Looking Sideways Action Sports Podcast

Going Off!, the snowboarding history podcast conceptualised and presented by Jen Sherowski and Tricia Byrnes, is a brilliant concept. Each episode, they take key stages in snowboarding's history and development and dip into their enviable black book of contacts to tell the story expertly and even-handedly. Together they've made Going Off! into something different: not yet another four-hour interview show, but an oral history of snowboarding's early days, pieced together from the people who were actually there. And they make a great team - Jen with her journalistic and storytelling chops honed through years in the snowboard mag and creative industry trenches, and Tricia with her unimpeachable connections to snowboarding roots and history; both through her own career - she won the US Open halfpipe as a 17-year-old amateur in 1992, and rode for the US at Salt Lake in 2002 - and her links in the East Coast snowboarding firmament. Thanks to snowboarding, and the places it has taken me, I have known them both for years, so when they got in touch with me back in April 2025 when Going Off! was still in the planning stages and were canvassing a few people for advice on how to set it up, I was intrigued to hear more. I thought it was a great idea then, and having watched them pull it off since it launched last October, I still do. So when I came back to the podcast this summer, after a four-month break, they were the obvious choice for my first recording. We sat down in July, and as a way back into Looking Sideways it was a perfect conversation for me. With magazines like TransWorld gone, as they discuss in their latest episode, The Birth And Glory Of Snowboard Magazines, somebody has to tell these stories. I'm very glad it's these two. --- This week's codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com: FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays PASSENGER-SIDEWAYS10 for 10% off at Passenger LS27 for money off ski and snowboard hire at Intersport To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There's a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. 00:00 Introduction 04:19 80% Accurate 20:05 Skateboarder First 31:08 Transworld and the Olympics 44:01 Memory, AI and Archives 1:02:52 What Snowboarding Forgets 1:07:20 No Patreon, No Ads 1:19:28 Clip Culture 1:35:05 Housekeeping Corner This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Wildlife filmmaker and presenter Dan O’Neill has spent his career exploring an important question: who gets to tell the story of a wild place? And that’s one of the key themes of this conversation, recorded live at Kendal Mountain Festival in November 2025. Access was a key topic across the entire weekend. The day before, the Oscar-winning filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel had explained to me that the ethics of access are among the most important parts of his work. On the Sunday, Dan picked up the same thread through the lens of his pioneering wildlife filmmaking. For him, working with the communities he films among isn’t just part of the job: “That is the work.” A lot has happened for Dan in the months since our chat. In June, his show Tiger Island went out on BBC One. How to Live on Earth, presented by Benedict Cumberbatch, is out now on YouTube, and has further boosted Dan’s profile. In this riotous conversation, recorded in front of a very game audience, as the rain hammered on the roof, myself and Dan talked snow leopards, his pet hawk, who pays for wildlife TV now, the BBC, AI, and what it meant to be the first openly gay presenter to front a wildlife series for a major network. Then the audience took over. --- This week's codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com: FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays PASSENGER-SIDEWAYS10 for 10% off at Passenger LS27 for money off ski and snowboard hire at Intersport To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There's a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. 00:00 Introduction 02:45 Snow Leopards and Mongolia 22:33 The Pet Hawk 31:49 Paying for Wildlife TV 38:17 AI and Advocacy 48:51 Audience Questions 1:00:45 Housekeeping Corner This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

If you’ve spent any time on the internet recently you will have no doubt seen the man in the pink hat, Johno Verity. As it happens, Johno is one of my oldest and dearest friends. We first met back in 1998, in the first weeks of my first season in Meribel, and he’s been one of my closest friends ever since. Not that it’s always been smooth sailing. Me and Johno are both big personalities, with plenty of ego and vulnerabilities, and there have been times we’ve really clashed, and almost fucked it up. But one of the great joys of getting old are the consolations of old friendships, and in the past couple of years myself and Johno have dealt with all that and come out of it stronger and better friends than ever. And this latter period has also coincided with the unlikely season of his great recent internet fame. We’ve been chatting about recording a Looking Sideways x Man in the Pink Hat episode for a while now, in London, or Croyde at various points. In the end we made it happen in mid August 2026, in my new hometown of Bracklesham, at the height of the fifth heatwave, and during a particularly febrile and emotional week for me. So