Thighs is go!
oh merde it's a FUNDRAISING LAUNCH!!
Click here to cut the crap and go straight to my Help Refugees donation page...
This summer I'll be cycling ~1,800km from Rome to Athens because I vehemently believe that borders are really dumb.
Everyone should be able to roam the earth freely and that's why I support the work that Help Refugees are doing to help stateless human beings get a foothold in life.
As one of the lucky, lucky people on earth who haven't had their home village bombed to pieces, I like to do what I can to support those who aren't so fortunate. If that involves cycling an awfully long way in 35 degree heat, then so be it.
If you think that helping refugees is a generally good idea, then I'd be super grateful if you could donate whatever you can afford.
Click this link to make that happen.
Having visited projects supported by Help Refugees all over Europe, I can reassure you that the work they do is of immense practical support to actual human beings every day. (I've published a lot of these stories on my blog - drop me a line if you want a direct link.)
Thank you in advance for being so generous! And stay tuned because your donation will get you free entry to a very exciting thingy that we're planning for the start of July....
Oh now you're interested! (Donate by card or Paypal...)
+++ There's still time to join this year's ride. Maybe London to Paris, or Milan to Venice? If you want to ride with yours truly, then sign up for Rome-Bari or Corfu-Athens!
FOILED UPDATE
And, just like that, it's May and we've only got 5 weeks to finish Foiled. So far, we've delivered the first drafts of 3 of the 4 episodes, and got notes from the producer on 2 of them.
First drafts are funny beasts. Every time we finish a first draft, we think that it's more or less great. In spite of all experience, we hope that this time will be different and the producer's only note will come back: 'This is so good, would you mind turning it into a Netflix series?'
Strangely, this is yet to happen.
All first drafts have problems. Some bigger than others. But those producer's notes land in our inbox like a letterbox turd, stinking the place out with their effortless skewering of the plot holes, character motivations, and the Purple Line of Doom that strides over pages of boredom.
Made all the worse by the fact that, deep down, we knew these problems were there all along, and all we can say is daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.
The only remedy to producer's notes is, of course, panic. Swiftly pursued by exactly the same attitude that got us into this mess: sitting down and writing a lot more words.
Nothing ever came out right first time, and this series won't either. But it'll get written the same way it did last year: patient hours in front of a computer screen. Putting the time in. Sitting there and writing until eventually something good pops up.
The skill, if there is one, is in spotting the good when it pops, grabbing hold of it, pinning it to the page and not letting go until it's been bled dry.
This episode of Rule of Three with Miles Jupp analysing his favourite episode of Frasier has given us good writing energy. Now all we've got to do is avoid plagiarising!
No Place Like Holm
I left it late to climb a tree in April, but here I am, high up in a holm oak, with what appears to be a dislocated jaw.
The holm oak is an evergreen, native to the Eastern Mediterranean. It was brought over here in the late 1500s and isn't fussed about sea spray, which explains why there are a number scattered along the clifftops here in Bournemouth.
The leaves are glossy dark green, and the younger ones are spiny like the leaves of the holly - which explains why this oak is called 'holm', an old form of 'holly'.
As a climber, this tree is a safe bet, with thick branches and helpful forks to wedge in. Snapped upper branches are evidence of recent high winds. The dense leaves make the holm oak a perfect hideaway for miscreants and ne'er-do-wells. After all, an Englishman's holm is his castle.
I'll leave it to the Woodland Trust to explain why you might want to explore this pleasing oak for yourself:
In ancient Greece the leaves of the holm oak were used to tell the future and they were also used to make crowns to honour people. The acorn was seen as a sign of fertility and wearing acorn jewellery was believed to increase fertility.
If you like this sort of thing, then you'll probably also like my back catalogue of over 500 posts, all found at davidcharles.info.
I've published 5 books, including stories of hitch-hiking from London to Ben Nevis, and cycling 4,110 miles around Britain. Visit my tiny book shop.
The ebooks are Pay What You Want, so you choose the price tag. Can't say fairer than that.
Last week's newsletter on audacity got a stonking response so thank you to everyone who replied and stoked my imagination so much that I wrote a follow-up on my blog.
What if audacity means other, more needy people would miss out? And what if everyone went around acting audacious and asking for free cups of tea? What would happen then? Wouldn’t all the tea sellers go bankrupt and leave us bereft of warming beverages?
In short: no. I believe the world would be an infinitely better place if everyone were so audacious. Because the opposite of audacity is not, as you might think, conventional behaviour. The opposite of audacity is anxiety.
You can read the rest of why I think audacity is our only option online.
Much love, - dc
CREDITS
David Charles wrote this newsletter. David is co-writer of BBC Radio sitcom Foiled, and also writes for The Bike Project, Forests News, Elevate and Thighs of Steel. Reply to this email, or read more at davidcharles.info.