Hello, I'm David Charles

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I'm an outdoor instructor and Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society, and I'm training as an Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Guide. Before that, I wrote comedy for BBC Radio (here's the Foiled archive).

Since 2021 I've helped organise hiking and cycling trips in more than a dozen countries for hundreds of adults and young people.

I write a newsletter on Substack about adventure, nature and how to be human. It's free, and every issue is listed below.

This site is also the home of my old blog: 933 posts written between 2005 and 2025, from cycle tours to short stories.

Latest issue

This Tree Ain’t Budging

Lunchtime Sublime Solstice Festival 17-21 December

Got 2 minutes, 5, 10 or 20? Pick me a story

1,157stories
1,070,759words
22years of writing
100places on the map
See 20 years in numbers →

The newsletter

2026

  1. This Tree Ain’t Budging

    Lunchtime Sublime Solstice Festival 17-21 December

  2. “How Did You Get Into This?”

    Wow, this works!

  3. Trees That Could Kill You

    Saturday 3 October, 10am: Meet The Forest, Crystal Palace Park

  4. Laden With A Terrifying Light!

    Autumn begins with the sense of reality

  5. This Emotion Kills Fascists

    Awesome Attenborough and a foxglove in the forest

  6. Wait. Smells Get Into Your Bloodstream?

    This week: grow your own stress relief

  7. What Happens When You Touch Wood

    Imagine being on fire and flayed alive...

  8. You See, But You Do Not Observe

    Somewhere in Southeast London this week, a bee landed on a flower blazing with ultraviolet lights invisible to every human walking past

  9. Twit-Twoo 🦉

    The Owls Are Calling

  10. Do I Need My Big Coat?

    This Week: Find Your Umbrella Tree

  11. Not Everything Needs to Grow Right Now

    What the London Plane can teach us about our growing season

2025

  1. £760,000 and Out

    The 5 questions every relationship, partnership, business and community must answer

  2. Why Are City Parks Empty At Night?

    What Excites You? What Frustrates You?

  3. Lucky Old You

    Being here, now, conscious, on earth, is itself a fantastically favourable combination of circumstances.

  4. Foiled: The Radio Show That Refused To Dye

    Axed BBC Radio comedy Foiled is available to listen again - right here ✂️

  5. Self-Care Not Working? Try Adventure

    There’s a lot to be said for a steady salary, a loving home life and a game that involves throwing sticks at other sticks

  6. Foiled: Everything's Trials

    Series 4: Episode 1

  7. Foiled: Everything's Totes

    Series 3: Episode 1

  8. Foiled: Everything's Spikes

    Series 3: Episode 2

  9. Foiled: Everything's Shows

    Series 4: Episode 3

  10. Foiled: Everything's Plants

    Series 3: Episode 4

  11. Foiled: Everything's Mikes

    Series 4: Episode 4

  12. Foiled: Everything's Crocs

    Series 4: Episode 2

  13. Foiled: Everything's Casts

    Series 3: Episode 3

  14. Foiled: Everything's Queues

    Series 2: Episode 3

  15. Foiled: Everything's Puzzles

    Series 2: Episode 2

  16. Foiled: Everything's Mobs

    Series 2: Episode 4

  17. Foiled: Everything's Chairs

    Series 2: Episode 1

  18. Foiled: Everything's Games

    Series 1: Episode 4

  19. Foiled: Everything's Glitter

    Series 1: Episode 3

  20. Foiled: Everything's Baguettes

    Series 1: Episode 2

  21. Foiled: Everything's Kings

    Series 1: Episode 1

  22. I Could Have Been Nothing

    Never forget that heartbeat pendulum of logic swings on our childish astonishment at the wonder of being alive. Grounding ourselves in the thought that we could as easily not be as be.

  23. Unbelievably Lucky...

    It’s unimaginable that this nightjar had not been tracking me all this time, that he had not been fully aware of my intrusion, my intentions, my being, my doing, my scent, my sound.

  24. A Lot of Botany

    As Camus might say: ‘One must imagine the moon happy.’

  25. Join Me On Night Shift

    A therapeutic journey through darkness, designed for men. Redefine your place in the universe with a little help from midnight: stars, moon, owls.

  26. I See The Future In My Dreams (And So Do You In Yours)

    The only thing you know for certain is that it will be different from yesterday and different again tomorrow. One choice, endless variety.

  27. Not The Right Book

    I’ve seen otherwise straight-laced, shoulder-padded clerks-of-the-court reduced to hands-and-knees licking the live rail to alleviate the boredom.

  28. Fluent in Welcome: My Albanian Love Affair

    I visited Albania for the fifth time, but how could it possibly live up to my hyperbole — Favourite Country in the World, really?

  29. The Scent of a Thousand Miles

    Someone cried out — ‘Brimstone!’ — and in a moment I know more than I ever knew. The logic of the universe was revealed.

  30. A New Kind Of Adventure

    These are people who, most often, lead from the middle. They listen carefully, they communicate clearly, and they laugh easily.

  31. Tell Me About Corvids

    A short missive on the cusp of a windy assignation

  32. Vagabond or Tourist?

    The Seven Archetypes of Adventure

  33. Stop Judging You: A New Forest Story

    Congratulations, you have met your activity goal!

  34. Three Tiny Big Things To Do In January

    I invite you to pour all of your hopes, aspiration, dreams and ambitions into this second landmark. This second landmark is you, in twelve months’ time.

2024

  1. 24 Tiny Big Things From 2024

    It’s been one hell of a year. There are so many stories we could tell. This list hints at one human’s story of the year, but it won't tell the quadzillionth of it.

  2. Enter 🐈 Phone

    I don’t blame you for scrolling Instagram instead of striking up a conversation with a random bald man

  3. Guaranteed For Life

    Massively increase your chances of bumping into an idea or a human that will change your life

  4. Do It While You Can

    How would you like to feel, in your mind, in your body, at the moment of death?