it was that at 5.30am one hot morning we set off on a cycling and walking mission around Bracklesham and East and West Wittering, recording this conversation as we went. And it was a beautiful and, for me, vital morning: emotional, life-affirming, and a reminder of the great power of the consolation of lifelong friendship, with the Solent, the Isle of Wight, Hayling Island and Portsmouth in the distance, all burnished by the rising sun as myself and Johno chatted. We laid some ghosts to rest, reminisced about our shared history, and I got to find out more about this long, strange recent trip Johno is on as the man in the pink hat. This conversation came along at just the right time for me. Thanks Johno. I love you like a brother. --- This week's codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays PASSENGER-SIDEWAYS10 for 10% off at Passenger LS27 for money off ski and snowboard hire at Intersport To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There's a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. 00:00 Introduction 03:25 Daddy Issues 19:11 The Pink Hat Accident 33:36 History and the Pushback 48:06 In Bed With Meta 1:01:06 Tenacity Over Talent 1:15:39 London Empty at Dawn 1:22:29 30 Years of Friendship 1:29:08 Housekeeping Corner This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

What happens when you achieve everything you want in life, as musician Liam Ivory of Maribou State has, and still find yourself with an itch that remains unscratched? That's the question at the heart of my conversation with the brilliant Liam, one half of one of the UK's most successful electronic music acts, and somebody who, I learned, has also been grappling with a conundrum every Looking Sideways listener will recognise: how to strike a balance between 'the creative life, and finding moments to get out and ride'. As a sentence that defines the Looking Sideways ethos, this is pretty much unbeatable. Even better, it's a direct quote from an Insta DM Liam sent me back in February, when he generously got in touch to tell me how much he was enjoying listening to the show and its celebration of the balancing act that has become increasingly important to him. Naturally, like any good journalist, I immediately asked him to come on the show. So it was that on the eve of Maribou's biggest ever show, at LIDO Festival in Victoria Park, we met in London and sat down to go over the whole thing: that elusive search for balance; how board sports have been the defining anchor of his life; the seven-year gestation of Hallucinating Love; the twenty-year creative partnership that Liam describes as a marriage; and the highs and lows of an extraordinary career in music. The resulting conversation is certainly a peerless insight into the creative reality of sustaining the type of career that eventually leads to a Glastonbury headline slot. But it's also yet another reminder, as if we needed it, that notions of success truly lie in the eye of the beholder. And that even the most outwardly prolific creative people are just like the rest of us. Fuelled by a search for meaning - and a desire to go riding as much as they possibly can, whatever the circumstances… --- This week's codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays PASSENGER-SIDEWAYS10 for 10% off at Passenger LS27 for money off ski and snowboard hire at Intersport To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There's a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. 00:00 Introduction 03:36 Liam the Looking Sideways Fan 12:16 Feeling Flat After Perfect Waves 28:03 Leaving London 32:26 Headlining Glastonbury 44:04 Why Creative Partnerships Are Like Marriages 1:09:05 The Crossroads 1:16:11 Housekeeping Corner This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

In this episode of Looking Sideways, I speak to Julie Maughan and Chris Hines about Dirty Business, the recent Channel 4 drama exposing the state of the UK’s water industry since privatisation, and the real-life tragedy at its centre. The story of eight-year-old Heather Preen, who died after contracting E. coli following a sewage spill on a Devon beach, forms the emotional core of the series, and is what really makes this such a powerful piece of storytelling. Because what Dirty Busines s does so effectively is remind you that behind all of this - the corporate failure, the regulatory collapse, the wholesale extraction of profits, the outrageous cynicism - there are devastating, long-lasting human consequences. Julie, Heather’s mother, has spent nearly 30 years campaigning for justice. Alongside environmentalist Chris Hines, she has worked tirelessly to hold those responsible to account and bring national attention to the issue. In this essential, riveting conversation, we explore Heather’s story, the long-term impact on her family, and the wider context: how the UK’s water system reached this point, why it has been allowed to continue; and what it reveals about privatisation, regulatory failure, accountability, and public apathy. This is an urgent look at an issue that affects us all, and what might be the most emotionally impactful and important episode of Looking Sideways I’ve ever recorded. Don’t miss it. -- To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There's a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Welcome to the final episode of my three-part Winter Olympics series, in which