RUMBLINGS…

It’s not every day a pike-bearing helmeted soldier walks straight out of the English Civil War into the Yorkshire Dales.

And it’s definitely not every Civil War soldier who travels the country armed with a pike, a sword and a GPS-enabled Blackberry phone!

Meet Malcolm Cray, aka The Pikeman, who’s walking from John O’Groats to Land’s End to raise funds for the charity Help or Heroes. He’s walking the entire route in the uniform of a Parliamentarian pikeman – which includes heavy chest and back armour, a weighty iron helmet, and rather authentic clothing, all of which weighs a ton… well, not a ton, but when he left Dunnett Head almost 40 days ago he was struggling under 80lb of gear.

His kit isn’t the usual mix of outdoor gear you might be familiar with. Take my word for it, walking in the sweltering heat we’ve had this week, bearing a burden like this, takes extraordinary commitment and resolve.
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This video has been doing the rounds for a while but according to the YouTube website it still hasn’t had 400,000 views, so I thought I’d boost its ratings a little.

And while we’re in multi media mode, here’s a link to a BBC Radio 4 Today programme piece on the bitter dispute over WHSmith’s decision to ditch many top travel titles from its shelves in airports, rail stations and more.

Outdoors and travel writers and photographers are getting more than a little concerned at WHSmith’s plan to source all its overseas travel guides from one publisher.

The High Street newsagent, which has branches in most airports, motorway service stations, rail stations and other oft-used travel hubs, will no longer stock travel guides from any publisher other than Penguin.

The Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild – of which I’m a committee member and editor of its journal Outdoor Focus – has written to the Office of Fair Trading, expressing concerns that the move is anti-competitive, and will restrict choice for consumers.

Penguin publishes guides under several imprints including Rough Guides, Dorling Kindersley and Sawday.

But from now-on you can say goodbye to familiar publishing brands such as Lonely Planet, AA, Berlitz, Thomas Cook, Bradt, Time Out and Michelin. As WHS has recently signed a deal with BAA that excludes other retailers from its airports, your choice is suddenly rather restricted.

I’m not fortunate enough to have ever written an overseas guidebook (though I did contribute a chapter many years ago to a trekking anthology). But I can understand why folks should be concerned. It’s a bit like Tesco announcing it’s only going to stock Kellogg’s cereals in future. Or HMV deciding it’s only going to stock EMI releases.

Click on the following “Read the rest of this entry” button to read the OWPG’s statement in full (see the discount WHSmiths will be getting from Penguin, which gives you an idea of the mark-up they might be making!), and maybe request WHSmith to think again. What might the company’s next move be? To only stock newspapers published by News International? Only magazines published by IPC (result - no Trail, no TGO, no BBC Countryfile Magazine…)? To only stock sweeties made by Mars Ltd? (cripes - no KitKats!).

Hopefully commonsense and fairness will prevail. Commonsense – or the industry regulator.

UPDATE: writer Margaret Drabble has added her own voice to those raising concerns over WHSmith’s decision, as has, reportedly, Michael Russell, Scottish culture minister. See Timesonline report here.

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