt lives in Bali, and in early August 2023 we hopped online to record this conversation. The resulting chat encompasses many favourite Looking Sideways themes, whether creativity, working processes, literary influences or the importance of the recognising your place in the environment when it comes to the surfing experience.

Above all, Matt is a consummate story-teller and a shameless surf romantic. He’s lived life on a vast scale, has sought out equally big experiences, and has documented the lot during one of THE essential surf writing careers.

It makes In Deep a real time capsule, and this conversation is a wonderfully digressive, occasionally self-aggrandising and always entertaining rove through Matt’s life and times and the modern history of surfing itself.

Buckle up!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

July 23rd note

There's no new episode this week, so I thought that just this one I would lift the paywall on the first episode of Rondtable, the new discussion show which will usually be exclusively for paid subscribers. Looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks!

A few months ago, my pal and staunch Looking Sideways supporter Jon Weaver asked me if I’d ever considered doing a Housekeeping Corner episode for paid subscribers.

I was intrigued, but after chatting to Jon and kicking the idea around for a bit, I decided that bringing in a new, irregular panel discussion format was a way better idea.

So I roped in Jon as co-host, asked another friend-of-the-show Lauren MacCallum to join us as second co-host, quickly jotted down a rough format, and thought of some topics to discuss and guests to invite on.

And here we are. In this inaugural episode, we discuss, among other things:

- The topic of disruptive activism and the lack of engagement on issues such as climate change and water quality among our community. Why is there such apathy? How can we change it? What role should brands play? And was I being harsh when I said the culture of mountain biking had ‘big petrolhead energy’? Huge thanks to listener Hamish Lawson for contributing the first listener question for this section.

- The Byron Bay compulsory leash brouhaha, with contributions from special guests Wavelength editor and pro longboarder Mikey Lay, and long-term surf hack and friend-of-the-show Ben Mondy

-Is the FIS takeover of competitive snowboarding finally complete? What does this mean for our culture? And will Olympic freeriding be next to get the treatment? With special guest Liam Griffin, co-founder and COO of Natural Selection.

I had a blast doing this and am looking forward to doing more. Way back at the end of 2016, when I first had the idea to make Looking Sideways, I originally planned on it being this format. In the end I went with the interview format, so it’s nice to revisit this idea so many years later.

Next time around, we’ll be asking for listeners/readers to contribute a topic for discussion so get thinking. Hope you enjoy this episode!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

I’m on quite a run at the moment when it comes to chatting to wise, inspiring and talented women, and this ace chat with my pal Gilly Macarthur continues this sequence in fine style.

Gilly is a snowboarder, swimmer, open water swim coach, climber, event organiser, speaker - you get the picture. Basically, she’s a proper force of nature, a proper catalyst and peerless communicator who gets stuck right in whatever she’s doing. Plus, she raised the bar for all past and future LS guests by bringing me along a book as a present, which obviously made my day.

And, as I’ve known for a while now, she’s also brilliant company, as I rediscovered in June 2023 when we met up in Brighton at the amazing new Sea Lanes to record this episode.

I must say, for me this was proper ‘If Carlsberg did podcast set-ups’ (hat tip Mat Pycroft) occasion. We met at the height of the heatwave, and just had a lovely morning: swim, coffee, beach, good food, and this brilliant conversation.

Even for me, this one went all over the place; which makes it a perfect podcast conversation, to my mind. Obviously we covered Gilly’s life and career, but we also followed all manner of tangents in a sprawling, multi-layered chat that I enjoyed immensely.

Thanks for being such a great sport Gilly, and humouring my incessant Smiths-related gags. Hope you enjoy this episode.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Welcome to a classic lifer episode of Looking Sideways with my pal Melody Sky!

If you’re somebody who scans the name of the guest and thinks ‘never heard of them, I’m not going to bother’, I implore you not to make that mistake here, but Melody Sky has surely had one of the most fascinating careers in European action sports media.

Sure, she’s a photographer, filmer, artist and all-round creative legend, but these descriptions really don’t do justice to the sheer range of accomplishments and adventures she has to her name.

And what I love about Melody’s story - and career - is how entirely self-made it is. She’s created this unique role for herself, driven by curiosity, drive, graft, passion and a desire to have a life filled with unique and unusual experiences. Perennial themes during Looking Sideways discussions, and particularly relevant when it comes to this chinwag.

We recorded this one on Brighton beach in mid May, and it’s a rambling, shaggy-dog-story of a conversation in the classic Looking Sideways style. This one for the LS originals, and for anybody looking to be inspired by somebody who lives life completely on their own terms. Melody is a hero and I’m stoked to finally chat to her for the show.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Easkey Britton alert!

Yep, I’ve got my old pal Easkey back on the show this week for her second visit, a mere six years after we first chatted for the pod. We’ve stayed in touch, and over the years I’ve watched the evolution of her singular, insightful career as a surfer, academic and writer with awe.

So when Easkey got in touch to say she’d be in London in mid May to do a talk at the Finisterre store about her new book Ebb and Flow, I packed the podcast kit, called up Tozer to take care of picture duties, and headed up to meet her.

And what an endlessly stimulating, occasionally mind-bending and always thought-provoking chat this one was. For me, Ebb and Flow is a quietly political piece of work, concerned as it is with the world we want to live in as individuals and a society, and gently interrogating as it does recent explosion in all things Blue Mind over the past few years. As ever, Easkey has a lot of very interesting things to say about water, our relationship to water, and how her own relationship to the element that has thus far defined her life has changed since she became a mum of twins.

I very much enjoyed this conversation, which roves all over the place, and is embellished by the thoughtfulness and insight that characterises Easkey’s view of the world. Thanks for following me down my usual conversational rabbit holes, Easkey.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

I welcomed one of snowboarding’s modern greats back onto the show for this episode: Elias Elhardt.

If you’ve heard our previous conversation, or watched any of his films, you’ll know Elias is a true snowboarding original. On the snow, he’s one of our most highly-regarded freeriders, respected by peers such as Travis Rice, and with the CV to prove it. But it’s off the snow that he is arguably having the biggest impact on the culture. He’s one of our great thinkers, somebody for whom snowboarding is as much a forum for internal examination as it is physical expression.

His series of films prove the point,. In Contraddiction, he explored his own relationship with professional snowboarding. In Narcis, he ended to Kosovo to explore that land’s recent history. And now, in Invisible Ground, he turns his attention to one of the most important topics of all: our individual and collective relationship to fear, danger, and vulnerability.

That last word is key when it comes to Elias’s work, and why he’s such a unique snowboarding artist. Few snowboarders have experience of the situations that have formed the basis of Elias’s career. Among those that have, those willing to explore these situations through the context of fear and vulnerability are rare indeed.

It’s why Elias’s work is so important, and why I was happy to welcome him back onto the show for this vital and enlightening conversation. Hope you enjoy the episode.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

“I don't consider myself a world traveller because I haven't travelled the world. I literally found the 10 places I love and just keep going back. Because I would rather go deep and immersive with a culture, and understand it and its issues, than just fill myself with dopamine every time I get a stamp of my passport to shoot images out the car window at 60 miles an hour, which I've done.”

Earlier this year, I interviewed Chris Burkard at a special event in London organised by my agency All Conditions Media and my pals at Db. I offered up a number of free tickets for paid subscribers - and originally I released the entire conversation as a bonus episode exclusively for paid subscribers only. Now I'm dropping the paywall so everybody can have a listen.

If you listened to last year’s hugely popular conversation with Chris (also recorded in front of a live audience, that time in Stockholm), you’ll know what to expect. This was yet another intensely honest conversation about art, creativity and life itself with one of the most influential visual artists at work in the outdoor today.

Sure, we briefly covered some of the territory we discussed in Stockholm, but there are new insights, pearls of wisdom and sharp exchanges here that showcases Burkard’s trademark humour, vulnerability and insight.

Thanks Chris for being such a great sport, and to my All Conditions Media and Db family for taking care of such a brilliant event. And thanks to my paid subscribers for supporting the show! It’s so appreciated. If you enjoyed this, or have any feedback, tell me in the comments, or hit me up directly in the subscriber chat thread. Looking forward to hearing what everybody thinks.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

After episode 204’s polarising conversation with Steven Kotler, regular service resumes this week, with this lovely chat with surfers and film-makers Lucy Small and Maddie Meddings about their new film Yama Surf.

Regular listeners will recall my previous conversation with Lucy back in 2021, after she achieved notoriety for speaking up about gender equality in surfing in a famous post-contest speech that went viral. In the intervening years, Lucy has continued to lead this conversation on her own terms and in a way that continues to move things forward.

And now she’s back with this film, a collaborative creative project with British film-maker Maddie which sees them explore the female surf and skate scenes in Ghana, explore the country’s hitherto untold surf history and, as the duo put it, ‘challenge the historic representation of Ghanians in a story of reclamation and joy’.

They also focus on the work of two driven, impressive locals: Sandy Alibo of Surf Ghana, and Justice Kwoife of Obibini Girls Surf Club, who are building Ghanian surf culture from the ground up.

Embellished by Maddie’s pulchritudinous cinematography and Lucy’s lovely surfing, the result is a compelling surf film that tells a new story in what is rapidly becoming Lucy’s trademark style. This is really a  tale of complete creative openness and collaboration, and I particularly enjoyed hearing about how the pair devised and created the project as they went along. Hope you enjoy this one.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Everything we know about ageing is wrong - and action sports are the perfect tool through which to test this hypothesis.

At least, that’s the contention of Steven Kotler, this week’s guest and author a new book called Gnar Country.

Kotler, who tends to be described as an ‘expert in human performance’, made his name as the doyen of all things flow thanks to books such as The Rise of Superman and The Art of Impossible, and his work as Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective. In Gnar Country, his latest book, he turns his attention to the science of ageing, and tests his theories of ‘peak performance ageing’ by attempting to learn to park ski at the age of 53.

As you might imagine from that brief précis, we’re in life hack and ‘actionable protocol’ territory with this one, which regular listeners will know isn’t really my usual style. But I enjoyed The Rise of Superman, which articulated supremely well a lot of concepts and experiences anybody who has dabbled in sport at any level will recognised, and also find the premise of Gnar Country to be an intriguing one, and something which I imagine most listeners will also find of interest. After all, who doesn’t want to continue to ‘kick ass before you kick the bucket’, as Kotler puts it?

On a personal level, too, an interview such as this, with somebody on the promo trail and with a very clear message to impart, always presents an interesting challenge. So it was that in early April 2023 I hopped on Zoom to chat to Steven. Of course, we discussed Gnar Country and the ideas that underpin Kotler’s quest. We also explored the reasons we do what we do, and how we can mindfully harness the techniques Steven has dedicated his life to understanding. And we delved into Steven’s own motivations, and some of the contradictions inherent in his own quest as outlined in the book.

Hope you enjoyed our conversation. I’ve really love to know what everybody thinks of this one, and whether you recognise the ideas and experiences myself and Steven discussed.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

And after four years - this is the final ever episode of Type 2! And what a fitting guest I’ve got for this landmark episode - Jenna Johnson, current President of Patagonia Inc.

Jenna is a Ventura lifer, a proud product geek, and somebody who has ascended the ranks from shopfloor to her current status at the very top of the company.

Today, she’s one of the senior leaders at Patagonia, one of a handful tasked with actually delivering that recent ‘Earth is our only shareholder’ announcement. Indeed, it was Jenna, if you recall, who set the tone at the announcement itself with her ‘We’re here to talk about a really big fucking deal’ line.

All of which makes Jenna herself kind of a big deal. Of course, we covered her career, and her path to her current role. But I was really interested in getting her take on some of the themes I began to discern during my time at Patagonia HQ. How the concept of ‘product activism’ has always been a key tenet of the company philosophy. How all the ‘it’s a tax dodge’ criticisms levelled at the company last year are nothing new. And whether ‘the announcement’ signals a shift into a more overt form of campaigning leadership as the company celebrates its 50th anniversary.

It’s a good one, this. Massive thanks to Jenna, Corey, Corley, Alex, Louise, Ryan and Jelle for all the help with this episode. And to my Patagonia Europe family for all the help and encouragement during this last four years of Type 2 episodes.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

“I don't consider myself a world traveller because I haven't travelled the world. I literally found the 10 places I love and just keep going back. Because I would rather go deep and immersive with a culture, and understand it and its issues, than just fill myself with dopamine every time I get a stamp of my passport to shoot images out the car window at 60 miles an hour, which I've done.”

Paid subscriber special!

Last week, I interviewed Chris Burkard at a special event in London organised by my agency All Conditions Media and my pals at Db. I offered up a number of free tickets for paid subscribers - and now I’m releasing the entire conversation as a bonus episode exclusively for paid subscribers only.

If you listened to last year’s hugely popular conversation with Chris (also recorded in front of a live audience, that time in Stockholm), you’ll know what to expect. This was yet another intensely honest conversation about art, creativity and life itself with one of the most influential visual artists at work in the outdoor today.

Sure, we briefly covered some of the territory we discussed in Stockholm, but there are new insights, pearls of wisdom and sharp exchanges here that showcases Burkard’s trademark humour, vulnerability and insight.

Thanks Chris for being such a great sport, and to my All Conditions Media and Db family for taking care of such a brilliant event. And thanks to my paid subscribers for supporting the show! It’s so appreciated. If you enjoyed this, or have any feedback, tell me in the comments, or hit me up directly in the subscriber chat thread. Looking forward to hearing what everybody thinks.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

How do we choose the stories we tell? Who gets to write the histories we decide sum up our collective past? And what’s the impact when equally valid versions of the past are written out of these histories?

All questions I explored with legendary snowboarding photographer Stan Evans in this fascinating conversation, recorded during my recent trip to LA. Back when I was working in the snowboard media, Stan had one of the highest profiles in the games, shooting Travis and Romain at Chad’s Gap, and helping to document the history we now take as gospel.

Then he shifted his focus away from snowboarding, embarking upon another equally successful career as a commercial photographer. He also spent a lot of time assimilating his experiences in the snowboarding community, thinking deeply about the topics of diversity and inclusion, and establishing platforms such as his Social Studies Show through which he explores this history and these topics on his own terms.

Why? Because, as we discussed during one strand of our conversation, true diversity only really happens when stories are being made ‘by’ people, rather than ‘about’ them. It’s why Stan is so careful about who he discusses these topics with, and why it took him a few years to agree to come on the show for this discussion.

This is a wide-ranging, illuminating and nourishing conversation. We covered Stan’s life and career, of course. But it’s really about how the storytelling choices we make impact people and communities. About how our little corner of the world is generally a generation or so behind the main tenor of any cultural debate. And about how threatened people can get when their own cherished orthodoxies are challenged, however gently or logically.

Yep. There’s plenty to take in with this one. Thanks for a brilliant afternoon Stan, and for sharing your insights and wisdom so generously.

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Lifer alert! Yep, this conversation with my old pal and current head of creative at Patagonia in Ventura Alex Weller is another classic of this quintessential LS genre, recorded in California during my recent trip to the Golden State.

And it was proper batten down the hatches and don the sou’wester time. - I was in LA during the wettest, stormiest weather the state had experienced in a decade. It meant that normally flawless line-up of spots resembled my local here in Brighton, and that fabled sunshine and blue skies was replaced with greys more synonymous with my home town of Manchester.

Still, this inclement weather event did mean I had more time to spend engaging in some truly nourishing conversations, both on and off tape. Including this conversational gem with Weller.

I go way, way back with Alex. As we worked out, we first met back in the late 90s when he came to stay with me in Meribel when we were young idiots trying to make our way in the industry. And I had a brilliant time recording this episode, spending a lovely day with Alex in Ventura and Santa Barbara, taking in a lovely surf at C-Street, before sitting down to record this quickfire run through Alex’s life and times.

As you’ll hear, we’re in classic lifer territory with this one, and the tale of how Alex made the long, circuitous trip from the London skate scene to his current lofty position at Patagonia is a fascinating one. Expect plenty of industry insights and lessons for people looking to forge their own path in a career they cherish from one of the smartest minds in the game.

Recording this type of episode with an old pal in an unexpected place is one of the true joys of running Looking Sideways, and something I don’t take lightly. I hope you enjoy our conversation - and a special HKC update on my trip. And my thanks to Alex, Alice, Emmy, Tabby, Lou, Jelle, Corey, Corley and everybody else at Patagonia for their help setting this one up.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Listen now (57 min) | This week I am reposting my summer 2020 conversation with none binary trans skater Leo.

The search for our authentic self is a lifelong process. And not always a successful one. It takes a huge amount of self honesty, and a willingness to embrace consistent and at times not always comfortable evolution.

It’s something we all have to face, whether consciously or not.

But imagine undergoing this entire process as a world-renowned skateboarder – while also trying to juggle both wider societal pressures, and those of a patriarchal industry who have tied your own career success to their own restrictive definitions of gender.

This is exactly the position Leo Baker faced at the height of their success. And it is why there is so much more to Leo’s story than their admittedly generation-defining feats as a skater.

Today, as they explained during our conversation, Leo is in a very different place, proud to be living authentically as the most high-profile nonbinary trans skater in the world.

And yet, as Leo explained during our conversation, gaining the understanding and self-confidence required to finally present as their authentic self has been a long and involved process.

It has involved learning to deal with the collateral damage and mental health issues that have accrued along the way and, ultimately, committing to a measured and long term approach to self-care.

Leo’s story is one of the most important in modern skateboarding. I’m grateful they’ve trusted me to tell it in their own way, and in their own words.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

It’s the first leg of an impromptu south west omnibus as I catch up with my pal and Finisterre founder Tom Kay who is returning visit to the pod for the first time in six years!

Tom was one of my first guests back in the early days of the show. Back then, we had a swim on Brighton beach and then recorded the episode on the pebbles over a pint or two. This time around, we had a great day, starting with a fun surf at Tom’s local Chapel Porth, before heading up to Finisterre HQ to sit down and record this conversation.

I wanted to catch up with Tom on the occasion of Finisterre’s 20th year in business to find out how the business has grown, and how Tom himself views the last two decades, as well as his plans for the future. Back then, Tom began the brand in a flat above a shop in Saint Agnes, armed with nothing more than a big idea and a lot of passion. Today, Finisterre is one of British surfing’s true success stories, and in the six years since our first conversation, the brand has grown to the point that it has ten stores around the UK and well over 100 members of staff around the UK.

It’s been quite a mission, with all the ups and downs that this type of founder-driven start up involves. What has he learned, as a founder and entrepreneur? What plans does he have for the brand’s future? What’s the idea behind initiatives such the new Finisterre Foundation, and Sea7? And what advice would Tom have if he was starting out again now?

If you enjoyed my conversation with Nick Hounsfield, in which we cast a reflective eye over Nick’s mission to bring the Wave to life, then you’ll enjoy this one. I had a brilliant time down in Cornwall, and it was great to catch up with an old friend for the first time in years. Hope you enjoy our chat.

If so - tell me in the Substack comments, or if you’re a paid Substack subscriber who has any feedback or questions about this week’s episode, hit me up directly in the subscriber chat thread. Looking forward to hearing what everybody thinks.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Milestone alert! 200 episodes!

Yep, six years and countless HKC rants later, episode 200 is finally here. And I’ve decided to mark this landmark occasion with the usual double header. Next week, I’m releasing a special bonus episode 200 conversation with my old pal and most-capped Looking Sideways alumnus Ed Leigh for paid subscribers only.

Today, for this instalment, I’ve invited surfer and Wave founder Nick Hounsfield onto the show for his second visit. Why? Because if you ask me, there’s an argument to be made that Nick Hounsfield has had more influence on British surf culture over the last decade than anybody else. Certainly, the Wave has changed the landscape of British surfing in ways we’re still getting our heads around.

And then there’s Nick’s own story. When we recorded our first episode, back in September 2019, the pool itself was still dry and the place was a building site. Excitement crackled in the air, as Nick drew close to the end of a ten year mission to get the place built. That chat ended up being a classic ‘if you build it, they will come’ look at the struggle’s Nick had been through to get the thing over the line.

Four and half years later, the picture, naturally, looks different. As Nick put it during our conversation, “I thought that was the end of the journey. I know realise it was actually the beginning”.

And what a journey is has been, taking in Covid, the energy crisis, and the debilitating stroke Nick suffered in spring 2020. It’s this narrative that means, for me, the story of the Wave is inextricably linked to Nick himself, as a founder and entrepreneur. What has he learned? What’s the personal cost been? And has it been worth it?

The resulting conversation is a truly fascinating insight into the personal cost of delivering such an all encompassing vision. It’s about what it takes to be a founder and visionary, and why hard, pragmatic decisions come with the territory.

I got a lot out of it, and I’m stoked Nick trusted me to go there. Hope you enjoy our conversation.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

“Give people a personal relationship with nature and they’re not going to commodify it. There is something more sacred out there, and that is nature. But we’re killing it because we don’t have a relationship with it.”

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is Nick Hayes, an illustrator, graphic novelist, political cartoonist, and author of The Book of Trespass. He’s also an activist who uses art and creativity as a tool to try and change the world.

There’s a grand tradition of this in English art, and I think you can draw a direct link between Nick’s work and those other peculiarly English artists who combine art and protest to reclaim the way we see our history, ask us to reconsider how we use our land, and above all ask an increasingly important question: who is this place for?

Historically, I’m thinking of people like Hogarth, Cobbett, Hazlitt, Blake and (a tad obviously perhaps) Orwell. These days, I would include people such as Ben Wheatley, Ben Myers and Mark Jenkin; as well as Nick’s great hero Roger Deakin, all of whom explore these themes through their work; and in different ways nod to the occasionally unsettling strain of anarchical, magick-with-a-K weirdness that is a recurring motif in this lineage.

In the homogenised monoculture live in today, such a take can be jarring and discomfiting. But if you ask me, we need these perspectives more than ever. Because these are fundamental questions, particularly when it comes to land use, ownership, and the dark history that led us to this point, themes which are the main preoccupations of Nick’s work.

Through campaigns such as the Right to Roam and Esme Boggart, Nick is challenging the monolithic conventions that shape our lives, and inviting us to ask these wider questions for ourselves.

He is also, as I suspected he might be, a brilliant conversationalist, with a wide palette of cultural and historical touchpoint, and an ability to communicate his ideas with wit and clarity.

Looking forward to hearing what everybody thought of my conversation with Nick and the wider right to roam conversation - leave me a comment, or if you’re a paid subscriber who has any feedback or questions about this week’s episode hit me up directly in the chat thread.

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Episode 199! How on earth did that happen?

I’ve had a couple of admin and R&R focussed weeks since I released the Festive Special, but now I’m back and raring to go with a lovely, timely chat with photographer, musician and snowboarder Nathan Gallagher.

Nath’s a very old friend I first met in the mid-90s, when we were young snowboarding idiots looking for a way into the industry. We’ve been friends ever since and I’ve watched with real pride and interest over the intervening years as he’s created a really unique and commercially successful creative career for himself.

And, as you’ll hear, Nathan has a lot of really original and interesting things to say about art, creativity, the voices in our heads that dictate the paths we follow, and our wider search for validation.

I must be honest: this conversation came at a good time for me personally. Firstly, there was the chat itself, an intensely pleasureble exchange that reminded me that, for me, the conversation has always been the ultimate reward when it comes to Looking Sideways.

But I also needed to hear Nathan’s canny, empathetic message about the importance of remembering why we do creative work, and how, in today’s digital landscape judging anything on the numbers (especially your self-esteem) is a modern fool’s errand. Like anybody, I’m not immune to falling prey to such corrosive reflections, so I found Nath’s expert, passionate analysis of the dynamics at play here very fascinating and, personally, much needed.

I hope you get as much our of our conversation as I did. If so - tell me in the comments, or if you’re a paid subscriber who has any feedback or questions about this week’s episode hit me up directly in the chat thread: www.lookingsideways.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

A special Housekeeping Corner bonus episode about why I am shifting the entire podcast and newsletter over to Substack and introducing a partial paywall. Find out more: www.lookingsideways.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

How does it feel to go into space? What does it make you feel about the future of our planet, and your own place in the universe? What are the moral implications of space travel? And just how do you take a picture of Pipeline from the International Space Station as it flies overhead at 17,000 mph?

All questions that I discussed with this week’s guest Christina Koch, a surfer and – yes – astronaut who spent 328 days in space aboard the International Space Station, setting a new record for the longest spaceflight completed by a woman in the process. She also spent her downtime photographing the planet’s best surf locations, posting them on her hugely popular Instagram feed and outing herself as a serial surf geek in the process.

Christina’s story is as inspirational and fascinating as any I’ve featured on the Looking Sideways podcast. It’s a lesson in focus and determination, and a tale of a life embellished with profound experiences that have seen her spend seasons at the South Pole and literally live among the stars.

This breadth of experience has also given Christina a unique perspective on the biggest philosophical questions of all, whether it’s our place in the universe, the huge challenges we face on earth right now or the best way of handling individual experiences of stress and adversity.

All topics, as you’ll know if you’re a regular listener, that are right up my boulevard, and the resulting exchange is one of my favourite ever Looking Sideways conversations, which is why I am resharing it today. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Festive Special!

Mince pies. Carols. Mistletoe. The John Lewis ad. Festive tunes on endless repeat. Yep, Christmas is a time of tradition. And in Looking Sideways land, that means it’s time for the annual Tim and Gendle Christmas Special, our very own addition to the Christmas canon.

Although…this year, we approached things a little differently. Of course, we sat down and chatted for a couple of hours, discussed how 2022 was for us, our hopes for 2023, and answered the many listener questions we received on Instagram. Gendle even did a special quiz, which worked out a treat.

But this year I’ve also got some specially-recorded guest appearances from a few truly notable friends of the pod, including Ed Leigh, Selema, Ben Powell, Chas Smith, Demi Taylor, Lesley McKenna, Christian Stevenson, Owen Tozer and even real live astronaut Christina Koch.

So for now, wherever you’re listening to this - I imagine it’s either in the car on the way to someone’s gaff, or while peeling the sprouts - I urge you to don a silly Santa hat, grab an eggnog and kickback while us three absolute idiots wax festively for the next couple of hours.

