I'm just back from a great trip to Hossegor. Felt stoked after a good interview with Tom Curren and a couple of days of... bodyboarding. Yes, I rode a lid, by far the safest option given the crowds (one swimmer, surfer or body-boarder per metre). I have to say that blasting down the line and getting covered up - albeit lying down - is definitely something I'll be doing again back here in the UK, hopefully with Rob Barber (Rob, as we've been discussing...) when my local wedge kicks off again in the autumn.
Anyway, talking of being back here in the UK. A friend texted me with an irresistible message: "M8 do u read yr reviews on Amazon?" Before I could protest "No, of course I don't, like every seasoned writer I never bother with such things, I feel secure and confident in the knowledge that at least three people - my editor, agent and wife - like my writing and that's more than enough for me, thank you very much" I'd checked out a Mr D Yarrow's thoughts on Surf Nation, these in the form of an Amazon customer review.
Woe is me. Mr Yarrow, from Tynemouth, feels that the book is "pointless - it's just some guy wondering [sic] the UK, interviewing people who make a living from surfing." He says that "the writer [me!] doesn't even seem to be a particularly experienced surfer" and is not someone who has "committed his life to the pursuit of wave riding." He prefers someone "who know's [sic] their onions," and offers my mate Tom Anderson, author of Riding the Magic Carpet, as such a man.
Why am I telling you this? Is it so that someone (my editor, agent or wife - please, one of you!) will rush to Amazon to post a counter review to that of Mr Yarrow? Perish the thought! It'd only lead to a counter-counter review, and then a counter-counter-counter review (That's enough counter-counter et seq reviews. Ed.), and then a counter-counter-counter-counter review (Please stop. Ed.) No, I'm mentioning this in an educative spirit, to illustrate the truth that dare not speak its name. It's an awful, dark and horrible thing but nothing can be done about it. It is this: all writers read their reviews. We pretend we don't but it's a lie. We can't help ourselves. It's part of the same pathology that leads us to write in the first place. So if you ever meet a writer and you hear him or her saying "I never read my reviews", you know they're talking BS.
However, I'm also mentioning Mr Yarrow's musings by way of asking: who is entitled to write about surfing? Is my experience of surfing invalid because, despite 20 odd years of on-off paddling out at numerous breaks in various countries, getting nailed is still the most consistent trick in my extremely limited repertoire? (And imagine - with age, I'm getting worse.) But also: how exactly do we define a person who has committed his or her life to wave riding?
These issues came up recently on this blog in the debate over Andy Martin's comments on the UK scene. I agreed with many of those commenting: it struck me as incongruous that Andy was condemning the UK scene as a UK surf guru who doesn't surf in the UK. But I also agreed with a couple of comments to the effect that if the only people entitled to provide commentary on football matches were ex-professional footballers, we'd have a bunch of commentators whose articulacy might make the average punter as sick as a parrot.
Likewise, surfing. Andy writes, I write; Mr Yarrow writes, we all write. So do a lot of other people. Who knows their onions the best and chops them finest? Without crying? To be fair, I wasn't over the moon to learn of Mr Yarrow's thoughts but nor was I gutted. Each to their own, it's a game of two halves, it only takes a second to score a goal but a lot longer to wave three yellow cards, to be fair it's a shame one team had to lose and at the end the day he'll be disappointed with that but the lads done brilliant (What are all these football cliches doing here? Ed.), sorry, what I meant to say was this (again): all credit to the lad Yarrow, but when it comes to surfing, surely it doesn't matter how good, bad or indifferent you are. It's about being stoked. Isn't it?
Or, to be fair, did I play too much football when I should have been riding waves?
See Errant Surf for packages to the surf heaven of Hossegor. Second picture courtesy of www.worldprosurfers.com. Football cliches acquired, to be fair, over a lifetime.