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« Last post by Fiend on Today at 09:53:31 pm »
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« Last post by seankenny on Today at 08:57:16 pm »
I am completely torn on this question. I totally agree with many posters in their support - a close relative is currently undergoing an undignified and degrading end to life, and naturally that’s deeply upsetting.
But… in the last few years I’ve had a peek into the world of chronic illness and disability, and it’s been fairly shocking. It brings out people’s inhumanity, to the point that losing friends and relations is an absolutely standard experience that almost everyone endures. The post-2010 austerity programme hit disabled people particularly hard, and really, who cared? Do I trust our society to treat disabled people with compassion if we have the tool of state sponsored suicide to hand? I’m afraid I don’t. Our society thoughtlessly throws people inside stinking deadly jails, or lets them rot in tent cities on the streets. It’s not hard to imagine us being pretty casual about assisted dying too.
As an aside, or perhaps something in tandem with Ben’s article above, I can recommend Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Illyich which touches on similar themes.
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« Last post by jakaitch on Today at 08:15:07 pm »
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« Last post by chriss on Today at 06:58:39 pm »
Anyhoo, managed to PB my 15 miler on Sunday with 2:03:10. 5 min pb from 2018 time, but fell short of 2 hour stretch goal. All hopes faded with brutal headwind for the last 3 miles, and rain in face for the fina
Cheers. not benefitting the wind for the first half (river level and in trees) and getting nailed at the end is brutal. First time out in Saucony Endorphin Edge (carbon plated trail shoe). No idea if it made a difference, but they are great shoes for mixed trails, but i think tread is not really deep enough for really wet muddy conditions. Will see later in the
year if things come to fruition....
Good effort on the race. I'd be interested to see what you think of carbon trails over the long term. Personally I really rate carbon road shoes, but wondered how they would realistically work in trails.
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Sorry for your loss Sam and thanks for sharing on the forum. For anyone interested, here's a long, very good (IMHO) article by philosopher Duncan Reyburn that he published about a month ago. Not that I'm agreeing with what he's written but I found it very thought provoking. https://open.substack.com/pub/duncanreyburn/p/citizen-disposal?r=4n4mm&utm_medium=ios
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« Last post by Nemo on Today at 05:43:04 pm »
Then, as should always be the case, you give it an E grade, consistent with how hard it would be to do other trad routes in an equivalent style. ie: As long as you compare how hard it would be to flash relative to flashing other routes. Or compare how hard it would be to headpoint relative to headpointing other routes. etc. Then there's rarely much problem.
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« Last post by andy moles on Today at 05:28:21 pm »
Easiest way to deal with all that is just not to give highballs E grades.
What about routes like Purgatory, which is definitely not a highball, but where the difficulties and risk factor are roughly equivalent to a highball? 
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« Last post by Nemo on Today at 05:14:01 pm »
The idea that WSS as an E4 makes any kind of sense whatsoever is ridiculous.
The problem with giving highballs E grades is that lots of people for way too long have conflated doing highballs after lots of work with onsighting trad routes. How many people have actually onsighted WSS?
If you compare doing it after work to headpointing trad routes, which is the only thing that actually makes sense - then WSS would be at least E6.
And Layby would be E5, Careless would be E8 etc.
ie: headpointing Careless is probably a bigger deal than headpointing E7/8's like EOTA or Gaia, probably not as big a deal as headpointing E8/9s like Meshuga.
flashing Careless is pretty much world class - bigger deal than flashing EOTA or Gaia, but probably not as big a deal as flashing Meshuga.
That's the only way it's actually consistent. The downside (at least to people trying to make a living out of hard headpointing) is that means that lots of "E4 climbers" suddenly find they can and have climbed E7's - which makes hard E grades suddenly look a lot less remote.
Easiest way to deal with all that is just not to give highballs E grades. And certainly not to give them completely pointless, inconsistent and confusing E grades.
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« Last post by SamT on Today at 04:58:07 pm »
Had to look that up, but cheers. Its not that bad, for so many reasons its was a good albeit bold/traumatic option. He was good friends with Mark Vallence of Wild Country if that means anything, just not as weathy 
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« Last post by Oldmanmatt on Today at 03:29:26 pm »
Have a listen to Will Selfs point of View - October 2023
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d5rq
My dad (85) took his own life later that day.
Stroke that took away his ability to drive due to a problem with his vision (otherwise un-affected) and then Alzheimers diagnosis.
Luckily for him, he still had agency along with physical ability and above all, the bravery to do what he did. For which I respect him enormously.
Myself and my sister joked about writing to Will... You killed our dad.
BZ for the strength that took to write.
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