  5. A Time Of Unmasking

    Are You More Machiavelli, Narcissist or Psychopath?

  6. Everything Is Free*

    We could (if you’re that way inclined) bury you mile-deep in product

  7. It's Okay To Be Cool

    Because an hourglass has more moving parts than the International Space Station

  8. Five Minute Fire

    One moment I had flames licking a foot high; seconds later there was nothing but cold ash on my stump hearth.

  9. Cheep Cheep

    Last Saturday, we bought a bird feeder. I am now obsessed.

  10. A Flaming Match Head

    It was a sorry sight, even if she started the fight

  11. The Warrior Emotion

    Life is out there, waiting for you to hold up your hand and step forward

  12. The Budapest Question

    Do you stay at the airport and watch Netflix on your laptop? 💻 Or explore the city in extremely cold weather? 🥶

  13. Crow Feathers & Wild Flowers

    The past’s proximity to the present is one of the reasons why I love this wasteland and why I return, over and over and over

  14. Kicking, Smashing, Jostling

    Even family parties seemed to be hoping for something sensational to look at

  15. Procrastination Doesn't Work

    What would you do for a neighbour you’ve never met?

  16. Schroedinger’s Candidate

    Half an hour later, crashing gears for my fourteenth three-point turn, I open my mouth and let out a roar of anguish. It’s not a scream. It’s not a yell. It’s a roar.

  17. Delete The Internet

    Election Special! (Almost nothing to do with the election)

  18. Going The Extra Millimetre

    'Nature doesn’t disdain what only lives for a day. It pours the whole of itself into each moment.'

  19. The Call Of The Mild

    The most remote parts of the Bannau are a full 6km from any road, a distance that could easily double if you find yourself on the wrong side of a raging torrent, stinking mire and/or attack helicopter

  20. In And Out Of The Lakes

    An elemental exploration of blue spaces: tarns, ghylls and forces, lakes, rivers and waterfalls

  21. Everything I Know About Nature Connectedness: Part 1

    Surrounded by a quirrelling of chirrups

  22. 'We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For'

    Diagnosis Day, Necker th'Woods News and Reading School*

  23. Iolair Nan Speur: Eagle of the Skies

    'Everything glistened and sparkled in a fresh light. The world was as if newly created.'

  24. The Donkey Is Not A Tiger

    It doesn’t matter how I spend my days and so I spend them as if they will never run out. But of course they will. And when they do, will I be standing with my heels dug into the concrete?

  25. Forage!

    Infuse sticky willy in cold water to get a cooling brew that tastes like cucumber

  26. ‘I’ve Opened Boxes’

    What does being in the woods mean to you? What does being in a community mean to you? What is one thing that you are proud of being, doing or learning this week?

  27. RSVP Frogspawn

    When do the blackbirds nest round your way? When does your local horse chestnut burst into leaf? When do you see your first snowdrops and bluebells?

  28. How Much Is Enough?

    So much for my ‘outdoorsy’ identity — I live my life no more in nature than the common or garden office worker

  29. I’ll Be The Stupid One!

    I had the strangest sensation that this little voice, so resistant before, was beginning to enjoy itself

  30. The Last Newsletter (for a bit) 🎲

    The Dice Man rapidly descends into murder and generalised mayhem, but the premise — using chance to reduce decision fatigue — I’ve found compelling since I read the book in 2017

  31. 5 Incredible Things I’ve Learned From 340 Days Of Adventure

    NUMBER FIVE WILL BLOW YOUR TINY MIND! 🤯

  32. Gaping Abundance

    If an hour when you were a kid was worth tuppence (who gets bored on their summer holidays? Kids, that’s who), then an hour today is worth The Bank of England

  33. 52 Things I Learned In 2023 (Part 2)

    A newsletter about me and Yew. And 25 other things gleaned from the year gone.

  34. 52 Things I Learned In 2023 (Part 1)

    Adventures! Habits! Stories! Tidbits! Photos! Shout Outs!

2023

  1. The Vengeance of King Edward III

    'Ancient religion and modern science agree: we are here to give praise. Or, to slightly tip the expression, to pay attention.'

  2. Resurfacing The Ephemeral

    In the precious minutes after the sun has risen from the waves, before she disappears into the thickening clouds, the sunlight hits the beach through a band of clear sky, far, far away

  3. Eudaimonic Adventure

    ‘Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of lunch.’

  4. Adventure Mind

    We woke up to sunrise on the first day of advent, singing Mariah Carey and Shakin’ Stevens while surrounded by four dancing, racing dolphins

  5. ‘What the hell have I been doing for the last 20 years?’

    Cycling The Coast of Britain And Ireland With Multiple Sclerosis

  6. Are You Experienced?

    You can’t help but be overtaken by the odd sensation that you’ve just entered a scene you only recently vacated: the same meditative garden view, the same sandwich, and your bottle of water

  7. The Supreme Court Has No Clue If You Have The Right To Build Sandcastles Or Not

    Power imbalances, wherever they show up, can be challenged, but only through the strength and support of community (and a bit of fun doesn’t hurt either)

  8. The more I see, the more I realise that it’s just fantastic

    Before all of these trips, I always have that fear: ‘What if I hate it?’ But that never happens. I always love it. More and more, I’m trusting that this is what makes me happy

  9. We All Need Living Room

    ‘Why don’t you all shut up and sod off until I’ve had breakfast?’

  10. Taking Adventure Out On The Town

    Homer, perched on a three-legged stool in his little eighth century bedsit on the Greek island of Chios, could never have dreamed he’d become one of the most famous novelists of all time

  11. The Essential Element Of Naughtiness

    What makes something a treat? (And why the bloody hell isn’t my bread one?)

