Beach Bum In The Big Apple

When you have five days to spend in NYC, it is much better to do than blog - so apologies for both the paucity and brevity of posts. I'll play catch up later. Anyway, I gotta keep moving to burn off all the calories I'm taking on. Fried potatoes for breakfast is just plain brutal.

In the meantime, here's another Beach Bum I bumped into at the marvellous MOMA - courtesy of Mr.Matisse.

Charity Begins At Home ...

... and Life's A Beach - like it says on this blog's header. If only. Tomorrow, May 3rd, means it's a year since Madeleine McCann was abducted from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal. There's an opportunity to think about this one precious life at noon on Fistral Beach, Newquay tomorrow.

Some of the folks that are campaigning to keep the investigation alive have asked me to spread the word about the balloon release that's happening there - 365 balloons for each of the days that Madeleine's been missing. It's the least I can do. Just turn up to show your support.

Coincidentally, I was cataloguing some pictures that I'd taken around Fistral last October. It was big blue sky day and all was well with the world. Here's one of my Nippers pointing at the seagull that's about to dive bomb my beanie. As a parent, I can only wonder how the McCanns keep going - perhaps, as they say, "hope springs eternal."

Last November, in a rather melancholic state of mind, I referred in this post to coming across a vicious car crash on my way back from the "school run". A few of us stood around directing traffic, waited for the emergency services to arrive and tried to comfort a young man trapped in the car all crumpled up around his face and body. At the time, and until yesterday when he made the headlines in our local paper, I'd no idea who the bloke was. It makes for compelling reading - and there's that hope thing again. Good on ya Pete!

Frivolous surfing froth will be resumed asap.

Fine Fleeces From Finisterre

Mention "Finisterre" to most folks here and I'll wager it's still the Shipping Forecast that comes to mind: "Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland..." almost poetic - that deeply satisfying , soporific chant I've drifted oft to sleep to as BBC Radio 4 slides off the air.

Actually, in 2002 Finisterre was renamed "FitzRoy" to avoid confusion with one of Spain's meteorological areas and that, you might think, was that. Finisterre RIP...

..except for the fact that that same year, one Tom Kay (2nd from left) was considering the product development cycle for your typical surf product. Turns out he had a bit of a beef with what he saw as the lack of innovation in the surf industry and a casual disregard for the environment.

With a few mates and some office space adjacent to an old tin mine as base, he founded Finisterre - the "Technical Ethical Online Surf Clothing" company. It sounds like an interesting journey - and one that Tom will be describing in more detail when he shares the experience at a talk he's giving at the Maritime Museum in Falmouth on May the 8th.

Now I need a new hoody and I quite fancy their Arcus (pictured left). Understated styling, lofted Merino and a lifetime guarantee sounds very good to me for £70. Fortunately, I don't have to go to the "ends of the earth" to get one - they're just down the road in St.Agnes - but you can order online.

Surfing Sells Anything...

...even Vitamins. Just a pity then that, according to some research, Vitamins kill.

(Candidate for Photoshop Disaster submission ? Elongated wheel shadow suggests the sun is low in sky so why no trace of the board's shadow - not to mention that of the front forks or rider? And how far could you ride along a beach with one hand on the handle bar and a stick under your arm?)

European Surfers In Space - The Right Stuff?

The headline that "European surfers could qualify in a new rush of astronauts" certainly caught my eye. On closer inspection, the article in question was more about the European Space Agency's latest recruitment drive and any link with surfing was tenuous at best...

...though I once shook hands with the man on the moon - well, one of them. Back in the late 70's an assembly hall full of slouching Belfast schoolboys were roused from their routine impression of the living dead when it was casually announced that they'd be getting a "talk" from one of the Apollo 15 crew. Back then, before we got Shuttle sated and bored with the space race, it was a big deal. And in the seven years spent at that "ancient and royal" institution, Jim Irwin's address is the only memorable event in our oversized hall that I have any recollection of. That and the time the stage team lowered (in a series of supremely comical jerking motions) a large white banner emblazoned with the crude but nonetheless effective call to "Spot The Looney" behind the back of our pompous headmaster, all mortarboarded, bespectacled, gowned and mightily kerfuffled.