It’s been another great Looking Sideways year, and this episode was the perfect way to cap it off. Hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed recording it. Merry Christmas!

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This week’s episode is a double header with my friends Lewis Arnold and Chris Nelson, two absolute stalwarts of the UK surf community who for the last three years have been working hard on their investigative film The Big Sea.

And it really is an extraordinary piece of work - an investigation into surfing’s ‘dirty little secret’, as they put it: the industry’s relationship with neoprene. Neoprene is the market name for chloroprene. Chloroprene is produced by a company called Denka in a factory in St.John, Louisiana, which emits levels of chloroprene that the EPA has found to be carcinogenic, and so deadly to the local community that the area has become known as ‘Cancer Alley’.

The Big Sea is many things: a shocking environmental documentary; a cold-eyed juxtaposition of surfing’s public image with this shabby truth; an investigation into the socio-economic factors that have led to this situation; and an exploration of the hidden hypocrisies that prop up our lives in the west, with surfing’s relationship with neoprene one metaphor for this wider unspoken reality.

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And it is also an exploration of activism in its many forms, from the dogged fight for justice headed up by local St John Parish campaigners such as protagonist Robert Taylor, to Chris and Lewis’s own independent efforts to bring this story to light over many years in the face of industry indifference and suspicion.

As such The Big Sea has the power to reframe the conversation about surfing environmentalism and drive real tangible change in a way that will benefit real people in real communities. No wonder Surfers Against Sewage co-founder Chris Hines calls it ‘probably the most focused 50 minutes of environmental and social campaigning by surfers ever.’

As you can tell, I was blown away by the film, and especially the way Lewis and Chris have marshalled these disparate threads into an elegant, impactful 50 minute film. As soon as I saw it I decided to chat to them for this episode of Type 2. We talked about the entire thing - how they heard of the story, the three-year mission to bring it to life, what the entire saga says about surfing and our relationship to environmental issues, and what change they hope to inspire. You can also find out how you can help the duo finish the film, and bring it to the wider audience is so richly deserves. Hope you enjoy this episode.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

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“Death isn't scary to me. Dying isn’t scary to me. I’ve seen it, and I’ve been close to it.”

When my friend at Whitelines magazine asked me to chat to snowboarder Kimmy Fasani about her cancer diagnosis for this year’s annual, we decided to join forces on a print/audio double-header. The print version of our conversation was released last week, followed by the full audio version of our conversation on the podcast.

The result was a hugely affecting conversation that moved me greatly. As I wrote in my introduction to the Whitelines story:

“Death, serious illness, grief. These milestones are or will be a part of all of our lives.

Yet as a society, we are strangely reluctant to deal with them or even consider them until they’re in our immediate future.

So when we see somebody we care about confront these hidden commonplaces, and address these taboos openly, it has real impact. And when that person has a high profile in their field, and chooses to share their experiences in a vulnerable, confrontational, yet generous way, it can change the way we all think about and see them”.

“How else to explain the awe-inspiring power of the way Kimmy Fasani has chosen to tell her story through the prism of snowboarding?

As a rider, Kimmy has always been held in great affection by the snowboarding community. She is also somebody that has long been aware of how her profile gives her the ability to ‘shift the needle and change the conversation’, as she puts it.

Following the birth of her first son Koa, she did just that by challenging the perception of what it means to be a mother and a professional snowboarder.

Now, thanks to the wisdom and grace she has shown in sharing her experience of being diagnosed with and treated for stage 3 breast cancer, she is doing so again - by openly exploring the biggest, scariest themes of all.

Over the last decade, Kimmy and her family have dealt with a series of escalating crises that culminated in her diagnosis with stage 3 breast cancer at the end of 2021.

By choosing to share their experiences with her trademark combination of grace, beauty and great generosity of spirit, Kimmy is once again changing the collective snowboarding conversation in the most powerful way of all”.

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I’m so grateful to Kimmy for the generosity and trust she showed during our conversation. Big thanks to Owen for the Zoom portraits, too.

Enjoyed this episode? Have thoughts on the issues raised?

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Lifer alert!

It’s been a while since I had a good, honest lifer chat on the show, and this episode with my pal James Joiner is a rambling comfort blanket of a conversation in the classic Looking Sideways fashion.

James is a journalist, photographer, podcaster and all-round creative doer who I first met when I was a guest on his own 1% For The Planet podcast a few years back. We hit it off real well and have since stayed in touch. And James has become a huge supporter of Looking Sideways, writing a couple of stories about the book and podcast for sites like Monster Children, and generally being the type of positively-affirming cheerleader that any creative type like me needs.

James also has a really great story himself: the type of classic, by-the-bootstraps tale that long-term listeners to the show will be familiar with. He tells his tale with real candour and humour, and the resulting chat was a rambling stemwinder of the lifer genre which I enjoyed hugely.

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Expect discussions on different creative approaches and the importance of recognising key life choices; as well as digressions on the peculiarly British habit of trainspotting, the classically Gen-X tendency to self-mythologise (guilty as charged), the term ‘flyover country’ and plenty more.

Thanks for doing the show, James. Looking forward to catching up in person when we make it over for round two next year.

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Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to interview people who’ve had a real influence on my life. But Chris Moran, this week’s guest, has probably had more of an influence on my life than any guest I’ve yet had the pleasure of chatting to.

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Let’s get the snowboarding out of the way first. Chris is certainly one of the most influential figures in early British snowboarding history. He came up on the legendary early 90s Rossendale dryslope scene and quickly made a name for himself on the embryonic British scene thanks to a beautiful, elegant and much-imitated style; and the warmth and generosity that he’s always been famed for.

Soon after, along with peers like Justin Allison, Steve Bailey, Lesley McKenna and Stu Brass, Chris became one of the first Brit riders to really make a proper living from snowboarding. This was at the point that snowboarding really began to take off, and marketers and brands began to pay attention. Chris and Stu, in particular, really grasped this opportunity, and in doing so set the foundations for the professional British scene that still exists today.

But if you ask me, Chris’s influence goes way beyond that, thanks to his ability to relish the wonder of life while dragging people along with him. I was lucky enough to meet Chris when I was 13, and he immediately opened my eyes to the opportunities that would eventually define my life, and that there was much more to the world than the grey Mancunian streets we grew up on.

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It was the beginning of a 30 year friendship which is still going strong today, and I’ve spent a large part of the past three decades riding, travelling and working with Chris: firstly as part of the brilliant Whitelines editorial team we were lucky to be part of for a decade; and then latterly through All Conditions Media, the company we set up together in 2005, and which I still run today.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, individuals come along who change the way you see the world at just the right time, and have a huge, important impact on your life. Chris is one of this people for me, which is why I cherish our friendship, and why I wanted to chat to him for this episode. Hope you enjoy it.

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Twenty four years after snowboarding made its Olympic bow, the often fractious relationship between action sports and the Olympics feels poised to enter a new phase.

For an entire generation, surfing, skating and snowboarding being Olympic sports is completely normal. And yet, the dichotomy at the heart of the our relationship to this most performance-based of sporting behemoths remains: just how do you place a progression-based culture in such a white-hot competitive environment without eroding the very factors that made that culture unique in the first place? Especially when you throw funding and medals into the mix? And what does impact does it have on the grassroots of the scene?

All questions that every culturally unique discipline entering the Olympic family has to face, and which British surfing is grappling with now, halfway through the cycle that leads to Paris 2024. And all reasons why I was so keen to chat to Joel Gray, GB Surfing’s newly-appointed Performance Pathway Director, for this episode of the podcast.

Joel is a true British surfing lifer who has dedicated his life to the culture. He came up as part of the north east scene, and has spent years tirelessly giving back to the community through his Surf Solutions coaching venture. Over the months, he’s also one of the few public figures in UK surfing to have stuck his head above the parapet and ask a few searching questions about the way administrative bodies such as UK Sport and GB Surfing intend to steward the culture of surfing during this critical new phase.

Now, by taking this role, Joel has followed the approach of peers such as Lucy Adams and Lesley McKenna, who also made the decision to try and effect change from inside the tent, rather than simply throw stones from the outside. Naturally, given my longstanding interest in this conversation goes back over two decades, I was really keen to find out Joel’s plans for both this role, and for his views on the long-term future of British competitive surfing and its attendant grassroots culture.

Listeners will know I have some fairly strong views about all this. So instead of my using this conversation to expound my own views, I decided to take to Instagram to ask listeners to send in questions for Joel about this new role, his views on the Olympics generally, how he intends to tackle the issues of access and diversity that continue to affect participation, and whatever else people wanted to find out. The response was amazing, and the resulting conversation was a really insightful look into the future direction of travel for British surfing; from a committed, passionate surfer who’s in it for the long haul, and is determined to try and strike a balance between the two opposing poles of the Olympic board sports conversation.

Big up Joel for taking the time to do this, Owen for the pics, and Watergate Bay for hosting our chat.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Welcome to the latest in an irregular series of bonus episodes of the Looking Sideways Action Sports podcast.

No fuss, no fanfare, just a non-traditional episode banged out every now and again when this opportunity comes up.

This episode you’re about to listen to is the full live chat with Olympic gold medal winning snowboarder Sage Kotsenburg, water photographer Christa Funk, surfer Kepa Acero and cameraman Tim Myers that I hosted for my friends at Db back in June.

Of course, I’ve already released individual episodes with each of these guests. But I really enjoyed this chat and it went really well. It’s always a bit of a challenge hosting and stewarding a live interview like this - especially with four people and the temperature in the high 30s.

But I think it’s an interesting appendix to the four main interviews proper, which is why I’m decided to release it. And if you’ve listened to the other four episodes, this one will be an interesting insight in to the way I approach the whole interviewing business.

Anyway, enjoy this special bonus episode and let me know what you think.

There are no Show Notes for this bonus episode, so if you want to find out more about any of the things we discuss or join in the debate:

Know somebody who would enjoy this post or Looking Sideways generally?

.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

“We are increasingly aware that the construction of the outdoors, as a concept, has historically been the gnarled, wizened white guy in a puffer jacket and a beard, enduring the most inclement of conditions – it’s about conquest. It creates a culture that explicitly and implicitly says if you are a sixty year old woman of Pakistani heritage and don’t have an athletic build, this isn’t for you. That’s just not okay in 2022”

This week’s guest is skier, cyclist, journalist, news correspondent and broadcaster Keme Nzerem. Keme’s a passionate outdoorsman and has been involved in the outdoor scene in the UK for years, notably as head judge at the Kendal Mountain Festival, and more recently as an articulate and passionate spokesperson on the topic of diversity in the outdoors.

For the last two years, Keme, myself and a big group of individuals, agencies and brands who work in the European outdoor and creative industries have been involved in the establishment of Opening Up The Outdoors (OUTO), a not-for-profit initiative that seeks to further the continued inclusion and enjoyment of outdoor spaces by people of the global majority.

As a group, we came together in the wake of the Black Live Matter protests, with the goal of doing something tangible to help create an outdoor community and industry that is truly diverse, equitable, anti-racist and accessible.

To do so, the OUTO group partnered with entrepreneurship organisation Hatch to introduce the OUTO Changemaker Programme. As you’ll hear, we decided to try and help existing grassroots organisations by offering selected groups expert-led masterclasses, peer mentoring, business coaching and skilled consulting, and are joining other entrepreneurs and leaders from diverse sectors.

With the first cohort (which featured groups such as Black Trail Runners, Muslim Hikers and Wave Wahines) safely through the programme, OUTO officially launched at the beginning of September 2022. So to mark the occasion and to go into the concept in more detail, I headed up to London to see Keme and chat the whole thing over.

As you might expect from one of the UK’s most respected broadcasters, Keme is a peerless communicator and it was an absolute pleasure to discuss the OUTO story with him, as well as understand his own relationship to the issues OUTO was formed to help try and resolve.

Keme is a great friend of the podcast, and over the years I’ve been endlessly inspired by his leadership. I enjoyed our conversation greatly and I hope you do too.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

“I’m very hyper-aware of my privilege and background, so I didn’t feel like I was the right person to be speaking on these subjects. But people kept on asking me. I realised I was doing everyone a disservice by saying ‘No, I’m not going to talk publicly’. It didn’t mean someone else was going to step in to that space, so I needed to find a way that I would be able to support other people’s voices”

This week’s guest is Soraya Abdel-Habdi, a writer, artist and activist from Hampshire who is the founder of All The Elements, which she describes as a community working to increase diversity in the outdoors.

I first met Soraya at the Kendal Mountain Festival in November 2021 through our mutual friend Phil Young, and have since followed her work closely. The idea behind All The Elements is in its way pretty similar to what I do with Looking Sideways and Type 2. It’s about sharing knowledge and ideas, and pooling resources, in the hope that the community as a whole will benefit.

This type of approach is particularly important when it comes to the conversation around diversity and equality, particularly in the outdoor space. Over the last two years, groups such as All The Elements have been quietly helping to shape this conversation in positive and powerful ways.

You can also say the same about Soraya herself. Soraya’s story underlines just how important taking that first step truly is. The importance of forwards-movement as a means of navigating life is a perennial topic of conversation on Type 2 and Looking Sideways. Hell, it’s what Yvon’s words at the beginning of the show are all about. Soraya’s story underlines the significance of this. After all, as you’ll hear, there was no masterplan in place. Just a desire to explore the issues Soraya is passionate about, take some positive action, and follow the path where it leads. The results today speak for themselves.

Incidentally, that’s one reason why I was so happy to hear about the way Soraya had been partially inspired to take action after listening to my episodes with Phil Young a couple of years ago. Stories like that keep me going, and confirm that it’s always worth lobbing that first stone into the pond. You really never know where those outward ripples will lead.

I’m a huge fan of Soraya and her work, and I’m really intrigued to see where she takes things next, especially following her participation in the Opening Up The Outdoors incubator programme, which we discuss during outrconversation. Hope you enjoy our chat.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Is Chris Burkard the most influential visual artist at work in the outdoors today? It’s difficult to think of anybody else who has shaped the conversation to the same degree. Whether you realise it or not, any time you open Instagram and clock somebody gallivanting in front of a remote waterfall, or watch the latest series from an outdoor brand featuring twilit campfires on a beach, you’re seeing the influence of Chris.

I’ve tried and failed to get Burkard on the show at various points over the years. Hell, he’s a busy man. So when my pals at Db asked me to head over to Stockholm for the weekend to interview Chris in front of a live audience at renowned local camera emporium Scandinavian Photo, I jumped at the chance.

The original plan was to record a separate conversation with Chris after the live chat was in the bag. But our panel conversation turned out so well that we agreed it’d be best for us to just release that as an episode instead.

What follows is a total masterclass in creativity and finding your voice, from somebody who is absolutely at the top of their game. Every successful artist has their imperial phase, that period when everything they touch turns metaphorically to gold, and Chris is at the height of his right now. So it was completely fascinating getting a glimpse into the eye of the storm, and hearing how Chris navigates these turbulent, satisfying waters emotionally, psychically, professionally and personally.

I learned a lot, and I hope you do too. My thanks to Chris, Db, and the lovely people at Scandinavian Photo for making this one such a great experience. A note on the audio: we did have a few technical difficulties while recording this one, but I think it’s worth persevering with. Hope you enjoy the episode!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

When one of the legends drops the guard to show some vulnerability and openness, it has real impact. This is one reason why my episode with Jamie Thomas is still so popular. And why I think this latest conversation with Olympic gold medalist and modern day snowboarding icon Sage Kotsenburg is likely to have a similar effect.

After all, it isn’t that often that one of the most high profile snowboarders in the world has the honesty and balls to discuss how, in the aftermath of the biggest triumph of his career, a mixture of stress and anxiety caused him to almost fall out of love with snowboarding. And explain how hard he had to fight to get back the passion that had characterised his rise to the top.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

A mere four years after I had Ross Edgeley on the show, I’ve finally managed to book another swimmer! Yes my guest for this episode is the great Bonnie Tsui, journalist, writer, swimmer, surfer and author of one of my favourite books of recent years - Why We Swim.

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As a total swim geek, I loved this book. But as well as being manna for swimmers, it is also just a really brilliantly marshalled and elegantly-styled treatise on our relationship with nature through the lens of swimming.

Like all the best none-fiction crossovers, it has an appeal way beyond its subject matter; and as Bonnie is such a scrupulous journalist and an excellent none-fiction stylist, you know you’re in safe hands from the first page.

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I headed up to London to meet Bonnie in early July 2022, where we sat down to record this conversation about the book, during which I was keen to find out how Bonnie manage to condense such a vast topic into such a compelling, readable tale.

As you might expect if you’ve previously heard her on Rich Roll or Finisterre’s Hell or High Water podcast, Bonnie is a great conversationalist, able to switch between topics with ease and calm authority. This one is all about the opportunities and restrictions of creativity, told with great insight and candour from a writer in their imperial phase.

Enjoyed my chat with Bonnie? Let me know 👇

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

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Let’s start with the facts: this week’s guest Stacy Peralta is one of the most influential cultural figures in our corner of the world. If you’ve stood sideways on any craft - hell, even if you’ve listened to my podcast - you’ve been influenced by Stacy, whether you realise it or not. Even my weird little career, on an extremely minor level, is following a template set by Stacy and his peers. He’s a giant, in every sense of the world.

Just look at the CV. By his mid teens, he was part of the legendary Z-Boys. At 19, he joined forces with George Powell to form Powell-Peralta. He followed that by establishing the Bones Brigade, then went on to create epoch-defining films such as The Search For Animal Chin and Ban This. A few years later, he parlayed these experiences into his current career as a director and writer, making Dogtown and Z Boys, Riding Giants and Lords of Dogtown, among others. Today, he balances a career as a highly successful commercial director with passion projects such as the Yin and Yang of Gerry Lopez, his latest film and the reason he was in London when I sat down with him.

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I’m sure you get the point. Stacy’s influence is incalculable. And, as ever with this type of guest, the challenge is how to approach a conversation with such a figure. Especially when you only have an hour, and he’s spent three weeks on the promo trail essentially giving the same interview.

If you’ve listened for a while, you’ll know I try not to do the chronology or the straight, on-the-nose career debrief. Sure, I want to cover the highlights, but in a way that’s insightful, revealing and ideally less obvious. (This is, incidentally, is a big part of the How To Podcast And Interview People course I’ve been running for companies recently. Hit me up for more about that).

Anyway, I’m really grateful that the conversation we ended up having is just about everything I hoped it would be. Stacy embraced the spirt of the pod wholeheartedly and showed himself to be the curious, creative, humble, vulnerable and yet truly generous person you always hope the legends will be when you get the rare chance to meet them.

There’s so much gold in here, from somebody who has defined the board-riding conversation for a solid 40 years. I’m hugely grateful to Stacy for his time and creative insights.

If you enjoyed my conversation with Stacy, let me know 👇

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

“My approach to activism is to not be too ‘shouty’. Instead, it’s how can I bring someone along with me? I try in my writing to be even more gentle than I feel, because I want people to be willing to listen to me.”

Type 2 is my podcast in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is surfer, swimmer and academic Rebecca Olive, a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Global, Urban & Social Studies at RMIT University in Melbourne.

I first became aware of Rebecca through her work investigating a couple of areas of particular interest to me, and which I’ve explored in some detail on Type 2 and my main podcast Looking Sideways

First up is Moving Oceans, her research project about the way recreational sport and leisure activities shape our relationships to nature. Rebecca examines this dynamic through the lens of ocean ‘sports’ like swimming, surfing and even sailing. To quote from her Moving Oceans website, the project is about ‘exploring the everyday individual and community relationships we develop through surfing, swimming and other ocean lifestyle sports. Rebecca’s work is about showing how and why ocean lifestyle sports help us experience such close connections with saltwater plants, animals, geographies and climates’.

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Then there’s the other strand to Rebecca’s research, which explores the way women are represented in action sports media, and the impact this can have on how women interact with and are perceived by these communities and cultures.

As I say, both topics are of real interest to me, and it was through chatting about this stuff on Instagram that Rebecca and I first met. When I heard that she’d be heading to London for a few weeks this summer, I headed up to London so we could sit down and chat through her work and ideas for an episode of Type 2.

This is activism as investigation, about how the exchange of often niche and sometimes challenging ideas has the power to change the way we perceive the everyday activities that embellish our lives. This was a nourishing and at times extremely thought-provoking chat, which I enjoyed very much. Hope you do too!

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks or so through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways on Substack, or through ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

Enjoyed my chat with Rebecca?

Know somebody who would find this episode interesting? Then please share and help me spread the word about Looking Sideways.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

It wouldn’t be possible to produce Looking Sideways without support from readers and listeners. Subscribe below to support the show.

Kepa Acero is one of modern surfing’s most intriguing and beloved characters. Why? Because there’s just something irresistible about people who are completely comfortable in their own skin and who take life on their own terms. That’s definitely the case with Kepa, and it comes across in everything he does, which is why I think people genuinely seem to love and admire him so much.

Not that it’s been an easy ride for Kepa. Like everybody with a vision and the determination to see it to fruition, he’s taken big risks and make critical decisions to get where he is today.

But the second, post-competitive part of his career has seen him evolve into one of THE great surfing travellers. He’s a Peterson/Naughton for the digital age; somebody who is, in his own way, as quietly influential as those two giants.

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Myself and Owen were lucky enough to spend a couple of highly enjoyable days in Hossegor with Kepa while we recorded this episode, and I found him to be a lovely, warm and generous individual who has time for people and brings out the best in them.

Kepa has a unique take on the experience of surfing, and a brilliant story about how he has adapted his life to accommodate this vision. This is a surfing life in two halves, and a beautiful, compelling tale it so too.

Enjoyed my chat with Kepa? Let me know 👇

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Episode 2 of my Hossegor omnibus in association with Db! And my guest for this instalment is Christa Funk, a swimmer, surfer, coastguard and photographer who has very quickly established herself as one of the most creative and formidable photographers on the North Shore, capturing that none-more-heavy scene with a beguiling blend of dynamism, grace and beauty.

She’s also got a hell of a story about how she made this happen. As regular listeners to the show will have learned from listening to my guests over the years, there’s no set route into the industry.

Anyone who ‘makes it’ (itself a very flawed concept) has to travel a long way, literally and metaphorically. And Christa’s story about how she ended up here, via an upbringing in Colorado, twin passions for swimming and photography, and a stint in the US Coastguard, is a pretty extraordinary and inspiring tale.

And it just underlines a fundamental truth. There are no perfect career paths. Just individuals trying to work it out, and make the best of the hand they’ve been dealt. My chat with Christa is an object lesson in how far you can travel with only your geeky, niche interests and self-determination to guide you.

I had such a laugh hanging out with and recording this conversation with Christa. Thanks for being such a good sport Christa! See ya on the North Shore sometime.

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Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to Duncan Yeldham for production support, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

My guest this week is Tim Myers, an award-winning and renowned cameraman, cinematographer, journalist and storyteller who has carved out an extremely interesting career for himself telling human interest stories as a freelance gun for hire for people like the BBC, CNN and the UN.

There’s a chance you might unwittingly be familiar with Tim and his work - he achieved some internet notoriety a couple of years ago when he was attacked by riot police live on air while filming the June 2020 Washington riots for Australia network Channel 7.

The story of Tim’s route into this world via his upbringing on an Australian ski resort is a fascinating one. I had the pleasure of hanging out with Tim for a few days while we were in Hossegor, and recognised almost immediately there I was dealing with a total legend; somebody with combines a steely sangfroid with a curiosity about the world, and who has an ease about him that makes people feel comfortable straightaway.

I really enjoyed this episode - Tim has plenty of lessons to impart from a life and career lived at a hungry, breakneck pace. I enjoyed our conversation and learned a lot - hope you do too.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to Duncan Yeldham for production support, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is a surfer and activist Adam Hall. He’s Head of Sustainability for Surfdome, a trustee for POW UK, and is part of the team that just successfully ran the campaign to have the North Devon coastline designated one of only 12 World Surfing Reserves in the world, putting this much loved corner of the British surf world on a par with places like Noosa, Malibu and Ericeira,

All of which would be reason enough to have Adam on as a guest for Type 2. But Adam’s story is really about how a passionate, driven individual has found a way of - yes - parlaying his own passions into positive actions on a wider scale. Which really is a key question when you get down to what it actually means to be an ‘activist’. How can we make it personal, yet impactful on a wider scale? How can we think big when we’re starting small?

After all, it can be overwhelming, especially in the face of the sheer scale of some of the challenges we face, to work out how to make a difference. This is a conundrum that Adam has cracked, both through the projects that personify his take on activism, and through his passion for surfing, which is really at the heart of all his work.

For me, this is what Type 2 is really about: the chance to hear from passionate, articulate, fired-up people who are out there making a difference and calling it out for what it is.

We recorded this one at the Wave in Bristol after a really fun surf (it won’t surprise you to hear that Adam rips, by the way); and all-in-all it was a great day capped off by a brilliant, thought-provoking conversation with somebody who wears his principles on this sleeve and is out there making it happen in every way he can.


New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

This week’s guest is photographer Wig Worland, one of the most respected and influential people in the history of UK skateboarding. I’ve known Wig on and off since the 90s. Looking back, we were all a little bit in awe at his complete understanding of who he was as a person, and how single-mindedly he approached his craft and self-appointed task.

Indeed, as my old pal Phil Young said, when I told him I’d finally persuaded Wig to come on the podcast, there’s argument to be made that for a key period in the 90s and 2000s, Wig was THE most influential figure in UK skateboarding.

It’s a big claim, but the evidence (and any measure of common sense) backs it up. In the dim, distant, pre-social media years, the role of surf, skate or snow photographer carried an enormous amount of clout and influence.

Particularly in the UK, which at the time didn’t have the huge industry apparatus of the States underpinning the scene. In many ways, the early history of British skateboarding is really the history of a lot of talented and extremely driven people tirelessly documenting (and hence effectively creating) the scene as it rapidly evolved in real time. Wig was and remains a crucial and highly respected part of that brilliant tradition.

And Wig really has shot with absolutely everybody, as you’ll know if you follow him on Instagram, or are at all familiar with his work over the years. All of which means the man has tales and opinions galore on the history and uniqueness of UK and wider skateboarding history.