  12. Could This Be A Moment?

    Let’s look up and around us. Let’s notice things. Above all, let’s notice the living breathing awareness of things

  13. C’est La Vie En Rose

    A Temple of Tranquillity, where the Soul of over-civilised Man may escape the thraldom of the Great Cities and find its Self alone with Nature and at one with God

  14. Together Through The Flood

    Even when we’re up against unstoppable forces, we are not powerless. Small acts of solidarity are signficant.

  15. A Midpoint

    Cycling Dubrovnik to Athens in thirteen days, raising funds in solidarity with refugees

  16. Don’t Confuse What They Think With What You Know

    One of the things that some people know about me is that I don’t use aeroplanes. I don’t fly. Well, turns out that I do. Sometimes.

  17. Not A Miracle

    The extraordinary ordinary, or: how lucky we are when we work hard together on something worthwhile

  18. Enter The Packing Room

    Five items that wouldn’t make it onto most touring cyclists’ packing lists (let alone into their blessed packing room).

  19. Andy Murray's Nice

    It takes effort to look deep into the worst of us and to share the ways that humans, out of the darkness, respond with energetic hope and creativity

  20. Always Take The Doughnut

    And always always write your diaries

  21. Competitive Generosity

    The older I get, the more important it becomes, not simply to get out of my head, but to get into my body

  22. Luggage & Courage

    Notes from Egremont Castle

  23. The Number Twenty-Four (And My Inevitable Mortality)

    'Hi, I'm Dave.' No shame.

  24. 10 Years Of No Borders

    Teaching English in Calais, skipping food out of bins and staying up all night watching for police raids gave me a new belief system, one with no room for borders of any kind

  25. The Secret Society Of Lost Hats

    One of the day’s less interesting roadside flotsam compared to the drifts of cotton fruit and the odd tortoise

  26. 100% Endurance

    Contrary to the unfounded assertion of TS Eliot, April is not the cruellest month, but my happiest — and by some distance too

  27. Struggle-Play

    You’ve not got much to report when you get home, besides a desultory slideshow that might have well have been Xeroxed from your thinly used copy of Lonely Planet Paris

  28. What Would Salah Do?

    Or: Zen Fandom: Spectator Sports As Spiritual Practice

  29. The Stars Are People-Gazing

    FACT: A bull in a china shop (or, indeed, a bull in a china closet) doesn’t actually break anything

  30. Interrupt, Gloriously

    While connecting with strangers is (usually) a beautiful thing, what perhaps we need most is the courage to connect with the people we already know best: our friends

  31. An Oxytocin-Fuelled Haze Of Euphoria

    A story about being overtaken by excitement in the company of strangers

  32. Twice Buttered

    “They’re repossessing everything. The bases, the ships… even Deckard. Apparently galactic law still regards him as a thing not a person.”

  33. Antischismogenetic Equifinality

    Today’s story is little more than the smashing together of two fancy words that I learned recently. (And, actually, one of them I made up)

  34. Be The Miracle

    Fearful sceptics have bewitched us into believing that it’s absurd to believe in humanity, their perverted tyranny twisting our minds such that a show of solidarity from a stranger is ‘a miracle’

  35. Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin & Me

    'She wasn’t looking for me, she was looking for Kris Kristofferson; I wasn’t looking for her, I was looking for Brigitte Bardot.'

  36. Coasting In Public

    A previous iteration of David Charles would have felt threatened by this man’s speech and seen this fellow sauna dweller as an enemy to be fought and defeated

  37. The End Of Doomspreading

    The world is complicated. I have so much empathy for people who find it too much — I do too sometimes. But, as much as we’d love to, we can’t ever fully control; we can only fully collaborate

  38. Am I The Most Notable David Charles In The Whole Entire Universe?

    There’s always a profit, even if it’s not in honey. You’re releasing your bees at half past six in the morning: that’s the time you see deer walking along the ridge. That's all part of the harvest.

  39. Movemberising Feb'ry

    Let us Movemberise this very month and reclaim these four weeks for the triumphal trinity of kettle-boiling, flask-filling and tongue-scorching - arise, unite, and light a fire for Fe-brew-ary!

  40. Make Space For Others To Shine

    Plus the Asian squat, Cistercian numerals and dismantling the patriarchy

  41. Adventure When You Can't Adventure?

    The Nicaragua expedition included two in wheelchairs, one deaf, one blind, one double foot amputee, two arm amputees, one with spina bifida and three single leg amputees. We start from where we are

  42. 260,000 Year Winning Record For Team Human

    Cooperation on a local level — human to human, here and now — makes the relentless negativity of news media (and the power it represents) not only harmlessly avoidable, but ultimately irrelevant

  43. Sweating It Out With Strangers

    Put all your money on humanity, the stewards of the land, community, the carers and growers, and society, the builders and changers. We might not have money, but we’ll certainly have each other

  44. A Short Tour Of The Forgotten Elses

    No wonder I’m completely broken as a human being — frankly, it’s a miracle that I’m even able to sit here and type these wor— Oh, wait. I'm fine

2022

  1. 52 Things I Learned In 2022

    We shall not cease from exploration so don't ask us to compromise our beliefs because we still have NO IDEA what wonders we're capable of. And other lessons from 2022

  2. Woolly Mammoths & Butterfly Wings

    Something frivolous and life-changing about how we can use redirects to break the palliative cycle of internet addiction and transform our most spirit-crushing micro-habits into a very silly game

  3. On The Lip Of A Lion

    What does breakfast do to me? And what were my books of the year?

  4. Dylan, Eliot, Orwell, Rimbaud + Peterborough

    Swan carcasses, evensong, rotting sculptures, masked graffiti, community tree planting, heron flights and invisible medicine — all before leaving Peterborough

  5. Never Dread The Road Ahead

    Everything I do for this bike ride is about finding the courage to connect. And it’s not just the bike ride. Cycling around Britain is a cypher for *everything* I do

  6. Yes To Yes-vember!

    Selfless heroes of the journey: closest to the upspray from the wet road, toes to the wind, 60 times a minute pushing on the pedals, and with every pounding what warm blood remains further condensed

  7. Your Boat Needs A Crew

    Every meeting is an inspiration — not because we all sit around patting ourselves on the back, but because everyone, every week, has So. Much. Going. Down.