Having bagged a front row seat, I noted that Jim had one leg shorter than the other. He wore a chunky platform heel on one foot to compensate - and presumably to stop him walking in a circle. This and his diminutive stature only served to magnify the man's charisma. The shortened leg was the result of an injury sustained in an earlier crash. He'd followed the typical career path of many of the early astronauts that started with test pilot and ended with NASA - and his pocket sized person was preferred for the cramped cockpits of the first spacecraft. His vision of the earth from space - a great blue ball, the talk of zero gravity and Lunar Rovers had us hanging on his every word and quite appropriately moonstruck. To this day, as my Nippers are bored of hearing, I'll look up at a full fat moon and exclaim that "I shook the hand of a man who drove a dune buggy up there!"

But surfers in space? Not sure that's such a good idea. Warp speed - two words that may allude respectively to (a) the mental state and (b) the drug of choice of the surfer that gets too far away from Deep Blue and ends up in Deep Space. Case in point, this exchange from the magnificent film Dark Star between the stir crazy acting commander (Doolittle) and the spaceship's navigator (Talby) as a potentially serious systems glitch arises:

• DOOLITTLE: You know what I think about, Talby?
• TALBY: I'm getting something here, on this readout...
• DOOLITTLE: It's funny, but I kind of sit around, you know, a lot of time to myself...
• TALBY:I think I'm getting a malfunction here somewhere.
• DOOLITTLE:I can't talk to the others, but with time to myself, I think about back home, back home at Malibu. I used to surf a lot, Talby.I used to be a great surfer.
• TALBY:Lieutenant Doolittle, I'm getting a definite malfunction on one of the closed-circuit computer systems...
• DOOLITTLE:The waves at Malibu and Zuma were fantastic in the springs Talby. I can remember running out on the beach early spring mornings with my board and a wet suit...
• TALBY: I can't seem to locate the malfunction exactly...
• DOOLITTLE:Waves would be peaking really high and glassy.Hit that water. Ridin' the wall just perfect.
• TALBY:...somewhere in the autonomic relay circuits...
• DOOLITTLE:I guess I miss the waves and my board most of all.

(I couldn't find this clip in English but here's the exchange in full - in German with appropriate angst)

As you may have surmised, this lack of focus from the melancholic surfer doesn't bode well and the mission goes pear-shaped. Doolittle, however, gets the ride of his life and goes out with a bang. Gnarly or what?

Elvis Spotted Surfing in Hawaii

And I thought he was living on Mars - obviously he's still stoked after his session at Pipeline. Move over Surfer Bob - you've been out-kitsched by a ukulele and a hunka hunka burnin' love. If by any chance you spot the King out there on Big Blue, do let the folks at the Elvis Sighting Bulletin Board know. Available here- don't all rush at once now.

Mick Fanning & REEF - Cheek To Cheek

I note that surfing supernova Mick Fanning has signed with REEF for another 5 years of backslapping and mutual profit. “The relationship with Mick and Reef must continue" said REEF manager, Heath "Nutty" Walker in a voice that I imagined - completely without reason - sounded like Dr.Strangelove. So expect a lot of sandals then. The next flip flop is "top secret and set to release Spring 2009". Top secret?

The last lot had a bottle opener in the heel (grips dog shite harder than a sumo) - what the feck are they gonna stick in the new one? A GPS system that plots your course from bar to bar? Why break with tradition, I say?

Earlier we had the REEF Dram Sandal marketed by one retailer with refreshing candour thus: "Not content to simply open alcoholic beverages, the Dram includes a polyurethane encapsulated flask in the heel, good for smuggling liquor into pretty much any event you can think of." Much loved by the underage drinker and college student majoring in alcoholism, US retail giant Nordstrom pulled it from the shelves. Spoilsports. So go on REEF - give us a sandal with a cubby hole for coke. If you don't, I will - and you'll see Beach Bum's Ganja Guttees hitting the stores sometime soon.