Wig doesn’t do many of these, so to get the chance to hear his perspective on all things skateboarding and creativity is a privilege I don’t take lightly. Hope you enjoy the episode.


Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to Duncan Yeldham for production support, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

There are many layers to this week’s conversation with surfer, director, film-maker, producer, creative and all-round legend Mikey Corker.

On the one hand, it’s about this latest project Savage Waters, a surf film in the finest classical, questing tradition. It’s about how Mikey and a crew of similarly-driven and passionate people have spent years abroad Matt Knight’s yacht Hecate, on the hunt for a mythical wave, and the adventures and scrapes they got into along the way.

Then, on another level, it’s about the travails of the professional surfing life, as well as a homage to the incredible, inspirational Knight family; a group of total legends who live life completely on their own terms, and who by the end of the film will have you wanting to jack in the job, sell the house and head for the horizon.

But above all, it’s the story of Mikey’s own creative quest, and the reality of embarking upon such a quixotic creative endeavour. As you’ll hear, at the beginning of this project Mikey really had nothing more than the germ of an idea and a lot of drive. It has literally taken years to get to the point where Savage Waters is out in the world and beginning to garner plaudits in the form of festival slots and acclaimed reviews.

And that’s what this one is really about: the reality of all creative projects. Nobody gives you permission. Gates don’t mysteriously swing open in recognition of your devilish cleverness and latent talent. You have to make it happen, whatever bumps in the road you encounter along the way.

This is why I find Mikey’s story, and this brilliant conversation, so inspirational.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Is there anything better than catching up with an old friend after a long break, and picking up exactly where you left off?

I think not - which is why my latest with Ewan Wallace is a paean to the joys of close friendship.

Ewan is a snowboarder and musician (he’s guitarist with Bonobo and Karmic) who is also one of my oldest and closest friends. I spent the most formative years of my life with Ewan; 15 years snowboarding, travelling, working and playing music together. But in the last decade we haven’t seen as much of each other as usual, which is why I really cherish our time together on the rare occasions it does come around.

On this occasion, I was also keen to reflect on our shared experiences with the perspective of time. I’ve been thinking much about the past recently, particularly the creative successes and failures. As somebody who was alongside me in the creative trenches for so many years, I’ve long been waiting for the chance to compare notes with Ewan on the times we had and the things we experienced.

The result was the type of nourishing, grounding chat that only a proper old mate can deliver. Ewan’s always been a brilliant conversationalist and he’s led such an interesting life that know this would be a fun one. And so it proved to be.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Let’s get straight to it - I’ve got one of surfing’s all-time great legends on the show this week. Along with peers like Ian Cairns, Rabbit and MR, 1977 World Champion Shaun Thomson helped to redefine surfing over the course of one of THE most influential careers of them all. He changed the game in ways we all continue to benefit from today.

Then there are his off-the-water contributions, which are as progressive and game-changing as his surfing. He was one of surfing’s earliest activists, working with organisations such as Surfrider, and organising a campaign to improve water quality at Rincon, among other firsts. He’s also an entrepreneur, starting Instinct and sponsoring other legends such as Tom Carroll and Barton Lynch on the way to their own world crowns. And, as if that isn’t enough, he’s also a creative filmmaker and cultural custodian, notably through the film Bustin’ Down The Door, which documented the mid-70s Hawaiian scene Shaun was himself such a key part of.

And yet, despite these incredible heights, Shaun’s life has also been marked by rare tragedy. The death of his beloved son Mathew in 1995 left him understandably bereft and seeking a new purpose in life. He found it with his Surfer’s Code, a deceptively simple self-development tool which uses surfing as a metaphor for life’s struggles, and which Shaun has subsequently used to help thousands of individuals and business find their own purpose.

Taken as a whole, Shaun’s story is remarkable on many levels, and in this conversation we spoke about this career in the context of the biggest themes of all - life, death, grief, recovery; and how surfing has the power to shape your life in ways it can take a lifetime to understand.

I’m very grateful to Shaun for taking the time to share his story with such openness and generosity. Hope you enjoy this episode.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

When does cultural guardianship become another form of toxic gatekeeping? How can you connect your own personal take on activism with the bigger themes? How can ski touring and splitboarding be a vehicle to increased creativity and self-awareness? And just why is Scotland one of the most unique places to ride a snowboard in the world?

All topics covered in this week’s episode with Lesley McKenna, Hannah Bailey and Lauren MacCallum, impromptuly recorded during my recent trip to Aviemore to take part in one of Hannah and Lesley’s Wandering Workshops. This was a brilliant three days which mixed splitboarding with a much-needed creative reset.

While there, I decided to grab Lesley, Hannah and Lauren for a chat. “What do you want to chat about?”, asked Lesley the day before, as we were heading uphill through classic Scottish four-seasons-in-one-day conditions. “Let’s just press record and see where we end up”, I replied.

Which is exactly what we did, and as I suspected it might, it quickly evolved into a subtle, all-encompassing chat that covered a hell of a lot of ground. Of course, it helped that I was chatting to three of the smartest, most passionate people I know.

This is actually the first time I’ve interviewed three people for the show, and I thought it worked really well. Big thanks to Lesley, Hannah and Lauren for taking the time to do it, and for the brilliant conversation.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Sound the geek klaxon!

Yep, this week’s conversation with legit US snowboarding legend Pat ‘the eYe’ bridges goes deep, deep down the snowboarding rabbit hole.

I go back a long way with Pat - around twenty years, in fact. I used to write for him back when he was editor of Snowboarder Magazine, which was around when we first met. Over the years, we stayed in touch and continued to bump into each other at various events around the world.

So you can imagine how chuffed I was to get the chance to work alongside Pat as part of the Natural Selection team: firstly, as part of the Selection Committee for the event; then, later, as part of the commentary team for the Jackson leg of this year’s tour.

I spent that trip with working with and hanging out with Pat, which was brilliant fun and a true privilege. Cut this man and he bleeds snowboarding. He also has the most encyclopaedic knowledge of snowboarding lore of anybody I’ve ever met. Which, considering the calibre of geek I’ve spent my life hanging out with, is really saying something.

These days Pat is as close to a definition of a snowboarding lifer as you’re going to get, as his work as publisher of Slush testifies. He continues to fight the good fight, and be outrageously entertaining company. Hope you enjoy our conversation.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

To say that Neil McDonald is interested in skate history is a little like saying Capability Brown liked to dabble in the odd bit of gardening.

Neil is a journalist, author, curator and archivist who is obsessed, to an awe-inspiring degree, with the tales and intricacies of skate history.

It’s a fascination he explores through his essential Science Versus Life Instagram account, and which he is developing on the grandest possible scale with his forthcoming history of UK skateboarding. For me, Neil’s reverent take on the power and importance of skate history makes him more akin to a legitimate cultural curator. It’s why I kept using the word archivist during our conversation, and why I think his work is so important and much more than the mere ‘scanning of old skateboard magazines’, to paraphrase his Insta bio.

Why? Because this stuff matters. It’s important, like any history is important. It’s how we define ourselves as a culture, and how we safeguard the uniqueness of these activities many of us have based our entire lives around.

With Science Versus Life and his forthcoming book, Neil is doing nothing less than trying to preserve and present the entire pre-digital history of British skateboarding and, by extension, youth culture in this country. As you might imagine if you’ve listened to the show for a while, this mission is right up my boulevard, and I enjoyed our chat very much indeed. Hope you do too.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

This week’s guest Yvette Curtis runs the amazing Wave Wahines, the women and girls only surf club through which she is on a mission to make surfing in the UK more accessible for women and girls from all cultures and ethnic communities.

I think the reason I’m such a fan of Yvette’s work, and why I was so keen to chat to her for the podcast, is that it’s a story of how one person can impact the grassroots by the works they do.

I talk about lot on the podcast about how we need to ask questions of traditional surf culture. Well, Yvette is out there doing that work, and it’s through initiatives such as Wahines that change will happen, however irrevocably. And, as I discovered during our conversation, it has come at sometimes great emotional and personal cost. Firstly, because like everybody, Yvette struggles with the dreaded imposter syndrome, and the very idea that she has any right to be a spokesperson on any of the issues we discuss.

Secondly, because anybody doing such work, and daring to pose questions of the status quo, can find themselves open to attack, something which happened to Yvette when she appeared on a BBC Spotlight segment and subsequently received a truly horrendous amount of bullying and abuse.

Undeterred, Yvette dusted herself down and came back more energised than ever to make a difference. As she should have one, because her experiences as a British woman of colour in the 21st century are real, impactful, challenging and are as valid a contribution to our culture as somebody who is venerated for being good at riding a piece of wood, foam or carbon.

When ordinary people do extraordinary things, change can happen. Shining a light on such stories is basically why I started this podcast, and why I’m so glad Yvette agreed to come on the show.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com
Jackson x Natural Selection omnibus special!

Succeeding in any kind of career as a professional athlete is tough. Cultivating a career that lasts close to two decades? Pretty much impossible.

In snowboarding, it’s a rarified feat that only a handful have managed. Those that have accomplished it have navigated ups, downs, injuries, sponsorship vagaries, trends, and everything else that life can throw at you.

This week’s guest Hana Beaman is among that number, legit shred royalty whose unique career has been characterised by constant evolution. As is often the case when it comes to these lengthier career arcs, Beaman got her start on the contest scene, later making her name as one of the only women on the Grenade crew. Later, she made the switch to the backcountry under the tutelage of Travis Rice and other out-of-bounds heavyweights. Movie projects such as Listen to the Eyes followed, before Natural Selection- well - selection cemented Hana’s rep as one of the true legends of the women’s snowboarding scene.

It’s a position she relishes, happy to pass on her knowledge to the next generation and own the mentor role now she’s in the position to pay it back.

Naturally, given the sheer weight of this resume, I was keen to chat to Hana while I was in Jackson. The resulting conversion is a study in the long game, and an object lesson in how humility and curiosity are the fuel for longevity. What I found particularly interesting is the way Hana’s been happy to diversify and follow interests outside of snowboarding as way of keeping things fresh.

I’ve long been intrigued by Hana’s story, and I very much enjoyed our conversation.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is runner and activist Martin ‘MJ’ Johnson. Martin is a trail runner and father who, in Run to the Source, his new collaboration with Patagonia, has made a truly thought-provoking film.

Run to the Source follows Martin’s attempt to set a new Fastest Known Time (or FKT, as it’s known) along the Thames Path, which he eventually did, completing the 184 distance in 38 hours and 35 minutes.

But as anybody who has seen the film will know (and if you haven’t I really implore you to seek it out on YouTube) it soon becomes clear that the Martin and collaborators such as director Matt Kay and producer Phil Young have a much more ambitious story to tell.

This is nothing less than the story of the river itself, which in the film becomes a metaphor for the untold black and brown history of Britain. By using this journey to tell such a nuanced story, the film becomes something else entirely, taking Martin’s feat into altogether more convention-challenging territory, and causing us to question our own relationships with the activities and history we can take somewhat for granted.

It is powerful yet subtle, and as such is a fitting reflection of its protagonist. One of the things I love about Run to the Source, and Martin’s story in particular, is how it offers up such a nuanced, personal and localised take on activism. Often we’re encouraged to think of activism as a story of absolutes, of fighting the biggest battles of all. Martin’s generous interpretation offers up activism as a means of exploration, on a literal and metaphysical level, and is all the more powerful for that.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

He’ll hate me for saying it. But Dr. Tony Butt, this week’s guest, is one of UK surfing’s bone fide big wave legends. As Nathan Carter put it in a recent interview for Wavelength Magazine, Tony is ‘probably the British big wave surfer with the most giant paddle waves under his belt’.

Not that you would realise this if you used Tony’s media profile as an indicator. In a world of instant edits and Insta surf porn, Tony flies gloriously under the radar - which is just the way he likes it. Not for Tony any social media clout-chasing. Instead, he is content to keep to himself over in Asturias in northern Spain, where he spends his time exploring the reefs and waves of this lesser known nook of the European surfing universe; and indulging his other passions of oceanography and wave forecasting.

Indeed, if anything, Tony is better known for this side of his repertoire rather than his actual surfing thanks to his pioneering academic work, and thought-provoking journalism in titles such as The Surfer’s Path and Magic Seaweed.

He is, in short, a total legend - if an extremely self-effacing and unassuming one. Perhaps that’s why it has taken us around three years to arrange this conversation. But it’s worth the wait. This one ranges all over the place, from how our perception of mortality shapes our life path; to the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and how it affects our surfing. Of course, we also delved into Tony’s vast experience of big wave surfing, too.

The result is a hefty, thought-provoking chat with one of the true unsung heroes of European surfing, shot through with the wisdom accrued from a life of exploration around surfing’s wilder frontiers.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism

My guest for this episode of the podcast is professional snowboarder and activist Marie-France Roy, who I chatted to during my recent trip to Jackson Hole for the first leg of the Natural Selection Tour.

Marie is that rare thing: somebody who is using their platform to try and instigate change on both the personal and wider level. As a snowboarder, she has used projects such as her movie The Little Things to try and connect all of her interests into one cohesive whole.

As an activist, her work covers many areas, whether it is her increasing involvement with Protect Our Winters, her frontline involvement with the Fairy Creek blockade, or personal projects such as her ambition to develop a working kelp farm as a way of providing tangible societal and economic solutions to the problems we face.

This one is lovely, nuanced and open chat with one of the warmest and most-respected personalities in snowboarding. We were also joined halfway through the chat but Marie’s close friend Spencer O’Brien, who contributed some questions of her own. Hope you enjoy this one!

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks or so through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Jackson x Natural Selection omnibus special!

Yep, myself and my right-hand man Owen Tozer are on our first podcast trip of the Covid era. We’ve been in Jackson Hole for the first stop of the Natural Selection Tour, and have taken the opportunity to record as many episodes as we can with people involved in the event, from Jackson, or from the wider snowboarding community.

This series continues with this conversation with the man behind the entire event: Travis Rice, in what is our now traditional post-event debrief.

This year, I was particularly interested in speaking to Travis about some of the talking points that have arisen from this year’s event, notably THAT KB versus Travis match-up; and also the huge amount of kickback the event and Travis personally has received for making the launch of a Natural Selection NFT series such a focal point of this year’s event. I’ve been wanting to cover the place of NFTs in our world for a while now, and this seemed a perfect way of doing so.

Although I’m lucky enough to count Travis as a friend, and to play a tiny part in the entire Natural Selection process, I think it’s more important than ever to use this position to pose occasionally uncomfortable questions, and to push Travis to answer some of the criticisms of the event that have begun to do the rounds now Natural Selection becomes and increasingly established part of the snowboarding landscape.

That’s what I tried to do here, and the result, as you’ll probably expect if you’ve listened to any of my other conversations with Travis, is a fast-paced conversation in which the GOAT’s questing, pitilessly honest mindset is on full display.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Jackson x Natural Selection omnibus special!

Yep, myself and my right-hand man Owen Tozer are on our first podcast trip of the Covid era. We’ve been in Jackson Hole for the first stop of the Natural Selection Tour, and have taken the opportunity to record as many episodes as we could with people involved in the event, from Jackson, or from the wider snowboarding community.

Continuing with this conversation with judge Sandy Macdonald. One of the things I’ve been trying to do while out here is to throw some some light onto some of the more opaque aspects of the Natural Selection experience, and in that light a chat with one of the judges seemed an essential port of call.

Because, as a cursory examination of the snowboarding conversation has revealed, the judging at this year’s event has been subject to criticism, whether below the line, among the community at large and even among the riders themselves,

So to try and understand the judging process a little bit more clearly, and to get insights into some of the more contentious calls from this year’s Jackson event, I grabbed Sandy for a chat.

And what a revealing insight into the the whole judging process this conversation really is. I approached this one by trying to think about what questions I want answered as a fan, and to try and address as many of the issues and explicit criticisms that I’ve seen doing the rounds in the aftermath of the event.

Huge thanks to Sandy for being such a good sport in this one, and for tackling each of these questions with total accountability and transparency. I leaned a lot and I hope you do too.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Jackson x Natural Selection omnibus special! 

Yep, myself and my right-hand man and creative collaborator Owen Tozer are on our first trip of the Covid era and what a joyous, life-affirming experience it has been. We’ve been in Jackson Hole for the first stop of the Natural Selection Tour, and have taken the opportunity to record as many episodes as we could with people involved in the event or from the wider snowboarding community. 

Starting with this conversation with my friend and fellow Natural Selection announcer Tom ’T-Bird’ Monterosso. We’d been chatting about recording this episode all week, and in the end decided to record it a couple of hours after finals day wrapped in the immediate post-show afterglow of our live broadcast of the event. 

As you’ll hear, spirits were high, and not just because we were both three Pacificos deep. I think it’s also because as myself and Tom have discovered this week, we really like hanging out and talking together. So with the event wrapped, we set the tape rolling and recorded this quick fire episode. We talked about the event, of course, and then segued into a chat about Tom’s life and career in snowboarding. There are some classic LS themes in this one, explored with totally candour and self-deprecation by one of the essential voices in US snowboarding.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

How can you find the strength to turn traumatic experiences that have affected you deeply into something that has the power to transform your own community? How do you bypass the toxic gatekeepers who still control the routes and paths into the industry? And how can you feed the latent appetite for alternative narratives that exists yet is shamefully under-served in our world?

All themes that feature in my conversation with this week’s guest Lyndsay McLaren; a powerful, multi-layered conversation that I think is one of the most important chats I’ve ever featured on the show.

And there are really two levels to this conversation. Firstly, there’s the story of Neighbourhood Skate Club, the community skate project that Lyndsay founded in lockdown, and through which she’s aiming to “create space and opportunities for women and queer people who skateboard or want to learn”.

Then there’s Lyndsay own story, of how she’s managed to process the traumatic experiences that have hallmarked her own progress through the industry; and, along the way, found the strength to reclaim her own story, and subvert some of the insidious, toxic conventions that regrettably still exist in our community.

Taken as a whole, these threads combine into one truly powerful and inspirational tale. I’m grateful to Lyndsay for trusting me enough to talk so openly about her experiences, and am proud of the way she’s used them to create something so positive and transformative. Just a note to say that we do discuss incidents of sexual harassment in this episode, so please be mindful of this as you listen.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

If you’re a snowboarder, Danny Davis really needs no introduction. He’s widely regarded as one of the greatest riders of all time, and is still going strong two decades into one of the most storied careers in competitive snowboarding.

But there’s more to Danny than this quick thumbnail sketch. Because, in a world of ever-increasing progression for its own sake, Danny stands for something. He’s a symbol of the creativity that is supposed to be at the heart of this entire business. As such, he’s one of the most beloved and admired riders on the planet, loved by snowboarders across the world as the personification of the idea that progression is redundant if it isn’t accompanied by style and creativity.

When I interview people how occupy such an exalted place in our culture, I’m always curious to see how they wear their reputation. Are they aware of it? Do they reject it? Embrace it? Will they even want to discuss it?

In Danny’s case, as I was delighted to discover, he’s more than happy to discuss it. What follows is, I humbly contend, as revealing an interview with Danny as you’re likely to hear, in which one of the greats dissects his own career, his plans for the future, and the state of snowboarding in general with total honesty and openness. In doing so, he offers us a peerless insight into the mindset you need if you’re going to stay at the top of the game for twenty years.

This one is great. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Think of this conversation with Cornish surfer Sam Bleakley as a companion piece to the extremely popular Dylan Graves episode from a few weeks back. Why? Because here we have another amazing surfer using their talent and platform in Jan in an infinitely more interesting way than most other professional surfers.

Sam’s case is particularly interesting because he has managed to find a way to combine his two major passions - geography and surfing - into one singular life path, something that has led him into some very interesting territory indeed, both literally and metaphorically.

Of course, there’s the actual work itself. as well as a surfer, Sam is a journalist, author and academic. He also produces and presents his fantastic WSL show Brilliant Corners, and is a commentator for the WSL longboard tour. It’s a busy slate alright, but what I found fascinating about our conversation is the way Sam has worked to create these opportunities for himself by being honest to his own unique interests, and how he uses them to stretch himself creatively with honesty and integrity.

So yep, some classic LS themes in this one, explored in a conversation that took its own time and path in the best Looking Sideways tradition.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, to my editor Fina Charleson, and to Duncan Yeldham for production support.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Festive Special!

Yep, as is now very much tradition in the Looking Sideways universe, for this special Christmas episode I was joined by my old pals Tim and Gendle for our fourth mince pie, Secret Santa and booze-filled yuletide jamboree.

Now, if you’ve listened to any of these episodes before, you’ll know what to expect - although this year, I’m happy to report, we managed to juggle schedule and beat the rapidly-approaching Covid restrictions to do this one in person. Tim and Gend had a Famous First Words gig about ten days before Christmas in London, so I packed the podcast kit, donned the mark and headed on up to the Smoke to record this episode.

If you’re new to the show or unfamiliar with the boys and their work, allow me to introduce them: two of the biggest influences and most-loved presences in British snowboarding, whether as film-makers, presenters or snowboarders.

This year’s show took the usual format and ran with it. So expect a Christmas quiz, Secret Santa gift exchanges, the three of us getting steadily more pissed, the boys turning the tables on me and asking me a few questions, and so on.

We had a great time doing this one, so I hope you enjoy it. Merry Christmas!

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is actor, musician, performer, podcast host and trans activist Brix Schaumburg. As Germany’s most high profile trans actor, Brix has become something of a focal point for the conversation around trans rights and issues of gender. This scenario has led him to a form of gently provocative activism, in which he has used his platform to position himself as a ‘filter and buffer’, a lens through which to explore these topics with a thoughtful generosity and playfulness.

I think this really comes across in our conversation, which is an extremely nuanced and thought-provoking chat. As usual in Type 2, we talked about Brix’s life and career but really we spoke about themes that everybody can recognise: especially, the gap between our inner and public-facing selves, and how reconciling these two poles really constitutes the work of everybody’s life. Regular listeners to Type 2 and my own Looking Sideways podcast will know this one a bit of a pet theme of mine.

We also discussed how difficult it is, no matter how progressive you consider yourself to be, to escape the binary conventions and associations that have accumulated in our culture - something I demonstrated perfectly at one point, much to Brix’s wry amusement, and which he pointed out to me in the same open spirit with which he approaches this entire topic. And we dipped a toe into the issue of trans athletes participation in sport, an issue which is at the frontline of the current debate.

I enjoyed our conversation very much, and as is the case in the best exchanges, I learned a lot about the issues generally and, more importantly, about my own relationship to the conventions and gender boundaries that invisibly govern our lives. I hope you do too.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

This week’s guest Dylan Graves has managed something that sounds simple but is actually really very difficult when it comes to surf, skate and snow film-making - coming up with a simple idea that manages to convey the stoke of the entire business while also telling a repeatedly compelling story.

If you don’t know Dylan, he is a professional surfer from Puerto Rico and the host of a YouTube show called Weird Waves, which for my money is the best professional surfing vlog out there. Why am I making this bold claim? Because Weird Waves is so far removed from the usual surf culture narrative, with its preoccupations with the same tedious tropes we’ve all had rammed down our throats for the past 70 plus years.

Instead, each episode of Weird Waves focuses lovingly on the margins of surf culture, the scenes that are a million miles away from the Beach Grit beat, but are, in 2021, just as legitimate as La Jolla, Hawaii or Byron Bay. Whether it’s the Brits surfing the Severn Bore on junky old longboards, or frothing mid westerners tackling howling Great Lake windswell, Dylan puts these communities in the spotlight with zero judgement.

There’s another reason that Weird Waves is to be applauded, too, which is the way that Dylan uses the format to challenge himself, whether creatively or by tackling the bigger issues of the day without fear or favour. When somebody with the profile of Dylan uses their platform to challenge themselves, and attempt to make our community more inclusive and accepting, they should be applauded. That’s a big reason why I invited Dylan on the show, and why I enjoyed our thoughtful conversation so much. Hope you do too.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Welcome to an absolute throwback of an interview in the finest Looking Sideways tradition. Yep, if you liked my recent chat with Ben Powell, for example, you’re going to enjoy this conversation with BMX legend ‘Mad’ Jon Taylor. For a start, it was face-to-face, which was such a laugh and something I’ve missed more than I’ve realised.

Secondly, there’s the fact that this is a riotous look at the life and times of one of the most beloved figures in UK action sports. Jon is a true living legend of the global BMX scene, somebody who has been there, seen it, done it and has the raucously entertaining anecdotes to prove it.

British listeners not hugely familiar with the BMX scene may have seen Jon on the BBC’s coverage of the BMX events at the 2020 Tokyo Games, where he sat in alongside Ed Leigh and provided brilliant context to the mainstream audience. I’m not gonna go through the CV, as Jon does this during our conversation far more entertainingly than I’m able to hear. But suffice to say this is a glorious trip through Jon’s life and times with one of the biggest characters in the game.

I know some listeners have been crying out for this type of episode recently - like I say, it’s an instant LS classic in the truest sense of the word. Hope you enjoy our conversation!

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Is experience a prerequisite for knowledge? How can you use the lessons of life to strive for equanimity? Is it possible to avoid taking life personally? Should we let our curiosity guide our decision-making? How can we put story-telling at the centre of what we do? Is life about taking or giving back?

These are the questions we all grapple with at some point during our lives, however unwittingly. And, as I realised at the end of our conversation, they are the questions that formed the key themes of my fascinating and thought-provoking conversation with snowboarding legend Dani ‘Kiwi’ Meier.

Let’s get the snowboarding part out of the way first. As you might have guessed from that nickname, Dani is from New Zealand, but it was as part of the nascent late 80s/early 90s European snowboarding scene that he made his name. On the snow, his surf-influenced, rootsy take on snowboarding saw him carve out a gloriously idiosyncratic career, riding for brands like Rad Air and Northwave, and helping to create the European pro scene as we still recognise it today.

Off the snow, his work ethic, ability to see the bigger picture, and incessant curiosity marked him out as a genuine innovator. Take The Crystal Awards, snowboarding’s original culture-driven contest comp that soon became one of the most copied formats ever. Or his work with his agency Mana Media, which saw him work with the biggest brands on the planet and succeed in taking his culturally sympathetic story-telling approach to the biggest canvasses of all.

