[Falling Down]

Not only a spy but instrumental in Rudolf Hess's defection and a close associate of Ian Fleming.   

[Fiend]

You may laugh, but a few days later she saw a string of single magpies, and shortly after wedged her driving instructor's car atop a stone bollard in Dore.

Was this when you made the call??

[shurt]

Not only a spy but instrumental in Rudolf Hess's defection and a close associate of Ian Fleming.   

Honestly, I'm enjoying this tangent more than the original riff

[Oldmanmatt]

but a few days later she saw a string of single magpies, and shortly after wedged her driving instructor's car atop a stone bollard in Dore.

Tell her to stop looking at Magpies whilst driving...

[grumpycrumpy]

Not only a spy but instrumental in Rudolf Hess's defection and a close associate of Ian Fleming.   

And a truly repulsive human being .........

[SA Chris]

You may laugh, but a few days later she saw a string of single magpies, and shortly after wedged her driving instructor's car atop a stone bollard in Dore.

Was this when you made the call??

Let's hope this doesn't happen every autumn.

[petejh]

A timely piece by Andrew Bisharat: http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/to-boldly-go-sprad-climbing?page=1, especially Dean Potter's views - which chime with some of what Redhead was trying to get at in his piece, about how climbing styles have evolved.

What are the consequences of “sprad” climbing? Usually, breaking with a tradition leads to new ideas, creativity and a rebellious spirit. But that’s not exactly what has been going on here.

Interestingly, in my interview with Potter, he very organically arrived at an initially tangential idea that, the more I thought about it, really nailed my beef with this whole issue.

“I think a better angle for a story is how climbers have changed from radical free thinkers living on the fringe to now walking single file, only doing what is politically correct and safe from criticism,” Potter says. “It is my opinion, as well as many others’, that this is killing climbing.”

It seems rather likely that we’ve reached a point in climbing where our counterculture has been stripped of its subversion and originality, and sprad climbing is proof that this is true.

When a group appropriates ideals, the terms inevitably become stripped of meaning. Today’s spradster, at his worst, is a self-obsessed vacuum that defines himself like so: I am vaguely empathetic to trad climbing, but I haven’t read Camp 4. I am bold enough to place gear on lead, but don’t recognize that doing so after practicing the free-climbing moves on toprope four dozen times makes the exercise completely meretricious. I recognize that my definition of trad climbing is a misnomer, but don’t care because climbing the relatively mundane grade of 5.13d on gear allows me to differentiate myself from all the other far-more-talented sport climbers in the eyes of sponsors.

Ultimately, who cares? Dean Potter said it best. “Climbing can become a symbol for freedom and protecting nature. We just have to help people see this opportunity.”

Andrew Bisharat wants to be clear that climbing style is a matter of choice, but what you choose to call it is not.

[Fiend]

Aren't Redhead's views on climbing style wrt headpointing mostly just bitter bitching about The Indian Face?? 

[tomtom]

Scanning this sprad (shouldnt it be Tort?) argument, I think there is a large dose of 'rose tinted' (maybe rose aged!) views about alot of this...

I have only been climbing for 20-25 years or so, but from since I first started out - I remember loads of people were top roping hard stuff before leading it.. its not new.. the only reason folk didnt pad high ball things out then was that pads didn't exist! They would have if they had!

Maybe the real issue here is that climbing is now more popular - so there are more folk now out and about, diluting the more exclusive experiences that people remember from when they were younger (20, 30, 40 etc.. years ago).

Anyway - I don't really care - as it does not detract from my own climbing experiences, which at the moment are great! But above is my tuppence....

[petejh]

Yeah it contains some dated ideas from 'back in the day', 'the golden age'. I thought it was interesting more becasue of how it co-incides with JR's piece. I don't feel strongly either way about his points but they are interesting.

[petejh]

Aren't Redhead's views on climbing style wrt headpointing mostly just bitter bitching about The Indian Face?? 

Understandably really, given he was trying Indian Face without practice and fell off; the loon!

[Boredboy]

I thought the spirit of JR's article was about the function of climbing moving from an adventure driven, individualistic, soul searching pastime to a mob activity that could be reduced to something more likened to a sporting event. I can see how that fits in with the headpoint - onsight debate, but not always. Personally I think climbing has been going that way for quite a while. I'm pretty sure that the reason why many people got into climbing back in the day was to escape the mainstream and get away from the usual things associated with that, e.g. lack of acceptance, image consciousness, pecking orders based upon physical prowess and popularity with peers etc etc. Since climbing has grown in popularity particularly with sanitisation of the danger and adventure elements, it's come along with an increase in all of the above baggage. So now the things that some of us once found in climbing e.g. adventure and excitement while escaping a particular type of person / group, has now been hijacked by the masses. No wonder some people are unhappy about it.

[mrjonathanr]

Redhead is after pushing to achieve a pure experience through a pure ethic. Not getting there doesn't invalidate his attempt/aspiration.
It must make him resentful when his chef d'oeuvre gets tamed and held up as a icon of the very thing he was striving for.
There aren't many really hard GU first ascents out there. TE, Hardback Thesaurus, Pengo's stuff on Craig Doris, what else..?

[shark]

Some manner of riposte from Craig Smith (Cosmic Spacedog) which Caff seems to have signed up to though a cursory glance suggests its got Smith written all over it (I'm not a fan)

http://footlesscrow.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/he-who-fell-to-earth-climbers-tale.html

[Grubes]

now that I liked!

[Fiend]

An attemptedly comedic rephrasing of a good story we all know already??  b2b 

[Johnny Brown]

Entertaining stuff. I remember Littlejohn having a good rant to me about how JR has rewritten his abseil inspections as being 'ground-up'...

[Wood FT]

That mural Redhead painted on the Indian Face is very good, looks like it was always there under the flake.

An attemptedly comedic rephrasing of a good story we all know already??  b2b 

the rephrasing was quite funny though.

Some form of comic next please whoevers next in line to retell the story....

[tomtom]

Some form of comic next please whoevers next in line to retell the story....

Or possibly some form of modern dance involving several large papier mache phallus' ?

[SA Chris]

Some form of comic next please whoevers next in line to retell the story....

We are due another, 17 years this month (assuming it was released in November) since the last good one!

http://www.v-outdoor.co.uk/products/climbing-mountaineering/november.php

[slackline]

Aleister Crowley is mentioned earlier in this thread, just stumbled upon this...

 http://footlesscrow.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/brief-mountaineering-career-of-aleister.html