NB: This is not a picture of Mick Fanning's arse. Unlike the REEF girls, it's not easy finding a pic of Mick in a thong.

It's In The Pipeline

A couple of weeks ago someone was kind enough to mail me a couple of copies of "Experience Pipeline" - a book where "you're the pro surfer in this story" and " a coin flip determines your fate". Having taken the same random approach with many a decision in life (though not quite to the extent of the Dice Man), it would be churlish to criticise this principle of chaos that has spiced up life for me from time to time.

However, a book where the storyline has you flip-flopping through bite sized chunks of text based on whether you toss a "heads" or "tails" is just not up my strada. Combine that with a lead character called Nelly Yater, exclamations competing for vowel extensions - all "Noooo!" and "Aaaah!" - and I was reaching for the hatchet, razor, shredder simultaneously. Heads I win, tails you lose. Which would be missing the point. This book isn't meant for jaded, faded Beach Bum's like me - it's book for Groms who don't or won't read for fun.

I asked young SurferDawg, teen skateboard-surfer mongrel with an aversion to desks and revision to give it the once over. To quote from his review, which I'm encouraging him to post in its entirety on his site:

"The book is very well written and easy to read, you are able to quickly flow through the book as the paragraphs are short and you don't forget the last piece of text. I myself am not very fond of books and try to get out of reading them. However this book really drew me in and I was fixed on it. Maybe this is because of my love for surfing and therefore I am able to relate to it well or maybe its just the way in which it is written. Not having to read loads all at once or pages and pages of paragraphs. Quinn Haber (pictured below) I think has written it really well with great structure."

There's a copy of "Experience Pipeline" on the shack shelf here for any reader that want's it. First come, first served - just email me and you got it coming your way. Nuff said - except for the fact that in directing you to Surferdawg's site I am in no way, and in no shape or form, encouraging, endorsing or otherwise advocating the skateboarding at speed down high streets whilst dodging the local constabulary - and traffic.

Pipeline off the page and in your face is an altogether different beast and one I'll never have the skill or probably the opportunity to savour. The underlying reef, the sharks, the hellish wipeouts - all have contributed to its reputation as a waverider's graveyard. As recently as March, this proved to be the case for one unfortunate soul.

Check out this animation that explains more about the wave dynamics at Pipeline. Forewarned is forearmed!

You May Not Get Out Alive...

...especially if you try to find all the beach related pictures. Commonly referred to as "doing your head in", this is another example of why creative types go mad (eventually) ... mu ha ha ha! Click here - if you dare.

What Do You Get When You Cross An Ulsterman With An Hawaiian?

No - not an Orangeman in a grass skirt - but George Freeth, often billed as the "first surfer in the United States". Apparently, Georgie's old man hailed from Ulster and fell for a Wahine after he emigrated to Hawaii. The offspring of their loins turned out to be a rather interesting dude. As inscribed on a memorial statue at Redondo beach...

George Freeth was born in Honolulu November 8, 1883 of Hawaiian and Irish ancestry. As a youngster he revived the lost Polynesian art of surfing while standing on a board. Henry E. Huntington was amazed at Freeth's surfing and swimming abilities and induced George to come to Redondo beach in 1907 to help the building of "the largest, warm saltwater plunge in the world."

George Freeth was advertised as "the man who can walk on water." Thousands of people came here on the big red cars to watch this astounding feat. George would mount his big 8-foot long, solid wood , 200 hundred pound surf board far out in the surf. He would wait for a suitable wave, catch it, and to the amazement of all, ride onto the beach while standing upright.

George Freeth introduced the game of water polo to this coast. He trained many champion swimmers and divers. George was the "first official lifeguard" on the Pacific coast. He invented the torpedo shaped rescue buoy that is now used worldwide. On December 16, 1908 during a violent south bay storm, George rescued 6 Japanese fisherman from a capsized boat. For his valour he received "the United States Lifesaving Corps gold medal."

George Freeth died April 7, 1919 at the early age of 35 years as the result of exhaustion from strenuous rescue work.

