Skywalker Freddy Nock Skips a Rope Record

Circus artist Freddy Nock had to break off his latest attempt at a further world record on the rope. The planned record should have been completed in Bern by driving a bicycle over a tight rope 150 m (492 ft) in length and 50 m (164 ft) from the ground. The disappointment was obviously great.

Freddy Nock, circus artist

Freddy Nock had planned to cycle over the length of a rope of 150 m (492 ft) suspended between two cranes at a height of 50 m (164 ft) in Bern, Switzerland. Due to technical problems, the attempt was abandoned before the circus artist even started. It emerged that when the rope had been deployed and spanned, too much grease had been used in the roll-out. As it would have taken all day to remove the surplus grease to allow the stunt, Freddy Nock decided to call it a day despite the disappointment this caused him and his many fans.

Freddy Nock started his incredible stunt tour on the Zugspitze in Germany, where he ascended the cable of the cable car over 995 m (3265 ft) without a safety harness or safety line and without the use of a balancing pole. It kicked off a tour of stunts covering Germany, Austria, and Switzerland under the name of Seven Records in Seven Days in promotion of UNESCO’s educational charity.

The tour continued on the Feuerkogel in Austria, where he ascended on the cable of the cable car over a distance of 2,917 m (9,570 ft) with a steady incline of between 41 and 52 percent. Though he had to take a break in the gondola on the third pylon after 1,980 m (6,497 ft) and skipped the last 200 m (656 ft), a new world record was set there, too.

Over the next two days, Freddy Nock ascended over the cable of the Diavolezza cable car on the Bernina Pass over a distance of 3574 m (11726 ft) first, and descended the cable of the Corvatsch cable car near the Maloja Pass over the distance of 1600 m (5249 ft) second. Both world records attempted above the Engadin Valley in the Canton of Grisons in Switzerland were a full and unmitigated success.

The abandonment of the cycle stunt in Bern means that the record setting Seven Records in Seven Days is not possible anymore. But true to his credo that nothing is ever impossible, the attempt in Bern has been rescheduled to later next week.

The planned record attempts on the Jungfrau and in Thun will still take place as planned. Below the Sphinx on the Jungfrau, he will attempt the highest rope walk ever done at an altitude of 3400 m (11155 ft). And in Thun he will attempt the longest rope walk over water over the distance of 3300 m (10827 ft) by crossing Lake Thun.

Further reading
The Real Skywalker: Freddy Nock
Skywalker Freddy Nock Knocks Down Another World Record
History in the Alps: Flüela Pass

James Greenwood Started Investigative Journalism

James Greenwood started out as a printer. Later, he began writing adventure tales before entering journalism. As a journalist, he was the first to go undercover and to invent investigative journalism in the process. His subsequent writing was nothing short of revolutionary.

James Greenwood

James Greenwood was born in 1832 in London. He worked as a printer until the writing bug caught him and he started publishing adventure stories in Boy’s Own in 1861 with Wild Sports Of The World. Over the next four years, adventure stories of his were regularly published and promoted in Boy’s Own and Boy’s Own Annual. His article series Lion King published in the 1864 Annual is thought to have inspired Rudyard Kipling to write The Jungle Book.

In 1865, he joined The Pall Mall Gazette where his brother Frederic was its first editor. On the suggestion of his brother, James Greenwood dressed as a vagrant. He subsequently went undercover and checked in at Lambeth workhouse for the poor. Out of his experience there, he wrote the three-part article A Night In A Workhouse to be published in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1866. The article caused a furore.

Other articles had treated social issues before that. But their authors had stuck to the Victorian principle of obfuscation by omitting any offensive themes and couching everything in the most blatant euphemisms. Greenwood dispensed with niceties and the nerves of his readers and told them stark truth. The article told for the first time of the dehumanisation of the poor; of how they were stripped of their meagre possessions and clothing and stuck into dirty bathtubs filled with water as dirty as rotting soup; and how Greenwood found his mattress soaked in blood from his predecessor and how he was told to flip it over and use it. The article set fire to Londoners’ world view, and a public outcry for social changes in workhouses ensued.

Upon leaving The Pall Mall Gazette (long before it was merged with The Evening Standard), James Greenwood joined the Daily Telegraph. He continued his double career as writer of adventure stories and social journalist there. His involvement went further than mere writing, though.

In 1895, he joined The Ragged School Union in arranging to send poor children from London to the countryside for summer holidays. He also set up an appeal that provided £80,000 (that is about 4.8 million pounds in today’s money) for Christmas hampers to be handed out to crippled children. He died in London in 1929.

