Looking Sideways: 10 Things
This week: an hour that changed the world, London Calling, Ye on (another) mad one, and a vision for a new form of outdoor media.
1. It’s that time of year once again - I have free UK shipping on all Looking Sideways merch until Sunday June 30th. Yes, that does include the mugs, stickers and these rather smart notebooks (above), as well as yer more usual tees, hoodies, strides and the like.
Anyway, if you want to support what I do in a way that DOESN’T involve taking out an annual subscription, you’re in luck. Click here to check the range (and yes I know I need to update the home page. I’ll get round to that once I’ve cloned myself 🤷♀️).
2. Sure, sharing chin-stroking quotes of any type on social media is generally a fool’s errand. But every now and again I make an exception, and this sniffy thought-provoker (“…he who writes for fools always finds a large public” - zing!) from Schopenhauer is one such occasion.
3. “Events, dear boy, events”.
The eternal truth of Harold Macmillan’s legendary (and perhaps apocryphal) answer to the ‘what is the biggest threat to your government?’ question was just re-confirmed by Joe Biden’s calamitous showing in this week’s US Presidential Debate, which has does look to have abruptly opened the door onto a scary new American political reality.
This one will be pored over for decades but, as ever, The Rest Is Politics is a good place to start.
4. One of the most enjoyable parts of putting my forthcoming documentary The Announcement together has been working on the original score with my extremely talented pal Ben Townsend.
As ‘research’, we’ve been listening to a LOT of podcast documentaries while geeking out over the soundtracks - like Malcolm Gladwell’s latest, above.
ICYMI - my pals at The Wave are the latest additions to HKC Discount Club! Just drop the code SIDEWAVES10 at checkout to get the goods.
5. One for the snowboard boomers (yes, that includes me) - in the last week Shaun Palmer has popped up on Instagram and begun dishing the dirt on his own personal take on snowboarding history.
6. London Calling is next weekend! The line-up looks brilliant, especially the London Calling x Read and Destroy Forum on the Saturday hosted by friends-of-the-show Ben Powell and Neil Macdonald.
Incidentally, I have an episode with Wig, Paul Sunman and Dan Adams coming out to coincide with the event and RAD book launch, so keep your ears open for that.
7. One of the interviewees I was most pleased to snag for The Announcement was the great
, doyen of the conversation around sustainable business since at least the early 1970s.John and his colleague Louise Kjellerup Roper were incredibly generous with their time and insights, and really helped me contextualise Patagonia’s announcement within the context of this wider, five-decade long conversation.
Anyway, John’s new book Tickling Sharks is out now, and he just discussed the whole thing with Louise for their company Volans’ regular Book Club. Watch the entire session above, and find out more about John’s new book here.
8. “Because, ultimately, the defining characteristics of this team – and perhaps the closest thing English football has to a genuinely organic identity – are the same traits that define England as a country: rampant individualism and an incurable saviour complex”.
Yes, I know I share way too many articles by Jonathan Liew. But this piece about what the national discourse around the England team says about us as a nation is the king at his magisterial best.
9. It’s been doing the rounds: this New Yorker piece about Ye systematically destroying the beachfront Malibu Ando house he bought for $57.3 million, surely a new nadir when it comes to capitalist culture’s obscene, celebratory consumerist sickness.
I know that sounds like total and utter hyperbole but really, what else can you call an act like this?
10. Finally, a Substack recommendation. Friend-of-ACM (and key Sidetracked contributor)
, who just shared a really interesting post around some ideas for a new form of outdoor media powered by Substack. Read it (and subscribe) above.
T-shirt ordered!