Now, in mid-life, Dani is taking stock of his life and career, and I’m so fortunate he was gracious enough to share his insights for this episode. It’s the type of conversation that caused me to view my own life differently. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

My guest this week is Skateistan founder Ollie Percovich, who I welcomed back for his second appearance on the show. I first chatted to Ollie in May 2018 in the dim, distant pre-Covid era, and in the intervening months it’s fair to say much has changed for Ollie and the community he’s spent so long establishing.

The first event was, obviously, Covid, which understandably had a huge impact on a none-profit with operations and staff all over the world. The second was the recent geopolitical upheaval in Afghanistan, which it is booming clear has changed the country significantly - and had an enormous impact on the work Skateistan have been carrying out in the country.

Back in August, when it became apparent just how serious the unfolding events in Afghanistan were, I contacted Ollie to see if he’d be interested in coming back on the show to discuss the entire situation.

I’ve got such admiration for Ollie. His selflessness, positivity and belief in the power of community look more prescient with every passing year, and is needed now than ever right now. Obviously this is a highly sensitive topic (not least because Ollie and his colleagues are still working in the country), so we had to tread carefully in the way we discussed the issues.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

My guest for this episode of Type 2 is Shannon Galpin an explorer, writer, journalist, artist and global activist known primarily for her work on climate action and women’s rights.

I first became aware of Shannon through her long-running work in Afghanistan, where she has been involved with womens’ rights projects for over a decade now. She first visited the country in 2009, eventually helping to establish the first Afghan Women’s National cycling team, and continuing to advocate for the right of women in the country to ride bikes in safety.

Shannon wrote two books about this experience, as well producing the documentary Afghan Cycles. Today, with social and political change sweeping the country once again, she has been working to help evacuate the women she worked with and their families from the country, as well as setting up post-evacuation programmes for them around Europe, the US and Canada.

In addition to this important, emotionally involving work, Shannon is also collaborating with her daughter Devon on a project called Endangered Activism, through which she focuses “on field research and the use of street art as a way of …inspiring youth activism for wildlife conservation and climate justice”

As you’re going to discover from our conversation, Shannon has a truly remarkable range of interests and is creating important, transformative work across a number of different creative fronts, something she sums up by saying ‘my curiosity outweighs my fear’. I found her empathetic, inquisitive approach to activism to be hugely inspiring - I hope you do too.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Chris Hines bonus episode!

Chris is a surfer and activist best known for being one of the original driving forces behind the original incarnation of Surfers Against Sewage. Today he enjoys a reputation as one of the most respected and successful communicators in British environmentalism.

This is actually my third conversation with Chris after his initial appearance on Type 2 was followed by our Instagram Live conversation last year.

This one came about when I was asked to create and run a workshop on how to create podcasts and the art of interviewing for a company called WMFTG. This day-long session ended up being part-workshop, part-practical podcast tutorial, and part-talk on the art of creativity and storytelling.

Anyway, as part of the workshop I interviewed Chris Hines in front of the attendees. This went so well that I thought I’d release the chat as a bonus episode of the podcast. So here we are.

There are no Show Notes for this bonus episode, so if you want to find out more about any of the things we discuss or join in the debate, check out my Instagram (@WeLookSideways), Twitter (@WeLookSideways) and Facebook (@wearelookingsideways). Nice one.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

This week’s guest Torren Martyn is probably the most individual, interesting and certainly most celebrated surfer in the world right now. Draw a Venn diagram of all the modern-day talking points in surf culture - board length, style, the craving for some substance among a world of throwaway edits - and Torren would be right at the centre.

As 2021 dawned, Torren’s lazy, lanky style and mastery of the less-than-obvious board length had already seen him lauded as one of the modern greats. Then he released Lost Track: Atlantic, a four-part, three-hour long collaboration made with his best mate and long-term foil Ishka Folkwell that marked the high watermark of the pair’s creative partnership.

Why? Firstly because it’s a beautifully-made piece of work that, as it languidly documents the duo's journey from Scotland to Senegal in ‘Donna’, their beat-up old Transit, repurposes the surf road trip dream in a way that is quietly innovative, yet as comfortingly familiar as that first post-lockdown pint.

Secondly, because of what this defiantly old-fashioned approach signifies in the modern surf era. In a time of quick cut vlogs and Insta clips, Torren and Ishka have taken it back to more reflective era, when surf films were a satisfyingly cohesive package of music, surfing and culture. Throw in Torren’s beautiful surfing and Ishka’s unique eye, and you have the recipe for what was immediately recognised as a modern classic.

Yep, I’m a fan. Indeed, I’ve been trying to get Torren on since I saw the first episode, and after a few months of email tennis we finally made it happen in September 2021. This one is just a lovely open chat with somebody who is a warm and impressive as his incredible surfing.

I’m hugely grateful to Torren and Ishka for brightening an otherwise dire year with their visionary work, and to Torren for taking the time to unpick the whole thing for this episode. This is a good one. Enjoy.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

My ‘lifer’ episodes, in which I interview somebody without the profile of my more famous guests, but who nevertheless has dedicated their life to the culture with similar dedication (and, in many cases, has had a similar influence), are always among the most beloved Looking Sideways episodes.

And in this episode with action sports agent and business coach Sue Izzo, I’m not afraid to say we have an instant lifer classic. Of course, as usual we discussed Sue’s life and career through the action sports industry - she founded Mosaic and helped steer the career of Danny Davis, Keir Dillon and Sofia Mulanovich, among others.

But really, this open, honest and moving conversation is about the very stuff of life itself. It’s about the biggest questions and challenges of all, which at some point we will all inevitably have to face, and how we find the strength to deal with them.

In Sue’s case, this ongoing reckoning has meant facing episodes of debilitating depression, numerous suicide attempts, a cancer diagnosis, as well as various professional crises.

The story of how Sue found the strength to overcome these challenges, and come out the other side reborn as the person she is today is as compelling as any I’ve yet told on the podcast. Today, she is driven by mission to tell her story, in the hope that it will provide succour to others dealing with similar struggles,


The result is powerful, thought-provoking and moving conversation. Just an advance warning - in this conversation myself and Sue converse pretty frankly about mental health, depression and suicide, so please be mindful before you get stuck into the episode. My thanks to Sue for her openness and honesty.


Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I first asked Ben Powell to be a guest on the show back in 2017. In the end, it has taken almost five years of chipping away to get him to agree, and this week’s sprawling conversation is the result.

Why was I so bloody-minded about getting Ben on the show? Because I challenge you to find anybody who has made a bigger impact on skate culture in this country over the last 30 years.

Sure, Ben will cringe to his very fingertips at this highfalutin description. But it’s true. As part of the team behind Sidewalk, the much-loved successor to Read and Destroy magazine, Ben has spent literally decades championing every aspect of UK skateboarding with wit, integrity, irreverence and, when required, the utmost seriousness. If it happened, he definitely wrote about it - and probably filmed it, too.

So yep, I’m happy I broke down his resistance. And in the end, this lengthy, digressive chat was also partially about that. Like all British northern men of a certain vintage, Ben is immune to bullshit and almost pathologically modest about his contribution, so my job in this case was to try to dismantle these self-deprecatory defences to find out just what motivated this legend to devote his life to the stories and culture of skateboarding.

As you’ll gather, Ben is opinionated, erudite, passionate, a total skate geek and properly funny. Yep, I enjoyed this one. Hope you do too.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

On this week’s episode I welcomed the great Lesley McKenna back to the show for her second visit, a mere four years after her first appearance in June 2017. If you don’t know Lesley, she’s a snowboarder and Olympian who is, to my mind, one of the most original and quietly influential thinkers in action sports.

Lesley was actually my first ever female guest, and in the intervening years a lot has changed - and not just for the my humble little podcast. There’s the fact that her efforts with GB Park & Pipe (which formed a large part of that original discussion), helped yield a further British bronze medal for Billy Morgan at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, as well as the wider changes we can expect following skating and surfing’s own Olympic bow at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

It’s the type of new territory that is, to my mind, crying out for the type of sophisticated insight that Lesley specialises in.Whenever I need to sense check my understanding of any new developments in our world, Lesley is my first port of call. Which is why I decided to get her back on the show for an agenda-free catch up about all things sideways as our culture steps into a brave new post-Tokyo world.

I’ve been lucky enough to count Lesley as a close friend for over 25 years now, and I always relish our time together. I know the conversation will leap off in spontaneous directions, and that it’ll be thought-provoking and intellectually nourishing. I purposefully didn’t prepare for this conversation so I could enjoy that spontaneity in real time, and that’s exactly how it panned out.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

These days, the notion of water therapy is fairly well mainstream. Think ‘blue mind’ theory, and the sheer number of Instagram account and Guardian articles extolling the virtues of cold showers and cold water swimming.

But back in 2011, when this week’s guest Joe Taylor set up The Wave Project, it was rather less well known. As you might imagine, the story of Joe’s quixotic quest to establish the Wave Project is a fascinating one, and the subject of this week’s conversation.

First, some background: the Wave Project is a surf therapy charity which ‘uses surfing to help young people improve their emotional and physical wellbeing’. Today, they run programs in 32 locations across the UK and have used the power of surfing to transform hundreds of young lives.

It is inspirational stuff and, as I discovered during our conversation, Joe’s own tale is equally fascinating. As ever, I wanted to dig a little deeper and find out how how own relationship with the sea informed the Wave Project’s genesis and subsequent development, as well as understand exactly how harnessing the power of water in the way the Wave Project does has the power to change lives.

My thanks to my friends at Watergate Bay for hosting me for this one, and to Joe and Rachel at the Wave Project for all their help.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

My guest for this episode of Type 2 is Rob Hopkins, a ridiculously prolific UK-based activist, author, podcaster, lecturer and environmentalist who describes himself as a ‘champion of the collective imagination’.

There are many lessons and insights in this chat, but two themes predominate - the power of local movements to lead to wider, societal change; and the importance of imagination and creativity in this wider process.

For Rob, the act of imagining different outcomes and realities is integral if we are to get through the perilous climate situation we find ourselves in. If you think about it, this is a profound insight. After all, one thing that keeps the status quo in place is a kind of imaginative helplessness, this idea that our own actions are destined not to have any impact, so there’s no point in bothering.

Rob sees this condition of inertia and confusion as ‘a state of promise,’ and his work is primarily concerned with arming people with the tools to break out of this imaginative malaise, and to reimagine our individual and collective realities so we can create a better future. That’s the basis of Rob’s pioneering work with the Transition Movement, for example, and the work he’s currently leading in his home town of Totnes in the UK.

Rob is a truly original thinker with an ethos that is a beguiling blend of pragmatism and untrammelled creativity. I found this to be a hugely inspiring, thought-provoking and insightful conversation. I hope you do too.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Street skating legend Cairo Foster is well over two decades into a singular and iconic career. Think ‘two episodes of The Nine Club’ iconic. So when he got in touch to see if I’d be up for having a chat to commemorate the release of his new Actions REALized board, a collaboration between Real Skateboards in memory of Ben Raemers, with all proceeds going to The Ben Raemers Foundation, I was of course up for it.

Especially because this episode has been a long time coming. Myself and Cairo have mutual friends in common, and have been loosely trying to get this off the ground for a couple of years now. I had a feeling we’d be able to have a good conversation, and am happy to be proven correct in this hunch.

This one covers the biggest themes of all. Like how travel truly does broaden the mind and provides the key to an inquisitive and empathetic life. How certain unique individuals can have an immeasurable impact on you. And how loss, always the most sensitive of topics, has the power to take us unawares, and continually remind us of what is truly important.

As a heads-up, we do discuss issues of mental health and suicide in this episode, and I’ve listed a couple of resources at the end of the episode.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Get ready for a trip through snowboarding history with somebody who, over two decades, had a ringside seat as snowboarding evolved from the domain of backyard tinkerers into the global super-sport it is today: legendary US snowboard photography legend Trevor Graves.

Trevor is one of those first generation riders whose career perfectly mirrors the key developments of snowboarding history. Even more importantly, he documented it all, camera in hand.

The result is a Zelig-like career during which Trevor captured the highlights of snowboarding’s most notorious and romantic period. The nascent, pre-metal edge east coast freestyle scene? Check. The rise of Brushie? Tick. Craig’s domination? Check. Burton’s early 90s purple patch? The genesis of Robot Food? Oh yes.

As you might imagine, this CV has given Trevor a bagful of stories without parallel in snowboarding and I’m not ashamed to say I made him dig deep into this over the course of our conversation.

Not that this is the entire story. Because Trevor has the distinction of succeeding at two careers once he decided to put down the camera, founding renowned Portland agency Nemo Design with a couple of friends and changing the game in that arena too.

This a lovely, weighty episode with one of snowboarding’s great unsung heroes. It unfolds in its own sweet time, so grab a brew and listen as Trevor connects the dots and shares his insights into our shared history and culture.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Earlier this year, Australian surfer Lucy Small found herself at the centre of a genuine viral moment. If you follow surf media, you probably saw it. It happened when, after winning a surf contest in Sydney, she noticed her winnings were less than half of that of her male counterpart.

Now in these situations, obviously, it’s easier to keep quiet. But on this occasion, Lucy decided to speak out and draw attention to this latest example of the gender pay gap in action - and a viral moment was born.

Since then, Lucy has found herself at the centre of the latest run through of an age-old debate about gender equity, and the value we place on the contribution of men and women in surfing, and indeed, society in general. If you’ve listened to this podcast at all closely over the years, it’ll be no surprise to hear that I’ve been following this one closely, and once the dust had settled I contacted Lucy to see if she’d be up for coming on the show to talk about her experience and explore the issues thrown up by this entire incident.

Which she did and I’m happy to see the result is a lengthy, nourishing conversation about the entire thorny issue. Here’s the thing with the status quo: we get so used to it that change can seem impossible. And the bigger the issue, the more entrenched that invisible consensus can seem.

Often, it takes a simple act of bravery to get the ball rolling; an individual or group raising their hand and asking a simple question: ‘Isn’t there a better way of doing this?’

Sticking your head above the parapet in this way takes courage, particularly when you’re dealing with a hyper-masculine culture like surfing. The fact that Lucy’s perfectly reasonable position has ended up becoming such a talking point show’s how far we have to go, and is why I was so interested in chatting to her. Great episode, this. Hope you enjoy it.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I’ve covered plenty of people with unusual jobs on this podcast. Hell, my gig is pretty bloody weird. But this week’s guest Henry Jackson’s job is so unusual that it’s become the basis of a catchphrase - ‘My job is weirder than yours.’⁣
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So what does Henry do? He’s an MC, a commentator, a broadcaster - a ‘professional shit talker’ as he puts it. ⁣
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But the truth is that Henry is one of the most interesting, unique and compelling communicators in snowboarding today. Somebody with his blend of charisma and sideways chops was always going to be noticed, and today he’s parlayed this blend into a totally unique industry role for himself in - yes - the finest lifer tradition. ⁣
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It also means that this episode was a total joy to record. Of course it helped that Henry is an old friend of mine. It also helped that we both came up through the snowboarding industry, meaning I was very much on home turf for most of this chat. ⁣
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But really, the credit must go to Henry. Every now and again though, I record an episode where within five minutes I know I’m in the hands of an absolute master communicator and storyteller, meaning I can just relax and enjoy the conversation for its own sake. And this episode with Henry Jackson is, I’m happy to say, one of these occasions.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is Sean Doherty - a journalist, writer, editor and activist who has been one of the key voices in the Australian surf industry for the last twenty years.


In a way the path of Sean’s own career reflects the shift that has occurred in the industry in the period since since the early 2000s glory years, when he came to prominence as editor of venerable Aussie surf mag Tracks.

Sean was at the helm of Tracks for the best part of a decade, during which he helped to transform the much loved titled both commercially and reputationally, before leaving to forge the career he has today, and which sees him deftly balance editorial and brand work.

Today (as you must if you hope to have any type of career in the industry), he wears many hats. He works for Patagonia Australia, is publisher and editor of venerable Aussie surf magazine Surfing World, and is still one of the most respected and sought-after writers in the game.

He has also, almost to his own surprise, embraced his own particular form of highly influential and effective activism. As he explains during our chat, this evolution has been a gradual one. Today he finds himself at the forefront of the activism conversation in the Australian surf industry, thanks to his involvement with causes such as Fight For the Bight, and the impassioned, hilarious way he raises awareness about specific issues on his very singular Instagram feed.

Sean justly has a reputation as one of the savviest, funniest and generally most essential voices in the game, something this honest, open and frequently hilarious conversation amply demonstrates. Hope you enjoy our conversation.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

After an unscheduled and very welcome month off, I’m back. This chat with Sally McGee from Yonder has been a long time coming, and is very much by public demand.

As my followers on Instagram will know, I frequently run polls to ask listeners who I should speak to for future episodes. And after a while I noticed something: among the usual suspects like Hawk and Slater, one name kept popping up over and over again - Sally from Yonder.

I did some digging and quickly came to understand why. Yonder, which Sally runs with her husband Tom, is a surf school, a coaching company and a brand. But more than that, it symbolises an inclusive approach to surfing that has come along at the exactly the right time to meet the moment UK surfing finds itself in right now.

So when I realised Sal would be in Devon at the same time I would be in May 2021, we arranged to catch up for what was only my third in-person interview since Covid came along. I’d almost forgotten how much more fun and enjoyable it is to do this in person, and what followed was a really lovely chat about about all things Yonder and Sal’s life in surfing.

I think Sal’s approach to surfing will really resonate with a lot of people, especially the way her and Tom have worked hard to build Yonder based upon their values, and a legitimate desire to create a genuinely inclusive community.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Anybody deciding to start a print magazine in the current climate has to be applauded and supported for their sheer creative bloody-mindedness. ⁣
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That’s why the launch of The Skateboarder’s Companion, the new UK skate magazine set up by this week’s guest Leo Sharp and his fellow UK skate lifers Ryan Gray and Matt Law, is such an important moment. It might not sound like much, but the simple act of walking into a newsagent or skate shop and buying a new UK skate mag is a quintessential part of being a British skateboarder. With The Skateboarder’s Companion this trio have brought that simple ritual back to these shores. For that alone, they should be applauded. ⁣
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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’. ⁣
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Look back at Leo’s body of work, which is 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. ⁣
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Plenty for me and Leo to get stuck into then, in a lovely, ruminative conversation which saw us cover many of the themes Wig raised and a load more for good measure. I very much enjoyed this conversation with a truly selfless documenter of UK skate culture. Hope you do too. Out now. ⁣
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Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Lauren McCallum Bonus Episode!

If I have one major regret in the four years I’ve been doing the podcast, it’s around the way I handled the topic of Terje Haakonsen’s history of homophobia in my conversation with him for episode 121. The feedback I received from some listeners, who felt like my deliberate editorial approach was alienating, made it clear to me that I still have much work to do when it comes to shepherding these conversations in the right way. 

This is also why I found the debate around Terje’s recent public apology for these remarks so interesting. My initial reaction, if I’m being honest, was that his apology was fine and to be applauded. But it soon became clear that many members of the LBGT+ community completely disagreed with this perspective, finding the apology to be ill-thought out at best and disingenuous at worst. These contrasting reactions told me that here, yet again, was an opportunity to try and understand that difference in perspective I’d unwittingly perpetuated in episode 122. 

These gaps of understanding are really the territory that interests me. If you’re open to it, they provide us with an opportunity to learn and examine our own often buried prejudices - which is really what the entire podcast is ‘about’. After all, action sports is as handy lens as any through which to examine these issues. So I asked my old friend and erstwhile podcast guest Lauren MacCallum to come back on the show to discuss the entire brouhaha for a bonus episode of the show. 

As is always the case when I talk to Lauren, this was a hugely enjoyable and at times challenging conversation. I learned a lot from it. Perhaps you will too.

There are no Show Notes for this bonus episode, so if you want to find out more about any of the things we discuss or join in the debate, check out my Instagram (@WeLookSideways), Twitter (@WeLookSideways) and Facebook (@wearelookingsideways). Nice one.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

I’m a big believer in the right idea at the right time. And Dawn Days, the early morning ritual started by friends Mike Guest and Nick Pumphrey at the beginning of the pandemic in spring 2020, is a great example of this principle in action.

Like all good ideas, this simple concept soon took off; in this case becoming an online movement as more and more people from around the world began to document their own early morning experiences.

Soon - perhaps because of the timing of the whole thing - Dawn Days transcended these humble origins and became a means through which to explore a range of other issues, including mental health, our connection to nature, and even the nature of community during the Covid and post-Covid era.

It’s been great watching this idea unfold and see how Mike and Nick have nurtured it, so I decided to ask Mike, who I know through the village-like UK action sports community, to come on the show to discuss the whole thing.

I loved this conversation. Mike is a warm, generous and insightful conversationalist and, like Dawn Days itself, our conversation evolved in some unexpected directions, particularly as we examined Mike’s relationship to his dyslexia, and the way this diagnosis has shaped his life. Hope you take as much from it as Mike and I did.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

My ‘lifer’ episodes are always loved by listeners. And with this week’s guest Liam Griffin, we are in proper vintage territory. For me, Liam is THE classic example of somebody who has carved out a unique career for themselves, inspired by their love of shredding, and a desire to take risks and follow their own path.

First, some background: LG is a proper stalwart of the US snowboarding industry who I first met back in the early 2000s, when he was overseeing all of Burton’s various events (including the Open series). Two things immediately struck me: his professionalism, and his geek-level love of all things snowboarding.

We became friends and stayed in touch, and in the intervening years I’ve watched on as his career has gone from strength to strength, particularly after he left Burton to set up his own event agency SuperGoodThingMaker, and began working closely with Travis Rice on his various event concepts.

If that isn’t the quintessential lifer resume then I don’t know what is. And behind the scenes Liam has quietly had a supremely important role in steering snowboarding’s development over the past two decades; efforts which have just come to fruition with Natural Selection, the event series he has put together with Travis.

Think of this one as a complement to the Travis episode, and a look at the other side of the story. How do you put something like NS together? What challenges did they face? And just how did Liam get to the point where he could help T-Rice put together the most influential event series in snowboarding?

The perfect territory, then, for a roving chinwag in the finest Looking Sideways tradition.

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Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I’m used to chatting guests with massive goals or awe-inspiring achievements under their belts. Think of Ross Edgeley’s Great British Swim, or Christina Koch’s record-breaking spaceflight.

And this week’s guest Andrew Alexander King is right up there. Andrew is a surfer, climber and mountaineer who is at the beginning of an audacious attempt to become the first African-American to climb the seven highest mountains and volcanoes on each continent. 14 peaks in all, each with their own dangers and unique challenges.

As a life goal, it is frighteningly ambitious. And that’s before you factor in his Between Worlds Project, through which he hopes to subvert the “lottery ticket of birth” that currently sets your cultural path, and dictates who gets to see these environments as viable playgrounds; a subject that is currently the subject of much transatlantic discussion and controversy.

Like I said, it is ambitious stuff, and about as far-removed from the “because it’s there’ orthodoxy that has shaped the narrative of exploration for the past two hundred years as it is possible to get. Andrew’s infectious personality and compelling backstory only add to the intrigue.

Naturally, I was keen to speak to him for the show, and find out more about his quixotic quest, so in March 2021 we caught up over Zoom to discuss the whole thing. It’s a good one this. Enjoy.


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Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is Ryan Gellert who last year replaced Rose Marcario as Patagonia’s CEO, taking charge at a critical point in the company’s history. Ryan took the role following his successful six-year stint overseeing Patagonia in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, during which he helped the brand attain its leadership position in the European outdoor and environmental communities, and oversaw projects such as Save The Blue Heart of Europe and Patagonia Action Works.

Of course, as in all episodes of Type 2, we delved into Ryan’s back story and explored his own personal history of activism. But I was particularly interested in finding out more about his new position, and what he hopes to achieve during his time in the role, as we all reflect upon 12 months that have changed the world.

After all, the position of Patagonia CEO fulfils a certain totemic role in the outdoor and environment worlds, and how Ryan approaches his tenure will obviously say a lot about Patagonia the company.

How is he going to use this position and power? What does he stand for? And, by extension, what does Patagonia in 2021 stand for? These are the topics I was interested in discussing and which, I’m happy to say, Ryan was equally happy to explore.

The result is a completely fascinating and wide-ranging conversation with someone in one of the most influential roles in our industry. I’m also extremely grateful to Ryan for sharing his own at times very personal story. My thanks to Ryan and his team for their help in setting this episode up. Hope you enjoy it.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Bone fide legend alert!

Yep, my guest this week is a proper icon, somebody who has achieved so much in their own discipline that they’ve crossed over into the mainstream realm as the personification of their chosen sport.

Take a look at Rachel Atherton’s record and you’ll see why. Five world champion titles. 6 UCI World Cup titles. 39 World Cup events. The ‘double double’ in 2015 and 2016 - which was, also, the only perfect season ever.

It is an absolutely extraordinary record of achievement by an athlete who has achieved genuine greatness. And yet, as I discovered during our conversation, it has also come at quite a physical and mental cost, as the lengthy list of injuries and setbacks that have complemented her victories attest.

Now, as Rachel prepares to become a mum, we sat down to discuss her career so far and her plans for the future. I’ve met and chatted to Rachel a few times over the years and I’m always so impressed by her complete emotional honesty and levels of self-awareness. This is just a brilliantly revealing conversation with somebody at the absolute top of their field, full of peerless insights into the nature of success, competitiveness, and how to cope with failure.

I really enjoyed this one, and I have to thank Rachel for opening up fully and bringing the full range of her experience, insights and extremely impressive levels of self awareness to the conversation. Hope you enjoy it.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Welcome to the second of two episode 150 instalments. To mark this milestone, I decided to stay true to the ethos of the Looking Sideways podcast and speak to two of my oldest and closest friends; two people who’ve been integral to the Looking Sideways universe since it launched - Ed Leigh and Owen Tozer. This, episode 150b, is the second instalment with Owen Tozer.

