You’ve probably never heard of Sir John Crofton, but if you value your lungs, you should certainly toast him. It was Crofton, half a century ago, who discovered the first 100 per cent cure for the age-old scourge of tuberculosis. Crofton, too, who pioneered the global method currently being used to fight terrifying new drug-resistant…
WATCHING the vast and emotional crowds at the funeral of Hugo Chavez today reminded me of the last time I was in Venezuela – when the masses took to the streets for a very different reason. It was April 2002 and I was heading for the Orinoco delta to write an eco-tourism feature for the…
Watch Nick’s talk on YouTube Romania’s Palace of the Parliament is designed to intimidate. Twelve stories tall, with 1,100 rooms decked in a million cubic meters of Transylvanian marble, it was originally built by the Ceaușescu regime at a cost of 3 billion euros. I first took a tour of its vast, echoing halls about ten…
TEDx conference, Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest, Romania November 2012 “My name is Nick Thorpe, I’m a writer and journalist, and I have a fascination with risk-taking. Despite my innate anxiety – or perhaps because of it – I seem compelled to stretch myself, force myself into the present moment. But what’s changed over the…
Written as encouragement for those taking part in the Safe Space charity Write-athon * * * “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” Thomas Mann I laughed with relief when I first heard this wise quotation from the great German novelist. I can never quite relate to…
Psychotherapist Michael Boyle is in Edinburgh tomorrow (11th August) to talk about his visionary approach to directionless or delinquent young men – lead them through a modern rites of passage they will never forget. Published in The Herald on 10th Aug 2012 AMID the depressingly high statistics for male youth offending, unemployment and suicide, Michael Boyle…
A few weeks ago I took part in an unforgettable fundraising Night of Adventure at the Vue Cinema in Edinburgh – the biggest-screen slideshow of my life thus far. It was organised by the intrepid and slightly nuts Alastair Humphreys in aid of Hope and Homes for Children – a charity close to my heart…
“Most men don’t have a life. Instead we have learned to pretend. Much of what men do is an outer show, kept up for protection. Like a tiger raised in a zoo – confused and numb, with huge energies untapped. He feels there must be more, but does not know what more is.” Steve Biddulph,…
One of my favourite books of 2011 was Jeanette Winterson’s memoir Why be Happy When you Could be Normal? So I was delighted to get the opportunity to interview her recently for Third Way Magazine. Anyone familiar with her award-winning Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, in either its novel or BBC TV serial format, will…
Not so long ago, I signed up for a clowning workshop called “Spring Fool” (www.thefoolstory.com). It was one of a series of adventures in the lost art of letting go (later chronicled in my book Urban Worrier), and I comforted myself that it couldn’t possibly be any scarier than wingwalking on a bi-plane. But actually,…