Wednesday Movie - Shattered

"Our darkest fears are like dragons, guarding our deepest treasures"
Awesome ice climbing short here - pure poetry

The Daily (Hate) Mail and Cancer

The Daily Mail is the pits of British journalism. Unlike the red-top tabloids which at least have no pretensions about being anything other then low-brow sports and entertainment comics for the masses, the Daily Hate pretends to be a serious newspaper whilst feeding a constant stream of raciest, homophobic, bigoted, right wing scaremongering. Best of all is the hypocrisy - they will show endless of photos lauding skinny celebrities whilst talking about the tragedy of anorexia in teenage girls on the next page. Or repeatedly run articles on the threat of Polish pedophiles to your children and then publish a story lamenting the fact that kids don't go outside anymore.  

If you have ever had the misfortune to read the rag, or even worse its online version then you will know that everything gives you cancer. Fortunately the nice people at Kill or Cure have done an excellent job of cataloguing a definitive list of the Mail's view on what gives you cancer and when you get it, what will cure you. This means that you can be saved without having to wade through all the other crap. The list is here and if that is a bit to boring to read then Chris has put it into a song here,   which is reminisant of Dan and Dan's Daily Mail song which we featured on here before.

Eastern Europe

This week I am mainly running into references to the former Eastern Bloc.
First there has been a lot of stuff going on to commemorate the 20 years anniversary of the Siege of Sarajevo. I t has always amazed me that while one side of Europe was squabbling about farm subsidies and fishing quotes, the other half was tearing it self to pieces.  I will also never understand how people can live as neighbours for 50 years and then one day start killing each other. Although the Scots hatred of the English that you sometime see up here; or Rangers supporters sending bullets to the Celtic manager, is perhaps an interesting insight into the strength of some peoples misguided ethnic identity and the hatred that it can produce.

Anyway back to the movies. The first was shot by a friend of Katharine's who was an NBC cameraman in Bosnia in the early 90's. Its very moving stuff.

And on a lighter note, it was only a matter of time before someone combined slack-lining and BASE and its no surprise that its those wacky Frenchies (whoops - bit of ethnic pigeon-holing there!)

Oh yes the other reference to the Eastern Block - I have been reading "the Freedom Climbers" by Bernadette MacDonald, the story of Polish high altitude mountaineering in the 1990's - its amazing

Facebook in the 90's

Have you ever wondered what Facebook would have looked like if it had been invented in the 90's - no me neither, but this video showing what it might have looked like is pretty funny

And google in the 80s' -

Both from http://www.squirrel-monkey.com/

Bricktop gets around

Star Wars just got a whole lot gritter as Bricktop, the self styled "orrible c*nt" out of Snatch stands in for Darth Vader - a classic here 

And what happens when the same happy chap calls up Hitler - here 

And finally Lock Stock meets Rainbow - here 

I am off to Spain for three days fieldwork so a friday joke is unlikely

The Flying Cowboy of Canyonlands

Some years ago I participated in making a one hour documentary about the geology of the Book Cliffs in Utah for the BBC. Part of the footage was shot from a plane. To get this footage we simply went to the local airport (Price) and hired a pilot for an hour. This is not as unusual as it sounds, there is normally some crop duster, who makes a living out of private charters, although not normally for filming.

A small, elder guy, in jeans and a check shirt hobbled out, jumped into the plane and flew us up along the cliffs for an hour. The camera man who also had a pilot licence and about 50 hours of flying time kept bleating about protocol and procedure, he was clearly not a happy man. The pilot looked non-plussed by his jittery passenger.

When we landed he asked me if I was happy with his flying and I said yes, no problems. Then he took me to his trailer at the back of the airport and showed me a video cassette entitled "Arch Enemy". He asked me if I had ever seen it and I had to admit I hadn't.

So he gave it to me with a smile and said "well enjoy".

Seems that we had just been flown by Tim Martin - the Flying Cowboy of Canyonlands. Back in the days when you could do cool stuff without everyone bitching and moaning about HSE, he was a stunt pilot and his speciality was flying through the arches in Arches National Park.

Here is a taster on youtube - the guy is a legend

Wednesday Movie

Nice poem about the Scum Sun from Charlie Brooker in the week when Rupert Murdoch announced he was reviving the gutter fest that was the News of the World and calling it the Sunday Sun. Perhaps Rebeka Wade needs a perm

More typical,  a fun video about people doing the kind of stupid stuff I love, in Moab, one of my favorite spots

Although calling it the World's largest rope swing is way off - that must belong to Dan Osman who was taking 1000ft swings in Yosemite years ago. See here and here 

Finally a nice compilation of people doing cool stuff here

Wednesday Movie

More adventure sport stuff
Really nice surf video from the west coast of Ireland here 
Some insane wing suit flying here and here (you can skip at least first 30 secs of the second one if you are in a rush for your adrenalin rush)
Finally, Tim Emmett just completed his insane ice project Spray-on, while we wait for the movie to come from that its worth checking out his offering from last year here and some great footage but in Spanish here, you will understand muy loco!

Wednesday Movie - Yosemite

The Yosemite valley is a very special place, especially to climbers, geologists and photographers, of which I am all three (with varying degrees of ability). The valley was the first national park and represent a step change in our perception of wilderness from something to be exploited to something that should be cherished and preserved.

A couple of nice videos from the valley. First is a fantastic timelapse, one of the nicest I have ever seen.
Second is a nice bouldering video

Wednesday Movie - Its all a question of perspective

Something a bit different this week - some cool Dutch dudes doing some wacky street painting 

Wednesday Movie - Shit people say

Found a whole new genre of videos entitled "shit people say" with people being anyone from snowborders, skiers, single girls, drunk girls, drunk guys, hipsters, vegans or many more

Wednesday Movie

Three movies this week with no theme
The first is by me and its the latest version of the timelapse of the roof going on our steading (barn)
The second is a total crazy guy flying a jet suit, straight out of batman, this is for real
And finally some fairly crazy Spaniards showing a total lack of respect for the sea (turn the volume down)

Global warming

Very nice video here that demonstrates mean surfaces temp across the Earth for the past 250 years
And there are still people who think the planet is warming...
Mind you most of them are in the GOP or Tory parties

Feeling sorry for yourself?

I am sure your weren't but just in case here are a couple of videos to the watch

The first is Paul Pritchard, who was a North Wales based climber until an accident climbing a sea stack in Tasmania left him hemiplegic. Not a man to take such things lying down he has continued his life as an adventurer. His latest trip is to ride a recumbent tricycle 1100 km across the Roof of the World from Tibet to Kathmandu to raise awareness for blind Tibetan orphans. Many Buddhists believe that being born blind is karmic punishment for bad deeds in a former life, so blind kids are driven from their family homes and made to fend for themselves.  Braille without borders is a small charity that helps these children punishment  

Paul is one of the most inspirational people I have ever met, both before and after his accident. If you are feeling down then his courage and spirit should help to give a bit of perspective.

And on a similar note, check this guy out. Truly inspirational 

Wednesday Movie on Friday

Some great cliff jumping from Grant in Bermuda - not sure a cliff jumping festival would ever really take off in Scotland or Norway - maybe its the weather

Yosemite Video

Yosemite Valley was made famous by Ansel Adams with his iconic black and white photographs. As well as tourists it is also a mecca for climbers. I visited it twice back in the mid-90's, the second time was on a 3 month climbing road trip around the western US. I was climbing well with a very strong partner and we climbed some amazing routes.

I found this video about life as a climbing photographer in the valley. The narration is a bit annoying but the sceanry and cinamatography are fantastic. The camp 4 collective have some other pretty cool stuff on their vimeo site.

Canyonlands Climbing - wednesday movie

Really nice climbing video from one of my favorite place on Earth

Wednesday Movie

This is rather cool and very short
Courtesy of Chris D

The Wednesday Whale

There were whales in Bergen harbour last weekend which was rather awesome.
A while ago I found this on the internet and forgot to post it. I think its pretty amazing and well worth watching.
It's a home movie by a group of fishermen who find a whale entagled in an old fishing net - its really rather moving, espeically the end. Enjoy.

Wednesday Movie

Just when I was getting pleased with my time lapse skills I found this!
Absolutely stunning.
If you enjoyed that, check out his blog http://www.terrastro.com/galleries/
Enjoy