Long term listeners will know Owen - he’s one of my oldest and closest friends who has been a key part of the Looking Sideways story since its inception a decade ago. He’s also my co-author on Looking Sideways Vol.1, the first Looking Sideways book we recently finished and which will be available soon.

Not that this comes close to covering the full extent of Owen’s omnivorous creative talent and range. As I’ve said many, many times before, Owen is the real deal - a supremely talented photographer, art director, designer, film-maker, artist and musician. Sure, like any creative he sometimes doesn’t know when to stop arguing with the producer but that’s alright. His standards are higher than everybody else’s.

I’m extremely fortunate he continues to lend his considerable talents to Looking Sideways, and the completion of our book and episode 150 seemed a fitting occasion to finally get him on the show.

Join us, as we cover Owen’s life and career, his work on new project Goodrays, Looking Sideways Volume 1, the creativity v. commerce conundrum, and loads more classic LS topics.

I’m so grateful for my friendship and creative partnership with Owen, and this was a hugely enjoyable catch up with one of my favourite people - hope you enjoy it! Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

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Welcome to the first of two episode 150 instalments. To mark this milestone, I decided to stay true to the ethos of the Looking Sideways podcast and speak to two of my oldest and closest friends; two people who’ve been integral to the Looking Sideways universe since it launched - Ed Leigh and Owen Tozer.

This, episode 150a, is the first instalment with Ed Leigh. Ed, as you may know, is a broadcaster, journalist and presenter best known for helming legendary BBC show Ski Sunday, and for being the voice of the BBC's snowboarding coverage at the Olympics. He’s also been a stalwart of the European industry for over twenty years now.

Ed is also one of my oldest and closest friends, as well as somebody I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the years. He was my guest for the very first episode of the podcast back in January 2017. I also brought him back for episode 50 a few years ago, and he’s generally been a huge supporter of and advocate for the show since day one. So it seemed fitting to bring him back for a third appearance, which we recorded at the end of February 2021.

On this occasion we had a lot to chat about - the serious knee injury he suffered in January that looks set to keep him out for action for the rest of the year, his experiences presenting the latest series of Ski Sunday during a pandemic, the vociferous online reaction to a recent Ski Sunday piece on diversity presented by our mutual pal Phil Young, his time in NZ quarantine which is where he was when we chatted, his thoughts on Natural Selection and much, much more.

As ever with Ed, this was a supremely relaxed, lengthy chat, full of digressions and tall tales from one of the European’s industry’s most beloved communicators. I really cherish my friendship with Ed, and I’m so proud of what he’s achieved over the years. This was, as ever, an absolute blast. Enjoy!

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com
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My ‘lifer’ episodes are always among the most popular instalments, and this conversation with podcaster and journalist Shelby Stanger is a classic of the genre. It’s also particularly fascinating for me because, as I realised during our conversation, our careers are actually really, really similar - from the circumstances that got us into the industry, to our progress through it, and to the way we ended up laughing our own podcasts at around the same time. Given how niche our careers are, I found it to be an intriguing coincidence.

As fellow members of the unofficial action sports podcaster union, Shelby and I have been internet pals for a couple of years now. It’s a small world this industry, so you tend to end up knowing each other. And from the beginning, when she went out of her way to give me some extremely useful and savvy advice, I could tell she was a total legend.

So in February 2021, we sat down to unravel the story of Shelby’s life and career. And what a tale it is. As you’ll expect if you’ve listened to Shelby’s show’s Wild Ideas Worth Living and Vitamin Joy, this is a top yarn from an expert, empathetic storyteller. These are my favourite episodes of the show, where I can tell we’re on safe hands, and the overall vibe is relaxed and expansive. My thanks to Shelby to coming on the show, and for such a warm, insightful conversation. Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com
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Like all good ideas, the Natural Selection Tour seems obvious in hindsight. The world’s best riders on a specially built course designed to showcase snowboarding at its most progressive and stylish? Conveyed using next-level production and designed to nudge snowboarding away from the evolutionary cup de sac we’ve been heading down for years? Why on earth has nobody thought of this before?

The answer is that similar ideas have been mooted in the past. But it took somebody with the clout, vision and sheer dogged energy of Travis Rice to make it a reality. It’s been an endeavour, as Travis explains during our conversation, “50 years in the making”, and with the dust settling we sat down for a catch up about a truly historical moment for competitive snowboarding.

As regular listeners will know, I’ve also had a tiny involvement in Natural Selection as a member of the five person Selection Committee alongside Travis, event COO Liam Griffin and industry legends Barrett Christy and Pat Bridges. As part of that arrangement, Travis agreed to come on the show to discuss the entire show once Jackson was in the bag. The result is an expansive, illuminating chat that takes in the entire lengthy backstory to Natural Selection, what it means for snowboarding, and how Travis felt about losing to eventual winner Mark McMorris in THAT quarter final match up. This is a peerless insight into the entire NS story from the man who made it happen. Don’t miss it.

Big thanks to Travis for this one, as well as my friends Liam, Lora and Brantley for their help in making this happen.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com
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Special meta Curator/Circe Wallace special!

I’ve spent a good chunk of the last couple of months donning the journalist hat and occupying the editor's chair for the latest volume of Curator, the independent print snowboarding publication I’ve been privileged to work on for the last couple of years.

As well as editing the whole thing, I also wrote a couple of stories for this volume, including an interview with my old friend Circe Wallace, who regular listeners will remember I had on the show a couple of years ago as part of the California mission. Myself and Circe got on real well during that first LS conversation; so much so that we ended up staying in touch and becoming pals.

So when it came to chatting to Circe for the aforementioned Curator piece, I thought I might as well record the whole thing as an episode of the podcast, as well as use it as material for the story I ended up writing. This episode you're about to listen to is the result.

We recorded this one a few days before Christmas 2020, and as a result myself and Circe were in a particularly reflective mood, as you’ll hear. The result is this really warm, insightful and enjoyable conversations with one of our world’s most interesting and successful personalities. There’s plenty of 90s snowboard nostalgia for the geeks (hey, I include myself in that), as well as plenty of insight into the drive and vision that have made Circe one of the great motors of progress in action sports over the last twenty years.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

My guest this week is big wave surfer Andrea Moller. To give you an idea of what a legend Andrea is, let me run you through the week she had before we spoke for this episode of the podcast. As you may know, January 2021 saw Hawaii hit by a huge swell event that saw every spot swell and truly light up. As a Maui local and one of the world’s preeminent big wave surfers, Andrea was in the thick of it.

Friday saw her chaperone 13 year-old ripper Sissie Simpson Kane as she tackled huge Jaws. Saturday she was part of the team overseeing water safety. Sunday she was out scoring some bombs herself. The rest of the week? Back at her day job as a paramedic on Maui.

Like I say, she’s a total legend, and in this conversation I found it really fascinating hearing how the local community prepares for a situation like this. Water safety, as Andrea explained, is at the heart of it. As part of the Big Wave Risk Assessment Group, Andrea is an integral part of an organisation that is trying to organise and redefine the concept of water safety - and not just for big wave surfers.

As we’ve been learning during each episode of Type 2, activism takes many forms. It can be panoramic in scope, or it can be about focussing on certain issues and affecting change for the greater good. In this way, as Andrea explains, the Big Wave Risk Assessment group is leading the way among the surf community - a passionate, engaged and experienced community sharing their knowledge and experience to tackle an increasingly pressing issue head on, and benefiting the wider community while they’re at it.

And, of course, we also delved into Andrea’s own incredible career as a pioneer of big wave surfing. It’s a great episode this one - hope you enjoy it.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com
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This week’s episode is a long overdue conversation with the great Selema. I’ve been trying to get Selema on the show for a couple of years now, and we finally made it happen at the beginning of January 2021.

If you don’t know Selema, he’s one of the most switched-on and inspirational people in action sports. He’s a presenter, broadcaster, announcers, podcaster, musician, surfer, snowboarder - the list goes on.

He’s also just a brilliant mind, which is on full display in the free-flowing and hugely enjoyable conversation. As you might expect, given Selema’s range of interests, we covered a lot of ground in this episode, including his own background, the current state of politics in the States and what it says about action sports culture, and how he felt when he was suddenly thrust into the limelight as a spokesperson on issues of race and diversity last summer.

Articulate, insightful, generous, humane, energised, empowered - this is just a brilliant conversation with one of our culture’s essential voices. Don’t miss it.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com
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Mikey February is one of those rare individuals for whom the facts, as interesting as they are, only tell part of the story. Take the early part of his surfing career, which saw him follow that classic competitive QS-to-WSL path. Except that Mikey was, of course, the first none-white African to make the tour, a milestone that carried a lot of symbolism and significance.

He did a year on the tour before bowing out to pursue a freesurf career - another established surf career-arc move, but one which Mikey accomplished much more quickly than many of his peers and forebears. Taken alone, this rapid career progression would have been enough to make Mikey a figure of note. Throw in his inimitable style, and the way he is using his platform to explore some interesting geographical and cultural territory, and you have one of the most intriguing and occasionally polarising figures in the surfing world.

Observe this surf, skate and snow game for long enough and you’ll realise that certain individuals transcend their surroundings to become standalone icons in their own right. Symbols, if you like, upon which a lot of different issues can be projected and discussed.

That’s certainly the case with Mikey and, in researching this conversation, I’ve often wondered how he feels about that. We caught up over Zoom in early December 2020 to discuss all the above and much more.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

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Lifer episode alert! Yes, it’s another one of those perennially popular episodes of the show where I chat to somebody who has managed to find a way to turn their passion for riding into a viable career. In this case, it’s the great John Bassett, also universally known as John Dragon, one of my closest and oldest friends from my years snowboarding and - yes - a lifer par excellence.

In John’s case, this has revolved around the Dragon Lodge, the legendary chalet in Tignes that has been one of the cultural epicentres of European snowboarding for a couple of decades now. This is thanks entirely to the inclusive, infectious environment that John and partner Will Hughes have created and through which they share their own passion for snowboarding as widely and inclusively as possible.

As I discovered, this has been entirely intentional on John’s part, and has been about creating an environment in which the type of culture that has influenced him could flourish in turn. The result is that the Lodge has been at the heart of any number of hugely influential European snowboarding mini-scenes, including the launch of Looking Sideways itself, as we discussed during the show.

And now the future of the Lodge is in doubt thanks to the pitiless combination of Brexit and Covid. The fate of a place like the Lodge is emblematic of the challenges faced by the wider winter sports industry, and throws up interesting questions about the type of scene we’ll have once the dust settles, and the type of opportunities we want to encourage as a society.

Could somebody from John’s background open a place like the Lodge today? The answer to that is probably no which is, to put it mildly, a crying shame given what places like this contribute to the fabric and culture of our little world.

So it was that in early December 2020 I grabbed a few cans of Guinness and headed up to John’s to sit around the firepit and discuss these questions and plenty more. I hope you take as much from this episode as I’ve taken from my friendship with John over the years.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

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Festive Zoom Special! Yep, for the third year I was joined by my old friends Tim and Gendle for a frivolous mince pie, booze and quiz-filled special.

If you’re new to the show or unfamiliar with the boys and their work, allow me to introduce them: two of the biggest influences and most-loved presences in European snowboarding, whether as film-makers, presenters or snowboarders.

If you’ve listened to my previous two festive specials, you’ll know the format is even more ramshackle and homespun than usual. So it was that on a frosty December evening I headed to the shed with a load of beers and some questions for our 2020 quiz, and got slowly festively drunk while chatting to two of my oldest and closest friends over a video link at the end of the weirdest year ever. Phew.

Enjoy the episode - and have a great Christmas! Thanks to everybody who has listened to an episode for the support.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

My guest this week is the great Len Necefer. Well, Dr Len Necefer to be precise. Len is a professor at the University in Arizona, CEO of Native Outdoors, a board member at the Honnold Foundation and American Alpine club .

It’s a breadth of experience that has given him a very intriguing and insightful approach to activism - and an intersectional take on the issues we currently face. Len is of mixed Navajo and European heritage and his work is primarily focussed, as the bio for Native Outdoors puts it, on empowering native and indigenous communities for a sustainable world.

Thought his work and various outlets, Len is helping both communities bridge the differences that exist between the indigenous take on the outdoors, and the classic white western approach. Which, after all, can come with attendant colonial connotations.

From speaking to Len I think that word bridge is important; he’s a consensus builder, somebody who is concerned with inclusivity and opening doors, rather than enforcing entrenched positions.

For Len, humour is a tool and dogmatism, whatever your political leaning, is to be avoided. I mean just look at his singular Instagram account, through which he uses some frankly exemplary meme skills to explore issues around climate, identity and diversity in today’s outdoor world.

The result is an illuminating, wide-ranging chat - enjoy.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com
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I’ve been trying to arrange a chat with Pattie Gonia, aka Wyn Wiley, for a while now and we finally made it happen. As their Instagram bio puts it, Pattie is a ‘queer environmentalist bringing drag outdoors’ and is yer genuine Instagram phenomenon, going from 0 to 300k followers very rapidly indeed and snagging coverage from everyone from Outside to The Guardian along the way.

It isn’t difficult to understand why. The outdoor and action sports industry can be an extremely conventional and heteronormative environment and a talented communicator like Pattie was always going to stand out, especially given how effortlessly she enables discussion on what can be challenging and complex topics. This conversation, in which we discussed everything from the history of drag to the divide between our public and hidden selves, is a brilliant example of that.

I personally enjoyed this conversation, which unfolded and leapt off into unexpected directions, enormously. I’m hugely grateful to Wyn Pattie for the generosity, thoughtfulness and kindness with which they approached this episode. Hope you enjoy it too.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com
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This week’s guest Mark Munson is one of UK skateboarding’s true greats. It’s that simple. In his 30-odd years of board riding, he’s been there, seen it, done it and helped set standards that define the scene to this day thanks to an uncompromising dedication to skateboarding and a personality that defines the phrase ‘force of nature’. ⁣

As I discovered during our chat, he’s also taken the lessons learned from a life of skating and translated them into a career of brilliant creativity, influence and diversity. He was also, of course, a key mentor to the much-loved and missed Ben Raemers, one of the greatest Brit skaters to ever do it.

I’ve been looking forward to having Mark on the show for a while now. He’s smart, funny and could talk the hind legs off a donkey. He’s also got a hard-earned perspective on everything beautiful and occasionally tragic about our little corner of the world. Which pretty much makes him the dream guest in my book. There is so much good stuff to take on board in this one, and some brilliant insights from a man who attacks life in the best way possible.⁣ Don’t miss this one.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

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Think ‘viral video’ and a couple of examples from the last decade stand out. Danny Macaskill’s ‘Inspired Bicycles’, certainly.

Ben Moon’s ‘Denali’, too. Like a lot of people - over 20 million at the last count - this beautiful, moving tribute to his dog was the first time I became aware of Ben and his work as a photographer, filmer and writer. As is the case with any creative work that achieves huge success, the film hit hard on a deeply emotional level; successfully conveying the uniqueness of our bond with dogs, as well as the purity of Ben’s relationship with Denali himself.

The success of ‘Denali’ made it inevitable that the story would evolve into unexpected directions, and Ben soon followed the initial short film with an extremely honest and emotionally affecting book about his life and relationship with Denali.

I really like the Denali story, and I especially enjoyed our conversation, because it is a great reminder to regard the act of creativity as a series of concentric circles, within which new meanings can accrue and accumulate from one single starting point.

Now, with the news that a film adaption of the story is on the way, I sat down with Ben to discuss the whole story.

Like a lot of my favourite Looking Sideways conversations, this was a lovely chat that took its own sweet time and went off in some lovely tangential directions. Of course we talked about Denali - the dog and the short film - but we also chatted about Ben’s career as a creative in the adventure world, the nature of style, the emotional challenge of creating honestly, and other favourite Looking Sideways themes.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is Lucy Siegle, a writer, journalist, broadcaster and film-maker who has been one of the UK’s foremost voices on issues of nature and climate for almost two decades now. Today, she co-hosts the So Hot Right Now podcast, is a trustee for Surfers Against Sewage, Chair of the Real Circularity Coalition and is still a hugely prolific journalist and broadcaster on the subject.

As you might imagine from that resume, this breadth of experience has given Lucy a unique perspective on some favourite Type 2 themes.

We caught up in early November 2020 and had a really fascinating conversation that took in the psychology of change when it comes to climate action, the best way of communicating your values in an increasingly polarised world, why the 2020 US Presidential election is the century’s pivotal climate-related event, and why the fast fashion industry is emblematic of the wider challenges we face.

And, of course, we discussed Lucy’s own inspiring path, which in many ways mirrors the paradigm of the wider climate conversation.

There’s a lot to take in here, in a wide-ranging chat that sees Lucy laser in on detail and zoom out to provide priceless, panoramic context on the current state of play. There Is also some timeless advice on personal activism from one of the wisest heads in the game.

Big thanks to Lucy for coming on the show - hope you enjoy the episode.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com
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Since I started the podcast back in February 2017, a few classic themes have become familiar to listeners. Creativity. Independence. Perseverance. Individuality.

Community, too - although not always in a wholly positive way. After all, community was always supposed to be at the heart of this thing. And yet, for every positive story about action sports as community - usually relayed by white, male guests - there’s been an equal number of tales of rejection, hardship or outright hostility from that same supposedly progressive and open-minded community.

This context is what makes the work of Valeria Kechichian so important and impressive. For the past decade, Valeria has been one of the driving forces behind the Longboard Girls’ Crew, which has quietly become one of the biggest communities in action sports. Now she’s taken that experience into her latest role running new non-profit Longboard Women, which will use longboarding, arts and educational programs to create change in disadvantaged communities around the world.

As you might imagine from that brief description, Valeria is a hugely inspiring force of nature, and her own tale is a fascinating combination of personal and universal themes, and a lesson on how your own transformative experiences can create change live and inspire others.

Above all, Valeria’s story, and the wider tale of the longboard community she has helped establish, is a welcome reminder that there is more than one way to experience the freedom, liberation and - yes - community that lies at the heart of our culture. And how, if you can’t find what you’re looking for in the existing community, you can create your own - on our own terms.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

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Sight loss is one of those primal fears we in common. It’s something everybody has pondered at some point, the type of ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ scenarios we tend to shy away from because we don’t really want to know what our potential reaction might reveal about our own character.

It’s why Dan Mancina’s story is so powerful and inspirational. Dan is a skateboarder who is, as he puts it, ‘blind and changing how people see’. He was born with a hereditary degenerative eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa which began to affect his vision in his early twenties, and eventually led to total sight loss.

Obviously, this was a huge physical and emotional blow to Dan. This story of what happened next, as Dan learned to overcome his blindness and reclaim his identity as a skateboarder, is rightly celebrated as one of the most joyous and humbling in skateboarding.

So one level, this is a story about how Dan overcame his physical condition, and learned to live with his sight loss. But it’s also a story of personal identity, and the strength it takes to not let yourself be defined by the physical changes that come from diagnosis of illness and disease.

In this way, it takes its place alongside my recent episode with Tim Baker, which covered similar ground with equally emotional honesty.

I’m really grateful to Dan for trusting me with this one, and for being so honest about how his life as a blind skater. Hope you find the episode as inspirational as I did.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

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What does ‘influence’ mean today? Somebody on Instagram with thousands of followers? A professional athlete using their platform to promote their own beliefs and interests, however erroneous? Or does it refer to somebody who, by their consistent actions, has quietly helped to create new opportunities for their community?

At the moment, the latter is probably the least fashionable. But for my money, it is the truest definition of all.

Take this week’s guest Hannah Bailey, who over the last decade has created a brilliant career for herself. Like many people in the industry, she has learned to wear many hats over the years; photographer, writer and communications specialist among them. But what really sets Hannah apart is the substance and creativity that are the hallmark of her work, and the purposeful way she has used her growing - yes - influence to create new spaces for her peers and contemporaries.

Hannah and I have been friends for years, and I’ve always been a huge admirer of the way her work has helped bring about a sea change in the way that women’s skateboarding and women in action sports generally are perceived. What I didn’t realise until this conversation was how intentional the whole thing has been, and the scope of her ambitions when it comes to representing the cultures she loves in the truest way possible.

And I think that’s the value of these ‘lifer’ episodes of the podcast, and of this conversation with Hannah in particular. Hannah’s story shows that by following your own vision of the inclusivity of action sports, you can eschew the usual career paths, make your own way, and help change the status quo while you’re at it.

The lesson?’ Influencer’ doesn’t have to be a dirty word. You just have to look beyond the surface, and find the people doing the work to make a better environment for everybody.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

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How does it feel to go into space? What does it make you feel about the future of our planet, and your own place in the universe? What are the moral implications of space travel? And just how do you take a picture of Pipeline from the International Space Station as it flies overhead at 17,000 mph?

All topics that I discussed with this week’s guest Christina Koch, a surfer and - yes - astronaut who just spent 328 days in space in the International Space Station, setting a new record for the longest spaceflight completed by a woman in the process. She also, as we discussed, spent her downtime photographing the planet’s best surf locations, posting them on her hugely popular Instagram feed and outing herself as a serial surf geek in the process.

Christina’s story is as inspirational and fascinating as any I’ve featured on the Looking Sideways podcast. It’s a lesson in focus and determination, and a tale of a life embellished with profound experiences that have seen her spend seasons at the South Pole and literally live among the stars.

This breadth of experience has also given Christina a unique perspective on the biggest philosophical questions of all, whether it’s our place in the universe, the huge challenges we face on earth right now or the best way of handling individual experiences of stress and adversity.

These are subjects which, as you’ll know if you’re a regular listener, are right up my boulevard. I’ve been trying to get Christina on the podcast for a few months now, and the resulting exchange is already one of my favourite ever Looking Sideways conversations. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is Mario Molina, and what a chat this one is. Mario is a climber, snowboarder, mountain biker and guide who grew up in the highlands of Guatemala and today lives in Colorado.

As I discovered, he is also somebody who has dedicated his life to the fight for climate action, firstly as deputy director at the Alliance for Climate Education, and then latterly as International Director at The Climate Reality Project, where he worked with Al Gore and helped oversee that organisation’s post-Paris Agreement strategy.

Today, he is executive director of Protect Our Winters, helping to drive POW and sister organisation the POW Action Fund’s strategy during the busiest and most critical period in the organisation’s history.

With the 2020 election looking, POW are using a highly targeted and calculated plan to try and mobilise a potential 50 million ‘outdoor state’ voters, and drive the narrative to depoliticise the climate conversation and move it away from a binary left/right argument.

These are massive ambitions that stem from POW’s ultimate aim, which is to achieve systemic change in transportation and energy at the highest possible level. And it meant myself and Mario had plenty to talk about as we caught up over Zoom in August 2020.

Naturally, I was also keen to tap into Mario’s depth of experience to see what we can learn from his own unique perspective on the challenges we face when it comes to climate action, particularly in the post-Covid world.

The result is a rich, fascinating and insightful conversation with somebody with a unique take on our current situation. I found Mario to be a really generous conversationalist, and greatly enjoyed our conversation. Hope you do too.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers.
Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Auspicious occasion alert! Yep, I conducted my first face-to-face interview since way back in March. Even more excitingly, it was a guest who also happens to be a really close friend of mine - the great Ben Mondy.

Mondy is a surf writer, journalist and lifer par excellence of the Australian surf industry genus. He was a staffer at Tracks for years, and over the course of his career has written about surfing for absolutely everybody with caustic wit, high intelligence and a keenly developed bullshit radar that makes him essential reading and has got him into plenty of trouble over the years.

Today, he works primarily with the WSL and Wavelength - and is still getting into trouble, as we discussed during our chat.

These days, Benno lives down the road from me in Tunbridge Wells, and is so surf starved that he’s even started turning up at the Hot Pipes for a sneaky session with me when the tides, sludge and wind aligns.

So it was one fateful August day that the forecast looked good, the sun came out and we found ourselves sitting in a car overlooking the Hot Pipes recording this episode. As you might expect given that a) it was the first in person one for months and b) it was with one of my oldest mates, spirits were high. Hope you enjoy the episode.

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Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Our attitude to mortality is one of the great paradoxes of modern life. It’s the thing we have in common and the thing we all ignore, putting off the inevitable reckoning until we’re usually forced to face it under the worst possible circumstances - grief, loss, sickness.

It’s a conundrum we will all grapple with at some point, and one that surfer, writer and journalist Tim Baker has spent the last five years becoming intimately familiar with following his 2015 stage 4 cancer diagnosis.

During that time, he has written movingly, insightfully and honestly about his experiences, and the approach that has enabled him to cope physically and mentally with the biggest, most fundamental challenge of his life.

In today’s show, we cover this territory and a whole lot more. We discuss the specifics of Tim’s approach to oncological care, a combination of traditional and alternative techniques he arrived at through much open-minded experimentation. We talk about the ethics of palliative and medical care, and our own shifting relationship to death and mortality. And we discuss Tim’s belief that by facing the great hidden experience of our lives, we can achieve an unexpected happiness and inner peace.

I’m so grateful to Tim for this conversation, which I personally found to be a profound and moving experience. I hope you can take something similar from it.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is Alex Yoder, a snowboarder who is known for one of the best turns in the business and the series of thoughtful films he’s made in recent years about snowboarding in Turkey and Scotland.

It was third time lucky for me and Alex - we had abortive attempts to record this episode in Portland and Niseko before finally jumping on Zoom to take care of it in time-honoured 2020 fashion. The timing was actually great, because Alex has just launched a new venture called Overview Coffee, an ethical take on coffee distribution.

Overview sources its coffee from farms that prioritise environmental stewardship and is founded upon the principles of regenerative organic agriculture. For it’s proponents, regenerative organic agriculture offers an ethical vision for agriculture based upon a long-term approach to soil health, and a commitment to community and environmental sustainability; all of which which will become increasingly crucial if we’re to solve the many environmental issues we’re currently facing.

That’s the thinking behind Overview, which for Alex is a kind of soft-power, pragmatic take on environmental activism - designed to educate people and encourage them to help create change with the consumer choices they make each week, which in the society we live in is still how most of actually get to exercise any influence or power.

As you’ll expect if you’re a regular listener to Type 2, we also discussed Alex’s own story, including his passion for telling stories that sit outside the usual snowboard mainstream. The result is a thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation that provides plenty of food for thought on different forms of activism, and how we have more opportunities to create change than we might think.

