New Eyes in Lockdown
Stories and epiphanies are all around us, even in our familiar lockdown neighbourhoods – we just need new ways to see the “ordinary”
Category: Books
Travel Writing: Having New Eyes
Workshop 23rd May “The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land,” wrote the Victorian novelist and essayist GK Chesterton. “It is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” What did he mean? When most of us are asked why we travel (leaving aside better…
My Adoption Journey
In National Adoption Week, NICK THORPE reflects on the most challenging and fulfilling experience of his life… MONTHS before we met our son for the first time, I knew in my gut that I wanted to be his dad. The description from the social worker chimed for both of us: “A lively, sociable three-year-old with…
Exploring Dangerous Truths
Great to see John Rae finally getting the recognition he deserves on his 200th birthday. Never heard of him? Me neither, until I came across the story of Britain’s most undervalued Arctic explorer a few years ago in Orkney. Born in Stromness, Dr Rae’s accomplishments tower above those of many of his more famous Victorian…
A Quiet Hero
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…
Backstage at TEDx Bucharest
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 Talk: On Meaningful Risk
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…
My travels in 6 minutes
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…
Start Clowning Around
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,…
Edinburgh Book Launch Jun 7th
Edinburgh Launch of Urban Worrier Tues 7th June, 6.30pm Blackwell’s Bookshop 52-63 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1YS Ticketed but free Calling all Urban Worriers! Do you ever wish life could be a little less stressful? Well come and join the club! In less than a week my new book will hit the bookshelves and I’m hoping…