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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My Old Man’s a Dustman from John Manning on Vimeo.

Hard to believe but there are still some folk out there who just don’t get the TGO Challenge.

With this in mind, I offer you this video snippet from last year’s crossing, when dozens to Challengers, weary after the demanding Cairngorm and Angus Glens sections of their individual coast-to-coast crossings, funneled into Tarfside in Glen Esk, and let their hair down for one night (or maybe two) in the small Freemansons’ bar there.

The guy leading the singing is Mick “Croyden” Hopkins and the chap he’s serenading so, erm, tunefully, is Colin Tock. Among their audience are several dozen Challengers, some on their first crossing, some long-in-the tooth old timers.

I hope this snippet captures at least some of the friendly nature of the event. Challengers old and new gathered together, singing terribly, drinking whatever they can find, and all smiling their heads off. The TGOC is like that for some, for others it’s different – for every Challenger gathered in the bar in this clip, there’s probably another camped in the hills somewhere, enjoying the solitude, the peace of the mountains.

Click the “Read More” link below this line for another video of Challenge foolery!

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Sophie Easterbrook’s about to take her dog, Patch, out for a walk.

Not just any walk however: the route she’s got planned for Patch makes the TGO Challenge look like a walk in the park. Over the next three months, starting Monday, Sophie and Patch plan to walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End, in aid of the the Dogs Trust, reported to be the UK’s largest dog welfare charity. The trust cares for stray and abandoned dogs in a network of 17 rehoming centres - last year it looked after 16,000 dogs that might otherwise have died or been put down.

Sophie’s got an excellent blog about the walk here in which she details her mission to find the best gear for the walk. Bear in mind that this i Britain she’s walking through and while the sun might be shining like a fried egg in a pool of shiny bright blue lard today, she’ll probably encounter everything from rain, sleet, hail, high winds, gales and all-enveloping mists of the kind that make map reading a misery. On the PCT in ‘04 I had similar problems - some days I struggled to decide between the Factor 25 and the Factor 30!

Sophie and Patch will spend most of their nights either in their Terra Nova Laser tent or under a tarp; however I’m hoping that they’ll pop down here for a shower and a tin of Pal as they pass through the Yorkshire Dales – assuming that happens I’ll pop a post about their progress on this site, though that’s several weeks away at the moment. Might even treat them to a lamb Henry and a pint of Thwaites Original in the Craven Heifer!

Sophie’s funding the big adventure herself so that all funds raised will benefit the Dogs Trust – you can make a donation online here and find out more about the trust itself here.

* Photo shamelessly taken from Sophie’s blog page, without permission!