  8. The Talented Mr Whippy

    What are we really looking for when we’re really looking for something?

  9. Intrinsic Adventure

    The Days of Adventure project has made damn sure I protect time for my priorities. It’s taken me outdoors when outdoors seemed a long way distant

  10. Winter Wins

    And in one year’s time I’ll be opening the freakin Palladium! (Or maybe I’ll just have sustainable momentum in the direction I want to travel)

  11. Don't Rush To Press

    With the gravitational pull of my sweet, sweet internet connection gone, the only distractions or entertainment in the flat are reading and staring out of the window

  12. Anxiety Superpowers

    Next time Sinjoro Maltrankvilo comes galloping along, maybe I can tip my hat, grit my teeth and welcome him with a stern handshake and a whiskey. My pardner’s back in town. What's the job?

  13. The 3 (Or 4) Species of Happiness

    Fungi remind me that life is a simultaneous — and utterly entangled — act of personal exploration and collective creation

  14. Lies And The What What Now Now

    While livers and kidneys and stem cells do their surreptitious work, the rest of the world, friends, family and lovers from back home look on and ask of us the what what now now.

  15. Not A Charity Auction

    'Cycling together, reaching our destination and fundraising for refugees, brought everyone together and created a sense of intimacy that’s very difficult to find.'

  16. More Like Communisn’t!

    A pirate in shining armour, capitalism rode to the rescue, camera crew and cruise ships in tow.

  17. Room Service & The End Of The End Of History

    After two millennia, a collapsed way of life feels humbling, but safe — like sitting on the edge of a high cliff at moonless midnight, looking over the ocean at the dance of the Milky Way.

  18. Boredom & The World Heritage Site

    Lorenzo looks me in the eye, finger tips pressed together, and delivers his final verdict: 'Seriously, there’s no point. Why would you even do that? Why?'

  19. Carpocratian Touring

    Turning points on turning points: 48 cyclists, 2611km, Glasgow to Milan

  20. The Magic Cobbler & More Philoxenia

    Generosity betwixt Glasgow and Bristol

  21. The Opposite Of Control

    Is not chaos...

  22. Nature Loves A Broccoli

    And other conversations on the dwelling place of our soul

  23. Responsibility Is Not Heavy

    It's electromagnetic (metaphorically speaking)

  24. How To Give Me Birthday Presents

    (And accidentally take positive action on something you really care about)

  25. The Cataclysmic Event Hypothesis

    Or: Nothing propinks like cycle touring.

  26. Arran - Islay - Jura

    A montage

  27. Dream Architecture

    When asked to imagine the future, we look around at what life we’re currently living, tweak it so it’s not raining quite so heavily, and that’s us.

  28. Fossil Poetry

    A story about poetry and the intellectual illumination of noticing and naming, written with the help of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ted Hughes and Rupert Brooke.

  29. 27 Things I Used To Believe And Now Completely Don’t

    The way that the human brain works, strong opinions like mine can lead to political breakdown, financial collapse and even death 💀

  30. 58 Days In Memory's Universal Flux

    Following rides around Southern England in 2020 and Wales in 2021, I’m now 60 percent of the way round Britain… Or am I?

  31. Birds, Beasts, Blossoms

    Connection from 300km of springtime, from Kings Lynn to Whitby

  32. Hot Stones, Keystone Habits

    The sauna is a powerful keystone habit for one simple reason: 90 degree heat does terrible things to a smartphone

  33. Unlocking Your Anxiety Archive

    Learn the transformative mental health protocol pioneered by rap star Jay-Z

  34. The Man Sloth Diaries

    Do you enforce and enact traditional sexual scripts of male sexual control to get your rocks off? Okaaay… And how’s that working out for you?

  35. The Man Sloth Diaries

    Do you enforce and enact traditional sexual scripts of male sexual control to get your rocks off? Okaaay… And how’s that working out for you?

  36. Man Sloth Mode

    For about a year, I did nothing.

  37. Surfing and the Blue Mind

    Surfing is exactly like snowboarding, except you’re being chased by an avalanche.

  38. The Travel Triangle

    Heat, Fuel and Air. Oh no, wait - that's the fire triangle. So what's the travel triangle?

  39. Not The Best Medicine

    You might meet today with ‘inquisitive, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men’. Maybe they’re suffering from a twisted omohyoid.

  40. Rudenoise

    Under the very silly tour guidance of The Tim Traveller, where else, of all the entrepots, bordellos and gin-joints of the world, would we end up but here.

  41. Respect The Hormones!

    ‘I want to see what is going on,’ he said. ‘So many great events are happening, and I’m not there to see them. I’m learning nothing here that will do me any good.’

  42. Call Me Baby

    Are you emboldened to hit CALL instead of SEND? Do you more often swipe right to answer instead of left to reject? Have you learned to love again the sound of the human voice?

  43. Progress Through Process

    And don't count on accountability.

  44. The Adventurer's Journey

    Adventure today is not man versus wilderness. Adventure today is so much more complex and covers every imaginable subgenre of human experience.

  45. 48.3 Mature Trees

    Me and my Japanese Puffer Fish friend are super excited to celebrate our sixty-eighth birthdays in a just - and net zero - society. You're invited!

  46. Jar Of Awesome

    This week: three short-ish pieces on cars, planes and specifically NOT yellow submarines. (Shudder)

  47. Is The Answer To This Question ‘No’?

    Yes

  48. Bytes in Bitcoin

    That subject line is really going to disappoint some of you...

2021

  1. 52 Things I Learned In 2021

    Thank you for sharing some of the past 8,744 hours with me. Most of all, thank you for helping everyone through a year of resilience and adventure.

