Thanks for Failing, Doctor Beeching

MikeachimThe Everyday11 Comments

The bend widens out, and before me lies a toy train platform, built lifesized. I crunch up, moving from a path of gravel ballast onto sloping wooden planking. Before and behind me, the rails curve lazily away through the narrow valley, high escarpments on either side pressing inwards and making a sweaty day even closer. Barring the steel lines set … Read More

The Unholy Trinity Of Bad Internet Lists

MikeachimThe Everyday43 Comments

(After my Twitter rant of last week, I needed a walk on the North York Moors to chill out. This I did. Did it work? Well, I’m now ranting about something else. I think this shows Progress.) So, you want your post to get lots of page-hits? Want traffic roaring like a scene from Days of Thunder? (Apologies for choice … Read More

Yorkshire Puddings: Britain’s Most Fragile Crop

MikeachimThe Everyday20 Comments

If you’ve ever sat down to a proper English Sunday roast, you’ll be acquainted with one of Yorkshire‘s greatest cultural gifts to the world, the Yorkshire Pudding. I’ve always loved them – delicious and visually arresting, not to mention a great place to store excess gravy (and hey, who doesn’t want excess gravy?). But what exactly are they – and … Read More

Olympus

MikeachimThe Everyday12 Comments

I’m leant against the car, gasping, giggling, sucker-punched by the cold. Around me, the landscape is motionless and brittle. The tops of trees have exploded as the wind tried to bend them.  Overhead, dirty clouds boil past like timelapse photography. The rock-strewn ground is so hard you expect it to ring. Take the trees and ice-rimed telephone lines away, and … Read More