In reply to Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC:
Well Andy if you give us a quick run down of all the ground up VIII,9 FA's you've done in the last couple of weeks I'll happily put them straight up on the news page for you, then you can bump Bullock and Benson off top spot and we won't have to read about them any more, the pair of pansies.
When posting on here about somebody else's FA it appears to be quite difficult to avoid the implication by Mick or yourself of being a moaning wanker unless the poster posts unquestioning blind praise. How about objectivity? Your 'how many really hard grades have you ground up'd' argument doesn't hold water, you should have said 'how many unconfirmed really hard grades have you ground up'd'. Jeff Mercier reports he found one of the reported routes to be 3 grades easier than reported on here (M5 c.f. M6+) so the other route may not be a ground up of a M7+ as you've reported, it might be an M6 (doubt it though). If you're therefore serious in your offer to report on every new mixed routes of a claimed difficulty which ends up being three grades easier then I'll start sending you some of the worthless choss shite I've dragged myself up, found really hard and which ends up not being anywhere like as hard as I thought.
In vain hope of not being labeled a moaning wanker I should say that I'm not having a pop at the FA's because fcuk knows I've overgraded things and those routes look absolutely brilliant and inspiring to climb, and they also might lead to more interest in that style of mixed route around the ice crags in the alps. Good effort to them for sticking their nuts where no frenchman has put theirs before. But it puzzles me why media like you report grades of new routes without adding a caveat such as 'unconfirmed' or something along those lines until a route gets at least a second ascent? Forgive my cynicism, could it be because the people involved may just be a tiny little bit sponsored? Do you mostly report about people who are sponsored because that's where your biggest source of revenue lies? Or is it because the usual suspects are the only ones who care enough about their image to send you reports? After all it's not necessary for the record to send reports to ukc, a note in the OHM book is all that's needed.
To put it in context - at least two new grade VII 8's (unconfirmed) have got done ground up in Wales so far this winter, the FA's aren't sponsored. You didn't report them even though a cursory 30 second glance of baggy's blog twice a week would have told you about them. Personally I honestly don't care what's reported on your site or any other, but I confess to being a little bit interested in the whys and hows of why some people's spray sprays across my laptop screen more than other people's spray.
IMO it would make your reports more credible if you were to report FA's with just a rough grade such as 'mid M's' or 'mid-grade scottish' until at least the second ascent (it works for Dave Macleod, didn't he sell an entire video on the back of an ungraded route?). Then readers like me would maybe start to believe that ukc were doing a little bit more than just trying to bring home more advertising bacon (see what I did). Like I said not knocking the FA's (the routes look brill) but I'm questioning the style of reporting of new routes on here and elsewhere.
Cheers.
The view from the infirmary.
![[Pete Benson leaning out to battle with the final pitch of Captain Caveman, 3 kb]](http://img.ukclimbing.com/t/136184.jpg "[Pete Benson leaning out to battle with the final pitch of Captain Caveman, 3 kb]")
Pete Benson and Nick Bullock have been back in action in the Rive Gauche area near Chamonix, completing a string of new routes in a ground-up Scottish style.
