According to scientists, the planet is dying. They are not in dispute about this. They may debate the speed of the decline but they agree on where we’ll end up and it’s not pretty. It’s pretty ugly, pretty disastrous with profound ecological and economic ramifications for future generations. Extinction Rebellion or XR has emerged to […]
I’m sitting in the darkness waiting for the fireworks. I mean this quite literally. I’m on a grassy hillside in Butchart Gardens, one of Vancouver’s premier tourist attractions. There are thousands of other people waiting, mostly Canadians. They are sitting patiently counting down the minutes to the display. People are calm, there is no shouting, […]
There are a lot of angry people about. I find myself one of them, as today a tiny minority of people hand the keys to number ten Downing Street to a man palpably unfit to be Prime Minister. On a blisteringly hot day, my patience is further tested by a driver crawling along under the […]
A man wakes up, he’s slept fitfully. He’s excited, nervous and focused as today is the day. A day two years in the making. He showers, grabs something to eat and loads up the car. He checks his social media, the live stream is ready to go. By the time he parks his car the […]
That red leather jacket, that monster dance routine, Vincent Price’s creepy voice and then those glowing eyes at the end of the song. That’s what I, and I suppose most people remember about Thriller, the title song from an album that secured Michael Jackson’s legacy as one of the greatest entertainers of the twentieth century. […]
Six Saturdays before Christmas I find myself on Newcastle’s Northumberland Street. It’s heaving with people all swerving and dodging one another to avoid invading precious personal space. Everywhere I look I see stressed faces, people clutching shopping, manically scanning shop windows for their next purchase. There is a huge queue outside of the iconic Fenwick’s […]
I awoke on EBC morning having slept soundly. I felt calm and relaxed as I began the now familiar routine of packing my bag for the porters. Outside, the cold air held a pungent aroma that seemed part butane and part breakfast. Yak bells rang and birds chirped in flight whilst trekkers geared themselves up […]
We would arrive at Dingboche on a bright Thursday afternoon after an incredibly scenic yet undulating trek from Tengboche. At around 4400 metres, we felt tired on arrival. The hot showers advertised in our tearoom turned out to be little more than a trickle of cold water. Our rooms had no insulation to speak of […]
Himalayan mornings are incredibly cold. Our room at Phakding had no heating to speak of, so we were reliant on our sleeping bags and a musty old quilt to resist the cold. We could see our breath in the air as we quickly scrambled into our walking attire. I shivered as I stripped off the […]
Kathmandu to Phakding A grueling flight ended as we passed groggily through the terminal in Kathmandu. The contrast to Dubai airport where we had spent an arduous 12 hours in transit could not have been greater. I likened the passage through the airport to a secondary school corridor and baggage collection could easily have been […]