My thanks to Alex for a great chat - hope you enjoy this one.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

These days, using action sports as a tool for social mobility and mentorship is a fairly well known practise. In 2005, when this week’s guest Steve Larosiliere founded his organisation Stoked, it was new territory.

Stoked was founded as a result of Steve’s own experience of mentorship and his ambition ‘to use action sports to teach 21st century skills to urban youth.’

15 years later, Stoked has helped thousands of disadvantaged kids across the States, while Steve’s experiences in running the organisation have given him a unique take on social entrepreneurship and the power of action sports as a transformative tool.

I’ve been following Steve for a while and we caught up in early August 2020 to discuss his life and career. The result is a quickfire chat that covers the above and also takes in issues of race, identity and nationality, using the wider global conversation as context and backdrop.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

The search for our authentic self is a lifelong process. And not always a successful one. It takes a huge amount of self honesty, and a willingness to embrace consistent and at times not always comfortable evolution.

It’s something we all have to face, whether consciously or not.

But imagine undergoing this entire process as a world-renowned skateboarder - while also trying to juggle both wider societal pressures, and those of a patriarchal industry who have tied your own career success to their own restrictive definitions of gender.

This is exactly the position Leo Baker faced at the height of their success. And it is why there is so much more to Leo’s story than their admittedly generation-defining feats as a skater.

Today, as they explained during our conversation, Leo is in a very different place, proud to be living authentically as the most high-profile nonbinary trans skater in the world.

And yet, as Leo explained during our conversation, gaining the understanding and self-confidence required to finally present as their authentic self has been a long and involved process.

It has involved learning to deal with the collateral damage and mental health issues that have accrued along the way, and ultimately committing to a measured and long term approach to self-care.

Leo’s story is one of the most important in modern skateboarding, and I’m grateful they’ve trusted me to tell it in their own way, and in their own words.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

We live in an age of limitless content and endless progression. A period where a thumb-swipe can summon any film part in history, and where readily-available tools mean anybody can be a story-teller or documentarian.

And yet what’s striking, in this age of digital plenty, is how rare - even now! - it is for an action sports film to have something to say something other than ‘Woo-hoo! Let’s shred!’ Films that dare to use comedy and pathos to say something universal about snowboarding, skateboarding and surfing? Almost unheard of.

It’s why Jerome Tanon’s 2016 film Eternal Beauty of Snowboarding is so great. Here was a film that managed to have its cake and eat it. That sent up the ridiculousness of the very scene it celebrated with affection and poignancy, while also being very funny at the same time. Here was a singular new voice with funny, important things to say about our weird little world.

Jerome followed Eternal Beauty with Zaberdast, a beautiful documentary about a high-stakes freeriding trip to the Himalayas, and has just launched his latest project Heroes, a book about modern women’s snowboarding. In typical Jerome style, Heroes is an ambitious and independent undertaking that looks set to redefine the perception of women’s snowboarding for a new generation.

We caught up in July 2020 to discuss Jerome’s life and career, as well as creativity in action sports in general. It’s a good one. Hope you enjoy the episode.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

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To call Matt Warshaw’s Encyclopaedia of Surfing a labour of love would be to do the entire project a grave injustice. As the name suggests, EoS is Matt’s ongoing, crowdfunded attempt to document the history of surfing and surf culture through the site of the same name.

It’s an industry ‘lifer’ project par excellence. And a beautiful, Johnsonian venture that, in essence, will never be completed. But then, Matt’s entire career has been about voyaging deeper than anybody else into surf history; whether as a journalist, the author of weighty surf histories such as his History of Surfing, or now through the Encyclopaedia.

With this project, surfing has found the perfect cultural and historical custodian. And Matt has found the perfect vehicle through which he can continue to explore his life’s passion. It’s the living embodiment of the 1000 True Fans theory of art and creativity, and in its Borgesian infinity there is something surreal yet completely creatively pure about the entire undertaking.

I’ve been looking forward to speaking to Matt for years, and this encounter didn’t disappoint. Like a river slowly making its way across a floodplain, our conversation meandered in its own slow, purposeful way and I enjoyed it very much.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

This week’s guest is Dan Crockett, a writer, journalist and activist from the UK who is currently Development Director of the Blue Marine Foundation, a charity dedicated to resorting the ocean to health.

Blue Marine Foundation do so by supporting various different projects, among them the recent virtual Rewilding the Sea conference, which brought together different interested parties in an attempt to further the conversation around the topic of marine rewilding and restoration.

Their work is a great way into the subject of rewilding, the concept of restoring large scale ecosystems and reintroducing natural processes and missing species to a landscape in an attempt to allow nature to take care of itself, something we discussed in detail during our conversation.

Dan is also heavily involved in the drive to introduce marine national parks to the UK coastline; an attempt, as he explained, to reset our own relationship with the marine environment that is such an important part of our life.

And, of course, as regular listeners of Type 2 will know, we also explored Dan’s own story, including how he ended up working on such innovative and passion-driven projects, as well as the thread that links his work - the intimacy of the human relationship with the sea, and our changing attitude to the marine environment.

It’s a really lovely, reflective chat this, with a nuanced thinker and a generous conversationalist. I enjoyed it very much - thanks to Dan for sharing his insights with us.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

It’s easy to forget, but all stories are editorial choices. And those choices have a big influence on the way we collectively perceive our shared culture and history.

It’s why the standard narratives around our shared history tend to default to the same names and anecdotes. And it’s why She Surf, the new overview of modern female surfing and surf history by Lauren Hill, is such a much-needed breath of fresh air.

Throughout her career as a surfer, writer and podcaster, Lauren has used her experiences and wider interests to tackle big, important themes in a graceful and accessible way.

She Surf - a considered, inclusive, beautifully put together piece of work - is the culmination of that lifelong quest, providing the most comprehensive and alternative view of modern and historical female surf culture yet.

The book was also the launchpad into a wide-ranging, omnivorous conversation that took in the importance of play, the toxic effects of female objectification on both men and women, the legacy of the male gaze in surf culture, and many more topics that don’t get an airing too often. And, of course, we also took a long look at Lauren’s own life and career.

Very much enjoyed this one. Thanks for coming on the show Lauren!

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Full disclosure: this week’s guest is a close friend of mine. Lauren MacCallum is a writer, broadcaster and activist who has the type of plates-in-the-air career that is very common in the action sports and outdoor industry.

We’ve been friend for years, and she’s someone I can always rely on to provide some much-needed perspective. In this way, this chat is just an extension of the type of freewheeling, no-stone-unturned conversation I always have with this absolute force of nature.

Lauren is a brilliant conversationalist, with a considered, compassionate take on activism born from her own experience and years of hard work and research.

For Lauren, community is key. It is at the root of her beliefs and the thread that links all her work, whether as General Manager for Protect Our Winters UK or through her work as a writer and broadcaster.

Above all, Lauren’s personal experiences and insights make her the type of progressive, none-judgemental leader we need at this time, particularly as the last months have revealed such a vacuum of leadership at the heart of our industry.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Let’s be honest - the Looking Sideways podcast is a pretty white and none-diverse space, reflecting as it does the action sports and outdoor community as a whole. I think this is why my first episode with Phil Young, broadcast back in November 2019, struck such a chord with listeners and very quickly went on to become one of my most popular episodes ever.

The fact is it is still rare for BAME people to be given a voice or a platform in our industry. So to hear Phil outline his experiences as a person of colour in our insular little world was eye-opening for many listeners, as the feedback I received demonstrated.

Since that interview, myself and Phil have kept talking and kept sharing views and experiences on this topic. And now, obviously, recent events mean the issue is now front and centre like never before. So I gave Phil a shout to see if he was up for coming back on the show and continuing our conversation. I was interested in getting his take on the events of the last few weeks, and understanding his hopes for the future.

Like any conversation around this topic, it can be challenging to find the right words, and I certainly struggled at points during our chat. I left all that in though, because I think it’s important to openly and honestly discuss these things and embrace the challenges that come with it. After all, this isn’t about me or my fragility. This is about learning how to become a better ally.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Andy Howell has always been one of skateboarding’s sages. He’s an artist and intellectual thinker who discerns patterns, seeks out connections and is unafraid to grapple with the biggest themes of all. Story-telling. Humanity. Technology. Life. Rebirth. You know - the good stuff.

You can see it in his career, and the sheer number of ways he’s found to express himself creatively over the years. There is, of course, his storied career as one of the most progressive influences in skateboarding, whether as a pro, or through his involvement with game-changing brands like New Deal, Zero Sophisto, Underworld Element or 411.

It is equally evident in his career as an artist and patron of international repute, a strand to his story that includes game-changing collaborations with luminaries such as Shepherd Fairey and Jeff Kinsey. And it runs through his later incarnation as a the founder of visionary tech start-ups, his role as an investor, and his typically progressive involvement with the 30th anniversary of New Deal Skateboards.

And now Andy is on the brink of a new frontier, as he processes the incident that changed his life at the end of 2019 - the fire that destroyed his family home and, with it, the collection of artwork he has been collecting and curating for over 30 years.

It’s a blow that has changed Andy’s life completely, and an experience he is still learning how to process. With all that in mind, I’m grateful for Andy for even agreeing to come on the show in the first place,

I’m so glad he did though, because as you’ll expect if you’ve followed Andy’s career, this chat with one of skateboarding’s most original thinkers evolved into something really fascinating and unexpected.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint
Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

I welcomed a legend onto the show this week - surfer and activist Dave Rastovich, one of the world’s most respected, stylish and talented surfers.

On the water, Dave’s always been an innovator and leader, whether because of the career path he chose, the equipment he championed, or his pioneering activism. Indeed, Dave came to epitomise the very idea of surfer as activist, thanks to films like The Cove, and his involvement with various different campaigns.

Today, Dave lives with his young family on a patch of land near Byron Bay in Australia, and it still a committed, articulate activist who continues to lend his heft to various local and national campaigns.

As you might expect from somebody with such a high profile, his story is well told, so in this conversation I was interested in understanding where Dave is now, both in terms of his experience as an activist, and in light of the very real social and ecological collateral damage that they’ve been experiencing in Australia over the last couple of years.

How has it changed his approach? What has he learned? And what lessons can we take from his experiences? As expected, the resulting conversation was great and I very much enjoyed this wide-ranging and passionate chat with one of surfing’s modern greats.

Just a note on the sound - we recorded this one over Skype, so there is a little background noise. My thanks to Dave for being such a great sport.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

This week’s guest is yet another absolute legend of their chosen field - the great Torah Bright

Torah’s been at the top of her game for the last 20 years. Sure, the headline news is that 2010 gold at the Vancouver Games. But that’s just one highlight in a career that has come to symbolise everything that is creative and expressive about snowboarding. And it’s this, if you ask me, that makes her one of the true greats⁣

Because to achieve greatness in the competitive arena, as Torah did, is one thing. To do some in a way that also pushes the sport forward and communicates the sheer joy of snowboarding, is another. ⁣

And now, as she prepares to become a Mum for the first time, Torah’s about to move into a new phase, and it seemed a really fitting time to sit down and cast an eye over her career so far, while also finding out her plans for the future. ⁣

Torah Bright’s two decades at the top have given her a unique perspective on her own life and achievements. She’s also a generous spirit, and during our conversation was happy to explore some pretty personal themes, including her relationship with her brother Benny, and her changing relationship with her faith.

I’m really grateful to Torah opening up fully and bringing the full range of her experience, insight and impressive levels of self awareness to our conversation.

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Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Jeff Johnson is probably best known for his film 180 South, a film which saw him travel to Patagonia with Yvon Chouniard and Doug Tompkins in homage to the original 1960s odyssey that is such a defining part of Patagonia story. It’s on YouTube, and I highly recommend checking it out.

But there’s much more to Jeff’s career than this admittedly epic highpoint. He’s a surfer, skater, climber, film-maker, photographer and journalist who’s had another one of those questing, roving careers I like to feature on the podcast. As you’re going to hear, Jeff’s tale is yet another example of how a bit of front and a lot of passion can lead you to some extraordinary and interesting places, as the stories of how he got his breaks at the Surfer’s Journal and, later, Patagonia illustrate.

Me and Jeff first started chatting around a year ago, so when lockdown kicked in I gave him a shout to arrange this conversation. Have to say, from our correspondence I had a feeling me and Jeff would hit it off and I’m glad to say we did. I throughly enjoyed this conversation, which we recorded in mid-May 2020 - please check out the website for full Show Notes and references to everything we discuss.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

This week’s guest is Chas Smith, surely the most notorious surf journalist on the planet right now thanks to his work with Beach Grit, books like Welcome to Paradise Now Go To Hell, and podcasts like Dirty Water and The Grit with David Lee Scales.

Along the way, Chas has come to personify a particular type of surf writing trope - the tough-talking, hard-drinking alpha who is forever storming out of trade show interviews and picking literal and metaphorical fights with his peers and contemporaries.

And yet….I’ve always been intrigued by Chas. Firstly because I met him last year and found him to be utterly charming. Secondly, because in its way this persona as as much of a cliche as the very surf conformity he has spent his career railing against, and I’ve long suspected that nobody is more aware of that than Charlie himself.

All of which begged a fairly obvious question as I sat down to interview him for this episode of the podcast: where does ‘Chas Smith’ end and Charlie Smith begin?

Really enjoyed this one - my thanks to Chas for coming on the show and being so open and honest.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Lockdown Surf Film Festival bonus episode with Gabriel Novis! Yep, in April 2020 Chris and Demi, my friends behind the Lockdown Surf Film Festival, asked me to interview Gabriel about his film Sorria, which was showing as part of the festival.

Sorria is a few years old now and is, as Gabriel explained during our conversation, an attempt to show another side of Brazilian surf culture and performance surfing than the one we’re so often used to seeing portrayed in the majority of surf media. As Gabriel put it, he wanted to explain, ‘why we’re so noisy and take up so much space’.

He did so by dialling up the positivity and fun, and showcasing surfers like Fillipe Toldeo, Yafgo Dora, Jesse Mendes and Thomas Hermes away from the line up.

Today, Gabriel works as a film-maker in LA, and still has the same creative, indpendent views on surfing and film making that informed Sorria, as I discovered during our chat.

So that’s what I did, catching up with the Brazilian film-maker to discuss all thing surfing, Brazilian surf culture and film-making.

Big thanks to Gabriel for coming on the show - and to my pals Chris and Demi for getting me involved in the brilliant Lockdown Surf Film Festival. Find out more at www.lockdownsurffilmfestival.com

There are no Show Notes for this bonus episode, so if you want to find out more about any of the things we discuss, check out my Instagram (@WeLookSideways), Twitter (@WeLookSideways) and Facebook (@wearelookingsideways). Nice one.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Let’s not mess around. My guest this week is one of the action sports G.O.A.T.s, up there with Hawk and Slater as the greatest and most influential rider his discipline has yet produced.

Terje’s achievements are so legendary it is difficult to know where to start. Subjekt: Haakonsen? The Olympics boycott? THAT world biggest air record? That peerless string of 90s contest wins that set the tone for a generation? The fact that he’s still charging as he approaches 50?

And yet, such a CV also presents something of a challenge for the interviewer. After all, how do you avoid going over the same old ground, the questions that have been asked thousands of time before?

Luckily, I go back a long with Terje. We first met around in 2005 and have remained friends ever since. Which is why I approached this conversation the way I approach all Looking Sideways chats: with an open mind and no agenda other than to have a fruitful conversation.

I’m happy to say that the result is as revealing an interview as Terje has ever given, covering his relationship with Jake Burton, the influence of Craig Kelly, those recent social media controversies and - yes - the Olympics.

Don’t miss this one.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

Even in a field crammed with extremely motivated people, Reece Pacheco stands out. He is Executive Director of WSL Pure, the WSL’s none profit with a mission to inspire the global surf community to lead the way in protecting the ocean.

He is also in charge of the sustainability program for the World Surf League - or SVP of Ocean Responsibility to give him his full title.

As if all that wasn’t enough, he hosts the WSL Pure One Ocean podcast too. All of which, by my reckoning, makes him extremely busy across a lot of fronts.

What’s especially interesting about Reece’s current work with the WSL is the scale of the brief. In effect, he’s been given the daunting task of devising from scratch a strategy to help the WSL lead the way on matters of environmentalism and sustainability in the surf industry.

As such, our chat about Reece’s approach is a fascinating counterpoint to last month’s conversation with Chris Hines about the genesis of Surfers Against Sewage; an organisation that, after all, evolved over many years from a single issue group into the most influential environmental body in the surf industry.

As ever I was interested in digging into Reece’s background to find out how his experiences and private passion for this cause had led him to this point, and his views on the challenges the industry currently faces. Great chat this one - hope you enjoy it.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I’m back with the great Mike Manzoori, a much-loved UK skateboarder who has quietly had one of the most influential careers in British skating.

Mike has been renowned for the power and style of his skating since day one, and came up alongside peers like Curtis McCann and Simon Evans during an era of particular significance for UK skateboarding, documented by the great TLB through the pages of RaD magazine and through Mike’s own early experiments in film making.

Later, he headed to the States and evolved into one of the most progressive and creative film-makers in skateboarding. It’s a career arc that perfect mirror the evolution of UK skateboarding as a while, and it means Mike has a brilliant perspective on the last three decades.

I’ve been keen to chat to Mike for the show for years, and the result was a really lovely, engaging conversation with a properly humble and modest character.

My thanks to Mike for taking the time to do it, and to Don Brown, Dan Adams and Wig Worland for their help pulling this episode together.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

It’s brave new era time this week as I finally relaxed my Skype ban to record this episode with Colin MacCleod.

If you don’t know Colin, he’s a musician and surfer from the Western Isles in Scotland who has been quietly carving out one of the most successful careers in British guitar music in the last few years. I’m talking supporting-Robert-Plant/appearances-on-the-James-Corden-Show-in-the-States levels of success.

He also seems, as I discovered during our conversation, to have that whole work/life balance thing completely dialled, working as he does as a crofter and a gillie when he’s not on tour with his band.

My original plan with Colin was to head up to meet him in Lewis to record this episode, but with that not possible, I thought I’d get him on now to hear his story.

And what a tale it is, delivered much like he delivers his music: with modesty, wit, compassion and honesty.

Even better, Colin agreed to perform a song for me at the end of the interview, so stick around for that. My thanks to Colin for being such a great sport. Hope you enjoy the episode.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I’m a big fan of ‘lifer’ stories on the podcast. These are the guests who aren’t big name athletes or personalities, but who have quietly had the same amount of influence. Think of guests like Demi Taylor, Chris Cote or Phil Young. They’re people who have dedicated their lives to the activities they love, and in the process have ended up helping to create the culture we all benefit from.


This week’s guest Steve England, long-term publisher of Carve magazine and founding member of Surfers Against Sewage, is another example. He’d never admit it himself, but it’s impossible to do justice to the absolutely integral role Steve has played in the UK surf industry for well over three decades now.

Think of any significant development in British surfing and Steve England has been at the heart of it. No wonder no less an authority than Gabe Davis describes him as ‘the absolute heart and soul of UK surfing’.


What’s especially brilliant about this is that it is all so clearly driven by Steve’s absolute passion for surfing and belief in its power to transform lives, something he expresses with great eloquence during our conversation.

Then there’s the final layer to all this, which is the arc of Steve’s career itself. As he himself says: if he can do it, anybody can.

Steve was somebody I’d wanted to get on the show for months and I’ll be honest it took me a while to convince him. I’m so glad that I did, as you’ll hear.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

The life of the professional athlete is truly an exalted one. There’s the travel. The free kit. The adulation. And the fact that you’re being paid to do what you love.

Small wonder that so many professional athletes get swept along with it all, and start to believe their own hype. As I know from my experience of working in the industry for almost three decades, nothing is more common than the pro athlete who has made the fundamental mistake of thinking their current situation is permanent.

It’s why characters like Mike Lay are such a breath of fresh air. Sure, he’s one of the finest longboarders the UK has ever produced, with a truly beautiful, considered style. But he’s also that rare thing: somebody who is amazingly good at riding a board, and also able to see far beyond the margins of our insular little world.


You can see it in the writing he does for the various surf magazines he contributes to, and in the curiosity that seems to come naturally to him. As you’ll discover, he’s a creative, a dreamer, a reader, a writer and, above all, a thinker, as well as a surfer.

These are the conversations I look forward to the most, the ones that take off into unexpected regions in the finest Looking Sideways tradition. I’m really grateful to Mike for going out of his way to make this conversation happen, and for approaching it in such a spirit of honesty and open-mindedness. Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

Chris Hines MBE is a surfer and activist best known for being one of the original driving forces behind Surfers Against Sewage. Today he enjoys a reputation as one of the most respected and most successful communicators in British environmentalism.

As the founder and original Director of Surfers Against Sewage, Chris’s exploits and success are legendary. It is no exaggeration to say that Chris and his colleagues rewrote the rulebook of environmental activism across the UK and beyond, helping SAS achieve amazing success and changing the way such campaigns were run forever. A campaign such as Fight for The Bight for example, owes much to the trailblazing SAS approach that Chris helped to pioneer.

Chris left SAS in 2000 and set up his Grain of Sand consultancy, helping organisations such as the Eden Project and The Wave in Bristol achieve their sustainability and environmental objectives.

In short, Chris is a legendary figure, and I was excited to sit down with him for this conversation, recorded in March 2020 at his Porthtowan home.

Of course we covered the key milestones of his career, including the early years Surfers Against Sewage, a story of great value for anybody with an interest in campaigning or changemaking.

But on a deeper level, the conversation was a chance to get Chris’s unique perspective on our current situation - both in terms of what he’s learned from this past successes, and his hopes for the future.

Personally, I found this to be a moving and profoundly positive exchange that left me with much to ponder, thanks to Chris’s unquenchable optimism, and his faith in our collective ability to solve the challenges we face. Hope you enjoy it.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

For the second episode of my Cornish omnibus, I’ve got a beautiful tale for uncertain times: a lovely and heartwarming conversation with British surfer Gwyn Haslock.

Chances are you won’t have heard of Gwyn. If that’s the case, I urge you to listen to this episode and discover her wonderful story.

Kernow to the core, Gywn has a claim to be one of the UK’s original surfers and is certainly one of the first female surfers in the UK.

Today, well into her 70s, she is one of the most loved and recognisable figures in the line-up; taking her pick from the north and south coast Cornish spots she’s been gracing with her presence for the best part of half a century.

At the beginning of March 2020, I sat down with Gwyn to discuss her amazing surfing life. It’s a cockle-warming tale and a unique look at the early years of British and Cornish surfing from the perspective of somebody who’s been there since day one.

Even better, her brilliantly blithe attitude to surfing is a welcome antidote to the amount of absolute rubbish that usually gets spoken about what is essentially a pretty simple pursuit.

My thanks to Gwyn, Demi Taylor and the Watergate Bay Hotel for the help pulling this one today. Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Could a wooden surfboard change your life? It wasn’t a question I was expecting to ask when I travelled down to Porthtowan to meet James Otter of Otter Surfboards for the first episode of my Cornish omnibus.

I thought we’d be discussing the backstory of Otter Surfboards, finding out how James got into wooden surfboard shaping and design and delving into the history of this venerable practise

Of course, we did cover all that. But in the tradition of all the best Looking Sideways conversations, this chat took on a life of its own, and strayed into some wholly unexpected territory.

Like how we humans have a preternatural connection to wood, something which fuels our innate creativity. And how the business model behind Otter evolved unexpectedly, the meaning of which deepens for James with every passing year.

And, above all, how the simple act of building a wooden surfboard might just have the power to help you make sense of your life, as it has done for James and the countless others who have joined him in the act of creating their own wooden craft.

My thanks to James and Mat Arney of Hailer Media for their hospitality and help, and to my friends at the Watergate Bay Hotel for hosting me during this trip.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Dan ‘Danmials’ Leidahl and Benny Urban special TRIPLE episode! This episode came about when my friend Matt Georges asked me to write the words for his latest book project with Vans - TRIPLE.

The TRIPLE project saw Matt organise three shoots to represent the different sides of snowboarding - Arthur and Blake for backcountry, Rene Rinnekangas and Fridtjof Tischendorf for park, and Danimals and Benny Urban for street.

Matt asked me to interview each duo for the book - naturally I thought I might as well record these chats and see if they were worth putting out as podcasts.

So that’s what I did - I relaxed my ‘no Skype’ rule, sent the guys mics and arranged to chat with each of them about the whole thing. This second instalment is with Dan and Benny.

Of the three styles of snowboarding featured in TRIPLE, street riding is the one with the closest kinship to skateboarding. There are moments of progressive, creative beauty that represent the culture being pushed forward in real time.

These two friends are two of the best rail riders on the planet, and they were the perfect duo to explore the multi-faceted possibilities of street snowboarding for TRIPLE. They joined Matt and filmer Alex Pfeffel for a mid-season trip to Japan where they spent two weeks exploring the bust-heavy possibilities of Otaru-Hokkaido.

During our conversation, we discussed the challenges involved with taking a mountain-based form into an occasionally hostile urban environment - shovelling snow in the dark, finding spots, dodging cops and getting shots.

Big thanks to Matt Georges and Vans for getting me involved, and to Dan and Benny for being such good sports.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

The importance of creative confidence has been a constant theme since I began the podcast in February 2017. Think of my conversations with Nick Jenson, Mickey Smith or Sachi Cunningham, to name just three where this topic has loomed large.

From those conversations we learned that this bravery is required if you’re going to stick to your creative guns.

We also learned that it is equally essential if you’re going to understand a crucial lesson: that the process of creating is the point, not some nebulous thought of ‘success’ or acceptance.

And it is also critical if you’re going to accept and be comfortable with your own place in the artistic eco-system - and give yourself permission to enjoy the act of creativity in the long term

These are lessons CJ Mirra knows well, and are partly why he’s been able to develop such a singular and intriguing musical aesthetic. He’s best known for his collaborations with director and previous guest Chris McClean; notably Translate, their ‘pan-European surf odyssey / live / audio / visual experiment’ which they performed live for the first time at the 2019 London Surf Film Festival.