we’re tackling one of the biggest controversies surrounding the recent Winter Olympics: fossil fuel sponsorship. This episode focuses on the Ski Fossil Free campaign, initiated by activists Calum McIntyre and Nikolai Schirmer, which seeks to end fossil fuel partnerships across IOC and FIS events. This incredibly effective feat of climate campaigning saw Nikolai deliver a petition - signed by over 20,000 people - to the IOC on the eve of the Games, an act which garnered much publicity and pushed the issue into the spotlight at a critical moment. A week or so later, in an attempt to understand more about the campaign and its goals, I hosted an online panel featuring voices from across sport, activism and the outdoor industry, including campaign organiser Calum, Greenpeace, Creatives for Climate and Greenlandic Olympian Uqaaleq Slettemark. We discussed the campaign, the role of athletes and brands in driving change, the challenges of effective climate activism — and the accusations of hypocrisy that inevitably follow. It’s a conversation about where responsibility really sits when it comes to the future of outdoor sports, and as such is a fitting end to this short Olympic series. -- This week’s codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There’s a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Welcome to the second of three post–Winter Olympics episodes in which I am examining the recent Winter Olympics from a variety of different perspectives. In this second episode, I’m joined by Lesley McKenna, one of snowboarding’s great original thinkers. A pro skier, snowboarder, coach and team manager, she is herself a three-time Olympian, and helped run GB Park & Pipe in the years when Jenny Jones and Billy Morgan won their medals. She has spent the last few years working on a Phd that analyses the tension that exists between a traditional sporting structure as epitomised by the Olympics, and a none-conventional action sports culture such as snowboarding. She’s has called it the Risk Aesthetic Framework , and it is fascinating stuff. Why does this matter? Because while snowboarding now looks fully integrated into the Winter Olympics, its relationship with the Games has always been complex — and at times uneasy. In this conversation, we dig into judging controversies, cultural friction, performance vs. progression, and ask whether something essential is gained — or lost — when snowboard culture enters the Olympic machine. As ever with Lesley, this is a mind-bending conversation: endlessly intellectually-stimulating, and full of the ideas and provocations that mark her work out as so original. If you care about snowboarding and its culture, don’t miss this one. -- This week’s codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There’s a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Welcome to the first of three post–Winter Olympics episodes in which we’ll examine the recent Games from a number of different perspectives. As a lifelong snowboarder, I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the Olympics. The performances and spectacle are incredible. But beyond the hype, there are bigger cultural conversations worth having. That’s what this short series is about. In this first episode, I’m joined by BBC Olympic commentators Tim Warwood and Ed Leigh — lifelong snowboarders and much-loved voices of Olympic action sports on the BBC. In this riotous chat, we discuss their experience at the Games, their breakout moment this year, the cultural tensions between core snowboarding and the Olympic machine, the controversies, the progression — and what these Games really mean for the activities and cultures we love. -- This week's codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There's a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Alice Sainsbury is a designer, writer and speaker who in 2015 was diagnosed with an acute neurological condition called transverse myelitis. Since then, she’s been on a mission to break down the barriers that stop people with disabilities participating in the outdoor sports and activities that so many of us take for granted. In this episode, we explore the reality of life for a disabled person in 2026, and the systemic, societal difficulties disabled people face when it comes to participating in outdoor sports and activities. We also discuss Alice’s own story, as well as her latest initiative UN[PARA]LD, which launches at the Milano-Cortina Paralympics with the aim exposing a hidden barrier in elite sport: the incredible fact that many Paralympic athletes are still required to adapt, alter, or retrofit their own outdoor and alpine clothing in order to train and compete. This is one of the most illuminating and intellectually-stimulating conversations I can remember hosting on the podcast. I learned a lot, and I think you will too. To find out more about Alice’s work, and the UN[PARA]LD initiative, click here . -- This week’s codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There’s a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Oscar-winner, snowboarder, and one of the most influential documentary filmmakers working today, Orlando von Einsiedel makes his return to the show, nearly eight years after his first appearance. In that time, films such as Virunga, The White Helmets and The Lost Children have set a new standard in gripping, immersive documentary story-telling. Recorded live at the 2025 Kendal Mountain Festival in front of a sold out audience, this wide-ranging conversation centres on Orlando’s latest film The Cycle of Love, which is currently cleaning up on the festival circuit. It also a rare, honest insight into the reality of life at the sharp end of documentary filmmaking, even when you appear to have achieved the success everybody craves. We dig into Orlando’s creative process, the state of the documentary landscape, and the somewhat dire financial realities of getting ambitious projects off the ground, even for an artist of Orlando’s calibre. If you enjoyed my recent episode with Lucy Walker, or are interested in the real, often precarious mechanics of a creative career, this one’s for you. -- This week’s codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