  2. A Sense Of Adventure

    Psychologists at the University of Bhunkum have found that adding the words ‘at night’ or ‘by moonlight’ to any activity increases its AQ (Adventure Quotient) by an incredible 308 percent.

  3. Drawing Out

    I don’t know what’s in your 3pm choccy-biccy, but it’s probably against some sort of substance misuse company policy because, come Happy Hour down the Dog & Duck, your wage is topping £30 per hour.

  4. Solitude and Fire

    Because the stars are slowly parading through our night sky, Draco’s head will once again shine forth as our pole star in about 21,000AD. Assuming we make it that far as a species.

  5. 88 Percent Perfect

    It’s not a complete disaster if you mess this phase up, you’ll just have sticky fingers during the eating phase.

  6. On Sneezing

    What can you do a hundred times a day at a thousand kilometres per hour?

  7. Bygone Bicycles

    There’s something exquisite about unfolding the worn creases of a forgotten map and following, again, the inky lines where my pen once traced the turning of my wheels.

  8. Gorse Gawping

    Screen eyes down in the soil, keyboard fingers plunging into the minutiae, uncovering the new worlds of stubborn gorse, plucky heather and squishy puff ball fungi.

  9. Reality And The Metaverse

    In a virtual universe designed by humans, humans know it all. The beauty of the real universe is that, the more we learn, the more we realise the vastness of our ignorance.

  10. Coconuts Versus The Climate

    Our government could make huge and rapid reductions to society’s environmental footprint that would dwarf the impact of whether you eat cow or oat milk.

  11. That Whooshing Noise

    All of the people feel scarcity some of the time, but some of the people feel scarcity all of the time. Understanding the psychology of scarcity enables a leap of empathy.

  12. Cardiff with Camus

    It wouldn’t take too many mountain reps for Sisyphus to realise he is being pranked by the gods. Knowledge of his eternal fate matures into acceptance and becomes a source of joy. Maybe?

  13. Second Decade

    There is no clear evidence that Oscar Wilde didn’t start writing The Importance of Being Earnest after a hundred-mile detour for a whortleberry cream tea. Is there?

  14. Self Portrait (1970)

    Is that all this is? A kiss-off to the Folkslingers and Rock’n’Rollers who didn’t get the message after Nashville Skyline? Maybe, but humour me for a moment…

  15. Five small things

    Responsibility, mushrooms, cherry laurels, right wing media, needy cars

  16. Turkish Delight falls out of the sky

    If a picture speaks a thousand words, then each one of those letters yells a poem.

  17. Talking politics with strangers

    Approaching a stranger to ask for their signature and contact details is pretty daunting when you think there’s a 50/50 chance that they’ll hate everything about you.

  18. World Record Surpassed

    ‘I set out to fail,’ he said, ‘and I nearly ended up winning.’

  19. Admin or admiration?

    4 days into our 27 day world record ride and it's no coincidence that all the roads here incorporate the word 'Hill'

  20. We identify as human beings

    The Nationality and Borders Bill puts UK law in opposition to the 1951 Geneva Convention by criminalising people who arrive without a visa, even if they have a legitimate claim for asylum.

  21. Laughter lines

    My advice is nothing more than reassurance that the dream still fits the plan. The more people do this sort of thing, the more people do this sort of thing.

  22. Stories in the lamplight

    It's as if my bicycle is fitted with a lamp that illuminates brief moments in the lives of others.

  23. Wiener brecwast

    Greetings from west Wales: a corner has been turned...

  24. Plumb lines and cockpits

    The upshot of my visit, on a hot June day, to Neil’s upstairs studio was spending a penny to save a pound. Reader: I needed not a larger bicycle frame. I needed data.

  25. Let's masquerade

    Dylan defends his creativity against the frozen fixities of responsibility and expectation by masquerading, playing a parade of characters behind the chrysalis of the Bob Dylan mask.

  26. 400-year old Bob

    400 years is a lot of years. To put the antiquity of Bob's Oak into perspective, 1621 saw the invention of Thanksgiving, Gothenburg and the merry-go-round. It's a long time to be alive.

  27. April 4th, 1984

    Today was the fifteenth anniversary of the #1984Symposium, convened by Documentally to celebrate Eric Blair’s birthday.

  28. What's your solidarity archetype?

    This Sunday is World Refugee Day: the one day of the year when we all remember that there are essentially NO safe and lawful routes into Europe or the UK for refugees. None.

  29. Moth tree

    Walking along the Avon, from a distance, the trees ahead were possessed with a shimmering sheen, not quite crabapple blossom, not quite the silver of a birch. Something wilder, more of the night.

  30. No more ‘hostile environment’

    We need to tell Priti Patel and this government that our country will always stand for tolerance and compassion and that we will continue to offer a safe haven for those fleeing their homes.

  31. Unexpected?

    The unexpected tea room is my favourite part of any English journey. The tea room that hoves into view at exactly the moment it shouldn’t, in exactly the place it shouldn’t, but, inevitably, must.

  32. 'The literary equivalent of gold dust'

    Occasionally an author gets everything their work deserves. One such is Kirsty Capes, a fellow student on a novel-writing course I took three years ago. But how hard is it to get a novel published?

  33. Head in the clouds

    This week I learnt how to interpret a synoptic chart. Well. I say that. What I mean is I learnt what the heck a synoptic chart is…

  34. Make the woods your home

    The most obvious difference between living indoors and living outdoors is the untidyness—hence the urbanite’s obsession with leaf-blowers. But the most striking difference is the acoustics.

  35. Forget the kit list

    I don’t know what I expected from a five day survival bushcraft course in an Oxfordshire woodland, but, on reflection, I should have packed more Hobnobs. Or, for that matter, ANY Hobnobs.

  36. We want to change it

    This week: birthdays, trespasses and invisible women...

  37. Broken in

    This week: Killer Coke, Ten Tors, soil inoculation and a world without email?

