Grid of Posts 3×2

  • When a punch is not just a punch: vigilantism, fascism, sport and fiction

    Superheroes conflate goodness with hitting things. For the superhero genre, the best person in the world is the one with the greatest power; beating evil is a matter of hitting it harder. A world in which force and goodness are one and the same and both always triumph is a world in which you’re essentially… Read more

  • Men of Kent pull an all-nighter (Permanent Brevet Randonneur 300)

    Receipts A handful of receipts to be stapled together and posted with a card to a man I have never met. That is the goal. And it is a good one. Don Quixote – Sancho Panza – Rosinante Offshore wind farms in the distance make me ponder a future without fossil fuels: throughout the night I… Read more

  • Compass Bon Jon Pass Extralight Tyre Review

    I don’t often write reviews. Choice of equipment is very personal: experiences of the same component or item of clothing are subjectively variable and I have bought many disappointing items that others love. That doesn’t mean they were wrong, just that I don’t see the world their way. I will however tell you what I… Read more

  • The map is not the territory…

    I wonder what this will actually feel like? RWGPS makes route planning seem easy, but there is a surprise on every ride. After the familiar sections of Yorkshire are accounted for this route contains just enough mystery to imply a test for more than my legs. Between GPS and reality exists a fruitful gap which… Read more

  • Third time lucky?

    I completed my third North-West Passage on Saturday. It doesn’t sound much put like that. Despite a comedy of errors which included forgetting my bottles and phone (only one of which I went back for), I completed it. Moreover, I managed not to get lost on the final run into Rochdale. However, due to the… Read more

  • The Ghost in the Machine: underneath the tinfoil hat.

    I have been struggling for a while to decide how to continue to write about cheating in sport given its state of anomie. Scandal after scandal in athletics, soccer, tennis (and even cycling) have helped normalise the view that sport is actually inherently fraudulent, whether or not that is in any sense ‘true’. Nonetheless, two developments in… Read more