But as I discovered when I went to visit him at his Leyton studio in February 2020, there’s much more to CJ than this.

I very much enjoyed our chat about all things creative and musical, and I hope you do too.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

So far my Type 2 conversations have been with people aiming to inspire a movement of incremental change that - they hope - will add up to larger system change. People like Hugo from SAS, and Jake from Protect Our Winters.

Today I’m speaking to photographer Christoph Jorda, a witness and storyteller who is using his talent and privileged position to document the real time effects of the crisis on our world today.

By operating on the other side of the debate, he is bearing witness to the challenges faced by ordinary people and showing how the environments we take for granted are changing forever.

Photojournalists like Christoph have always been an essential part of any movement for change. His documentary approach is essential because it injects emotion and humanity into a narrative that can often by characterised by nebulous facts and figures, or impossible-to-comprehend predictions.

Christoph’s work documents in poignant, often harrowing detail the damage that is being done right now, making him a compelling voice in this entire debate. And in pursuing such fascinating and sometimes shocking photo stories around the world, he’s following in the lineage of the great photojournalists who’s work in turn inspired him.

That’s exactly why I wanted to speak to him for the show, and what we discussed during this episode. Hope you enjoy it.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Podbean, OvercastFM or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Arthur Longo and Blake Paul special TRIPLE episode! This episode came about when my friend Matt Georges asked me to write the words for his latest book project with Vans - TRIPLE.

The TRIPLE project saw Matt organise three shoots to represent the different sides of snowboarding - Arthur and Blake for backcountry, Rene Rinnekangas and Fridtjof Tischendorf for park, and Danimals and Benny Urban for street.

Matt asked me to interview each duo for the book - naturally I thought I might as well record these chats and see if they were worth putting out as podcasts.

So that’s what I did - I relaxed my ‘no Skype’ rule, sent the guys mics and arranged to chat with each of them about the whole thing. The first instalment was with Arthur and Blake, and as you’re going to hear it turned out so well that I decided to put it out as an episode of the podcast.

What’s really interesting about this conversation are the insights into how two such stellar riders like Arthur and Blake approach a project like this. They pair are obviously both absolutely incredible snowboarders, but as became clear during our conversation, they have different, complementary approaches and it was fascinating finding out exactly what that looked like.

Yep, a proper snowboard geek fest this one - well it has been a while - and, basically, a bit of an experiment to see how it would work doing a three-way chat over Skype. I reckon it turned out pretty well.

Big thanks to Matt Georges and Vans for getting me involved, and to Arthur and Blake for being such good sports.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

It can be funny how these episodes come together sometimes. You can spend months trying to arrange a meeting. Or you can randomly bump into somebody at the top of a backcountry run off the back of Niseko Annapurri, as happened with me and Lena in this case.

It was the type of welcome coincidence that has characterised my friendship with Lena Stoffel over the last few months. So after our day in the backcountry, we arranged to sit down in Niseko the next day to record this episode.

I was keen to speak to her about her life and career as a skier, snowboarder, surfer, photographer and film-maker. Like all pro athletes in this world, Lena is a traveller, and I admire the way she’s putting herself out there with her recent projects. It takes a certain of amount of creative courage to think beyond the usual trick porn and attempt to explore the cultural hinterlands of skiing, surfing and snowboarding, as Lena is.

Her approach is now winning renown beyond the narrow horizons of our own little world. As you’ll hear, Lena is extremely humble, but as is so often the case, there’s a drive and creative ambition at work that is leading her onwards to ever more intriguing projects.

I really enjoyed this one, recorded on a lovely, snowy, calm afternoon in Niseko. Hope you do too.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

It’s the final episode from my Portland series, recorded during a breakneck week spent exploring the City of Roses with my various guests. And this episode, recorded with my very old friend Jonathan Weaver, is a fitting departure from the usual format.

That’s because we recorded this episode during a very pleasant and leisurely drive around the Oregon coastline. I rode shotgun, grabbed the mics and spent an extremely enjoyable day riding around, checking the surf and having what is even for me a properly meandering conversation.

And what a perfect format it was for exploring Jon’s inspirational and circuitous career through the industry. I actually gave Jon his first gig as a writer way back when I helped to run Whitelines, and he’s sure come a long, long way since then; ticking off stints as a snowboarder, team manager, and general industry mover and shaker at brands like Forum and Nike as his career has flourished.

Listeners often ask how you begin get a career in the action sports industry, and this episode is a very good place to start.

Above all, it’s the story of a brilliant life in snowboarding and beyond, powdered by passion and curiosity. I’m very proud to call Jon a close friend, and even more stoked to have him on the show for the episode. Hope you enjoy it.

HUGE thanks to Travel Portland, Kex Portland, Hertz and Black Diamond PR for their help in pulling this entire trip together.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Coffee x snowboarding special!

Yep, for this episode I headed to Heart Roasters to speak to the great Wille Yli-Luoma. Back in the late 90s and early 00s, Wille was one of the most progressive snowboarders in the world. And, as a member of the celebrated Forum 8, he was a member of the one of the heaviest and most progressive teams in snowboarding history. Go and watch The Resistance to get some measure of how they defined freestyle snowboarding for a generation.

Wille was a key part of that team and for a decade bestrode the snowboarding world like the backcountry freestyle colossus he was. As his career wound down, he turned his attention to a new venture, and set about establishing Heart Roasters - despite having zero experience in the coffee industry.

Today, Heart is a Portland institution, and Wille’s rapidly expanding wholesale business means it is about to go global.

So many layers to this conversation. Sure, it’s about coffee - geekily so. But it’s also about the choices an athlete has to make a critical point in their career, and how the same tools that worked in one area of life can also serve you just as well in other areas.

As inspiring off the hill as he was on it at the height of his career, this is a brilliant, all encompassing conversation with a true snowboarding legend.

The coffee wasn’t bad either....

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

My guest for this episode of Type 2 is Hugo Tagholm, CEO of Surfers Against Sewage, the UK’s most beloved and certainly most successful marine conservation charity.

Hugo and SAS are experts at taking their message beyond their own niche and energising the support of the wider community. I wanted to understand how they consistently mobilise this huge, engaged community to bring about the legislative action required to create tangible change.

The other reason I wanted to speak to Hugo was to find out how he copes with the workload that comes with his position. Hugo has a ferocious work ethic, and a seemingly effortless ability to deliver comprehensively across multiple fronts. How does he do it? And what can we learn from his approach?

It’s always a pleasure to see Hugo and I always really enjoy our conversations, whether the mic is on or not. This one is no different. Hope you enjoy it too.

New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Podbean, OvercastFM or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Skateboarding royalty alert! There’s really no other way to describe Bryce Kanights, one of skateboarding’s most legendary photographers.

Bryce Kanights really has seen and shot it all. He came up as an original SF local, and honed his photographic talents while shooting his local punk and skate scene. From there, his career developed as skateboarding itself did, meaning he had a ringside seat for every notable development in skateboarding history.

Think of an iconic image from skate history and chances are Bryce was behind the lens. Gonz at Alcatraz? Bryce. The iconic pic of Jake Phelps everyone ran when he passed? Bryce. The EMB heyday? Yep. Bryce again.

Today, he lives in Portland, still shoots skating and is, as I discovered, absolutely fantastic company with a bottomless bag of anecdotes that could fill an entire season of the podcast, let alone one episode.

It was a true pleasure to sit back, and hear a master tell tall tales from one incredible career. My thanks to Jen Sherowski for doing the intros, and for Bryce himself for taking the time to spend the afternoon with us.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Christmas Special!

Yep, it’s another festive hoedown with my friends Tim and Gendle! If you’re new to the show or unfamiliar with the boys and their work, allow me to introduce them: two of the biggest influences and most-loved presences in European snowboarding, whether as film-makers, presenters or snowboarders.

Not that went over all that. Instead, we sat down for this two-hour plus mince pie and Secret Santa-fuelled yibble fest during which we ticked every festive box going. Booze? Tick. Secret Santa? Tick. A quiz everyone can play along with? Tick.

We even ticked off another podcast trope as the boys turned the tables on me and asking me to answer a few questions myself. Yep, this is a totally frivolous, Yuletide-themed episode especially for your festive edification with two of my oldest friends - enjoy!

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I’ve got my old friend Annie Fast on the show! I go back a long way with Annie. We’re both snowboarding industry lifers, who met almost twenty years ago. Because we had so much in common, being snowboarding and writing geeks, we got on straight away and become good friends. And we stayed in touch, occasionally working together and always encouraging each other.

Which is why it was such a proud moment when Annie landed the plum writing job in the industry to become the first female editor of Transworld Snowboarding.

She stewarded the title through what I think we’d all agree was the last golden age of Transworld - and I’m not just saying that because she started to commission me to write features and columns for Transworld.

In this conversation, recorded in Portland in November 2019, we got together to look back at Annie’s glorious, glass-ceiling smashing career. We cover the way she broke into the industry, how she created her own voice and how she was at the forefront of the change between analogue and digital media.

We also discussed the challenges that come with trying to balance motherhood with her career in such a male-dominated and patriarchal industry - an issue that is woefully undiscussed.

It was a total pleasure seeing Annie again - hope you enjoy our conversation.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

John Rattray is one of the UK’s most successful and certainly best loved skateboarders. His is a success story that seemed to mirror the mid-to-late '90s expansion of UK skateboarding as a whole, as he made the journey from our shores to the States, and a breakout career as a pro on Zero.

And yet away from the spotlight, John’s life was marked by a series of personal and professional crises that affected his mental health and led to bouts of depression and anxiety.

Now John is bringing the singular energy and ferocious inquisitiveness that marked his skateboarding career to the conversation around mental health, depression and suicide.

He’s doing so in two ways - by organising initiatives such as his online Why So Sad? Mission; and by talking honestly about his own experiences and what he’s learned from them, in that hope that it will help others and relax some of the taboos that surround the conversation around mental health.

The result is a conversation as honest as any I’ve yet featured on the podcast, and defintiely among the most important. I’m grateful to John for trusting me to have this chat, and for approaching our exchange with such openness.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

My guest for this episode of Type 2 is Dan Yates from Save Our Rivers

Save Our Rivers is an environmental organisation dedicated to protecting our wild rivers and national parks.

For Dan, activism is intrinsically linked to his own love for wild places, sure. But what comes across from his story, and why I think it is so valuable, is the reality of everyday activism. Dan and his peers are fitting in their activism around their everyday lives, finding hugely effective ways to achieve their goals that don’t necessarily rely on direct action, and instead means a lot of hard, dedicated and often unglamorous work.

There’s huge value in this because one of the themes that is gradually becoming clear as Type 2 evolves, and I speak to more people, is that for activism to really succeed it needs to be a combination of passion and pragmatism, which is something Dan and Save our Rivers epitomise.

New episodes of Type 2 will be released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Podbean, OvercastFM or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

It's the first episode of my special Portland omnibus - and I kicked things off with this conversation with the great Mark Lewman, recorded at Nemo HQ in Portland.
Lewman has had one of those circuitous, intensely creative career path that action sports culture often throws up. We’re dealing with creative royalty, a man who’s resume includes stints steering era-defining titles such as Freestylin’, Homeboy, Sassy, Dirt, Grand Royal and Big Brother. Along the way he worked on Jackass, collaborated with his friend Spike Jonze and ghostwrote Mat Hoffman’s autobiography.
He then switched codes, went brand-side and works today as one of the honchos at Nemo Design, delivering ground-breaking campaigns
for some of the biggest companies in action sports. 
As you might expect from that CV, Lewman has a wealth of anecdotes and experience, and I had a blast during this conversation. As ever with these episodes, this is the story of how somebody carved out a unique career in the industry, and had a riot doing it. Right up my strasse, then.
My thanks to Lewman and everyone at Nemo for being such great sports for this one, and to Travel Portland, Kex Portland, Hertz and Black Diamond PR for their help in pulling this one together.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Phil Young has had one of those varied and fascinating careers I’ve documented a lot on the Looking Sideways podcast. He’ll be familiar to listeners of a certain age as the presenter of a much-loved mid-90s TV show called Board Stupid, which unbelievable as it sounds now, was a primetime TV show totally dedicated to snowboarding.

From there, Phil used that experience and the most bulging contact book in UK action sports to carve a career as one of UK skating and snowboarding’s great unseen influences, working with brands to shape the way our cultures have been seen in the mainstream, and doing it with great subtlety and sympathy.

Today, he is bringing his considerable insight and experience to bear on one of our industry’s great unspoken issues - the lack of diversity that characterises our cultures at all levels.

Phil’s a man of principles and opinions, and there are plenty of layers and themes to this wide-ranging conversation.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

My guest this week is Alex Knost: surfer, musician and photographer and definitely one of the most polarising figures in modern surfing.

He’s a stylist who is renowned for his highly individual approach to wave-riding and life in general. For some, he’s the arty-farty epitome of hipster surfing who is all style and no substance.

To others, he’s a genuine original who has managed the miraculous feat of achieving a totally original and cohesive style at this late stage in surfing’s development.

Wherever you stand, he’s one of the most enigmatic and interesting presences in modern surfing. Alex was in town for the London Surf Film Festival where he was promoting his film Tan Madonna, so I headed up town to sit down with him to see if I could get to the bottom of the Knost conundrum. See what you reckon.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

My guest this week is visionary film-maker and photographer Chris McClean, recorded at the London Surf Film Festival in October 2019, where Chris won the Viewer’s Choice Award for his latest feature Translate. The film also had its premiere at the event, a performance that saw the soundtrack performed live by a band featuring composer CJ Mirra and Lee-Ann Curren.

Its the type of typically forward-thinking endeavour that characterises Chris’s work. Like most I first heard of Chris’s work through the films such as Edges of Sanity, Uncommon Ideals and Atlantic Diversions; and the classy marketing projects he worked on for Finisterre.

They were projects which explored particular corners of surf culture and displayed a unique aesthetic, perhaps influenced by his background in the north wast. I then watched in admiration as he joined forces with some of his other talented friends to launch the magazine Backwash, the beautiful annual periodical that explores similar cultural territory to Chris’s films.


He’s one of those single-minded, focussed creatives that UK board sports culture tends to throw up: totally happy to plough his own cultural furrow and wait for the world to catch up with him. Which, I’m happy to report, it finally is. That’s why I wanted to chat to him for the show, and I’m glad I did because it’s a lovely one this. Here is, me and Chris McClean - enjoy.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

My guest for this episode of Type 2 is Jack Harries.

Jack is a film-maker and environmental activist from London. He initially came to prominence thanks to his wildly popular YouTube channel Jack’s Gap, which he started with his brother Finn and which quickly amassed four million subscribers.

Such an audience gave him quite a platform and, as you might imagine, quite a few opportunities - such as the chance to head to Greenland and take part in a documentary about glacial retreat. It would prove to be a life-changing moment for Jack, who decided from that point to dedicate his life to raising awareness on climate change and attendant issues such as forced migration.

He’s done so by making documentaries in environmentally compromised places like Bhutan and Kiribati, through his work as an ambassador for organisations such as the WWF and, latterly, by his very visible involvement with the Extinction Rebellion group.

If anybody fulfils the premise of using their platform to create change, it’s Jack, and having been one of his 1.5 millions Instagram followers for a while, I’ve long been intrigued by his story. So with a fortnight of London-based Extinction Rebellion action in full swing, I headed up to meet him at his place in West London and find out more.

I found him to be charming, impassioned, articulate and persuasive. Here's how it went down.

New episodes of Type 2 will be released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Podbean, OvercastFM or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

It’s the first half of my episode 100 bonanza! To mark my ascension to triple figures, I wanted to stoke my loyal listeners out AND do something that sums up the spirit of the podcast. So I’m releasing two episodes at the same time and calling them BOTH episode 100.

This, episode 100a, is the first instalment, and is my interview with the great Danny MacAskill. Danny is a professional street trials rider who is one of the great stars of the viral age. In many ways, his career is emblematic of the way that action sports and the wider media landscape have evolved over the last decade.

As everybody knows, Danny came to prominence when he released Inspired Bicycles, a film he made with some mates around Edinburgh which quickly became one of the defining viral films of the last ten years.

It also made him globally famous, with the opportunities afforded by such a platform, and he took full advantage of it with a string of peerless films that upped the ante with each release, and showcased his creativity and sense of humour into the bargain.

Naturally, I’ve been keen to get him on the podcast for years, and happily Danny agreed to meet up for an episode 100 chat. So I headed to Edinburgh to meet Danny and get his own take on the last crazy decade.

The result was a relaxed and intimate chat in which new covered the lot. Big thanks to Danny and Till Bohlig for helping make this one a reality.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

It’s the second half of my episode 100 bonanza! To mark my ascension to triple figures, I wanted to stoke my loyal listeners out AND do something that sums up the spirit of the podcast. So I’m releasing two episodes at the same time and calling them BOTH episode 100.

This, episode 100b, is the second instalment, and is my interview with the great Nicolas Muller. Where do you start with Nicolas? For over two decades, he’s epitomised a style of snowboarding that sums up everything great and creative about our unique sideways art form. He’s one of the true GOATs, a master of every type of terrain who has shaped snowboarding in their own image.

He’s also renowned for a freewheeling and freethinking approach to life, something brilliantly depicted in his Fruition biopic a couple of years ago.

I’ve known Nicolas for a while now and have long had him pencilled in as one of my episode 100 guests. I wanted to get under the skin of this unique snowboarding legend and talk about it all - his career, his views on snowboarding, his inspirations, interests and unique worldview on life, snowboarding and everything.

I’m happy to say we did that, and much more. The result is a supremely relaxed and revealing chat with the greatest snowboarding stylist of our age. I’m thrilled to have Nicolas on the show for this special episode, and happy we were able to have such a great conversation.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Every so often this podcast throws up some proper pinch-yourself moments, and this conversation with graphic design titan David Carson is one such occasion.

Carson is, without question, the most notorious graphic designer of the last thirty years. His reach is total and his influence ubiquitous, as anybody who has worked in the media during that time will tell you.
He also has a strong link to the action sports world, whether through his work designing titles such as Transworld back in the day, or as a hardcore surfer who avidly reads Beach Grit each day and counts Mikey Dora as a personal hero.

He’s been a dream guest for years, but somebody I always assumed I’d never get the chance to interview. So when friend of the podcast David Benedek asked me to go and meet Carson any Gatwick airport to pick up some prints and record an interview, I leapt at the chance.

The result was a highly enjoyable, meandering chat that took in the highlights of Carson's career and his views on surf culture, while showcasing his puckish sense of humour and insatiable curiosity.

My thanks to David Benedek for making this one happen, and to Carson himself for being such a great sport on a rainy night in Gatwick.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

An intriguing thing about the podcast has been the number of unexpected themes that have developed over the course of the last 90 plus episodes. One of which is: how massively conservative and blinkered the action sports world can be.

Think of the patriarchal struggles outlined routinely by guests such as Layne Beachley and Cara-Beth Burnside. Or the ongoing story around women’s big wave surfing.

In skateboarding, a world which has traditionally had real issues with area of society that have progressed hugely in the last 40 years, it can be particularly acute. Take homosexuality. Skate history is full of murky examples of top pros engaging in casual or even violent homophobia, and top pros having their career cut short at the mere suggestion that they might be gay.

Which is what makes Sam McGuire’s story so courageous and essential. Because Sam, one of skating’s most high profile photographers, is gay. Even admitting that simple, totally ordinary fact is rare in skateboarding. Sam publicly came out a few years ago, and in doing so went a long way towards normalising the idea of a high profile skateboarder being open about their sexuality.

Why is this important? Because the more people in our closed little world are exposed to the reality of the debate, and the reality of life for people like Sam, the quicker attitudes will change for good.

That’s exactly why I wanted to get Sam on the show, and why this is such a brave and important conversation.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

My guest for this episode of Type 2 is Jake Black.

Jake is a snowboarder from Colorado who initially parlayed his love for snowboarding into a professional career but he soon decided he wanted to try and give something back to the industry, and began to broaden his interests - notably as a journalist specialising in issues of sustainability in the snow industry, and then with Protect Our Winters, a none profit organisation that is the leading climate advocacy group in the winter sports world.

Today Jake is Program Manager for Protect Our Winters, working to further the group’s climate aims on projects around the world. So he oversees initiatives like the Hot Planet Cool Athletes programme, the ambassador program, and basically acting as the conduit for POW US to the world.

I first met Jake up in Lofoten in March 2019. We got on straight away - and not just because he loaned me his crampons during one particularly icy traverse. Like many people working in this sector, Jake has been motivated by his own love for the outdoors, and his personal experiences as a rider and traveller - and I was impressed with his take on the unique climate challenges faced by people in our world.

So we arranged to meet later in the summer during his next trip to Europe for the European POW summit in Innsbruck. We sat down to discuss Jake’s career, his take on how to respond to the charges of hypocrisy that anybody attempting to affect change inevitably faces, and how we can reconcile these two seemingly opposing stances.

New episodes of Type 2 will be released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Podbean, OvercastFM or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Ahead of the forthcoming London Surf Film Festival, I caught with an old friend for episode 097 of the podcast. I’ve know Demi Taylor for years and have long admired her questing, creative approach to life, whether through her prolific writing, or the festival she’s been organising with partner Chris Nelson for the past nine years.

In that time the London Surf Film Festival has quietly become one of the most essential dates on the UK calendar. There’s a spirit of wry celebration about it that sums up all that is great about surfing, and UK surf culture in particular.

So with this year’s event coming up, I thought it was high time I sat down with Demi to find out the story behind the festival, and also exactly how she carved out such an fascinating, influential career for herself.

It’s a great story, driven by what Demi characterises as a spirit of ‘hopeful naivety’. She’ll scoff, but it also an object lesson in how it is possible to create the career you want by being steadfast in your goals and consistently brave in your decision-making. Listeners are perennially fascinated in finding out how guests ended up with such singular careers in such an unpredictable industry, and Demi’s story is a brilliant example.

I had a blast chatting to Demi, and can’t wait for this year’s festival. Hope you enjoy the conversation.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I welcomed legitimate skateboarding royalty onto the show for episode 096 when I visited the legendary Cara-Beth Burnside at her Oceanside home for the final episode of my Looking Sideways California tour.

CB is surely one of the most influential women in the history of action sports. Just look at her list of unique achievements. First woman on the cover of Thrasher. The only woman to win X Games summer and winter golds. First woman to have a signature skate shoe. 4th place in the Nagano Olympics.

It is, by any measure, an extraordinary career. And yet, as is becoming depressingly familiar, these achievements only tell part of the story. Because throughout her career Cara-Beth has also had to fight to gain recognition in the face of a disinterested and sometimes hostile industry.

Its particularly galling in CB’s case, because as you’ll hear, she’s done more than anybody to pave the way for the women who have come after her, and her story raises interesting questions about the differing levels of support the industry gives its legends depending on their gender.

Still, as I discovered during our conversation, for CB it’s just one part of a long, storied and truly remarkable skateboarding career. I was really honoured to spend some time with CB, and help bring her story the platform and attention it deserves.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I’m back! After an unscheduled few weeks off. And I got right back into it with a visit to Bristol, where I was shown around the new Wave site by Nick Hounsfield, the man behind the entire project.

Like most British surfers I’ve been following the story of the Wave for a good few years now, and I’ve long been intrigued by Nick’s role in the whole escapade. Sure, it’s about building the facility itself. But on another level, it’s a classic ‘if you build it, they will come’ story of one man and his unlikely vision.

Rich territory for a podcast conversation indeed, so with the project close to completion and the first waves about to flow, I headed down to Bristol to meet Nick and dig into his whole story.

The result is a conversation that covers a lot of diverse, emotional ground. Because the Wave is much more than a story about - well - a wave. There’s a deeper purpose at play, and a wider community vision for which surfing is the vehicle.

And there’s another level to this, too - the implications of such developments for surfing as a whole, and what it will mean for our oldest and most jealously protected sideways culture.

So yeah, a lovely weighty chat this, conducted on site a few weeks before UK surf culture changes for good. Hope you can forgive the background noise, and enjoy this unique insight into the man behind the Wave.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I welcomed the great Nick Jensen onto the show for episode 094.

Nick is a skateboarder and artist from London who has been a pivotal part of the UK scene for at least 15 years now. He occupies a really particular place in the UK skateboarding firmament - as a street skater of global renown and influence, and also as somebody with a unique approach to creativity and skateboarding.

I’ve been intrigued by Nick’s take on skateboarding for a few years, particularly his video parts or the work his does through Isle Skateboards. There’s always a considered aesthetic at play, and I was interested in how Nick transfers this vision between the different disciplines he’s dedicated his life to.

So I headed over to his studio in Homerton, to sit down and discuss the whole thing. As regular listeners to the show will know, I’m pretty interested in that whole area of creativity works, where ideas come from, and how you can still that voice of self doubt in your head to give yourself permission to do the work you’re trying to do.

So that's what we chatted about. The result is a super involved conversation about the mechanics of creativity, and the challenges involved in trying to live a creatively fulfilling life. Really enjoyed meeting Nick and getting such an insight into his life and work, hope you enjoy this one.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

My guest for this episode of Type 2 is longboarder Belinda Baggs.

Bindi is a surfer from Newcastle in Australia who is renowned as one of surfing’s foremost longboarding stylists. In the water, her milestones are numerous. She initially made her name on the Australian competitive circuit but is really renowned for the elegance of her approach to wave-riding, which has been showcased in films such as Sprout, Come Hell or High Water. She also has the distinction of being the first female surfer featured on the cover of Surfers Journal.

Today she is an ambassador for Patagonia, and works extensively with the brand on a variety of different projects,

Like a lot of surfers, Belinda’s relationship to the ocean is much more than the simple act of wave-riding - as she said in a recent interview, it encompasses care for the environment, respect for the power of nature, the ultimate playground, a place to be challenged and a place to relax. The ocean is my lifeblood and the true meaning of home.