  38. The Corollavirus

    This week: Adriatic, abnormalisation and adulting - and the lollipop moment...

  39. Reach Out!

    This week: amaranth and the Reach Out Party...

  40. Palindromic motivation

    This week: Days of Adventure - purple cow HELP! - and cryptocurrencies versus the climate...

  41. England confides

    This week: Time tracking comedy, wages ~ immorality, and mapping haikus...

  42. No one forgets a bruise!

    This week: Posthumous Postumus, weekend marathons and the art of skateboarding...

  43. How vital is my vegan blood?

    This week: lucky numbers, tree desks, vegan blood test results and emergency carrots

  44. Waldumrauscht

    This week: Joseph Haydn, Waldumrauscht and Foiled un-RIPped?

  45. Drawing on the power of nature

    How art outdoors can help enhance gains in positive wellbeing

  46. The millionaire's jungle ravine

    How connection with nature beats time in nature for your happiness and wellbeing

  47. Meet your mentor

    This week: NHS hype, tree mentors, burner email and online poker...

  48. A puddle in the hoof print of an ox

    This week: Yu Huan, rewilding your job and Foiled...

  49. Flash in the pan

    This week: Foiled returns, To The Lighthouse, bison, and flash-in-the-pan breads...

  50. The Great Whatsapp Stink

    This week: Words, Signal, Foiled and: Are you an Adventure Inventor?

  51. This happened after 18,000 miles

    This week: Martin the Marin, bamboo bike frames and free books!

  52. Do this one easy thing to get a free book

    Send me your address and I'll send you a book of words from 2020

  53. Days of Adventure

    This year: Four Quartets, days and adventures, but mainly a logo...

2020

  1. 52 Things Learned in 2020

    This week: What the %^& just happened? Plus books for all!

  2. The Catswold Way

    This week: A walk, a cat and Four Quartets...

  3. Mr Aki Ra

    This week: Cambodian landmines, wildflowers and hibiscus tea

  4. Happy Anachistmas!

    This week: Foiled writing stats, lab-grown meat, and buying a month's worth of gas...

  5. Brains

    This week: brains and politics, ptarmigan and psychedelic microdosing...

  6. Eat Life

    This week: bread, fungi, skin hunger, Vicky Vox, and a Christmas book?

  7. Zozobra

    This week: swimming, the 'hyper-real', trespass and black holes...

  8. Catastrotunity

    This week: What the *#@$ is this?! King Narmer, the history of now and Welsh Cakes...

  9. Foodball

    This week: meerkats, life and death, Napier Barracks and banana skins...

  10. Rainbows

    This week: Mother Goose, rainbows, making an effort and pretty photographs...

  11. Optimist

    This week: Tintin versus the foo fighters, climbing falls, and a very clever otter...

  12. Values

    This week: Hangul, strokes and values, dope pushers and mask emojis...

  13. This Means Moor

    This week: Dartmoor, the police, cables, chairs and sleeping cold...

  14. Action!

    This week: climate action. That is all.

  15. Fortunes

    This week: Books Make Books, George Bernard Shaw, adders, zen motoring and social progress?

  16. Okayish

    This week: two cute videos, pandemic news and anxiety games...

  17. Ripped

    This week: David Graeber, bullshit jobs, hair loss, the Mini Beau...

  18. Pretty Pickle

    This week: hills from the ground, wetness from the sky and breaking bike bits...

  19. Detours

    This week: the road less travelled (but mostly travelled up hill)

  20. Westward Ho!

    This week: a heatwave, wild camping, horse riding and the loss of my faculties...

  21. Philoxenia

    This week: East Anglia, cheese sandwiches and the future

  22. A boy. A bike. A bugle?!

    This week: Farmer Cash, nine years of growth and a baby bird...

  23. Let's go to Mordor!

  24. Proper adventure

    This week: a proper adventure, plus Youtube and porridge...

  25. Not a bike ride

    This week: cycling around Britain, river navigation, saving the cat, brain-melting thoughts and massive trees...

  26. Litter

    This week: corporate litterbugs, netheads, phases of disaster and vegan pizza...

  27. Antischedule

    This week: time, stress and the antischedule, plus George Orwell, mamihlapinatapai and YNWA...

  28. Fugees

    This week: World Refugee Day, chilli pickle, the Meaning of Liff, George's podcast and a screen recorder...

  29. Giving

    This week: financial giving, Cameroonian cocoa farmers, protests and Mr W...

  30. Pinenes [🇩🇨]

    This week: the healing power of pines and the smell of kimchi, plus dictionaries, donors and dream trains...

  31. Black Lives Matter

  32. Questions? [🇩🇨]

    This week: 52 questions to answer before leaving lockdown, creative stability and long past sporting events...

  33. Bespoke

    This week: cycling round the world, slow dating, blackout blinds and your second self...

  34. Persistence [🇩🇨]

    This week: love and air, hedgehogs and foxes, and persistence...

  35. Dispellcasting [🇩🇨]

    This week: Salvador Dalí, Epicurus and Marcel Proust...

  36. Chutzpah [🇩🇨]

    This week: rocking rejection, Mourid Barghouti, Jill Soloway and diagnosis day...

  37. Isovegan [🇩🇨]

    This week: isolation veganism, antifragility, Mother Earth Day, and quizzing...

  38. Floundering [🇩🇨]

    This week: people pleasing, mindreading and the freedom to flounder...

  39. Fascination [🇩🇨]

    This week: Edith Eger, fascination and fungi, plans, podcasts and Portugal...

  40. Extravagance [🇩🇨]

    This week: extravagant enthusiasm, Midnight's Children, little songs and fossilisation...

  41. Thighsolation

    This week: habit reformation, tree climbing, The Perils of Perception, loneliness, applause, and an awful lot of Foiled...

  42. Isolation

    This week... Two ways to transcend isolation, four happy distractions and one way to save 27,000 trees and beat panic buying.

