More Than Words

🏍️ More Than Words – Episode 28: Man, Overboard 🏍️ From thundersnow skepticism to toilet reviews, because the Isle of Man’s tourism strategy is apparently “motorcycles at 200mph, Victorian waterwheels, and suspiciously clean public loos.” Featuring:  ⚡ Thundersnow: didn’t exist in my day, fight me  🏴‍☠️ St Maughold: Irish pirate → hermit → bishop  🎯 TT races: 200mph through front gardens, neuro...

🌊 More Than Words – Episode 27: The Old Man and The Sea 🌊 From glute mutiny to maritime optimism, because apparently the second half of this challenge begins with both my body and the Irish Sea behaving like unreliable contractors. Featuring: 🦵 Injury rota systems: one strain clocks off, another clocks in 
🌊 The Irish Sea: shallow, busy, and permanently one mood swing from chaos
 ⛴️ Donaghadee...

🚶‍♂️ More Than Words – Episode 26: Don’t Look Back In Bangor🚶‍♂️ From festive overconfidence to maritime squinting, episode 26 proves that Christmas fitness is mostly about damage limitation and negotiating with your own limbs. Featuring: 🎄 Christmas walking schedules derailed by cheese 🦵 A mystery leg injury: no fall, no heroics, just betrayal 🏙️ Belfast: linen, shipbuilding, buried rivers, u...

🌸 More Than Words – Episode 25: The Hothouse Flowers 🌸 From Miami smugness to London tunnels and Northern Ireland’s most over-engineered corridor. Featuring: ☕ Miami Beach: Cuban coffee, pancakes, and the gentle joy of moderate financial extortion 🎄 Gatecrashing work Christmas parties: all the fun, none of the meetings 🚇 Leake Street Tunnel: Banksy’s legal graffiti playground, rats included...

🌴 More Than Words – Episode 24: Not Throwing Away My Shot 🌴 From Caribbean cruise confinement to Tyrone crossroads and compost-related trauma, because nothing says “walking project” like Alexander Hamilton, granite grottoes, plantation paperwork, and a smell you can’t escape. Featuring: 🏝️ Nevis: tiny island, enormous history 🎭 Alexander Hamilton: overachiever and rapper-by-proxy 🪨 Virgin Gord...

☀️📍 More Than Words – Stage 23: Show Me the Sunny 📍☀️ One brief detour into cruise-ship excess — then straight back to what we do best: historical over-delivery, questionable decisions, and a stage so dense it should’ve come with a contents page. Featuring:
 🚢 A floating buffet briefly interrupts the walking 
🏰 Plantation optimism, and the bold theory that stolen land would be fine, actually
...

🌊🗺️ More Than Words – Episode 22: West Side Story 🗺️🌊
 From British winter trudging to neon-lit Miami smugness, before plunging back into Fermanagh’s lakes, legends, and paperwork-heavy dampness — Stage 22 is what happens when walking logs develop jet lag.
 Featuring:
 🍺 Liverpool reunions: retirement smugness vs inbox trauma
 🌴 Miami Beach: art deco excess, rollerbladers, and fitness via tour...

🌬️⚙️ More Than Words – Episode 21: Grill, Interrupted ⚙️🌬️
 From beetling mills to barbecue aviation incidents, Stage 21 proves that winter exercise in Britain is mostly about accepting defeat and going indoors.
 Featuring:

 🪵 Linen being hammered into submission 
 🧏 Workers inventing sign language because the machines wouldn’t shut up
 🪦 Bronze Age Airbnbs
 🐇 The Creggan White Hare: folklore...

More Than Words – Stage 20: Show Me The Moneys 💷🏌️ From prize money to place names that sound like failed hedge funds, Stage 20 goes inland — and immediately trips over its own wallet. Featuring: 🏌️ Nearest-the-Pin finals: unintended cardio and The Fourth Shank Redemption 📍 Ballymena: Paisley, Neeson, and a particular set of mills 🍺 Whitesides Corner: crossroads and cross drinkers 🏉 Moneyglass...

⛴️ More Than Words – Episode 19: Ferry Tales ⛴️ From radioactive seabeds to lighthouse love stories, because Northern Ireland’s tourism strategy is apparently “ferries, folklore, and a power station that photobombs every coastal panorama.” Featuring: 💣 Beaufort’s Dyke: Britain’s least reassuring lost‑property office 💡 East Maidens Lighthouse: Victorian Tinder 🏖️ Browns Bay: photographs like the...

🍖 More Than Words – Episode 18: Meat the Parents 🍖 From cannibal caves to ferry ports, because Scotland’s tourism strategy is apparently “folklore, falcons, and ferries that may or may not topple your lorry.” Featuring: 🦴 Scotland’s answer to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but with more brine and fewer chainsaws 🐦 Pigeon‑infested smuggler’s hideouts desperately trying not to be mistaken for the...

🔥 More Than Words – Stage 17: Burns, Baby, Burns 🔥 From saints who sound like cough syrup to Robert Burns nearly becoming Jamaica’s HR nightmare, because Ayrshire’s tourism strategy is apparently “poets, feuds, golf courses, and the occasional Russian warship rusting offshore. Featuring: 😷 St Quivox: the parish that sounds like medicine you’d take for chest congestion 📜 Robert Burns: rebel poe...

🏌️ More Than Words – Episode 16: Clyde and Joy 🏌️ From collapsing car plants to Elvis at Prestwick, because Ayrshire’s tourism strategy is apparently “industrial ruin, golf courses, and a suspicious amount of brandy.” Featuring: 
 🚗 Linwood’s Imp: Hillman no more 
🏭 Johnstone’s supermarket museum: hummus with history 
🪑 Beith’s furniture empire: from mahogany to missile silos 
🥃 Barkip: illici...