James Greenwood’s extraordinary works were largely forgotten and have only quite recently been rediscovered as noteworthy. In fact, his work is not only noteworthy, it is partly revolutionary. Critical social writing as produced by Jacob Riis, Jack London, Henry Mayhew, and Arthur Morrison would have been unthinkable without James Greenwood setting the pace. And wouldn’t we all be the poorer (and Walt Disney even more so) for missing out on The Jungle Book?

Further reading
Prophet of The Great War
High Literature: Being Politically Incorrect
When a Sassy Headline Becomes an Embarrassment

Skywalker Freddy Nock Knocks Down Another World Record

Circus artist Freddy Nock did it again. Only two days after completing a Guinness worthy world record on the Zugspitze in Germany, he completed another world record attempt successfully on the Feuerkogel Mountain in Austria, this time on a slack rope with a steady incline.

Freddy Nock, circus artist

Skywalker Freddy Nock attempted his second world record bid on the cable of the Feuerkogel cable car in Austria. The Feuerkogel is a rather low lying mountain in respect to geographical altitude; its station building in the valley is at 475 m (1558 ft) with the cable car leading up to 1585 m (5200 ft) over a distance of 2,917 m (9,570 ft). The steady incline on the cable over that distance varies between 41 and 52 percent. His aim was to complete a new record for the longest rope walk with a steady incline and at the highest geographical altitude.

As on his previous world record bid on the Zugspitze in Germany, the cable of the Feuerkogel cable car is 5 cm (2 inches) in diameter; unlike on the Zugspitze, weather conditions this time were far from perfect from the performer’s point of view. Sizzling heat of 32 degrees Celsius in the shade made the trial an ordeal. Despite being handed water at regular intervals from the gondola tracing him, Nock had to take a break in the gondola on the third pylon after 1,980 m (6,497 ft) for fear of dehydrating and overtiring his body. He also decided to make a full stop 200 m (656 ft) short of the mountain station and to let himself be conveyed the distance in the gondola.

A new record worthy of the Guinness Book of Records was set all the same albeit over a shorter distance than anticipated. The record was set using a balancing pole but no safety harness or safety lines despite of the cable hanging 305 m (1,001 ft) over ground level at places. The new record came only two days after his successful completion of a similar feat on the Zugspitze in Germany.

There, Freddy Nock completed a walk over 995 m (3265 ft) without the aid of a balancing pole and as on the Feuerkogel unhampered by safety harness of safety lines and under perfect weather conditions. The two records set so far form part of a charity stunt tour in favour of UNESCO’s educational charity under the name of Seven Records in Seven Days.

Further stations of the tour will include destinations in Switzerland with the Diavolezza on the Bernina Pass, Corvatsch near the Maloja Pass, the city of Bern, the Jungfrau, and the city of Thun.

Freddy Nock is the scion of one of Switzerland’s most prestigious circus dynasties. He virtually spent his life on a rope wince the age of four. In 2009, he garnered the title of World Champion as the fastest rope walker covering 1,000 m (3,280 ft) in 10 minutes. During his career, he broke 10 world records; six of those are currently listed in the Guinness Book of Records not counting the current bids for further records.

Further reading
The Real Skywalker: Freddy Nock
History in the Alps: Flüela Pass
Bern: Seat of the Swiss Government

The Real Skywalker: Freddy Nock

Fancy a little walk? How about doing it on the cable of a cable car in the Alps with 150 metres (500 ft) of air between you and the ground? How about doing it over a kilometre, a mile, or more? That’s what a real Skywalker does for a living and currently to set some records.

Freddy Nock, circus artist

Freddy Nock is the scion of one of Switzerland oldest and most renowned circus dynasties. He started doing the tight rope just as soon as he could walk, at the age of four, and started on the slack rope not much later. Since then, he seems to have lost any kind of fear, and many a highest and longest record in both disciplines has fallen to him. His latest venture took him to the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain.

Walking up to the top of the mountain on the five centimetres (two inches) thick cable of the cable car spanning the glacier, Freddy Nock even took time out to wave to the spectators. He sauntered up from the station building in the valley at 2588 m (8491 ft) to the station on the mountain top at 2950 m (9679 ft) without recourse to a safety file and without using a balancing pole.

The slack rope acrobat was aided in his bid for a Guinness world record by perfect weather conditions; a light cloud cover spared him any glares, and almost no wind disturbed his advance. He walked on the cable over the distance of 995 m (3265 ft) at times balancing over an abyss of 150 m (500 ft) from the ground. The conditions in fact were so perfect that he was to show off several balancing acts on the way up despite the steep incline of the rope of up to 57 percent.