  43. Stormproof

    This week: Bushcraft, Kinder Scout, The Next Challenge and The Working Adventurer...

  44. Breakdown

    This week: tree-planting and the breakdown of borders.

  45. Readiscovery

    World Book Day, my writing toolbox, Thighs of Steel and the joys of egg boxing.

  46. Misperceptions

    This week: the truth about immigration, the best way to get the right answer, and what happens when Google dies.

  47. Pitchfork attack! on Brownsea Island

    Yes, that is a consciously blood-curdling headline for what is, ultimately, a little story about biodiversity and conservation. Apologies in advance if you were hoping for Medieval true crime.

  48. Stop: hammock time

    There is something ineffably childish about a hammock.

  49. The men who stare at trees

    How to get our nature fix

  50. Do we need a belligerent military?

    What happened when I got invited to do DIY for a paramilitary youth organisation...

  51. Early bird for Thighs!

    Plus: The Bins on Brownsea

  52. Factfulness

    A quiz! A book! A bike ride!

  53. Life Should Be Lived In Shorts And Sandals

2019

  1. 2010-2019: A New Davecade Begins

    I'm not sure 'Davecade' works, but I'm sticking with it.

  2. 52 Things I Learned In 2019

    Plus Books Make Books and Crisis at Christmas

  3. The election that brought us together

    Bear with me on this one...

  4. Ignore Results; Trust The Process

    #156: On writing habits

  5. All Urk and No Play

  6. Seeing the wood for the trees

    The politics edition

  7. Scheming and Dreaming

    Who's up for Thighs of Steel 2020?

  8. ‘Here is no work; there is war’: Refugees in İzmir

  9. ‘Here is nothing special’

    Snippets from Samos

  10. From the English Channel

  11. Paris: Love Letter Hunting

  12. Samos: Open Cards and Protests

  13. Audio: Samos Refugee Protest

  14. As Predicted: Fire on Samos

  15. Samos: Tales of Shutdown

  16. Rocky Ride round Ikaría

  17. Athens: Where the baby never stopped crying

  18. I like you more than you think I do

  19. More than 6000km later...

  20. The kindest country in the world?

  21. She left me a letter

  22. REBUS and the Anarchic Brain

  23. Why Mahmoud wears perfume

  24. Please leave a love letter

  25. 64 Hour Food Tour

  26. The Trials and Tribulations of Van Days

  27. Foiled is finished!

  28. How am I spending the next 4 months?

  29. Love Trails and Limes

  30. Absolutely no pressure, guys.

  31. What can actors teach us about the good life?

  32. What does it take to write a BBC sitcom?

  33. Comedinsanity and Pussy Willows

  34. What I learned from 2 days shadow walking

  35. What will outlast you?

  36. 21st century slaves in indefinite detention

  37. Thighs is go!

  38. The best things in life are audacious!

  39. Getting shit for free

  40. What's the weather got to do with comedy?

  41. Emerging from the ether - it's awards time!

  42. Could a nice cup of tea solve Brexit?

  43. Small is sociable: Bristol v London

  44. Life is a way of writing

  45. The Radiohead of Comedy? Hope so!

  46. Do you want Digital Minimalism?

  47. No Computers Please

  48. For the love of ourselves 💚

  49. Tame The Mane 💇

  50. Making Friends With Rejection: From 😭 to 😜

  51. Welcome, Gumroader! 👋

  52. The secret to saving water 💧💧💧

  53. 34 trees, 2 magpies, and me

  54. Meditations on Transcendental Meditations

  55. Total Guts!

2018

  1. 2018 Declared 'Year of the Year'

  2. #108: My 7 Books of 2018!

  3. #107: I believe in really short newsletters

  4. #106: I believe in the potential of psychedelics

  5. #105: I believe in Minimum Viable Technology

  6. #104: I believe in Adventure

  7. #103: I believe in running

  8. #102: I believe in (Wo)Man's Search for Meaning

  9. #101: What, where or whom is a gift?

  10. #100: Happy Hundred!

  11. #99: What to do when to do lists turn nasty?

  12. #98: Lessons learned from 10 years of Hashimoto's Hypothyroidism

  13. #97: The good life (and the perfect hummus)

  14. #96: You already ARE the change + Stoic Week + Victor Frankl

  15. #95: The First Stile + Black Sheep Reviewed + Victor Frankl

  16. #94: Overwhelming Kindness + Frisbee Fotos + Victor Frankl

  17. #93: Community on Wheels + Murakami + The Victor Frankl Book Cult

  18. #92: Why I Travel Slow + Borders + The Victor Frankl Book Cult

  19. #91: 1,400km of cycling, climbing 14,000m of elevation over 78 hours of saddle sores

  20. #90: Heat Exhaustion, Stomach Bugs and Steely Thighs

  21. #89: From Falafel to Slovenia

  22. #88.5: Thank you, team!

  23. #88: How does your garden grow?

  24. #87: There's a blood moon eclipse tonight

  25. #86: Things Have Changed

  26. #85: What makes such a place eerie?

  27. #84: Standing on the Lecce Express

  28. #83: From Penarth Pier to the Acropolis

  29. #82: Going Live! Live!

  30. #81: Great News!

  31. #80: All news is good news

  32. #79: Everything's Writers Rooms

  33. #78: My Gold Medal Hopes

  34. #77: A day with a swim is always better than a day without a swim

  35. #76: Steely Thighs and the BWOML

  36. Bon voyage!

  37. #75: A psychiatrist worth listening to

  38. Hellooooooooooo? Is this goodbye?

  39. #74: Cycling to Syria - back in the saddle!

  40. #73: It's a wonderful life, isn't it?

  41. #72: A room not of one's own

  42. #71: Delete Facebook and the Unignorable

  43. #70: Man's Search for Meaning

  44. #69: Friday Night is Sauna Night!

