Owen Wainhouse
Owen Wainhouse
It’s approaching 2am on a relatively mild and cloudless September night. I’m halfway down the side of Pirin Peak, the 2554 meter (8400 ft) summit that forms one of the countless climbs on the Pirin Ultra Marathon. I am almost alone. I can see just one solitary headlamp ahead of me through the dark, perhaps a mile away down the mountain. And I know […]
Spare a thought, if you will, for the newly born Guillemot. It begins its life high above the sea on a rocky cliff-face. Just weeks after hatching on the cold, wind-swept ledge, the chicks are ushered to the edge… and pushed off. You can almost hear the mother Guillemot squawking “Fly, my pretties. Fly” as she pushes her offspring over precipice. The narrow ledge, […]
When I first applied for the Hardrock Hundred Endurance Run, the entry process was still somewhat convoluted. Not quite as preposterously convoluted as the still ‘secret’ entry process for the now famous Berkley Marathons but it was still somewhat of a faff. In October each year you had to download and printout a paper form. This needed to be completed in black biro and returned […]
These are difficult days for the Labour Party. For the wing of the party who aren’t natural Corbynisters, they’re doubly difficult. Difficult firstly because we’re heading into an election with a leader and set of policies which we think are stuck in the past. We see a floundering government and a Labour leadership failing to provide a credible alternative. Doubly difficult because this wing of […]
There’s a quote that’s been doing the rounds a lot recently. It’s generally attributed to George Bernard Shaw. But in this newfound world of fake news, it’s a bad idea to believe anything you hear attributed to anyone. But fake attribution aside, all that really matters is that it was said by someone. And I repeat it here: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; […]
Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava might have nearly bankrupted the city of Valencia, but I challenge anyone visiting the City of Arts and Science in Valencia not to say… it was worth every billion.
Have you ever woken from a deep sleep on a flight to be momentarily disorientated? Briefly unsure where you’re going to or where you’re coming from? You try to narrow things down, but your surroundings don’t give away any clue as to which airline on you’re on. Even the crew fail to give the game away. It can’t just be me that finds airlines have lost so […]
It’s been a long day. You’ve rushed through the overheated airport and found your way to the gate, where your flight is already boarding. You hurry down the jetway and squeeze your bags into the overhead locker; plonk your weary self into your seat and wonder if the seat has got narrower or you’ve got wider. As you relax, feeling rather chuffed that you’ve made […]
How many times have you sat through a meeting that’s overrun? Worse still a meeting that has overrun but which still hasn’t reached any conclusions? The problem is often blamed on bad chairing. To be sure, too many meetings are badly chaired. But the real problem is that people speak without anything to say. So meetings roll on without getting anywhere. Meetings are not the […]
As I potter about London on my bike, I often find myself worrying that being a cab driver in the capital can’t be much fun. Stuck behind the wheel of a stuffy London black cab; stuck breathing in the fumes from the cab in front; stuck in traffic and with hundreds of cyclists scooting just inches away from your stationary vehicle can’t be that enjoyable. […]
Britain has now had its ill-advised referendum. And guess what, the pollsters got it wrong again. There is shock, anger and incomprehension amongst those of us who voted rationally for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union. It seems our desire to live in a tolerant, liberal and open country has been ripped away from us against our will. With our anger comes […]
Travel sickness occurs when your eyes and inner ear tell a different story to your brain. If you’re being bounced up and down on an ocean wave or thrown side-to-side on a hairpin road, your brain can’t make sense of the world. It’s normally a quite unpleasant experience. Relaxing, and keeping your eyes on the horizon, is the well-established solution. Indeed a good solution for […]
There is a certain style to the public announcements when you travel in Turkey. On Turkish airlines, as you taxi to the runway, the safety briefing intones that in the event of an emergency, before the assuming of the brace position, you should loosen your collar and tie. It’s said without satire. The undertone being that, emergency excepted, collar and tie are not only required, […]
They say we dream every night. Most mornings though, as we wake, our dreams are quickly cast aside as we re-enter the real world. To save our sanity, our brains quickly discard what couldn’t, shouldn’t – and indeed didn’t happen during the night. Sometimes though, you wake from a deep sleep and for a few fleeting moments you are simultaneously in the dream and awake. […]
The years seem to have flown by. I first touched down in Tokyo a little over a decade ago. Back then, having spent relatively little time in the Far-East, everything seemed new and delightfully foreign. I was wowed by the towering heights, bright lights and narrow alleys of Shinjuku and nishi-Shinjuku. But on returning to Tokyo this week – my third trip to the city […]
It’s late. And you’re lost. You’ve been driving for the best part of 10 hours. So you’re quite tired. It’s dark but you think you might recognise this part of the motorway from about 20 minutes ago. You scrunch up the map and throw it onto the back seat. You need a hotel. And a shower. Your standards are now pretty low. Freed from […]
The first experience many people have of China’s rapidly expanding railway network is ironically not on the railway itself but hovering some three inches above it. The Maglev – or magnetic levitation train – whisks you the 30kms from Pudong International airport to a metro station a stones throw from the city in just eight minutes flat. As the train breathlessly accelerates to 430kms per […]
During my last few trips to Shanghai, something strange always starts happening around day three. I start to crave greenery. By day four or five, I’m starting to feel rather uncomfortable. When I’m whisking my way back to the airport – gazing out from the elevated highway or from the maglev on the urban sprawl – I realise what I’ve been missing. Nature. Sure there […]