The world records for the longest distance slack rope walk completed entirely without balancing pole as well as the one completed at the highest geographical altitude are just the first records to fall to him in a program with more to come. Freddy Nock stages a tour called Seven Records in Seven Days as a charity event in favour of UNESCO’s educational charity.

With the tour kicking off splendidly on the Zugspitze, his next stop will be Austria’s Feuerkogel. The records he wants to break there are the one for the longest slack rope walk with a steady incline (of between 41 and 52 percent) as well as the record for it to be done at the highest geographical altitude. The next stop after that will be the Diavolezza on the Bernina Pass in Switzerland. There the records for the longest slack rope walk ever completed over 3574 m (11726 ft) as well as the one for it to be done at the highest geographical altitude will e in his view.

So far, Freddy Nock had been going upwards all the time; when he gets to the Corvatsch near the Maloja Pass in Switzerland, though, he will go downhill in a bid for the longest slack rope walk over the distance of 1600 m (5249 ft). His next stop will be Bern in Switzerland, where he will tackle the record for longest and highest tight rope ride with a bicycle. Suspended between two cranes, the rope will be 150 m (492 ft) long and 50 m (164 ft) above ground.

Further reading
History in the Alps: Flüela Pass
Bern: Seat of the Swiss Government
Nonexistent Switzerland

Sherlock Holmes and the Fairies

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is remembered for his stories of Sherlock Holmes and the Lost World. A new biography tries to reconcile these seemingly highly logical writings with his unshakeable belief in fairies and the supernatural. 

Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle skiing

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an action man. Football, ice skating, skiing, bodybuilding, and golf, you name it, he did it and usually well. A physical giant with energy to spare and the spirit of the true adventurer, he had been on an Arctic whaler and on top of the pyramids. He was one of the first motor car enthusiasts and once wrote an outraged letter to the Daily Mail after being caught in one of the earliest speed traps. And the Daily Mail hasn’t progressed an inch in its world view since then.

Conan Doyle also flew a biplane, played the banjo, studied medicine, and practiced as a doctor. He stood for parliament, was friends with Houdini, Oscar Wilde, and Lloyd George. He tended a terminally ill wife while squiring a young mistress, and he campaigned against slavery in the Congo. Besides of which, he managed to turn out Sherlock Holmes stories by the dozen, as well as The Lost World and numerous other fiction and science fiction stories; on top of that all, the produced piles and piles of very bad poetry.

And if that all was not enough, he had ample time to concern himself with the weird and the wonderful. He was absolutely convinced that occultism was the most important development of the time and that the spiritualist movement would open up new ways to understand the world and science. He also championed one of the weirdest ideas ever, a Channel Tunnel from France to England.

But he loved a good séance, with moving chairs, ghostly appearances, and rapping on the wall preferably with some ectoplasm thrown in for good measure. His preoccupation with all this led him to endorse the spoof photographs of fairies appearing in his time. Produced by two girls in their garden in Cottingley, Yorkshire, with the help of cardboard cut-outs, they were seemingly good enough for him to proclaim them genuine.

But that was not the pinnacle by far. He managed to outshine even Hugh Trevor-Roper and his Hitler Diaries disaster. He widely promoted Oscar Wilde’s last book as his absolute masterpiece. The book was certainly remarkable in its way as it was written by Wilde no less than 23 years after his death by means of dictating it to a medium through an Ouija board. Someone else might call this a fake.

Conversations With Arthur Conan Doyle by Simon Parke was published by White Crow Books. The book is set up as an interview with Parke’s questions being answered by Conan Doyle through his writing be it fictional, biographical, or polemical. It might work for some people to go at the problem that way; but I can’t say it did it for me. I found the book very tedious to read, though it was interesting and in places unwittingly funny.

Further reading
Ghosts Lacking in Spirit
Don't Speak Well of the Dead
Duchess of Death

Michael Phelps and Daley Thompson are in a Stable Gay Relationship

Michael Phelps and Daley Thompson moved to London on May 18th, 2011, coming from Edinburgh by way of Weymouth. A press release stated that it is hoped they will be able and willing to incubate eggs from unreliable heterosexual couples.

Michael Phelps in speedo

Michael Phelps and Daley Thompson, Michael and Daley to you and me, moved to London into a newly built bespoke complex specifically built for them and their relatives. Their relationship had started in Edinburgh where they had been living prior to their move. Now you will be able to visit them whenever you are in London to admire their cuts any day, even during feeding time. I am told that they are very sociable. The more conventional members of the group are Tom Daley, Jessica Ennis, and Usain Bolt to name just a few.