If you ask me, this week’s guest Axel Pauporte is one of the most influential snowboarders of the 1990s and 2000s. Even if you don’t know his name, you’re living in a snowboarding culture that he helped shape. Especially if you’re a European snowboarder. To qualify this rather bold claim, it helps to remember how singular an outlier Axel truly was. Back in the early 90s, professional snowboarders from mainland Europe were a genuine rarity. Professional snowboarders from flat Northern European countries such as the Netherlands, the UK or Belgium, where Axel was brought up? Legitimate trailblazing pioneers. All of which makes Axel’s career path especially legendary. Here was a rider who started snowboarding late - and on dry slope to boot. And who, by the end of a storied twenty-year career, was universally regarded as one of snowboarding’s greatest ever freeriders, and had demonstrated that European riders could lead the way in a proving ground like Alaska alongside peers such as Travis Rice, Jonaven Moore and Jeremy Jones. And the story of how Axel made this happen is as unlikely as it is instructive. This isn’t your standard pro snowboarder origin story. Here we have an outsider, both literally and figuratively, who was driven by a potent emotional combination: his own insecurities, a Stakhanovite work ethic, and a ferocious desire to use snowboarding a way of finding a sense of belonging. In Axel’s case, that ultimately led him to AK, and the pursuit of risks that today make him pause and wonder, as we discussed. As you might be gathering, this is a very honest conversation that covers belonging, identity, and the psychology and selfishness of risk; as well as the reckoning that comes to us all once the body and mind begins to fade, and other priorities take precedence. Big thanks to Axel and my friend Dave Mailman for the help with this one. -- This week’s codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There’s a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

It’s December 24th. Which must means it’s time for my much-loved Festive Special with close friends-of-the-show Tim Warwood and Adam Gendle! This might well be the conversation I look forward to the most each year. If you’re new to the show, some background: I go back thirty years with these boys, who I first met through the very close British snowboarding community we’re so lucky to be an integral part of. Eight years ago, we got together at Christmas to record the first Looking Sideways special, and it’s since become a tradition during which we get together to catch up, and generally glory in the closeness that comes when you’ve been friends for as long as the three of us have. And this is a lesson I’ve especially learned this year: that as you get older, the fundamental element of trust that exists between you and your oldest pals provides a level of increasingly-needed comfort. It’s one of the best parts of getting old. Especially as it’s so difficult to see the people you love. So as the years pass, this episode becomes ever more important and cathartic to me. As ever, it’s a freewheeling catch up that saw us cover our usual topics - our annual Yuletide review, our highlights of 2025, our hopes for 2026, and the now traditional quiz of the year (spoiler alert: I won!). As ever, wherever you’re listening to this, grab a festive drink and a mince pie, don the Santa hat, and join us as we wax festive for a couple of hours. I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy another brilliant Looking Sideways year, so huge thanks for listening and supporting what I do. I’ll be back refreshed, rested and ready to go once again in 2026 - in the meantime, have a brilliant break 🎄 -- This week’s codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There’s a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Adam Skolnick is a journalist, none-fiction writer, famed Roll On podcaster, and the author behind the brilliant new novel - his first! - American Tiger. American Tiger (a work that has been gestating for years) is a milestone for Adam in more ways than one. As his first published novel it is, of course, the latest stage in his evolution as an artist. But it is also confirmation of the way that personal philosophies inevitably seep into the work we produce. Because while the book is ostensibly about a young girl called Bell spotting a tiger in suburban California, it’s really about much more. Like all the best works of art, American Tiger brings together the preoccupations that have underpinned Adam’s career up to now into one artistically coherent and page-turning