Slide Mag

Self Interview...

The Unedited Version Of My Auto-Interview from CARVE issue 114...

If there’s one word abused more than any other on the goggle box right now it has to be- journey. It’s all about the “journey” the pleb or C-list sleb in whichever brain-melting talent show has taken; whether they’re singing, dancing, cooking, skating or eating kangaroos arsehole in the jungle it’s all about the frickin’ journey…

Inspired by a word I’ve heard 2,473 times in the last year I thought I’d write about my journey, or rather I was inspired by Steve-O as he said, ‘write something about your love of surf mag’s and surfing… I’m off out for a fag.’ Lacking a decent narrative structure for such a vain piece I thought I’d just interview myself so you can get a handle on how I came to be editor of the mag…

License To Be Grumpy...

Lanzagrotty- the mythical Canary Island. Home to: No canaries, no plants, a lot of dust, a skinny of goats, some nasty waves and the most feared locals this side of Hawaii…

An inviting place for a surf trip eh? Slide went for a visit…

I’d not been to Lanza’ in seven years… If you don’t visit most places for seven years and then go back, you are gonna spend a good part of your first few days saying things like “Cor, that wasn’t there last time!” and “Ooh! That’s new!” and you end up sounding like a pensioner... 

A Story Where Your Correspondent Nearly Sank: The Curse Of The Conch...

(Originally published in SE 2003ish) 

Rule 37 of surfing: Not all surf trips go to plan. 

The further away you are from civilisation, the more this rule applies.

Of course it helps if you either a) had a plan in the first place, or b) knew someone that had any idea what the plan was.

When you are bobbing around on a boat in the Indian Ocean, within spitting distance of the equator, you are far from civilisation. The nearest settlement, featuring basic facilities, is somewhere in Australia, India or some war-torn bit of rubble in East Africa. 

This far out, the rule is law.

First Aid For Surfers

You can’t improvise being a doctor; you won’t fool anyone. They do a wad of training before they are let loose on the public after all, but there are some simple rules you can follow that could make a big difference. It’s a natural human instinct to want to save or help someone in distress… 

The Red Badge Of Courage...

Some lucky people will surf their whole lives without ever sustaining an injury. Most of us, however, will at some point be on the receiving end of a bit of bodily punishment. It can be down to bad luck, bad judgement or in the worst case some irresponsible fool nailing you good and proper.

Here’s some first hand accounts of real life gore and next post will be a load of cool, instructional shit you really should learn….

More Surfboard Wisdom...

Last time we had a comprehensive, well, as comprehensive as possible in the black art of board design, look at three of the fundamental aspects of board design, namely: Rocker, Outline and Bottom Shape. That trinity don’t work alone and in this issue we’ll round off the other interplaying factors that make your board go good or surf like a lump of wood.

A Good Board Is Like A Good Woman- It's All About The Curves...

Ever been stuck in the middle of one of those fervent discussions about boards? You know the one; the chat that you lost track of five minutes previously and are now just nodding along hoping nobody asks your opinion. Words like ‘foil’, ‘double concave’ and ‘squash tail’ fly past your struggling cerebellum in a whirl and you really wish you actually understood a little bit about that artfully crafted chunk of foam, resin and love that you call your board.

Well, dear Slide reader, help is at hand. Come with us on a little voyage of discovery through the lexicon of board shape terminology, concepts and the like. In no time at all you’ll be able to hold your own, eloquently defending your choice of ‘reverse vee’.

Does A Bear?

Bored of dodging tectonic plates bumming each other in Indo Jerseyite surf-travel-guru Ian Battrick has been getting his vicarious thrills in a different, colder, hairier way- one that involves paws, claws, big teeth and, err, shotguns…

Batty and compadres Timmy Turner, Raph Bruhwiler and Eric Ramsey have been up in Grizzly Country- somewhere in the Pacific Northwest of Canada...

Have You Got A Secret Spot?

Have you got a secret spot? A real secret spot, one that you never, ever mention to other people and is only surfed by you and your crew?
Didn’t think so.
You’re too late, that ship has sailed my friend. The era of secret surf-havens in the UK & Ireland and increasingly in the rest of the world has passed. The reasons: People love to talk, other people dig on making money from guidebooks, the mag’s constantly quest for the ‘next thing’, surf camps and more recently clueless numpties have blown the lid off some sacred spots on the damn internet.
Are we doomed? Is there any hope? Read on and find out…

Working For The Man...

Nobody wants to work. But very few of us are ever going to be good enough to get paid to surf and the ‘stupid tax’ known as the Lotto is a false messiah if ever there was one. So how do you get your fix of surfin’ and still make enough coin to keep you in boards, suits, CD’s and adult interest magazines? Well here’s SlideMags little cut out and keep guide to surfer friendly jobs…

Lady GaGa Nearly Killed Me... (Or CaliGirlVacation)

A trip from February which has never seen the light of day in the surf mags... So here it is in interweb form... Pics here.

