Category: Living Adventurously
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Women can’t run marathons – Part I
Did you know that there was no women’s marathon in the Olympic Games until 1984? The men’s event, in contrast, was part of the inaugural “modern Olympics” in 1896. Women had, of course, run marathons before that but not without a lot of effort – and I don’t mean the running. Under the assumption that…
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Do you find Newton Faulkner attractive?
I knew nothing about about Newton Faulkner other than that he was a singer/songwriter. I loaded up his album, Hand Built By Robots, on Spotify and thought it was great so, last night, I asked my friends if they’d heard of him. “Have you seen what he looks like?”, one of them asked me in…
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Life, true life
“It was during that performance of Rigoletto that opera imprinted itself on Katsumi Hosokawa, a message written on the pink undersides of his eyelids that he read to himself while he slept. Many years later, when everything was business, when he worked harder than anyone in a country whose values are structured on hard work,…
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Fingers crossed for rain
Earlier in the summer, three students from my old university, UCL, set off to Vancouver Island for a spot of sea kayaking. As a member of the UCL Expedition & Travel Committee, I gave them a tiny steer in the right direction and, in return, they have kindly sent us this update from the field:…
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Rob’s first triathlon
This morning I am packing my bags once again for another little adventure. Ever since I’ve known Rob he has been preparing for this event: his first triathlon. Here’s what’s going to happen in his own words: “The time has come! Dawn on Monday morning, my great adventure starts, and I have a mixture of…
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The Land of the Midnight Sun
Over the four weeks that I’ve spent on expedition with BSES in Norway, the activities have been split roughly 50/50 between mountaineering and kayaking. I have been land based throughout but my fellow leader and new friend Lucy Bound spent some time on the water and has kindly allowed me to upload a sneak preview…
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Time to appreciate
I am currently in Norway. You can read about it here and see live updates here and at the bottom of the page. There is a well-known theory in the study of memory called consolidation. It’s the idea that when you take in new information, you need time to process it such that you retain…
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A little adventure
I am currently in Norway. You can read about it here and see live updates here and at the bottom of the page. In my absence, we have a guest blog from my good friend Ben Wade about a recent bike trip of ours to Amsterdam: “Ahead of us lay a little adventure, 4 and…
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The shuffle button on my iPod
This is the last post I’m writing before I head to Norway tomorrow. I’d been struggling to think of something clever to write about for some time and this is the best I’ve come up with: I’ve just discovered the shuffle feature on my iPod and I think it’s great. Despite the fact that I …
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Cross the street and walk on the other side
The aim of this blog entry is to encourage you to explore your local area. I recently moved back to the town in which I grew up. In many ways that could be viewed as a step back, a regression but I’m trying not to see it that way. Instead, I am embracing it. I’ve…
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Paddling to France
I met Chris and George when playing hockey for Hampstead and Westminster ‘Thirsts’ team. It may sound like ‘Firsts’ but that, I assure you, is where the similarity ends. I didn’t know much about them other than what position they played but recently got a message in my inbox asking would I like to sponsor…
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Technology imitating life
This website is made with free software, on a computer running a free operating system, filled with free programs. I’ve recently switched from using the standard Microsoft packages that we all know and love (Mac users, you no doubt have equivalents), to using entirely free software. This is partly driven by my new approach to…