Pennine Lines w/c 25 Aug 2025
As we head south I watch the eccentric array of roadside establishments in this part of the world fly past the car window to an equally quirky soundtrack; the new Pulp album. A release that none of us knew we needed, but it does provide a much-needed alternative to the hysteria sweeping half the country regarding a certain Manchester-based Beatles tribute act. But back on the right side of the Pennine rain shadow, the Pulp LP surprisingly provided the ideal optimistic and upbeat soundtrack to a Font road trip and summer escape. We’re all getting older, but Jarvis is sounding better than ever; the Ben Moon of Britpop? Maybe everything will be alright.
Pennine Lines w/c 21 august 2023
‘Stuff’ - each item in of itself relatively benign; each one to solve a problem, to make things easier. To enhance performance. But in another way each one contributes to creating a problem, to changing the experience, diluting it, getting in the way of what’s good about bouldering in the first place - the simplicity. And suddenly five boulderers plus all their gear and pads would no longer fit into a Nissan Micra.
Pennine Lines w/c 14 august 2023
As I mention once or twice in Grit Blocs, in the world of gritstone bouldering we tend to look up to Fontainebleau; we borrow Font grades, and we use ‘Font style’ as the highest accolade we give to a problem. But the weird thing about British climbing’s relationship with Font is our tendency to characterise the climbing there as being exclusively rounded topouts on rippled slopers, reducing it to a stereotype and ignoring the wealth of climbing styles on offer. Font is in fact pretty well equipped with savage crimpy walls, horrendous cracks, tendon-snapping pocket pulling, steep basic pulling, one-movers, long stamina problems, low physical roofs, highballs deserving of route status and just about everything in between.