  45. #68: From a log in a quiet noisy place with mud underfoot

  46. #67: Work is the Opposite of Worry

  47. Last time I made this journey, it took 6 weeks...

  48. #65: Squatumentary

  49. #64: No No Aeroplanes

  50. #63: Seize the Day!

  51. #62: Bothy Bothering in the Cairngorms

  52. No Phone Before Noon

    I feel like I've been calmer and more productive without the anxious 'busyness' that phones promote, the flicking around, the checking of messages, the fire-fighting of email.

  53. #60: Unfinished Animals

  54. #59: What are your 5 Things?

  55. Busting guts and acting up

2017

  1. Crisis at Christmas and the No News New Year

  2. Mosedale Cottage, a white croft in the snow

  3. Some good news and a 100 word story for Jeffrey Archer

  4. Slip on your gloves and cross this countryside

    A one day flying-cycle across three counties from Bournemouth to Midford

  5. I'm a liar and I've got salad

  6. Happy One Year of Fridays! Plus a video of fire...

  7. I wonder: what is the good of wonder?

  8. Hebridean microadventure and the miracle of Iona

  9. Learning Arabic with a Syrian wanted by ISIS

  10. Turning adversity into advantage. Plus cake.

  11. Psychedelic Stoicism

  12. An intermediate week...

  13. The Most Living: My Next Book?

  14. Triple your max push ups without training?

  15. Getting Cold Feet (and learning to love them)

  16. A Long Read: Meditations on Christianity

  17. I can't phrase this in any way that's not spammy.

  18. Eid Mubarak, insha'Allah!

  19. The Stoic's Bank Holiday

  20. What am I waiting for? 24hr Microadventure

  21. 2040: Don't Worry, Be Happy

  22. 6x Your Reading Speed Today! (Dave Does Spam)

  23. The Adventure of Fundraising, Emodiversity and TMS

  24. Surprises, Waste Banana Bars and Home

  25. Virtual Reality Rides & Master Builder Frames

  26. Repeat Until Funny & The Domination of a Stubborn Minority

  27. Options for Dealing with Squatting & Exceptional Human Experience

  28. Microadventures, Hayfever and Chocolate Psilocybin Bombs

  29. Thighs of Steel and Microdosing Psyence

  30. Artificial Poetry and the Comedy of History

  31. Habits 0 - 1 David

  32. Foiled by Burglars (Plus Cookies)

  33. "I felt a certain calm reach me."

  34. Psychedelic Microdosing at the Alter-Natives Festival

  35. Squatting Deadlines and How to Dream Like Thomas Edison

  36. How to get a BBC Radio Comedy Commission (maybe)

  37. How to get a BBC Radio Comedy Commission (maybe)

  38. Sage advice on creative productivity

  39. Sage advice on creative productivity

  40. The Geekiest Thing I've Ever Written (that might save you an hour a day)

  41. We Meat Again!

  42. We Meat Again!

  43. From Syria to Switzerland: No Borders Revisted

  44. From Syria to Switzerland: No Borders Revisted

  45. Psychedelic Microdosing: The Whys, Whats and Hows

  46. Psychedelic Microdosing: The Whys, Whats and Hows

  47. No Mobile Phone Revisited

  48. No Mobile Phone Revisited

  49. It's not the work, it's the network

  50. “Because everything has its origin / And I come going from place to place from the origin.”

  51. “Because everything has its origin / And I come going from place to place from the origin.”

  52. "You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies; you may tread me in the very dirt but still, like dust, I'll rise."

2016

  1. “As soon as it comes to squandering time we are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”

  2. “If you take me for an idiot then I'm gonna give you one.”

  3. “You damned, ugly, shiny thing. It would hurt you to ring, wouldn't it?”

  4. "He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk"

  5. “I’m experimenting and my body is a great place for me to experiment.”

  6. Are you experienced?

  7. Refugees Like It's 1699!

  8. Refugee Hospitality

  9. The Red Cross in Belgium - short video update

  10. Cooking Sudanese Halla with The School Bus Project

  11. Cooking Sudanese Halla in the Calais jungle

  12. Letter #25: "Those who forget how the revolution started will not know how it ends."

2015

  1. 5+4+3+2+1 = My Arithmetic Progression Review of the Year!

  2. Christmas Gifts Bonanza Discount + Dance to School Day + Walking Home for Christmas

  3. You coming on Thursday? Live music, comedy and handstands. 👣

  4. £10 off voucher - Expires Midnight Wednesday! (Tomorrow)

  5. You Are What You Don't: THE LAUNCH!

  6. No Plastic Bags | Literary Positive Constraints | No TV

  7. No Desk,  No Computer & No Clothes!

  8. No Toilet Paper | No Facebook | Minimum Viable Technology

  9. No Hot Showers | No Meat | No Button-Pushing = Adventures in Positive Constraints

  10. Understanding the Calais Critical Mass

  11. All my latest happenings and wanderings 😛

  12. All my latest happenings and wanderings 😛

  13. Why go on long walks? + A Very Short Film on Calais <2mins + More 💥

  14. Victory in the Cricket! (Not England...) + positive constraints + Flick & Julie

  15. Join UKHIP!

  16. No Aeroplanes? No Money? No English? Tell me what you'd like to read (Poll)

  17. How we went viral by exploiting the Daily Mail to help Calais migrants - and how you can too

  18. Why does society need people who go on crazy, stupid, arduous adventures?

2014

  1. Free - or Pay What You Like - Elevate #10 Download - Merry Christmas! :)

  2. NEW BOOK: Elevate #10 - Hopeability, Creative Response & L.O.V.E

  3. Austerity Fail, Clandestine Blues and Elevate Book Giveaway!

  4. Impossible Lives: Without money / Without passports / Without Google

  5. THE Essential Travel Safety Feature, Calais Factgasm and Lycra Paperbacks!

  6. Crossing Borders: Calais, Syria, Around Britain and Into Adulthood

  7. July's Good News and David Needs Help