Category Archives: Our World

15
Sep
2009

I wish I could do what you do… Well, why can’t you?

15 comments
Posted in Best Bits, Motivation, Our World, Ramblings
At the end of a recent talk a young man approached me. “I wish I could do what you do…“, he said, wistfully. He was 23, earning good money in the City, single, had no mortgage and was physically fit. So I asked him what was stopping him from doing what he really wanted to [...]

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03
Aug
2009

Treehouse Living

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Posted in Best Bits, Our World, Ramblings, slideshows
I’ve just returned to London after a fantastic stay in Nick Weston’s tree house in Sussex. Nick has turned his back on city life to build, and live in, a tree house “somewhere in Sussex”. He is living off the land whilst he writes a book about his experiences. In return for a couple of [...]

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23
Jul
2009

Map of all the countries I have visited

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Posted in Our World, Travel
At times, when the search for sponsorship for Antarctica gets me down a bit, I turn my mind to daydreaming of easier, cheaper journeys. Last week I explained why I now need to find myself a new project for the next few months. Here’s a map that shows (in red), the places I’ve been to. [...]

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20
Jul
2009

We choose the Moon

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Posted in Our World
(skip to 1’30″ for the good part!) “There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this [...]

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15
Jul
2009

Society, I hope you’re not lonely without me.

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Posted in Best Bits, Our World, Ramblings
Struggling to overcome inertia a week or two back I listened to the soundtrack to Into the Wild, one of my favourite films. It helped me to remember the power that the world’s natural places can have on us, and also to maintain my priorities. I had sunk into the typical London trap of equating [...]

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14
Jul
2009

Hunger and Night and the Stars

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Posted in Our World, Poetry, Ramblings
“Were you ever out on the Great Alone, When the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in With a silence you ‘most could hear With only the sound of a timber wolf And you camped there, in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, Clean mad for the [...]

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09
Jul
2009

Ed Stafford: From the Amazon to Regent Street

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Posted in Expeditions, Our World
Ed Stafford - the first man to walk the length of the River Amazon, presents a lecture to the National Geographic store via Skype
24
May
2009

Discovery is always spine-tingling and hair-raising, and tumescently inspirational

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Posted in Expeditions, Our World, Travel
AA Gill wrote a long piece today about the RGS and its recent debate on whether to resume sending out its own expeditions. That debate may or may not interest you. But what caught my eye were these few paragraphs which resonated with me and are of interest whether or not you care about the [...]

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22
May
2009

Life is a journey full of infinite potential experiences

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Posted in Best Bits, Expeditions, Motivation, Our World
I have just been for a coffee with James Hooper who climbed Everest aged 19. James was the expedition partner and best friend of Rob Gauntlett who died whilst climbing in the Alps in January. He was 21. Until today I had only met them both at the same time, a real double act as [...]

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19
May
2009

The Unfolding Road

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Posted in Best Bits, Our World, Poetry, Ramblings, Travel
I was asked to read a poem at a friend’s wedding last week. The poem (Ben Okri’s ‘To An English Friend In Africa’) was one of my favourites, in fact it is the one that I have carried with me on all my journeys for a decade or so. Here’s a few snippets. Be grateful [...]

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