Looking Sideways Action Sports Podcast

“Whenever anybody with that level of wealth and power moves money into an opaque system, we should wave our red democracy flag, and say, ‘However virtuous they may be, we want to hold you to a higher standard’." Patagonia’s September 2022 decisions to make ‘Earth’ the company’s only shareholder made headlines around the world. So perhaps understandably, it wasn’t long before commentators began to...

“Going purpose, not going public.” Patagonia’s September 2022 decisions to make ‘Earth’ the company’s only shareholder was huge news, particularly in the worlds of climate activism, business, philanthropy, the outdoors, and action sports. Here was the most influential company in the outdoor world, and one of the most influential businesses on the planet per se, relinquishing control of their profi...

"Earth is our only shareholder.” In September 2022, Patagonia's billionaire owner Yvon Chouinard relinquished control and made 'earth' the company's only shareholder. But … what did this actually mean? Why did he do it? What about the scrutiny the company received? And is this really a critical moment in the history of capitalism, as Patagonia believe? The Announcement is a new three-part podcast...

Use LOOKINGSIDEWAYS massive discounts on ski and snowboard hire from my friends at Intersport Rent . -- Ah, Christmas. A time of friends, family and tradition - which in Looking Sideways world means the much loved Festive Special with my close pals and stalwart podcast supporters Tim and Gendle! If you’re new here (and many thousands of you subscribed anew this year), I’ve known Tim Warwood and Ad...

Use SIDEWAVES10 for 10% off anything from session at The Wave in Bristol! -- Regulars who’ve been following Looking Sideways at all closely for the last two years will be familiar with the name Chris Nelson. Alongside Demi Taylor and Lewis Arnold, he’s one of the triumvirate of creative talents behind the brilliant Big Sea, which I’ve been championing since I saw the first cut back in November 202...

Use SIDEWAVES10 for 10% off anything from session at The Wave in Bristol! -- As anybody who’s watched your typical softball chat-show conversation will be aware, interviews with people at a certain level of fame and renown, such as this week’s guest Jordy Smith, tend to unfold in one of two ways. There’s the filtered, on-message, and generally uninteresting stuff we’ve all heard countless times be...

Use SIDEWAVES10 for 10% off anything from session at The Wave in Bristol! -- What a treat to welcome the great Jamie Brisick back for his third Looking Sideways appearance. The occasion? The release of The Life and Death of Westerly Windina, his brilliant documentary collaboration with Australian director Alan White about the life and times of Peter Drouyn and Westerly Windina. But also, a welcome...

Use SIDEWAVES10 for 10% off anything from session at The Wave in Bristol! -- Over the last year, it’s been one of the biggest stories in British surfing. How Croyde’s own Laura Crane headed to Nazare, and surfed the biggest waves ever snagged by a British woman. No wonder if’s been covered by everybody from Carve to BBC Radio Five Live. But if you’ve been listening a little bit more closely, you’l...

Use LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off anything from Stance socks. -- I’m joined by one of THE all time greats this week: Tommy Guerrero, legendary skateboarder and musician; and one of the select few to have shaped the way we collectively view this entire sideways culture. Tommy was, of course, part of the original Bone Brigade crew, alongside Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, Lance Mountain and...

Use LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Db luggage or bag - and click here to see my other discounts . -- Hallvard Kolltveit describes himself as ‘the surf photographer that doesn’t know how to swim properly’. It’s a good line, and one that sums up Hallvard’s witty and self-deprecating take on his own unconventional route through action sport and outdoor media. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, he's...

Use LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Db luggage or bag - and click here to see my other discounts . -- Nick Russell is one of those rare snowboarders who combines grace and intellect in equal measure, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in the high alpine with a distinctly cerebral approach. I've been following Nick's career since I first interviewed him for Curator Magazine, and it's been a...

Use SIDEWAVES10 for 10% off any session at the Wave - and click here to see my other discounts . -- How do you find an original angle with somebody who’s discussed the same story hundreds of times? Especially when that person is one of the best-loved and most-interviewed people in their field? That’s the challenge I faced when approaching this interview with the great Captain Liz Clark. The occasi...