The Games Groms Play

Beach Bum & family were round at a mate's house for lunch the other day. We were well fed and vino'd with some of France's finest. (Let me take this opportunity now, Choirboy, to apologise for drinking all your wine and the bottle we brought.) Young Surferdawg (more from him later) - the resident Grom - was sofa'd up, stretched out with Mac and tapping keyboard.

Turns out he's just one of the thousands of peoploids that have signed up to play YouRiding - the free, online surfing game. I know this post is as far from topical as as you can get without making an announcement that "the British Are Coming" and hoping to see the redcoats queuing up for their slot on CNN but, to quote my friends at Switch-Foot, there may be more "mature gentlemen of the surf" old farts for whom this may indeed be news. If it is, sit back, lobotomise and enjoy.

British Airways - Karma Bums

According to British Airway's (BA) own webshite "At London Heathrow Terminal 5 we’ve created a natural, logical journey that’s so calm, you’ll flow through. It shouldn’t take long to get from Check-in to Departures. Transferring and arriving are just as simple and calm. Spend the time you save enjoying the excellent range of shops, cafes and restaurants. Or simply relax and be wowed by the world class architecture..."

...while you wait hours for baggage, miss your flight and wished you'd booked Virgin. At the opening ceremony a few days ago Mrs. Windsor (aka "The Queen") was declaring that Terminal 5 would be a "21st Century gateway to Britain". By Thursday when the cattle market opened for the plebs the reality looked all together more mediaeval.

As many surfers will know, BA banned surfboards from all its flights late last year. Despite a petition signed by over 10,000 travellers, a barrage of negative PR and objections raised by some of our Members of Parliament, BA resolutely stuck to their two fingered customer service strategy. Given the recent fiasco, which further highlights the arrogance and incompetence of the airline's management, it's hard not to savour their embarrassment as the karmic wheel turns back their way.

So I'll leave you with this shot of Willie Walsh, their CEO - he's running a cowboy operation and he knows it.

Fodder For Surf Fashionistas

This image was supposed to be the header for another gentle Pro-surfer piss-take like this one here - but an accompanying witty one liner just wasn't forthcoming tonight (feel free to suggest one). I was at first distracted, then simply baffled by the model's pose. It just doesn't work on so many levels.

The picture is one of several spawned by the marketing monkeys at the Hollister company, a brand bastard offspring of Abercrombie & Fitch. Selling clothes to "Dudes" and "Betty's" (since 2000 - there's pedigree for you) - let's credit them with chutzpah, if not taste, for such a blatant jump aboard the surf bus.

I understand they're thinking of opening up some stores in the UK. May I suggest some prime retail locations just next to Fat Willy's Surf Shack in Newquay?

By the way, don't confuse Hollister with Hollister Incorporated, the leading manufacturer of ostomy bags. You wouldn't want to confuse a bag for shite with a T-shirt now, would you?

Sinful Sushi & Nasty Nippon

Not without justification have many of us been outraged at the methods used by Japanese fishermen to kill whales, dolphins and other species of cetaceans, the carcasses of which are cut and processed to stock the sushi bars, restaurants and supermarkets from Sapporo to Kagoshima.

If they ain't slaughtering whales, they're harpooning Greenpeace activists or shouting Banzai, right? Those nasty Nipponese. Yeah, go on - let's tar an entire race with the same brush, swap rationale debate for bar banter and help stoke the feeding frenzy of Japanophobia. Feels so good, doesn't it?

In researching information for previous posts on this subject, I began to wonder if the anti-whaling angst was just another opportunity for some to engage in the traditional sport of Nippon bashing. Examples might range from a throw-away and obviously racist comment on a forum to a much more carefully crafted article such as this one where a prominent Australian journalist manages to make a direct link between Japan's whaling and the attack upon Pearl Harbour. Truly Tora, Tora, Tora.

As always, there's a flip side to the coin and Japanese like this chap here will do his best to reinforce the stereotype that his people are a cruel race, uncaring and insular in the extreme.(I noted that the anti-Australian video on that previous link has been removed from YouTube.)