This viewpoint helps to explain her passionate, forthright involvement in the Fight for the Bight, the grassroots campaign that aims to stop Norwegian oil giants Equinor from drilling for oil in the Great Australian Bight. As a resident of Victoria, this is issue is particularly close to home for Belinda, who has been tirelessly using her platform to draw attention to the issue, and lead the conversation on what has rapidly become a symbolic frontline issue for surfers around the world

I met up with Bindi in Ventura in April 2019, where we sat down to discuss her life in surfing, the Fight for the Bight and the ways in which activism has gradually evolved to become more of an important element of her life. It was a really thoughtful, reflective conversation with one of my favourite surfers. Hope you enjoy it.

New episodes of Type 2 will be released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Podbean, OvercastFM or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

My guest this week is Gabe Davies, one of the UK’s most legendary surfers. Whether it’s his career as a free surfer with Quiksilver or his pioneering explorations of the heaving waves off the west coast of Ireland, Gabe has helped to redefine British surfing on an international and big wave stage.

He is also synonymous with the none-more-grassroots NE surf scene in the UK, one of our true surfing heartlands and home to one of the country’s most passionate and hardcore scenes. Gabe has been an integral part of this world since his teens, dedicating his life to mastering the region’s waves and bearing witness to the characters and tales that have done so much to embellish English surfing history.

Not that Gabe’s career was confined to this particular corner of the surfing world. Ambition and drive saw him test himself in the world’s key surfing proving grounds, and led to a pioneering freesurf career with Quiksilver which occupied him for most of his 20s and 30s.

Being the personable lad that he is, Gabe also became great friends with some of the leading figures of the surf world, people like Kelly and the Malloys, who became a massive influence on his future direction. That’s both in and out of the water - the Malloys in particular were a huge influence on Gabe’s approach to Ireland, and his subsequent decision to begin working with Patagonia once his association with Quiksilver came to an end.

I was keen to speak to him about every facet of his surfing life and in July 2019 sat down with him in London to do just that. The result was a brilliant insight into the richness of north east surfing, and a look at one of UK surfing’s most influential careers.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com


I’m back with perhaps my must successful guest ever - Dougie Lampkin, the motorcycle trials legend who dominated his sport to such an extent he has crossed over into the mythical realm where he basically symbolises his own sport in the eyes of the mainstream.

And when you run the numbers, it isn’t difficult to see why. Dougie, who hails from the first family of British motorcycle trials riding, won his first Scottish Six Day Trials and Trial GP events in 1994. He went on to have an era-defining career which saw him win seven consecutive world titles and dominate his sport to such an unparalleled degree that today he is still considered to be the greatest trials rider of all time.

These days he still competes in Scottish Six Day Trial events and continues his association with long-term sponsor Red Bull, for whom he continues to work on stunts such as his mission to wheelie around the Isle of Man TT course, a feat he counts as up there with any of his world titles.

A career of incredible highs, basically - and with those come the attendant lows, including the moment his crown slipped and the winning streak ended, and the recent loss of his beloved father Martin, Dougie’s friend, mentor and partner throughout his career.

This conversation is a brilliant investigation into the mind of an absolute winner, and how somebody who has experienced the greatest highs their sport has to offer copes with the negatives that inevitably follow. Big thanks to Dougie for being such great company and for getting into the spirit of the podcast so wholeheartedly.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Shining a light in stories you may not know about, or speaking to people who are deserving of a wider audience, is a really important part of the Looking Sideways ethos. It is why my guests have included journalists, activists, chefs and musicians, as well as the big name professional athletes we all know.

And it’s why I invited my old friend Neale Haynes onto the podcast for this week’s episode. Neale is a photographer, although that description doesn’t really do justice to the life Haynsey has led for the past 30 years.

It’s a truly picaresque tale, which sees Neale, a man definitely both under a lucky star, forge a truly remarkable career that takes in the birth of Loaded and lad mag culture, sees him set up a ground-breaking action sports stock agency; and generally garner enough shameless, name-dropping anecdotes to give DJ BBQ, previous Looking Sideways namedrop world record holder, some serious competition.

Yes, this is a romp of a conversation in which Neale outlines the entire rollicking tale, while also imparting a couple of really salutary life lessons which apply to everybody, no matter what they’re trying to achieve in life.

Sure, it’s nice to embark upon a three week road trip around California. But sometimes it is equally nice to hop on a train to London and sit down with an old mate who you know has had one of the maddest, most incident-packed and downright successful careers of anybody you know. So that’s what I did.

Hope you enjoy the episode.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I’ve interviewed almost 100 guests in the two short years I’ve been putting together this podcast, and they’ve all got one thing in common - at some point, they shelved everything and dedicated their life to their passion.

It’s particularly true of professional athletes. There’s no other way to make it.

But what if you reach the top and realise that - whisper it - there’s more to life than snowboarding? And that maybe this thing you’ve dedicated your life to perhaps isn’t the path to personal satisfaction and existential happiness you thought it was?

That’s the premise at the heart of Elias Elhardt’s latest film project, Contradiction. It is a beautiful piece of work that is a treatise on the essential uselessness of the snowboarding lifestyle. It is that rare thing - an action sports film with a point of view beyond ‘Woo-hoo! Let’s shred’.

As you’ll see if you watch the film, Elias ha s a lot of very interesting things to say about snowboarding, but also about how these activities link to self awareness, and how perhaps there might be something more to this while business than sliding sideways, and how it might, as a professional, behove him to use his platform to investigate this possibility. In this he takes his place alongside peers such as Christian Haller, Jerome Tanon and David Benedek who are also exploring similar themes in their own work.

As you’ll know if you’re a regular listener of the show, these themes are right up my strasse, so while I was in Innsbruck in June 2019 I visited Elias at his place, and sat down to discuss these themes, and find out more about his new project which saw him spend five weeks in Kosovo.

I very much enjoyed my thought-provoking conversation with Elias and I hope you do too.

Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.

The first episode of Type 2 features Greg Long.

Greg is a big wave surfer from San Clemente who made his name as a standout at the planet’s biggest and most intimidating waves.

He has won the Eddie, the Red Bull Titans of Mavericks and multiple XXL awards including Biggest Wave, Ride of the Year and Performance of the Year.

In December 2012, Greg suffered a wipeout at Cortes Bank that almost killed him.

It was an experience that changed Greg’s life. And the ensuing epiphany put him on the path he’s following today. Sure, he still surfs the world’s biggest waves. But he is also committed to using his platform to share his experiences and knowledge in practical, productive ways, whether that’s through his work with the Big Wave Risk Assessment Group, or by raising awareness about ways we can protect the ocean environment and help solve the environmental challenges ahead.

I met Greg on a recent visit to Huntington Beach and we sat down to record this conversation about his own approach to activism in the light of the experience that changed his life.

New episodes of Type 2 will be released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Podbean, OvercastFM or any of the usual other podcast providers.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I paid homage to a personal influence for episode 089 when I met up with the great Steve Douglas, a legendary figures in UK skateboarding who’s had an incalculable influence in a career that has spanned almost four decades.

Like a lot of people, my first introduction to Steve was through his column in RAD Magazine - an essential connection to the global scene in a time before the internet. He was also one of the people behind @newdealskateboards - another big influence in my life - and other massively influential innovations like 411.

Throughout his career, he’s been driven by an absolute love of skateboarding, and a work ethic that has enabled him, time and again, to make things happen by sheer force of will. No media in your hometown? Create a zine yourself, as Steve did. Want to push yourself as a skater to become as good as you can? Be one of the first UK skaters to make the move west, and end up as one of the most important figures in the industry. Not happy with the way skaters are being treated by their existing sponsors? Start one of the first truly skater led companies, and turn it into one of the most influential brands ever.

For me he’s the ultimate distillation of the DIY ethos that is such a crucial part of skate culture, and has a legit claim to be one of the most quietly influential skateboarders of the last thirty plus years. Not bad for a Chelsea fan from North London.

It was a proper privilege to meet Steve and sit down to get the whole story. Big thanks to him for being so generous with his time and experience, and my friend Dan Adams at RaD for being so helpful.

Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I’ve been lucky enough to interview a massively diverse range of people since I started the Looking Sideways podcast. And one thing unites them all: the activity might have lured them in; but it was the lifestyle that eventually hooked them.

Yet few guests, if any, have taken their dedication to this chosen lifestyle to the same extreme as Rip Zinger, a self-described travelling monk who has turned couch-surfing into an artform. Rip is from Tokyo and is, in the title of a blogpost written about his lifestyle, ‘a most interesting man’. A skater, snowboarder and, latterly, surfer, he left his home in pursuit of the lifestyle he loves about - and he's still on the road.

Along the way Rip has racked up several lifetimes worth of incredible experiences, and made himself one of the most well-connected and much loved figures on the scene with a truly ridiculous network of contacts and friends around the world.

He’s also an amazing photographer, who documents the whole scene on Instagram, and has published a couple of books that document his adventures.

I’ve long found Rip’s story intriguing. Sure, we’ve all got mates who have dedicated themselves to their chosen lifestyle with noble single-mindedness - but few have managed it to turn it into such a fascinating life. Sure, the story of action sports is usually told through the lives of the superstars we all know. But characters like Rip, who are the unsung lifeblood of the scene, are just as important when it comes to sustaining our unique culture.

So as my Californian road trip came to an end, I caught up with at his current digs in Cardiff-by-the-Sea to get the whole story. And what a tale it is, uniquely told by one of the scene’s great characters. Enjoy!

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

What attributes spring to mind when you think of the average action sports athletes? Style? Skill? Bravery? Youth?

Whatever comes first, longevity is unlikely to figure too highly. After all, the majority of professional action sports careers burn short and sharp, averaging a decade at best before real life intervenes.

Sure, there are a handful of special talents that have graduated to the legend programme, notably in surfing and skateboarding. But they are the exception rather than the rule.

This context is what makes Mike Basich’s achievement so unparalleled. Here is a professional snowboarder who has sustained a career for 30 years. Even more impressively, he’s done so by managing to remain relevant in the face of the relentless progression that is the hallmark of all action sports culture.

That alone would make him a member of an exclusive crew. But what makes Mike’s story even more special is the fact that he has done it all completely on his own terms, and by following his own idiosyncratic path.

Not surprisingly, this experience has given Mike a unique outlook on life, and in today’s episode we explored the entire tale. Central to Mike’s story is the aforementioned legendary Area 23, the private resort compound he’s created for himself somewhere near Lake Tahoe.

Its a two decade project that is central to the entire Basich story and ethos, and in this chat we explored what it means to Mike, and just how integral to his tale it really is.

Sure, this the story of a snowboarding career. But as is always the case with Mike, it is so much more: about how to live your life on your own terms, and how to play the long game while staying true to your principles. It’s a extraordinary story from one of snowboardings most extraordinary individuals.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Disaster, tragedy, catastrophe, death, grief - these are the concealed details of life, hidden in plain sight in the hope we never have to experience them.

The truth, of course, is that we will all be tested by such experiences in our lives. Until we do, a couple of questions loom. How will we cope? How can we square these experiences, and move forward?

These are questions Jamie Brisick, my guest for episode 086, has faced twice now in the last decade. The first time was when he was suddenly widowed. And now, having lost everything he owns in recent Woolsey Fires in Malibu, he is facing them all over again.

Jamie is a surfer, writer and documentary maker. Like all true artists, he’s used these unimaginable losses as fuel for his work, channelling his experiences into a series of articles exploring the aftermath of the fire that rank among his finest.

I met up with Jamie in Malibu at the start of my recent trip. We recorded this episode of the podcast at the site of his former home, exploring in depth the emotions that such experiences bring forth - loss, grief, self-examination and, ultimately, hope.

This was the second time we’ve chatted for the podcast, but the first time we’d actually met, and it was a rare pleasure to meet somebody I’d long admired in person for the first time, and to share such a personal and moving conversation.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Shop talk special!

That’s exactly what happened when I met up with the host of the self-styled ‘World’s Greatest Action Sports Podcast’, Chris Cote.

Chris is a podcaster, presenter, editor, broadcaster, musician - a veritable action sports renaissance man, if you will. He’s also extremely good company, as I discovered when I went to meet him at Cote Media Group HQ in Encinitas.

On this side of the pond, Chris best known for presenting the Monday M.A.S.S. with fellow Looking Sideways podcast alumnus Todd Richards, which to my mind is the best of the weekly action sports round up shows. Sure, they’re proper sideways geeks - but I also really like the way they openly acknowledge how ridiculous the whole business really is.

Away from the podcast mic, Chris has carved out an action-packed career at the heart of action sports, whether presenting at the Vans Park Series or commentating on the WSL.

Sure, it is good to chat about life’s weighty themes, as I have done plenty of times on recent episodes of the show. But it is equally fun to sit back, relax and talk about podcasting, action sports and life in general, as we did during this riff-filled, freewheeling conversation which came along at just the right time during our California road trip. Big thanks to Chris for being such a generous and entertaining guest.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

When you’ve reached the top, where do you go? It’s a question every athlete has to face, and it’s something that is developing into one of the key themes of the Looking Sideways podcast.

In Taylor Knox’s case, working out the answers to such fundamental questions has always been part of his modus operandi. Sure, he is famed as one of the most influential surfers of his generation, thanks to a style that redefined power surfing for a new generation, and two decades on the tour to his name. But really, Taylor’s story is one of evolution - both in and out of the water.

The truth is that Taylor has applied the same incredible focus that enabled him to become one of the world’s most celebrated surfers to the mental challenges engendered by a life and career in constant flux. As he explained to me during our conversation, it’s an approach he’s used to face every challenge he’s faced in his career, whether injuries or crises of a more existential nature.

In this conversation, recorded in Carlsbad in April 2010, we looked back at the entire story - about growing up as a member of the famed Momentum Generation, about learning to love surfing again in the face of shifting motivations, and about his surfing life today following retirement after twenty years on the tour.

My thanks to Taylor for a brilliant afternoon, and for sharing his story with me for the show. Hope you enjoy the episode.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

Anybody who has managed to find one job they love is doing pretty well. Excelling at two life-defining careers suggests somebody operating at a different level entirely.

Yet that’s exactly what Circe Wallace has succeeded in doing. Of course, she initially came to prominence as one of snowboarding’s most legendary and pioneering women professionals. Her career perfectly mirrored the arc of snowboarding’s first boom, and Circe took full advantage, achieving incredible success and setting the standards for future generations to follow.

With her snowboarding career winding down, Circe then shifted her focus to the nascent world of action sports talent management - and over the next two decades carved out an era-defining career in that industry, too.

Today, she is Executive Vice President for Action Sports and Olympics at the Wasserman Group, and acts as agent and mentor to luminaries such as P-Rod, Torah Brighton, Travis Rice and Nicolas Muller.

By any measure, it’s a wildly impressive record of success, and today Circe enjoys a reputation as one of the action sports industry’s most successful and inspirational figures. And yet, as we explore during our conversation, the journey has not been as straightforward as it appears.

As a confident, unapologetic female entrepreneur determined to safeguard her own value in a male-dominated industry, she has faced obstacles at every turn and refers to herself as a ’pariah’ among certain elements of the industry.

Yet Circe’s story is ultimately a positive one. This is a story of a driven, focused woman taking on a male-dominated industry - and succeeding on her own terms. It’s about how she coped with the collateral damage sustained along the way, and found a way of overcoming the toxicity that - depressingly - seems to come with the territory whenever a women attempts to achieve parity on their own terms.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

"Nothing", Calvin Coolidge tells us, "can take the place of persistence and determination". Throw in an inquisitive mind, wide creative horizons and a supremely affable nature, and you have a pretty unbeatable recipe for success.

It is something Colin Kennedy seemed to intrinsically know from an early age, and helps to explain how, over two decades, he has carved out one of the most highly-regarded careers in skate media.

Colin is without question one of skateboarding’s most influential filmers, celebrated for the uniqueness of his artistic vision and the sheer longevity of a career that has spanned two decades and taken in stints at DVS, 411 and the Berrics.

Today, he is a freelancer legendary for bringing a unique eye to his projects. He is responsible for some of the most dazzling skate shorts of the last decade, films like Quik and One Stop, which combine a singular creative vision with some absolutely incredible skateboarding to create a beautiful aesthetic commonly likened to cinema vérité.

But, as our hugely enjoyable conversation reveals, there’s much more to Colin’s story than this. Instead, this is a tale is about the power of hard work, the importance of listening to your hunches, and the creative rewards that come when you stick faithfully to your own artistic vision.

Put like that, it sounds simple. But it takes creative courage to back yourself to such a degree, another thing that Colin has had since day one. For anybody struggling to follow through on their own projects, or wondering how to take the next step on their own personal journey, Colin’s work and career path are a welcome inspiration.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I go way, way back with legendary snowboard photographer and Transworld lifer Nick Hamilton. We first met in the mid-90s, and subsequently spent a glorious 6 year period putting together Whitelines magazine as part of a team that included friends and colleagues such as Ed Leigh, Chris Moran and Tudor ‘Chod’ Thomas.

Nick was always destined for greater things, and it was no surprise when in 2001 he was headhunted by Transworld Snowboarding, subsequently moving to Cali to work first as Photo Editor and then as Content Director. His old friends, myself among them, watched on proudly as his career flourished, overseeing Transworld’s expansion into the digital realm, stewarding the most famous title in snowboarding to ever greater heights and becoming one of the most well connected and respected people in the industry.

As a photographer, Nick is rightly legendary. And the story of how he carved out one of the most enviable and influential careers in the industry is equally enthralling. There’s also nobody better to pass comment on the state of modern action sports media.

In this conversation, recorded at Nick’s Cardiff home in April 2019, we delve into the entire story. It’s an epic that takes in Nick’s own extraordinary tale, but also traces the evolution and changing of the media landscape, an ongoing upheaval Nick has witnessed first hand. We also dig deep into the recent developments that have seen Transworld shuttered permanently in the wake of a much-publicised takeover by American Media and which has seen Nick finally end his association with the title after almost two decades.

In making this show, I’ve been lucky enough to interview some of the biggest names on the planet. But there’s something special about grabbing a couple of beers and sitting down with one of my oldest friends to reminisce about old times and their own extraordinary career. Hope you enjoy the episode.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I first heard about three times longboard world champion and current Carlsbad city council member Cori Schumacher in 2013, at the height of the Roxy/Steph Gilmore controversy. That was an episode that shone a harsh light on some of the more retrograde and toxic attitudes at play in the surf industry; and almost perfectly encapsulated the intricacies, nuances and challenge involved in debating issues of feminism, misogyny and sexism in an inherently conservative industry like surfing.

Cori was at the forefront of the efforts to point out this rather obvious truth, and I remember at the time being hugely impressed by her bravery in steadfastly trying to reclaim the narrative in the face of relentless ad hominem attacks.

But then, speaking truth to power in this unerring, unflinching way has long been a courageous hallmark of Cori Schumacher’s life and career. It was demonstrated once again in the aftermath of Keala Kennelly’s speech at the WSL Awards in April 2019. That speech received worldwide coverage and was roundly celebrated as the first time surfing had recognised an openly gay world champion. Except, of course, it wasn’t the first time surfing had an openly gay world champion. The first was, of course, Cori herself.

For Cori this airbrushing of widely-reported history is another example of how the surf industry sanitises the truth for their own wider narrative - which is the main theme of an episode that explores some particularly weighty themes and ideas.

The thing that I really find interesting and admirable about Cori, and about our conversation in general, is the originality of her thinking. We’re so used to the accepted surf industry narrative that standing apart this status quo can be a lonely act that comes at a huge personal cost.

Whether you agree with all of her opinions or not, to my mind she is a true unsung hero of the surf industry and somebody we should be celebrating for her unflinching honesty and the personal sacrifices she has made for her own wider beliefs. Which is exactly why I spoke to her for the podcast. Hope you enjoy the episode.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

At some point in their life, every skateboarder chose skating as their ultimate means of self-expression and self-identity. Ask any skater who they are and the chances are the answer will be - I’m a skater. It’s that simple.

So what happens when the one thing that has defined your life no longer serves you in the same way? When the quest you have dedicated your life to no longer fulfils you as it used to? And how do you cope when it has been the defining part of your life in the eyes of the world?

It’s a reckoning that everybody serious about their chosen path has to deal with at some point. For high-level athletes, it is often the most difficult transition of all. And in the skate world, where credibility is defined by your single-minded dedication to the creed of skating, dealing with it publicly is almost unheard of.

Which is why my interview with Jamie Thomas is perhaps the most honest and fascinating episode of the Looking Sideways podcast yet.

For over twenty years, Jamie has been one of the select group of individuals who have defined the culture of skateboarding and changed our understanding of what it means to be a skater. He has been driven by a ferocious work ethic and an unquenchable thirst for progression that have made his career one long continuous run of inspirational successes.

Now, at a critical point in his life, The Chief is looking inward, and bringing that legendary focus and commitment to his own internal struggles.

I’ve been interviewing skaters, snowboarders and surfers for twenty five years now. But I’ve yet to conduct an interview with this level of honesty, or hear a world-renowned figure express their own self-doubt and internal struggles so honestly and so eloquently. I’m grateful to Jamie for trusting me to tell this latest chapter of his story, and for approaching our conversation with such candour and openness. This is The Chief as you’ve never heard him before, tackling the same issues we all have to face at some point with the same honesty and pitiless intensity he brought to one of the most celebrated skate careers of all time.

There are lessons here for all of us - whether you’re skater or not.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

The word legend is bandied around too easily these days. Not least by me. But really, no other word is big enough to capture Herbie Fletcher’s personality, or what he represents to surf culture. As Jamie Brisick puts it, “"In rock and roll we've got Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger. In surfing we've got Herbie Fletcher.”

So what makes Herbie Fletcher such a titan of surf culture? There’s the surfing, of course. Herbie is one of surfing’s great stylists, consistently blowing minds over six decades of enduring mastery.

Then there’s his endless relevance. Hawaii in the 60s. Longboarding in the 70s. Astrodeck in the 80s. Wave Warriors in the 90s. Pioneering tow surfing. Whatever the decade. Herbie has taken risks and been at the cutting edge of every key development in surf history, often literally years ahead of the curve.

Then there’s the fact that Herbie is patriarch of THE quintessential board riding dynasty. Father to Christian and Nathan. Grandfather to Greyson. Husband to Dibi, herself a scion of the great Hoffman family, and surf royalty in her own right.

He’s also a renowned artist who works in every conceivable medium, counting Julien Schnabel as a friend and, at the time of our visit, prepping for a forthcoming exhibition at the Gagosian. NBD.

Like I say - only the word legend will suffice. It was a great privilege to spend the afternoon with Herbie, watching him work and recording this conversation. Sit back, and enjoy a lifetime of tales from a true icon.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I’ve been wanting to bag this one for years. Craig Peterson and Kevin Naughton are surfing’s very own Lewis and Clark, two Orange County boys who in the early 1970s embarked upon surfing’s most legendary odyssey, traversing the world looking for waves and defining the golden age of surf travel and exploration.

It was an impossibly romantic journey that saw them spend a decade questing their way across the Americas, Europe and Africa, documenting the entire thing in a series of massively influential dispatches for Surfer Magazine, and creating the wave hunt template that everyone from Kepo Acero to Chris Burkard follows today.

I first interviewed Craig over 15 years ago, and once my California road trip was confirmed I got back in touch with Craig and arranged to meet them and record an episode while I was staying in Huntington Beach. Which is what myself and Owen Tozer did, heading to Kevin’s SoCal residence to sit down and go over the entire thing.

And what a joy the resulting conversation was, enlivened by some of surfing’s greatest tales and the generosity of Craig and Kevin themselves. Sure, they might not enjoy the same renown of some of their peers and contemporaries, but their contribution to surf culture is as great as anybody’s, and it is a true pleasure to help the duo bring their story to a new generation.

I've got to thank Craig and Kevin for their hospitality and for being so enthusiastic about coming on the show. Hope you enjoy this glimpse into a classic period of surf history as much as I did.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

I welcomed one of the true greats onto the show for episode 076: the legendary Kelly Clark.

Kelly is, without question, one of the most influential snowboarders of all time and the most successful competitive snowboarder in history - full stop. Run the numbers and you begin to understand the scale of her achievements: 20 years, nigh on 200 events, 137 podiums, 78 wins, 6 X Games medals, 8 US Open half pipe titles, two bronze and one gold medals won over the course of five Olympic Games.

It’s a record that is unlikely to be bettered, and is why Kelly’s retirement, which she announced a few months ago, is a real pivotal moment in competitive snowboarding history.

I called in to see Kelly Clark at her place on my way up to Squaw Valley, where we sat down to cast a forensic eye over this incredible career.

This is a proper in-depth geekfest of a conversation about what it takes to succeed at the highest level for over twenty years. Its about the highs, the lows, and the constant reinvention required to stay relevant and keeping progressing over such a lengthy timeframe. We also talk about the responsibility Kelly felt towards the culture of snowboarding, and how she is using her unparalleled experience to help the new generation reach even greater heights.

My thanks to Kelly for coming on the show, and being so honest and open about the struggles and successes that have characterised one of the truly great snowboarding careers.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com

First podcast of my California road trip! And what a lovely way to kick things off. I first heard of Sachi Cunningham when a listener tipped me off, and I immediately got in touch to ask her if she’d be up for coming on the show while I was in San Francisco.

Sachi is a surf photographer, filmmaker, journalist, mother, cancer survivor and all round force of nature who has spent the last few years working on a project called She Change. It's a documentary which follows Keala Kennelly, Paige Alms, Bianca Valenti and Andrea Moller on their quest to be admitted in the Maverick’s big wave event, and which uses that topic to explore the wider story of the quest for gender parity in big wave surfing.

It’s a story that has garnered significant mainstream coverage, and She Change tackles themes I've covered on previous podcasts, one of which is how men react when women ‘encroach’ on what is traditionally very masculine territory.

Sachi is a skilled storyteller, and she tackles this nuanced and emotional topic with the honest and integrity that is a feature of all her work, whether it’s her pioneering water photographer at waves like Ocean Beach and Mavericks, or in the way she fearlessly and openly documented her recent cancer experience.

Overall, this is yet another poignant, at times hilarious and completely honest conversation with an inspirational guest, who is driven to tell stories about people who’s passion has driven them into new and uncharted territory. Much like Sachi herself.

Thanks as usual to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my new editor Fina Charleson.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe