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