That there are many Japanese who care passionately about environmental issues is a fact that I believe we tend to overlook. The Japanese office of the World Wide Fund For Nature's campaign ad (pictured above) made me smile and helped validate, albeit in a small way, that point of view. Look closely in case you didn't spot the visual trick the first time round. It would work well for the Japanese equivalent of Surfers Against Sewage, eh?

So let's keep racism out of the debate and allow people like Sakyo Noda, the Japanese anti-whaling activist, to spread a little enlightenment.

When Beach Fashion Goes Wrong (Again)

Should have gone to the Beach Bum Tanning instead?

Sandboarding - Dune Days For Flat Spells

It was the picture that caught my eye. Thought it was one of those "Snow Bunnies" - the term that only a bloke would come up with to describe the snowboarding scene's equivalent of the REEF girl. On closer inspection, the practicality of the bikini - board combo is given a dusting of credibility since the surface is sand not snow.

Sandboarding is one of those cousins from the family of board sports that meshes elements of surfing and snowboarding. A poor cousin perhaps - as it doesn't yet have the profile of its uber-hyped relatives. Not that aficionados will give a damn - if you can carve your way down a dune over 50mph without leaving your butt looking like something hanging in a butcher's shop, you aren't going to stress yourself much about popularity stakes.

Sandboarders even have their own Doctor Dune speed wax. I haven't got my head round the physics, but the wax goes on the bottom of the board and not the deck.

And like everything these days, sandboarders can read about what sandboarders do in the imaginatively titled "Sandboard Magazine". I noted with interest that one of my favourite beaches, Holywell Bay, in our very own Kernow was listed as a hot location for this sport. Now I can attest to the fun that can be had on the dunes as evidenced by my three Nippers in the pic below but I can't claim to have spotted any sandboarders. Perhaps like surf mats, they haven't come to Cornwall - yet.

Rescue 2008 - Show Me The Money!

Bugger it all - life shouldn't be this busy for a self-avowed Beach Bum. I used to sing a song in Primary School with a verse that went, "...but I would rather be sitting on the beach all day - like the lazy co-co-coconut, co-co-coconut tree (repeat)". So you see, I found my personal mantra at an early age and it has served me well.

So why the whinge? Well, excuse this post's parochialism, but ever since Perranporth Surf Lifesaving Club appointed me as fund-raising coordinator (I think that was at the point in the meeting where I pulled some tinnies out of my man-bag to pass around) I - along with many other members - have been phone calling, e-mailing, hard hustling, sweet talking, lip smackin ... hang on - I'm off on a tangent there - well, you get the point. No company, corporation, friend or foe is safe from the cold call.

Amongst many other competitions, events and activities our focus at the moment is on finding funds to allow us to take a squad of our fittest and finest to the World Championship "Rescue 2008". This is, arguably, the most prestigious Life Saving competition in the world. This year, it's being organized and hosted by the German Life Saving Organisation on behalf of the World Association International Life Saving Federation (ILS). From 20th July to 2nd August about 4000 participants will take part in pool and beach competitions in Berlin and Warnemünde on the Baltic coast. Sitting back from all the effort needed to fund our team's participation, it's hard not to ponder on the reasons why, in this country in particular, we have to scrabble so hard to encourage and develop sport.

This isn't the time or place for an historical exposition of the development on surf lifesaving in the UK but whilst we are the spawning grounds for many of our professional RNLI Lifeguards, the actual clubs are designated "registered charities" and depend almost entirely on the support of sponsors and the local communities they serve.

When there's so much governmental angst over the vacuum of opportunity for youth, the "yob culture", the preponderance of pre-pubescent puddings wobbling round the streets (obese child hoods), the fragmentation of society - the stuff the chattering classes love to chew on - I reckon they could take a few pointers on social cohesion from your common-or-garden Surf Lifesaving Club - and funnel some of that cash away from wars us "subjects" never got a say in. Aye, dream on.

