Yes, you read that correctly. A marathon. On ice. Why? Because I'd never done a marathon before and would probably never do one again, so I might as well make it memorable: by doing it on frozen lake in Norway, as part of the World Ice Running Championships. Thus, the Oarsman! We drove from O...
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I love Airbnb, but the booking process is deeply culturally insensitive towards English people. By the time we've penned an informal yet appropriately polite booking request (complete with apologies for potential slight inconveniences) then rewritten it multiple times to ensure we are using vocab...
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I am not a Spartan Race World Champion. Let's just clear that up right now. Anybody could pay to enter the race in Lake Tahoe and not run in the elite wave. Indeed, about 10,000 people did exactly that - myself included, side by side with Scott and Amber Keneally. I say "side by side". I mean...
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"A Guildsman does not train for events. He wanders the Earth being mighty. He performs feats as fleeting extensions of his power. Like flexing." So sayeth the Guildsman's handbook, the code by which I live. Today, however, I am feeling a tad apprehensive about my blasé approach to physical challe...
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Today is the day I fly to L.A. Waking up is a multi-tiered and painful process. It begins at some ungodly hour, when Vikki's alarm goes off. She is catching a very early train to Birmingham. By the time she has her lunch, I will be mid-air. In a plane, hopefully. I wake up again when Vikki...
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Cuba is one of those places. Like Iceland. Somewhere almost everybody wants to visit, but never does. Of course, going to Cuba is exactly as easy as going just about anywhere. You buy a plane ticket, get on a plane and - hey presto - you're in Cuba! And yes, it's exactly like you imagine it - and...
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We started our 2014 travels in Iceland. Land...of ice. And spectacle. It seems only fitting, therefore, that we end it in the total opposite part of the word. The Sahara. By camel. Obviously. Typically, we arrive in a storm. Bad weather follows us around the globe. It's a wind st...
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We break our fast on cakes. That is the Moroccan way. Pancakes, with a side of normal cake...and bread. All smothered in jam and honey. Add to that a steaming pot of coffee and another of mint tea, a yoghurt, a cup of pomegranate, cheese, and a gallon of freshly squeezed blood orange juice...and you...
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This week, I flew back to Copenhagen to finish my tattoo at the mighty Meatshop. The plan was for three more days of dotwork (two black and one colour), followed by a fourth day when Vikki would get her back-piece finished. I knew I was in for a rough few days. But exactly how rough...? I...
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Today, I am getting tattooed. I don't know the design yet. In fact, there isn't one. Thus, the Guild. I am also in Denmark, in a shop owned by my favourite tattoo artist: a man whose work Vikki and I found entirely independently when showing each other some of our favourite pieces whilst in ...
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Vikki and I spent this weekend in Belfast. Neither of us had been there before and, seeing as she had to be there on Monday morning for work anyway, it made sense to take the opportunity to check it out. Our flight, however, was at 07:00 from Manchester. We live in Sheffield. Needless to say, whe...
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As of this weekend, it has been six months since I met Vikki on Khaosan Road, Bangkok. To celebrate, we decided to spend the weekend in the Lake District. In a Romany Gypsy Caravan. Because...well it should be obvious, really. Frankly, the fact that most people don't spend most their time in gyps...
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It's January again; the time of year when everybody 'resolves' to do something life-changing. Normally, this is because a few days of summarising our annual news for friends and family forces us to acknowledge our own inactivity and apathy, which immediately disgusts us and makes us want to chang...
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Everybody knows that we Guildsmen honour the Full Moon and, in return, are blessed with twice our normal strength beneath its glow (when it bothers coming out from behind the clouds). I am not a man prone to 'freaking', but when I discovered that January-2014's Full Moon (the Wolf Moon) lands exa...
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Seriously, fuck travelling by bus in Laos. It is 600km from Luang Prabang to Chiang Rai...and it has taken us 40 hours. FORTY HOURS!! That's long enough to build my own bus, find and extract my own oil for petrol AND drive to bloody Thailand! 40 hours. Most of which were spent thus: [galler...
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After some much-needed recovery time in Vang Vieng, we catch a morning minibus to Luang Prabang. Although it isn't a very long bus by our standards, it is probably one of the worst; the road to Luang Prabang is slow and winding to a nauseating extent. It is a mere 185km, but it takes us all day a...
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24 hours after eating our Happy Pizzas, we are still pretty stoned. 48 hours later, we still feel rather strange. The last 2 days have been hell. Who mixes weed and mushrooms?! As if thinking something is trying to kill you isn't bad enough, now you can see it too! To be fair, it probably doesn't...
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After an enjoyable but harrowing few days in Cambodia, the time came for us to move on. To help us get over the sights of the Killing Fields, we went out for a drink. Being us, this quickly turned into 15 drinks as we steadily worked our way through the entire cocktail menu. By the end of the...
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After our energetic day around Angkor Wat, we relaxed for the rest of our stay in Siem Reap. The following day we ate three cakes, drank lots of beer and did nothing more active than looking around the old market, where we purchased some trousers more suited to the Cambodian climate. This was the...
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Having spent three days in Bangkok, eating cakes, drinking bad cocktails and getting excellent massages, it was clear the time had come to venture elsewhere - lest this year's foray into South East Asia turn into nothing more than an implosion of hedonism. It was, therefore, with the perverted e...
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