Category Archives: Our World

27
Aug
2011

The Tragedy of Svalbard

7 comments
Posted in Arctic, Expeditions, Our World
Adventure and exploration are inherently risky and necessarily so – without it, they would be nothing.
06
May
2011

BASE jumping and Arctic Surfing

10 comments
Posted in Our World, Photo Friday
This guy's a bloody idiot!
03
Jan
2011

Manifesto for 2011: the Revolution Will Not be Motorised

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Posted in Health and Fitness, MicroAdventure, Motivation, Our World
I make my living from speaking and writing about the things that I do. I have a platform to preach from. And the time has come for me to practice what I preach.
08
Nov
2010

Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

5 comments
Posted in Our World, Ramblings
Before you read this post please listen to the piece of music below, unless you already know it. (Put it on in the background as you do something else for 9 minutes). It’s the second movement of Górecki’s Symphony No. 3. I’ve loved it for many years. I have listened to this haunting, beautiful piece [...]

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02
Aug
2010

The Joy of Less

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Posted in Motivation, Our World
I’ve edited down this superb piece on simple living by Pico Eyer. Read the full New York Times article here. “The beat of my heart has grown deeper, more active, and yet more peaceful, and it is as if I were all the time storing up inner riches…My [life] is one long sequence of inner [...]

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28
Jul
2010

Thought for the Day: be canny, be cautious, yet be gracious and trusting

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Posted in Our World
Whenever possible I listen to the Thought for the Day on Radio 4. This one struck me for its useful balancing of trust and caution, one of the most vital aspects of solo travel in distant lands. ‘You must be,’ said Jesus, ‘as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves’. A poetic way of [...]

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19
Jul
2010

Everest mountaineer and dustbin man

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Posted in Expeditions, Our World
I’m going to share a couple of relevant talks from last year’s Do Lectures over the next few weeks while I am away on expedition in Iceland. First up, Paul Deegan: DON’T MISS A THING – FREE MONTHLY UPDATE BY EMAIL: Have you read Alastair’s books? Also available for Kindle, iPad and children.
03
Jul
2010

Cycle Touring – The People You Meet

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Posted in Cycling, Our World
“Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.” Victor Hugo Other than close encounters with angry dogs,  truck drivers, dire loneliness and dysentery my last seven months cycling up The Mekong river in South East Asia (writes Tom on the Bicycle Travel Network) could hardly be described as perilous. [...]

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16
Jun
2010

On Living Simply and Naturally

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Posted in Our World
Six weeks living in a tent on the Arctic Ocean. Six weeks when every possession I owned served a clear and important function. Six weeks in the same clothes. Six weeks in an empty, nihilistic landscape. These are the times I realise how much junk I have back in my “real” life. So I enjoyed [...]

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07
Jun
2010

Swimming in the Arctic

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Posted in Arctic, Best Bits, MicroAdventure, Our World, Video
I love wild swimming, especially in remote and beautiful places. So the chance to swim under the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean was too good to turn down. Here’s a short video I made about the experience. DON’T MISS A THING – FREE MONTHLY UPDATE BY EMAIL: Have you read Alastair’s books? Also available [...]

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31
May
2010

Audio slideshow Inuit guide

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Posted in Best Bits, Expeditions, Our World, Photography
Russell Atagootak was our Inuit guide on the Arctic expedition I have just returned from. I was really interested to spend time with him to try to work out how a small ethnic group fits into modern Canada. The trite yet apt conundrum faced by people of the far north is that they are torn [...]

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18
May
2010

On the variety of our world

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Posted in Best Bits, Motivation, Our World, Writing
“World is crazier and more of it than we think, Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion A tangerine and spit the pips and feel The drunkenness of things being various.” - Louise MacNeise ‘Snow’ I am an Englishman. I grew up in an English village. I went to a school full of English kids. My [...]

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12
May
2010

Kindness on the Road

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Posted in Cycling, Our World
For the doubters and naysayers, for those who fear to get on their bikes and chase the sunset, for those who stay home rather than flying to far-flung lands: here is a reassurance that you will meet kindness on the road. Here are 5 random acts of kindness experienced on the road DON’T MISS A [...]

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28
Apr
2010

We were born too late to be explorers. To be real explorers. To be one of the hard men.

17 comments
Posted in Best Bits, Expeditions, Our World, Writing
We were born too late to be explorers. To be real explorers. To be one of the hard men (for they were always men back then) fired by such curiosity, such desperate yearning to cross the next horizon, that they were willing to set off for years on end with slim chance of returning, with [...]

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27
Apr
2010

Not things but men and women

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Posted in Best Bits, Cycling, Expeditions, Our World
A few weeks ago I was delighted to host three very dirty, extraordinarily hungry cyclists at my home. These guys had cycled from Cape Town back to England and were on the final leg of the epic ride back home to Ireland. Maghnus wrote these words as he approached the finish line. I wanted to [...]

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12
Apr
2010

A Paratrooper’s prayer

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Posted in Best Bits, Motivation, Our World, Poetry, Training
I am not religious, but I relish the power of this prayer, known often as the Paratrooper’s prayer. I bring this prayer to You, Lord, For you alone can give What one cannot demand from oneself. Give me, Lord, what You have left over, Give me what no one ever asks of You. I don’t [...]

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29
Dec
2009

Conquerors of the useless

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Posted in Our World
Three-and-a-half minutes of delicious, vicarious wanderlust and an important call-to-arms. DON’T MISS A THING – FREE MONTHLY UPDATE BY EMAIL: Have you read Alastair’s books? Also available for Kindle, iPad and children.
19
Oct
2009

Paddle to Seattle Video

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Posted in Our World, Travel, Video
This video encapsulates exactly what I am searching for in the adventurous life. Absolutely wonderful. DON’T MISS A THING – FREE MONTHLY UPDATE BY EMAIL: Have you read Alastair’s books? Also available for Kindle, iPad and children.
17
Oct
2009

19 great photos of Religions Round the World

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Posted in Our World, Photography
This is the first in a new series of occasional posts that is really just an excuse for me to share some interesting pictures on different themes. First up, a nice, gentle simple topic to ease me in slowly: Religion Round the World Muslim Man Praying in Trafalgar Square A tardy novice monk runs through [...]

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20
Sep
2009

Peace One Day

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Posted in Charity, Motivation, Our World
Every so often you see a film or read a book that fires you towards action. The film Peace One Day blew me away. Truly motivational. The film charts the remarkable 10-year journey of filmmaker Jeremy Gilley to establish an annual Peace Day on 21 September. The camera follows Gilley as he galvanises the countries [...]

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