Whilst (successive) government initiatives talking shops and the reality of sport development have traditionally gone together as well as a ship and an iceberg, it wouldn't be fair to bitch at Brown and co. without looking at how our own governing body, Surf Lifesaving GB, helps us, as local clubs to encourage and develop the sporting prowess of our members. After all, a significant slice of our membership fees helps keep it running. If anyone can suggest how they do this (insert pregnant pause) - feel free to comment.

By the way, Prince Philip is the Chief Patron of SLSGB and as you can watch here, he's very nice. (Thanks for that link Alex - laugh? I nearly cried.)

Julian Wilson - Pretty (Surfer) In Pink

If you've been following the action at the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast as intensely as I have (zzzz) then you'll know that some baldy bloke won another shedful of cash having fun riding waves. (Anybody else think that Kelly Slater looks like George Michael's younger brother? Wake me up before you go go...)

...OK, I'm tough on Pro surfers - but they're a highly paid, privileged and pampered species - I'm sure they can take it. I was more interested to read about young Julian Wilson and his pink surfboards. With many big brand sponsored surfing competitions hype-fests, the personalities and shenanigans behind the scenes are often more interesting than the actual event.

Julian turned up with a rack of pink surfboards - not a colour choice normally associated with ballsy rippers. What was going on? It was all a savvy stunt to raise awareness & money for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Julian explained that he "... had lots of friends on the junior series tour lose their mums to breast cancer, and my mum is a breast cancer survivor too, so I just thought it'd be a good way to bring attention to the disease and raise money at the same time".

Credit where credit's due - one of these boards fetched close to $5000 Au here - so the folks over at the National Breast Cancer Foundation should be pleased. And the boy can surf...

Check out Julian's "Sushi Roll" - quite amazing. Just hope there's no dolphin in that sushi...

When Beach Fashion Goes Wrong...

Now I've seen it all. If this look ever catches on round here, I'll have to move inland.

Surfing...and it stoned me

A nod to my mate at SESHN for turning me on to the output from a rather spaced out photo-shoot from Insight51, the Aussie company that started out with surfboards and ended up with T-shirts. What were they on, I wonder?

If you're going to try and smuggle cocaine in a surfboard, make sure you have a surfer's tan. That's lesson one - learnt the hard way by this chap here. I'm not advocating, endorsing or encouraging drug use you understand. And yet there's a lot of surfers out there who compare surfing to a drug... which rather suggests they are - shock, horror - talking from experience.

Those so inclined may do well to comb our Cornish coves. As has been widely reported, suitcase sized stashes of Colombia's finest have been washing up on beaches here. Anxious community leaders have been trying to keep a lid on the news in case it sparked a rush of "undesirables" to the shoreline. This was cause for much merriment at our swim session the other night. Would you get a better price for it in Truro or Newquay asked Ian? Tony Montana is alive and well and living in Perranporth. Ian - just say no.

Surf Nazi? Not This Beach Bum...

The Nazis. What can you say about those boyos that hasn't been said before? Sure I liked the uniforms too - that heady mix of black and skulls and eagles. Symbols coveted by empires, corporations, governments and heavy metal heads everywhere. Many a night I'd hunker under the covers as a child, torch in hand, leafing through von Senger und Etterlin's definitive "German Tanks of World War II: The Complete Illustrated History of German Armoured Fighting Vehicles 1926-1945." In hardcover - sad, but true.

But relax readers, I'd have made a terrible Nazi. A nebbische Nazi - there's a curious juxtapoisition for you. Forget the obvious objections to the marching, murderous madness of National Socialism. It's just that when a joke starts with an Irishman, a Scotsman and an Englishman in a room, I'll gravitate to the one that's Jewish. At the risk of sounding like I'm advocating positive discrimination (or worse) I've never met a boring Jew.

Mind you. I've never met a surfing Rabbi but - as if to prove a point - I found myself at Rabbi Nachum "Shifty" Shifren's site this evening. "A rebellious teen who barely acknowledged his spiritual roots...he finds God not in the synagogue, but in the majesty of Jewish mysticism and the vast power of the ocean."