London Aquarium has opened its new Penguin Beach and welcomed a group of nine Gentoo Penguins bred and raised in Edinburgh Zoo. One of the couples that moved in is gay and they have been named after Michael Phelps and Daley Thompson in an online survey. The Penguins at the aquarium have been given armbands to distinguish the boys from the girls, but it seems those two are set to contravene conventions. Keepers hope they will be adopting ignored eggs from unstable heterosexual couples.

Gentoo Penguins come from the Antarctic, the beach on offer in London will not be inviting to you for sunbathing, and you might feel a bit cool. The environment for the new inhabitants was carefully designed to imitate their natural habitat with the help of the British Antarctic Survey. Their consecutive moves from Edinburgh to Weymouth and London had been done in a way as to not interfere with their breeding season. Edinburgh Zoo is host to a highly successful breeding scheme for the Gentoo Penguins, while Weymouth hosts another Sea Life Centre where the penguins underwent group building training and their London keepers learned their ropes on penguin husbandry.

Gentoo Penguins are smaller than the Emperor or King Penguins, but the fastest swimmers of all. They jump from the water into the air; the resulting air bubbles on their feathers work as a lubricant to allow them speeds of up to 36 kph (22 mph). They are also the fastest runners sometimes managing to outrun people on their favourite ground. And you thought they just had stubbly legs? In general, they are hyperactive and a lot of fun to watch.

The new area allows visitors to get in touch with the freezing and inhospitable (to us) environment where penguins live. A freezing ice wall, an icy touch pool, and a spoof Antarctic Research Station together with Antarctic Sea Anemones and Giant Spider Crabs form the backdrop for the acrobatic main act of the Gentoo Penguins. If you feel like getting to face to beak with Michael Phelps, go there!

Further reading
The Gay Tom Daley
Gigathlon Six Day Challenge Race
When Doping Was All Bulls Balls

New Dream Team: Pippa Middleton and Justin Bieber

This must be the new dream team: The Bieb and The Bum have joined forces to conquer the universe. In a right Royal salute, the Middletons and the Biebers have hooked up their common interests to gain supremacy over the World Wide Web’s tat market.

Justin Bieber undressing trial

To make it clear, The Bieb and The Bum have not been photographed together (yet), but their announcement was as momentous as any Royal betrothal. The Middleton business Party Pieces has been licensed to sell Bieber memorabilia through their homepage. The reaction of the envy crowd was predictable: Pippa is cashing in on her Royal connection. What losers! I mean the envy crowd, not the Middletons or the Biebers.

The advantage of the announced deal are obvious; there will be no official divorce or other news gimmicks in this joining of two internet star names, only cash. The Bieb can be sure to be selling on a web site that will be constantly in the news for decades to come, thanks to the busy bodies who will continue accusing the Middletons of cashing in. For the Middleton business it closes a gap. They had tat on Wills and Kate for mum, Super Mario for dad, Toy Story 3 for the boys, now they have the Bieb for the girls.

And they should live happily ever after, as in any fairytale, if it weren’t for the permanently envious losers who accuse just about anybody successful enough to cashing in on something or another. I for one hope that they might drown one of these days in their own bile while cheering on the Middletons to every penny they may garner through Party Pieces. If you live in the United Kingdom, you should be doing the same.

As opposed to most of the cheating high street brands, Carole and Michael Middleton pay their taxes in the UK and not in Switzerland (like Boots) or in Monaco (like Tesco). Every penny they earn therefore goes partly to pay taxes, and in case you should have forgotten or belong to the millions too lazy to ever work, taxes paid by many means lower taxes and more money for everybody. Just keep that in mind next time you want to snicker about doors-to-manual.

Real tax payers like Carole and Michael Middleton are the true aristocracy of this country, because they pay their taxes here (and most of the ‘old’ aristocracy do that, too, much to their credit). Its cheaters like Zac Goldsmith who are the runts of the pack, buying their way into the Commons and cheating on the taxes by so called ‘legal’ means. I definitely prefer someone ‘cashing in’ on their Royal connection than cashing in on my taxes.

While The Bieb was estimated of being worth 100 million pounds ($ 160 million), Party Pieces was estimated at a mere 30 million pounds ($ 50 million). The crux of the latter estimate is that it was made after the betrothal announcement of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge but before the Wedding. After Pippa’s bum went viral on that occasion, its worth might now be much nearer to The Bieb.

Further reading
Justin Bieber: 19th Birthday in London
William and Kate: Title History
How Royal Succession Works in the United Kingdom