UKC

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0026935?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=sha...

Maybe worth a listen ? In any case, when stuck inside with this dreary weather, one can day dream of North Wales climbing.

Happy New Year, folks, j 🙂 

Certainly a change to hear bolting ethics talk on radio four. Spoiled some what by almost Cliffhanger style technical errors…

Melvin Bragg bollocks on about them all the time. Almost as bad as Clare Balding spouting vitriol about the deep state practically every episode of Ramblings. Is this what we pay our licence fee for?

Wasn't that episode of the Moral Maze purely about peg bolts rather than bolts per se? I felt John Dunne’s argument was compelling.

In Our Time surely if it was Melvyn Bragg. If it was the Moral Maze it would have been Michael Burke. 

Anyway, pretty sure it was John Redhead not John Dunne. But yes, the discussion was restricted to peg bolts.

Indeed I may be confusing an episode of The Moral Maze with an episode of In Our Time where the many writings of Pliny the Elder on the subject of bolts were contrasted with Redhead’s ground up approach and subsequent Tormented Ejaculation bolt…

Now this I would love to listen to!

Yes, it actually could have been very good if they had just got a few actual climbers to read the script and advise on removing the odd bit of nonsense. Though it clearly did have some knowledgeable input, so I wonder what was going on.

And what with the weird zipping doing effect whenever they payed out the rope?

That was an excellent episode, though Melanie Phillips was as irritating as ever in the way she blamed the liberal left for the democratisation of sport climbing.

Yes some errors (who leads trad with a drill in their rack) and a little simplified, but not a bad attempt in a 45 mins radio play.  

I still can’t believe they rejected my script (outline below) in favour of the rubbish they used.

After 3 years of top roping his new E13 project, Rhodri finally commits to a lead attempt, in the hope of securing a new shoe deal with Nike. What follows is a traumatic experience where he becomes crag fast, clinging to small edges, having had to cut his own lead rope to allow his partner to effect a time consuming rescue. The resulting PTSD and continuing financial worries over the price of new rock shoes puts a strain on his relationships.  Incoming Englishman Aubrey appears on the scene, places a bolt on the proj and sends, proposing the grade of E10 and gets a Nike shoe deal for his trouble. Still affected by his experience on the route Rhodri fully bolts the route and climbs it at 8b. His actions garner ridicule from the climbing community at large. Rhodri flees to Innsbruck. There he meets the beautiful Spanish climber Matilde who starts to coach him. Rhodri, with the coaching, soon becomes a much stronger climber. He then buys an angle grinder and returns to Wales. He has something he needs to do…

A good listen. Not just dealing with climbing ethics, but also wider issues around young people no longer being free to move to, settle, work and fall in love in other European countries. Also the colonisation of Wales by "tourists" who commandeer the countryside, culture accommodation and even local climbing ethics. Good stuff.

That's reminded me of a short story I wrote nearly 40 years ago (1986, I think). Has a lot of the same ingredients - a hard project, risk of bolting, risk of death, etc. Typed it up at the time on a bona fide typewriter, double-spaced an all!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FJbBvxGoDMyNVTAnvi5bM7Y-mw-mCeEM/view?usp=...

John, your link requires me to request access; this has been denied. I thought we were friends. 😞

I got a  request from you to be an editor! Naturally I declined!

Pretty sure you can just open it as a pdf to read it.

I don't get that option either. When I click the link (Chrome on Android) it takes me straight to a popup saying I don't have access and offering me the option to request it.

Sorry Peter (and everyone else who tried to follow a locked link!), I goofed and didn't share the link properly after all. Hopefully it's shared now. 🤞

On someone else's Google Drive,  you usually get the option to be a Viewer / Commenter / Editor. From memory, the default is Editor but when assigning access permissions following a request, you select the appropriate option, so just use Viewer.

It was even simpler than that Fraser. I'd just failed to switch it from 'restricted' to 'anyone with the link'.

Sounds like Linda did make her flight.