It’s really lovely to receive a glowing book review. But if you’re going to value those then you also have to accept the validity of not very glowing book reviews. Sometimes though people get really angry. Here’s the beginning of one of my bad reviews, for example. ?

So I made some blackout poems from this bad review. They were great fun to do.

“When I is plastered in the pub
I dream big.”

“I have quit my dream life.
I fear this simply underlines how unwise it is to bash other people!”

Anyway, on to business.

Here are some things I’d like to share with you today:

(with apologies to reader Nikos who emailed me to say, quite rightly, that I include far too many links each time. Sorry!)

• Over the next four weeks I’ve got speaking events coming up in Yorkshire, Surrey, Wales, the Lake District, Scotland, and the Northeast. Please come along and say hi!
• I asked ChatGPT to analyse all the books I recommend on my blog and then suggest some different books that I might enjoy reading.
• Green Runners co-founder Jasmin Paris makes history at the Barkley Marathons. I love that this story has gone mainstream! (Pair it with this cool film. And this article from a runner who ‘failed’ this year: “The Barkley is fundamentally a celebration of the magnificence of raw human spirit, of attempting to do something that may be impossible. But the glory is in the striving, the struggle, the endeavour, in having the courage to try, knowing failure is the most likely outcome.”)
• I really like this idea: buy a bike from a factory in China. Pedal it home to Britain. ?
• 18th Century shipping mapped using 21st Century technology.
• Fancy riding the height of Everest on your local hill?
• A childhood of smartphones, or a childhood of playing outside?
• If you disagree with sewage being discharged into Windermere, please read this.
• Earth Day is an international call to take action to protect the place we call home. We’re calling on runners, riders and roamers to do your bit and clean up your trails over Earth Day weekend, April 19th – 22nd.

Let me know if you have a relevant project that my readers would appreciate. Here’s what you guys have been up to recently:

50 Newsletters Ago…

Shouting from the Shed 71

• Newsletter: My current favourite newsletter is a ‘pop-up’, short-lived one from Craig Mod about walking through Japan called ‘Where Are All the Nightingales?’.
• Sad news: I’m sorry to hear that astronaut Michael Collins has died. He was my ‘favourite’ of the Apollo astronauts (I picked him in my book of Great Adventurers), and his book is brilliant.
• Article: The ‘emotions grid’; a monitoring system devised by a psychologist to help explorer Ben Saunders share his emotions more accurately and honestly while on his first major solo expedition. Also good: Ben’s advice on swapping isolation for civilisation after lockdown (or after an expedition).
• Twitter Travel: Excellent examples of story-telling on Twitter: A man going in search of the tree he can see from his window; hitch-hiking from the Netherlands to South Africa; and a glorious ‘little-known’ island nation.
• Nomad: A short film about cycling and belonging. “I’m not from here. I’m not from there. I’m from everywhere. And I belong there.” – Erick Cedeño

And some quick snippets…

• Lights at sea: a map of all the world’s lighthouses. I found this pleasing and it made me yearn to be out on a boat at sea in the dark.
• In my shed I work standing up all day. I recommend you give it a go. It could be one of the most important things you do for your health.
• Illusory Photographs of Mountain Landscapes Are Flipped 90 Degrees to Reveal Human-Like Profiles.

Can I help you? Let me know if you have a relevant project that my readers would appreciate. Here’s what you guys have been up to recently…

• Bas has developed a new app for cycle tourists, is a combination of Warmshowers and iOverlander.. Check it out here.
• Bill has written a travel memoir called Gone Viking: A Travel Saga (8 years trekking the northern hemisphere in the wake of Scandinavian explorers).
• Ben has invented a small lightweight attachment that can turn a trekking pole (or even a stick) into a decent fishing rod.

(If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here.)

Cheers,

Alastair