whole. It’s an LA novel, a coming-of-age novel, and a novel about the way that Adam sees nature as a partner, not a resource. And the story of how Skolnick brought this thing into the world is itself an instructive tale for anybody attempting to get their own creative vision off the ground: part creative psychology, part survival guide to the modern writer’s life, part sheer bloody-minded entrepreneurialism in an era of shrinking outlets and collapsing budgets. I loved this conversation, and I think you will too. Find it via my website, the link in bio, or the usual platform. My thanks to Adam for the brilliant chat, and to April for all the help. Looking forward to meeting you both in person soon! - This week’s codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There’s a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

In this latest follow-up episode to The Announcement, I’m joined by activist, entrepreneur, engineer, and policy researcher Len Necefer for a conversation in which we discuss the tension between ideological purity and pragmatic action when it comes to genuine environmental and social change. Len, a proud member of the Navajo Nation, works at the intersection of Indigenous peoples, natural resource, and environmental policy. He is the founder of Natives Outdoors, a board member at the Honnold Foundation, and somebody whose work has become essential when it comes to the current debate around how to create meaningful impact in an imperfect system. This, of course, was a key theme of my Announcement series proper. And it is the territory Len provocatively and articulately explores through his work and writings, in which he respectfully yet firmly challenges the comfortable assumptions around ‘purpose’ that tend to dominate the discourse in outdoor and adventure spaces. As you’ll be aware if you’ve read Len’s brilliant Substack or follow him on social media, he is not interested in letting individuals, brands, or organisations mark their own homework. Instead, he is interested in asking the only questions that truly matter: Will this have an impact? Is your work upsetting the right people? Is it calculated to drive forward the change you claim to seek? The more I explore these avenues, the more I think these are really the only honest questions worth asking, which is why I admire Len’s work and his willingness to ask these questions so outspokenly and articulately. From this challenging conversation, you'll gain insights into: - Why accountability matters more than stated intentions in purpose-driven business - How Indigenous perspectives fundamentally shift conversations around environmental policy and outdoor access - What it means to take genuinely bold approaches, rather than performative stands - Why challenging industry orthodoxy is essential to meaningful progress This was the type of challenging and progressive conversation that Len specialises in— full of provocations, unimpeachable logic, and the moral integrity we sorely need at this time. For bonus and behind-the-scenes material, click here . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Filmmaker, surfer, seeker and - OK, then - influencer: Seth Hughes is one of British surfing’s most thought-provoking creative presences. We’ve been friends for a few years now, and like everybody who follows him on Instagram, over the last few years I’ve been following his ‘apprenticeship to the land and sea’ with fascination and interest. I’ve also appreciated the increasingly searching and occasionally uncomfortable questions he likes to pose. How to regain a new understanding of health and wellness. How to regain our lost relationship to nature. How we escape the pernicious power of addictive technology. And how to reconcile our ‘real’ and public-facing selves, and the many masks we wear. These are Seth’s preoccupations and themes. And they were among the many topics we discussed in this meandering, insightful and hugely enjoyable exchange, recorded during my visit to Cornwall at the end of October 2025. We began this conversation on the site of the old mining slag heap that forms a backdrop to our mutual pal Chris Hines’ beautiful property, before heading inside to record this evocative conversation. I’m very grateful to Seth and Chris for the lovely afternoon. I learned a lot from our conversation, not least about my own views and behaviours.Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. -- This week's codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There's a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Skateboarder, photographer, artist, Toy Machine company owner - Ed Templeton is one of skateboarding’s most influential and beloved influences. And as a 14-year-old who obsessively wore out their copy of 1281 back in the day, he was a real and important influence on me personally when it came to working out how to express myself as a creative person. What, you could be into this stuff - and also art, culture, and literature? And skateboarding and snowboarding could be the catalystt for this exploration? This was revelatory to me. All of which is why I’ve been hoping to interview Ed since I began Looking Sideways back in 2017. In October 2025, we finally made it happen. Whenever you interview somebody of such notoriety, who at this point has been interviewed countless times, the challenge is always the same: how can I make this person