In which our heroines- Bethanwy Mason, Gwendolen Spurlock and Anastasia Swallow head Stateside to traverse the Golden State from north to south in search of waves, good times, ice-fuelled mentalists, celeb’s and the perfect breakfast pancake… (Whilst also attempting to turn one previously sane surf photographer completely doo-lally through the sickening mental torture of Lady GaGa on infinite repeat).

Things didn’t start well. I’d got on a plane in the tropical heat of Bali at the end of January and got off in a London that was battening down the hatches for a serious winter storm. ‘No problem,’ think I, ‘we don’t get proper snow anymore!’ I was wrong- three days of public transport free, snowy, house arrest and many flight cancellations later I was en route to Heathrow unsure if we’d be going to California at all…

Surfing With The Atomics...

One from the archives- from SurfEurope in 2004.
The SE trip to Europe’s most radioactive coastline.
“Oh tits! I’ve got radiation in my eye!”
‘No, you haven’t.’
“Yes I have! You’ve killed me! I’ve got a radioactive particle thing in my eye from surfing at that damned wave I didn’t want to surf in the first place; and now I’m going to die and it’s all your fault!”

This Weeks Claim- The Low Fist...

Claiming. It’s a natural thing, you get a good wave and you want to celebrate. It’s your surfing; there aren’t any rules, so why should anybody to turn their noses up at a little bit of good old fashioned claiming?
Slide Mag thought it was about time we investigated this much maligned practice...

Tuk Tuk Tales...

If you look at a map of the Indian Ocean Sri Lanka is the chunk that looks like it’s just been pooped out the arse end of India. It’s home to elephants, tea plantations, crazy bus drivers, three wheeled taxis powered by hairdryer motors known as ‘tuk tuks’ and until very recently a very messy civil war. The Tamil Tigers have waged a campaign for a separatist state in the north east of the country for over thirty years inventing along the way the suicide bomber belt and making good use of women and children to further their cause. Chuck in a bit of ethnic cleansing of the Muslims from Tamil areas and you can see why the whole country celebrated when the war was declared over on the 17th of May this year (shortly followed by the death of the Tamils leadership cadre on the 19th, so I guess they were still doing some mopping up with their rocket launchers).

The Biggest Wave Ever?

For as long as I can remember 'Lituya Bay' has been lodged in my deep subconscious. I don't know where I picked it up, probably as a kid whilst reading the Readers Digest Bumper Book of Essential Knowledge on a bored, rainy day...

Lituya Bay, somewhere in deepest Alaska, the scene of the world’s biggest recorded wave. As a junior surfer this annoyed me. You see it wasn't a proper wave, not a mighty ocean swell from an explosively cyclogenic 'perfect' storm, not even a tsunami, the ungodly offspring produced by tectonic plates coupling. It was a con, a hoax, a one in a million shot, an aberration of nature. Originally it was also misunderstood. American geologists first noticed something strange at Lituya during the early fifties whilst surveying for oil. Normally the primordial forest reaches right down to the shoreline but in the bay they found an unusual demarcation. At about one hundred and fifty metres above sea level the mature growth ceased and below it much younger trees sprouted.

Gwen Vs The Brain Drain...

Some call it luck, others call it fate; if you have eastern leanings then you might describe it as Karma. Whatever you call it, it all comes down to probability- the mathematical chance that really good things or terribly bad things are going to happen. Most people live a vanilla life- they go from cradle to the grave bothering no one, achieving nothing much, it’s all just a bit beige, the universe doesn’t bother them much. Other people achieve: they may achieve greatness, they may perpetrate great evil or they may spend the whole lives helping other people. It doesn’t seem to matter which way you make a difference in life, probability doesn’t care, good things happen to bad people and vice versa…

Coldwater Classic Scotland...

Bristol airport early doors. I meet Reubyn and Jayce in the departure lounge and all is well. The charts are looking good, we’ve all got a tan being fresh in from Portugal the day before and everyone’s frothing for some good Norse Shore action (not only that Reubs and I are tumescent at the prospect of seeing our cover from the last issue that came out while we were away). We get called for the plane and bump into Nate Philips in the queue. He’s not looking the best, a bit of rouge in the face and a bit of a sweat on, we get talking catch up, about how Portugal was for the big QS there and how the guys did and what Nate’s been up to now he’s back in the water after his horrific Welsh snowboarding stack. By the time we’re seated on the plane and they’ve sealed us in and we’re about to take off he lets it drop he’s just back from the Length Mexico trip…
I was sat right in front of him.
Swine flu central…