Well, "blah, blah, blah" I hear you say - but I was struck by one of the dudes on the video below talking about the program that the Rabbi runs for "Inner City" youth. "If you're out on the waves, you're not worried about shooting somebody." If the fabulously bearded Rabbi is passing on his stoke to guys like this, then as Dave Allen used to say, "may your God go with you".

Sunlight Strumming Waves

The title of this post I plundered from a poem of war. The verses took me back to days of fitful sleep on foreign beaches as helicopters choppered dead and wounded overhead.

Here's a post-surf shot from Sunday last - a very different beach in time and place. It was cold but it was lovely. The Nipper's toes turned blue, then red. They squawked and shivered like plucked fowl. I caught a few and threw away a lot more. Isn't it great to batter a sword into a ploughshare once in a while?

Yakuza Bums Threaten Free Surfer

Here's three Yakuza bums - (UK and US meanings of the word "bum" applying simultaneously in this instance). They go in for tattoos apparently. If reports earlier this month were to be believed, they were also going out to nobble Dave (Rasta) Rastovich, the free-surfing, anti-whaling, dolphin defending and all-round hyperactive activist behind Surfers for Cetaceans (great cause - crap name).

Along with organisations like Sea Shepherd and Save Japan's Dolphins Campaign, Rasta and his crew have thrown a spotlight on some of Japan's traditional barbaric fishing practices. Whilst this has undoubtedly aggravated some in the Japanese fishing villages concerned, the Japanese government and those who like a bit of whale or dolphin in their Bento Box, I was surprised to hear that the "Japanese Mafia" were getting agitated about the issue too. Still, coming from a mob who spend their time in prison "pearling" - inserting a pearl under the skin of the penis for every year in the clanger - there's no telling what could get under their (fore)skin.

Fast forward a few days and the headlines change. Now our man Rasta is complaining about being "misquoted". He was talking about fishing industry "thugs" - not the dudes in shades and black suits with a samurai sword down the leg of their trousers. Which only goes to prove that you should never let the facts get in the way of a good headline.

More Tacky Surferabilia

To paraphrase the late, great Marvin Gaye, "there ain't no mountain high enough, no river wide enough" - in fact, there's no natural or unnatural obstacle that you can put in the way of this Beach Bum that will prevent him from bringing you the choice cuts of kitsch. (See also here and here).

Having suffered from my own share of coughs and sneezes this winter, I was mightily relieved to come across this big wave tissue dispenser on one of my regular trawls down the back alleys of the interweeb. Hmm - might have worded that last sentence differently...

DIY Surfboard Kits From Grain & Magicseaweed

No, it's not the wing of an outsized model aircraft - it's a Grain Surfboard in assembly. Produced in Maine from a company with a background in boat-building, you can now buy these wooden boards in kit form from Magicseaweed - their new (and exclusive?) European distributor.

Using white & red Cedar from sustainable suppliers you buy a kit that includes: "board frame, cedar planks and rail strips, fin box, leash plug, glue, epoxy, fiberglass (sic), rubber gloves and more. Every step of this process has been thought through and is detailed in our 40 page instruction manual. Each board takes approximately 60 hours to build, but will be around for a lifetime of waves."

This will, no doubt, appeal to the AIRFIX and Meccano heads amongst us. If, like me, you've struggled to put a shelf up straight you may be daunted at the prospect. In the USA you can buy completed boards, albeit at a hefty surcharge, but it's not clear from the Magicseaweed site that this is an option yet in Yurp.

These are beautiful looking boards and any company pushing greener, cleaner options deserves some stoke. Shame though that the price policy for Europe makes for uncomfortable reading.

Take the "Root" Longboard (pictured left) kit retailing for $670 in the USA. Once you've added shipment costs & taxes, distributor's margins and so forth you'll have to pay £530 in the UK for the same board - which at the current exchange rate works out at a whopping $1032. There are additional shipping charges ranging from £30 - £100 depending on where you live in Europe. Perhaps as the folks from Grain find suitable wood sources here the price differential will fall. Anybody reading this ridden one? Do let us know.