comfortable, and get them to open up? As is often the case on Looking Sideways, a shared interest in art and creativity was the foundation of a conversation rich in insight and honesty. Yes, we spoke about skateboarding, Toy Machine, Welcome to Hell, art and photography, as you might expect. But we did so through an unexpectedly wistful and nostalgic lens as Ed, now in his 50s; and with the wit, candour and humility that have always been his hallmarks; grapples with the topics that come for us all in the end: aging, impermanence, the value of possessions, the influence of our forebears, and the legacy we want to leave behind. Special thanks to Don Brown and Thomas Campbell for their help with this one. -- This week’s codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There’s a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Legendary surf and skate film-maker Thomas Campbell’s new film Yi-Wo has been ten years in the making. So when TC got in touch to ask if he could come back on the podcast to talk me through the decade-long creative process that went into the making of this instant classic, I was in. I’ve had the good fortune to see Yi-Wo a few times now, and can confirm that this long-awaited release is a wondrous, challenging and completely artistically uncompromising piece of work that confirms TC’s position as surfing’s premiere bloody-minded auteur. And personally, I appreciate that. As we discussed during our conversation, in times of social and political turmoil such as these, the role of art becomes ever more important. Especially a work like Yi-Wo, which rejects immediacy, defies easy characterisation, and asks many necessary questions of the audience. If you’ve listened to my first two chats with Thomas, during which we delved into his creative process in great detail, you’ll appreciate this conversation as a complement to those previous exchanges. Here is the culmination of ten years of ‘sitting in the chair’, as he likes to say, an active demonstration of where TC’s curiosity, principles and artistic integrity have led him; and a brilliant summation of the fact that, in the end, creativity is about making decisions, putting one foot in front of the other, and seeing where it leads you and your audience. As ever, it was a great privilege to get such a priceless insight into this unique artist’s creative process, and to catch up with one of surfing’s great original voices. -- This week’s codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There’s a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

In this fourth follow-up episode of The Announcement, which was recorded live at MAD Fest in early July 2025, I’m exploring a question that is directly related to the topics I explored in The Announcement series proper - what does effective activism for brands actually look like? MAD Fest is a huge festival for brands and agencies that takes place each year in East London, and I was invited to take part in this year’s event by organiser Dan Brain, who it turns out is an avid Looking Sideways and Announcement listener. As he put it in a very kind blog he wrote in the lead up to the show, ““I’ve been a big fan of Looking Sideways for some time now and I’m excited to bring a live version to MAD//Fest that will ask important questions like whether brands can use their reach, cash and influence for good, or if there’s a fundamental contradiction between sales growth and sustainability” To help me answer these question, I spoke four brilliant guests, each experts on the topic in their own particular way: Finisterre CMO Bronwen Foster-Butler, activist Lauren MacCallum, CEO of B Corps Chris Turner, and author and purpose pioneer Thomas Kolster. Among the questions I was interested in discussing: - What role (if any!) should brands play in activism and using their scale, audience and money to address local, national and global issues? - Is purpose something all brands should establish, or an act of greenwashing that sounds good in an annual report but delivers little meaningful impact? - Are brand partnerships and activities an effective means through which to drive change? What followed was a lively, passionate and very well informed discussion recorded in front of an equally engaged crowd - they’d put me in a prime slot on the big stage, much to my surprise - and we got through a lot in our allotted 35 minute stage time. A note on the sound - a few audio teething issues meant we weren’t able to hear our fellow panelists super clearly, which might account for the somewhat strident way we’re all speaking to each other during this conversation. But hey, it was live, and that’s the way it goes sometimes. Huge thanks to Dan and everybody at MAD Fest for getting me involved, to Bronwen, Lauren, Chris and Thomas - looking forward to hearing what everybody thinks. For bonus and behind-the-scenes material, click here . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