🛳️ More Than Words – Stage 15: Bonnie and Clyde 🛳️ From Viking boat‑hauling to wallabies in the Highlands, because Loch Lomond’s tourism strategy is apparently “confuse everyone, maximise revenue.” Featuring: 🛶 Vikings dragging longships 💑 Honeymoon Island: medieval IKEA compatibility test 🦘 Wild wallabies … in Scotland ⛪️ Saints getting demoted 🎨 Turkey red dyeing: the Colonel’s secret recip...

⛵️More Than Words – Stage 14: It’s A Hard Loch Life⛵️ Because nothing says “Highland adventure” like failed gold rushes, haunted pubs, and goats still holding grudges from the 18th century. Featuring: ⚔️ Scotland’s most scenic lost‑property office 🏰Achallader Castle: Highland piñata 💀True Detective: Glen Orchy (pilot) 💰 Tyndrum’s gold saga: 300 years of optimism, spoiler — the rocks won 🚉 To...

🏔️ More Than Words - Episode 13: Ridge Magnets 🏔️ Because nothing says “scenic route” like collecting three Ballachulishes, avoiding murderous water horses, and accidentally stumbling into a Red Wedding origin story. Featuring: 💀 The Glencoe Massacre: Airbnb of Annihilation (0 stars, would not recommend) 🚢 A ferry so vital its breakdown qualifies as a local apocalypse 🎬 Harry Potter waterfalls...

🏔️ More Than Words - Episode 12: Never Say Nevis Again 🏔️ Because nothing says “holiday” like trudging up Britain’s highest mountain through fog, drizzle, and your own questionable life choices. Featuring: 🧠 The psychology of voluntarily walking into a cloud 🌊 Lochs, locks and lock-ins 🏰 A castle renovation with imported mud 🐶 Cow windpipes as pet food: discuss 🌳 Planking since 1975 - surely...

Stage 11: Log Ness Monster From opera under the Cypriot stars to murderous Highland folklore — this one’s got everything: monsters, decapitations, ecclesiastical drama, and a Loch that refuses to give up its secrets. Highlights include: 🎬Mission Impossible: Seat of Judgement 🏰 Urquhart Castle — beautiful, brooding, and 80% souvenir shop 💀 The Well of the Seven Heads (exactly what it says on the...

Stage 10: Whisky Business From suncream and ruins in Paphos to clan feuds and distilleries in the Highlands — this one’s a journey from Mango Margaritas to Mackenzies, with detours for poisoned servants, dragon chases, and the occasional historical fire probably started by a bird. Highlights include: 🧱 A medieval castle repurposed as a condiment warehouse 💀 A “Tomb of the Kings” containing zero...

Stage 9 of More Than Words: “Tainspotting.”  Because nothing says “Scottish coastal charm” like witch trials and a 3000-acre bombing range. Featuring: ⛳ A career-best immediately followed by an 18-hole existential crisis 🌿 Gardening: the new contact sport🏰 Dunrobin Castle — Versailles with bagpipes and historical amnesia 🪦 The Duke of Sutherland: statue, scandal, selective explosions 🧙‍♀️ Sco...

Episode 8 of More Than Words: “Stile And Tribulation.” Featuring: 🏌️‍♂️ The Werther’s Original Trophy 📱 Komoot: an app that hates your shins 🪜 Whaligoe Steps — 330 reasons to skip leg day forever 🐟 Female fish workers tougher than CrossFit instructors ⚔️ Highland Clearances: “progress” with flaming torches 🥇 Knotty: shinty with extra concussion 💰 Helmsdale Gold Rush — the Wild West, but wette...

Episode 7 of More Than Words: “I’ve Got A99 Problems (But a Broch Ain’t One)” Because nothing screams “holiday vibes” like whirlpools, feral cows, and Viking soap operas. Featuring:

 🌪️ The firth of froth
 🐄 Feral cattle
 🎶 The original “Islands in the Stream” 
📸 John o’ Groats: signpost selfies, shattered illusions
 🏰 Bucholie Castle: visitors not welcome
 🪞 Neolithic eyebrow routines
 🚂 A...

Episode 6 of More Than Words is here! Featuring: 🪨 Castle Bloody — less massacre, more Neolithic IKEA 🗿 Giants chucking monoliths at each other 🌉Churchill’s Gap Years 🏰 A laird who demolished a village for a better view ⛪ A chapel built from corned beef tins and an exhaust pipe ⛳ Britain’s most northerly crazy golf course (bring an anorak) 🐎 Children ploughing sand and dressed as Clydesdale...

Episode 5 is here! ... “Things Can Only Get Wetter.” Because nothing says “travel podcast” like kelp, 18th century cryptocurrency, and a boiling-water tap with a vendetta. Featuring: 🔥 Child-proof tech that isn’t middle-aged-man-proof 🐟 Herring history (because nothing screams drama like fish logistics) 🍘 Seaweed — the Bitcoin of the 18th century 🧀 Monks Bear Grylls would salute, assuming he c...

It's Episode 4 of More Than Words — the podcast where I claim to be traversing Britain, but in reality I’m just sweating on a spin bike. This week we’re still at sea, so expect: Fair Isle’s knitwear empire North Ronaldsay’s seaweed‑eating sheep Enough lighthouses to keep the Stevenson family in royalties for generations Spanish shipwrecks, and A golf ball incident that nearly ended this podcas...