Use LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance socks - and click here to see my other discount codes . -- Regular listeners will know that British skateboarding institution Read and Destroy occupies an important place in the Looking Sideways firmament, both for me personally and for British sideways culture in general. I've talked about it at length over the years, but Read and Destroy was hugely impo...

Use LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Stance socks - and click here to see my other discount codes . -- As regular listeners will know, I don't often cover mountaineering and climbing on Looking Sideways. But I knew I had to make an exception for Everest Inc., Will Cockrell's brilliantly written and nuanced exploration of the increasingly commodified world of mountaineering on the world's highest pe...

Use LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Db bag - and click here to see my other discount codes. I’ve been really enjoying the recent online ‘Creative Exchanges’ I’ve been doing with my friends at Db Journey. They’re such a brilliant idea that I’m not surprised they’re going down so well. The premise is really simple - Db gather together some of their ambassadors and creatives to form a loose panel to...

Use LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off any Finisterre purchase - and click here to see my other discount codes . When Freddie Meadows finally surfed RÁN, it signified more than the biggest wave ever surfed in Scandinavia. It was also the fulfilment of a lifelong ambition; the endgame of a ten-year search; and the symbolic culmination of Freddie’s singular career as a surfer of proud Scandinavian and Swed...

Why is direct action important? Why is there such apathy as our democratic right to protest is being removed? How can the outdoor community and industry enact a more impactful and effective type of protest and activism? All topics I discussed with snowboarder, activist and campaigner for Just Stop Oil Calum Macintyre. You might not know Calum, but he has a vital story to tell about how our democra...

Use LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off any Db snowboard bag - and click here to see my other discount codes Eric Blehm is a journalist and author who has had one of the most interesting and quietly-influential careers in snowboarding. As one of the original and most high-profile American snowboard journalists, he certainly had an influence on my own career. His work at Transworld Snowboarding, in particu...

Use LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off any Finisterre purchase - and click here to see my other discount codes If you’ve been following Looking Sideways for a while, you’ll know that I’ve covered the conversation around chloroprene rubber and Yulex extensively over the last year or so - through my conversation with Big Sea documentary film-makers Chris Nelson and Lewis Arnold (below), for example, as wel...

It's a return visit for friend-of-the-show Thomas Campbell this week, who is, as I said last year, ‘one of surfing and skateboarding’s most important influences thanks to classic films such as The Seedling, and a singular aesthetic and approach that has an outsized influence on what it means to be creative in our world’. I think it’s fair to say myself and Thomas got on pretty well first time arou...

Photographer Skin Phillips, this week’s guest, has had one of the most extraordinary careers in British skateboarding. Completely self-taught, and driven by a thirst for knowledge and a desire to experience life behind the borders of his hometown of Swansea, Skin came up in the late 80s and early 90s. Initially published in RaD and mentored by the great Tim Leighton-Boyce, he soon followed in foot...

Ah, Christmas. A time of friends, family and tradition - which in Looking Sideways world means the much loved Festive Special with my close pals and stalwart podcast supporters Tim and Gendle! Yep, we’re back once again with our very own addition to the Christmas canon -even if, this year, we managed not to get blind drunk while recording this one. Apart from that, it was the usual story - our hig...

The roadshow continues! Following my recent Roundtable live, recorded at the Kendal Mountain Festival, I’m back with yet another special panel discussion, this one recorded live at the London Surf Film Festival in November 2023. I was lucky enough to be official media partner for this year’s festival, part of which was hosting this special workshop with four brilliant film-makers and creatives: Re...

Welcome to an extra-special episode of Roundtable, free for all subscribers, and a collaboration with my pal and podcasting peer Matt Pycroft of the brilliant Adventure Podcast, recorded live in front of an audience at the 2023 Kendal Mountain Festival. This conversation came about when Kendal founder and friend of the show Steve Scott asked myself and Matt to pull together a panel for a discussio...

If you follow what I do at all closely, whether through my newsletter or my podcast, you’ll know that ‘how we talk about activism and the climate’ has been a bit of a preoccupation for me these last few months. I’m loosely connected to what you might call the wider activism movement, which has become a proper industry these days. And much of it leaves me cold. From my slightly remote perspective,...