250 episodes of Looking Sideways! And to mark the occasion, I invited the great Jeremy Jones back for this second visit, six years after we recorded our first conversation for the podcast. Much has changed in Looking Sideways land since that first chat. Back then, the show was basically me interviewing famous action sports types about their lives and careers. This was pre-Type 2, and certainly pre-The Announcement, and since then Looking Sideways has evolved into something pretty different. All of which made Jeremy an especially fitting guest with whom to mark this milestone. Why? Because few high-profile professional snowboarders, surfers or skateboarders (if any, come to think of it) connect the worlds of performance and activism like Jeremy does. As a pro rider, he is of course one of the greatest to ever do it. Certainly, he’s one of the most influential snowboarders ever, whether that’s through his own extraordinary feats, his company Jones, or his creative work as a proponent of what he calls ‘shralpinism’. Then there’s his hugely influential activism. For right or wrong, in many ways Jeremy’s strategic work with Protect Our Winters has come to define winter sports activism over the last decades, and he’s certainly the figure who has come to be associated with what he refers to as the outdoor state’s response to the climate crisis. All of which makes him the perfect guest to connect the past and present of Looking Sideways for this milestone episode: especially as he’s been such a supporter of my own work in recent years. We caught up to record this episode in early July 2025, and it’s an open, relaxed and revealing conversation about politics, risk, family life, and what snowboarding means to Jeremy now in the classic Looking Sideways mould. Hope you enjoy this episode, and thanks to everybody for supporting Looking Sideways over the last eight years. -- This week’s codes for some big old savings, all kept up to date at wearelookingsideways.com : FINISIDEWAYS26 for 10% off any full-price order from Finisterre LOOKINGSWSXDB for 15% off anything from Db LOOKINGSIDEWAYS2026 for 15% off any full-price Albion purchase LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 15% off full-price Stance orders LOOKINGSIDEWAYS for 10% off anything from Goodrays To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There’s a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

I have my 250th episode of Looking Sideways coming up! And I’m also very close to hitting a rather large Substack subscriber milestone, which itself feels like a nicely significant moment. To mark the big 250, I thought it’d be fun to revisit some favourite articles and podcast episodes from the last eight years of Looking Sideways: continuing with this classic interview with legendary skater Jamie Thomas, originally recorded back in April 2019. As I discuss in the intro to this episode, for long-term listeners of the show, this chat is one of THE reference points, especially listeners who have been flummoxed by the various left turns I’ve taken with the podcast in the intervening years. I discussed my thoughts on this, the circumstances around recording this chat, and my thoughts on eight years of Looking Sideways generally, in the new intro I recorded for this Rerun episode. And with all that in mind it was really interesting to listen back to this one. I think it still stands up! If you’ve not heard this one, have listen and let me know what you think. Here’s the original intro below: At some point in their life, every skateboarder chose skating as their ultimate means of self-expression and self-identity. Ask any skater who they are and the chances are the answer will be - I’m a skater. It’s that simple. So what happens when the one thing that has defined your life no longer serves you in the same way? When the quest you have dedicated your life to no longer fulfils you as it used to? And how do you cope when it has been the defining part of your life in the eyes of the world? It’s a reckoning that everybody serious about their chosen path has to deal with at some point. For high-level athletes, it is often the most difficult transition of all. And in the skate world, where credibility is defined by your single-minded dedication to the creed of skating, dealing with it publicly is almost unheard of. Which is why my interview with Jamie Thomas is perhaps the most honest and fascinating episode of the Looking Sideways podcast yet. For over twenty years, Jamie has been one of the select group of individuals who have defined the culture of skateboarding and changed our understanding of what it means to be a skater. He has been driven by a ferocious work ethic and an unquenchable thirst for progression that have made his career one long continuous run of inspirational successes. Now, at a critical point in his life, The Chief is looking inward, and bringing that legendary focus and commitment to his own internal struggles. I’ve been interviewing skaters, snowboarders and surfers for twenty five years now. But I’ve yet to conduct an interview with this level of honesty, or hear a world-renowned figure express their own self-doubt and internal struggles so honestly and so eloquently. I’m grateful to Jamie for trusting me to tell this latest chapter of his story, and for approaching our conversation with such candour and openness. This is The Chief as you’ve never heard him before, tackling the same issues we all have to face at some point with the same honesty and pitiless intensity he brought to one of the most celebrated skate careers of all time. There are lessons here for all of us - whether you’re skater or not. -- To find out more about what I do, you can sign up as a subscriber to my Substack newsletter here . There's a brilliant community and much more than just the podcasts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe